Numerous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have arrived at conflicting conclusions on expressive writing (EW) as an intervention for breast cancer (BC) patients, but there has been no meta-analysis of these studies to assess the effectiveness of EW in BC population. PubMed, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and CINAHL and the www.clinicaltrial.gov database on ongoing clinical trials were searched to identify all the RCTs investigating efficacy of EW on the physical and psychological health in BC patients. The risk of bias of the original studies was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool. Our primary outcomes for physical and psychological health were respectively negative somatic symptoms and negative mood which were stratified by emotional, benefit-finding and multiple prompts in sub-group analyses. The data were analyzed using Review Manager 5.2 and Stata version 12.0 statistical software. Of the 5,232 titles screened, we identified 11 RCTs with a total of 1,178 participants. The pooled results showed a significant effect of EW using either an emotional prompt or a benefit-finding prompt on reducing negative somatic symptoms in BC patients in the ≤3-month follow-up group [Mean Difference (MD), -13.03, 95% CI, -19.23 to -6.83, P3-month follow-up group. There were no significant differences regarding psychological health indexes between EW intervention and control groups at any of the follow-up time-points (P>0.05). This systematic review and meta-analysis reveals that EW intervention may have a significantly positive impact on the physical health but not the psychological health in BC patients, but this benefit may not last long. However, further high-quality studies with more homogeneity are needed to confirm the current findings.

Thermal atomic layer-deposited (ALD) aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) acquires high negative fixed charge density (Q _f) and sufficiently low interface trap density after annealing, which enables excellent surface passivation for crystalline silicon. Q _f can be controlled by varying the annealing temperatures. In this study, the effect of the annealing temperature of thermal ALD Al₂O₃ films on p-type Czochralski silicon wafers was investigated. Corona charging measurements revealed that the Q _f obtained at 300°C did not significantly affect passivation. The interface-trapping density markedly increased at high annealing temperature (>600°C) and degraded the surface passivation even at a high Q _f. Negatively charged or neutral vacancies were found in the samples annealed at 300°C, 500°C, and 750°C using positron annihilation techniques. The Al defect density in the bulk film and the vacancy density near the SiO _x /Si interface region decreased with increased temperature. Measurement results of Q _f proved that the Al vacancy of the bulk film may not be related to Q _f. The defect density in the SiO _x region affected the chemical passivation, but other factors may dominantly influence chemical passivation at 750°C.

Background: Ethical considerations play a prominent role in the protection of human subjects in clinical research. To date the disclosure of ethical protection in clinical research published in the international nursing journals has not been explored. Our research objective was to investigate the reporting of ethical approval and informed consent in clinical research published in leading international nursing journals. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study. All clinical research published in the five leading international nursing journals from the SCI Journal Citation Reports between 2015 and 2017 were retrieved to evaluate for evidence of ethical review. Results: A total of 2041 citations have been identified from the contents of all the five leading nursing journals that were published between 2015 and 2017. Out of these, 1284 clinical studies have been included and text relating to ethical review has been extracted. From these, most of prospective clinical studies (87.5%) discussed informed consent. Only half of those (52.9%) reported that written informed consent had been obtained; few (3.6%) reported oral consent, and few (6.8%) used other methods such as online consent or completion and return of data collection (such as surveys) to denote assent. Notably, 36.2% of those did not describe the method used to obtain informed consent and merely described that “consent was obtained from participants or participants agreed to join in the research”. Furthermore, whilst most of clinical studies (93.7%) mentioned ethical approval; 92.5% of those stated the name of ethical committee and interestingly, only 37.1% of those mentioned the ethical approval reference. The rates of reporting ethical approval were different between different study type, country, and whether financial support was received (all P < 0.05). Conclusion: The reporting of ethics in leading international nursing journals demonstrates progress, but improvement of the transparency and the standard of ethical reporting in nursing clinical research is required.