Crowd-sourced investigation of a potential relationship between Bartonella-associated cutaneous lesions and neuropsychiatric symptoms.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Preliminary studies suggest that infection with Bartonella bacteria can not only cause a characteristic rash, headache, fever, and fatigue but also neuropsychiatric symptoms. To date, this association has only been reported in case studies, and it remains unclear if this association generalizes to larger samples.

Methods

We used Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to crowdsource a large sample (N = 996) of individuals to ascertain the extent to which the presence of participant-identified Bartonella-associated cutaneous lesions (BACL) was associated with self-reported measures of anxiety, depression, and schizotypy. Participants were asked to select images of cutaneous lesions they had seen on their own bodies and complete a battery of self-report questionnaires to

SUBMITTER: Stewart Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10628448 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature