Psychology, health & medicine
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There is a growing awareness amongst critical care practitioners that the impact of intensive care medicine extends beyond the patient to include the psychological impact on close family members. Several studies have addressed the needs of relatives within the intensive care context but the psychobiological impact of the experience has largely been ignored. Such impact is important in respect to health and well-being of the relative, with potential to influence patient recovery. ⋯ Depressed mood and avoidance were linked to greater mean cortisol levels across the day. Greater social network and coping via self-distraction were related to lower evening cortisol, indicating them as protective factors in the ICU context. The experience of ICU has a psychological and physiological impact on relatives, suggesting the importance of identifying cost-effective interventions with evaluations of health benefits to both relatives and patients.
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The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of anxiety at 13 years of age on the presence of chronic pain, pain-related anxiety, and pain-related disability at 17 years of age in a large longitudinal cohort. We hypothesized that mother-reported anxiety at 13 would be associated with the presence of chronic pain at 17 and an increase in pain-related anxiety using all available data from the longitudinal cohort. Further, we hypothesized that anxiety at 13 would predict pain-related disability in adolescents who reported chronic pain at 17 years of age. ⋯ For the subsample of adolescents who reported chronic pain, anxiety at 13 was associated with pain-related disability at 17 (n = 393). Further analyses revealed that pain-related anxiety at 17 mediated the association between anxiety at 13 and pain-related disability at 17, suggesting that pain-related anxiety should be a target for treatment in adolescents with chronic pain, to reduce the impact of pain in later adolescence. General anxiety at 13 was unrelated to the presence of chronic pain at 17, but should be considered a risk factor for later pain-related anxiety and disability in a subset of adolescents who develop chronic pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Enhancing relaxation states and positive emotions in physicians through a mindfulness training program: A one-year study.
Previous research on mindfulness has focused mainly on stress-related negative symptoms and short-term effects. In contrast, the present article focuses on the impact of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program on improving well-being (i.e. relaxation states and related positive emotions) in a longitudinal study for a period of one year. A randomized controlled trial in a sample of 42 physicians was used. ⋯ Remarkably, change magnitudes (effect size) significantly increased at the end of the maintenance period after a year, especially for mindfulness and positive energy. Additionally, heart rate significantly decreased for the intervention group and maintained a year after the beginning of the treatment. Results are relevant in terms of practical consequences for improving health and well-being in this population and also in terms of cost-efficiency.
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The importance of sociocultural constructs as influences on cancer attitudes and screening has been established in the literature. This paper reports on the efforts to explore alternatives to sociocultural constructs previously associated with African-American cancer screening, but with low acceptance among community members or incomplete measurement (empowerment and collectivism) and develop a measure for a recently identified construct of interest (privacy). We report preliminary psychometric data on these sociocultural scales and their associations with cancer attitudes. ⋯ The modified collectivism and privacy scales had acceptable reliability. The privacy scale demonstrated the strongest associations with measures of cancer beliefs and attitudes. The implication of the findings and need for further scale development activities is discussed.
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High levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms have been reported by individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). This study examined the associations between resilience, self-efficacy and coping and depressive and anxiety symptoms and whether resilience, self-efficacy and coping were predictors of depressive and anxiety symptoms in patients newly diagnosed with MS. A sample of 129 individuals newly diagnosed with MS participated in this cross-sectional study and completed an online questionnaire assessing resilience, self-efficacy, coping and depressive and anxiety symptoms. ⋯ Level of disability and employment status accounted for 13.2% of the anxiety score and avoidance coping style of denial and emotion-focused coping style of humour accounted for 36.4% of the variance in the anxiety symptom score, F (15, 112) = 6.37, p = .000. Our findings suggest that resilience and avoidance and emotion-focused coping strategies are predictive of depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms in those newly diagnosed with MS. Resilience and coping styles may be another target for interventions aimed at managing depressive and anxiety symptoms in those newly diagnosed with MS.