Mental

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) affect most women during the first year postpartum. Mothers provide most of the nighttime care for infants, so studying the relationship between MDS and infant sleep location (ISL) is highly relevant to understanding maternal mental health over the first year of life and beyond. Infant sleep is studied by anthropologists, health care providers, and psychologists, with very little communication across disciplines. This review aimed to determine if there is a predictive relationship between MDS and ISL...

BACKGROUND: Rare diseases in Europe are defined as diseases with a prevalence of less than 5 per 10,000 people. Despite their individual rarity, the total number of rare diseases is considerable. Rare diseases are often chronic and complex, affecting physical, mental, and neurological health. People with rare diseases face challenges such as delayed diagnosis, limited medical support, and financial burden. Caregivers, usually family members, bear significant physical and emotional burdens...

BACKGROUND: Depression is often accompanied by changes in behavior, including dietary behaviors. The relationship between dietary behaviors and depression has been widely studied, yet previous research has relied on self-reported data which is subject to recall bias. Electronic device-based behavioral monitoring offers the potential for objective, real-time data collection of a large amount of continuous, long-term behavior data in naturalistic settings. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to characterize digital dietary behaviors in depression, and to determine whether these behaviors could be used to detect depression...

In this commentary, I propose that a person-oriented and research-focused approach can stimulate the discussion on the definition of a traumatic stressor and help to refine Criterion A in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Particularly, I suggest that a contextual perspective focusing on the interaction between event features and person-related factors captures more adequately the individual perception of and cognitions related to extremely threatening adverse life events for a diversity of individuals exposed to trauma...

OBJECTIVE: People with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at higher risk of cognitive impairment than those without CAD. Psychological stress is a risk factor for both conditions and assessing the hemodynamic reactivity to mental stress could explain the link between stress and cognitive function. METHODS: Individuals with stable CAD from two prospective cohort studies were included. All individuals underwent acute mental stress testing, as well as conventional stress testing...

In this narrative, a general practitioner and psychotherapist trained in anthroposophic medicine presents the narrative and treatment of a 60-year-old woman who experienced the horrors of the "Dark Sabbath" attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The patient's story is narrated by the physician, who shares his multi-disciplinary and multi-modal anthroposophic medicine approach to address the patient's acute stress disorder-related symptoms and concerns.

Negative attitudes and stigmatization toward sexual minorities is a cause of minority stress of non-heterosexual persons on an individual level and has a negative impact on democratic coexistence in postmodern, plural society on a societal level. Derived from clinical research, we developed a short metacognitive training (MCT) intended to induce doubt toward inaccurate beliefs about LGBTIQ+ persons. We expected this MCT to reduce homonegativity, threat perceptions of LGBTIQ+ persons, and to foster extended outgroup tolerance compared to an education and a no-treatment control condition...

Mass shootings are a public health crisis and have become more frequent on U.S. university campuses over the past decade, with the number doubling since 2000. Due to this alarming trend, many institutions have developed response strategies for active shooting events. Yet, the extent to which these response strategies address the needs and minimize harm for students, faculty, and staff has not been evaluated critically after a campus mass shooting. Michigan State University (MSU) experienced a mass shooting on February 13, 2023...

Communication is challenging for disabled individuals, but with advancement of brain-computer interface (BCI) systems, alternative communication systems can be developed. Current BCI spellers, such as P300, SSVEP, and MI, have drawbacks like reliance on external stimuli or conversation irrelevant mental tasks. In contrast to these systems, Imagined speech based BCI systems rely on directly decoding the vowels/words user is thinking, making them more intuitive, user friendly and highly popular among Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI) researchers...

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine associations between markers of inflammation and endogenous anticoagulant activity with delirium and coma during critical illness. METHODS: In this prospective cohort study, we enrolled adults with respiratory failure and/or shock treated in medical or surgical intensive care units (ICUs) at 5 centers. Twice per day in the ICU, and daily thereafter, we assessed mental status using the Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale (RASS) and the Confusion Assessment Method-Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU)...

Objective: Postpartum mental health, significantly influences breastfeeding. Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER) is defined as negative emotional reaction to milk ejection, such as unpleasant feelings, anger-irritability or a strange feeling in the stomach. This study investigates the impacts of D-MER on mothers experiencing negative emotions during breastfeeding. Method: This cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted between July 1 and September 30, 2023 among surveyed mothers with babies of ages 0-2 experiencing discomfort while breastfeeding...

The author describes how she has earnestly struggled to find her fit in providing mental health services to Hispanic/Latino clients and the Latino communities that she belongs to. She wonders, if no one belongs, then who stands up for historically marginalized Latino communities? Personal and systemic biases and arbitrary criteria for being enough to serve Latino patients hurt providers and clients alike. Her work reminds her of the need to charge against stereotyping and racism to meet patients' needs regardless of skin color or linguistic abilities...

BACKGROUND: Strength of evidence is key to advancing children's mental health care but may be inadequate for driving practice change. The Designing for Accelerated Translation (DART) framework proposes a multifaceted approach: pace of implementation as a function of evidence of effectiveness, demand for the intervention, sum of risks, and costs. To inform empirical applications of DART, we solicited caregiver preferences on key elements. METHOD: In March-April 2022, we fielded a population-representative online survey in Illinois households (caregivers N = 1,326) with ≥1 child <8 years old...

BACKGROUND: Up to 20% of youth have impairing mental health problems as early as age 3. Early identification and intervention of mental health risks in pediatric primary care could mitigate this crisis via prevention prior to disease onset. The purpose of this study was to establish the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a brief transdiagnostic screening instrument in pediatric primary care for irritability and corollary impairment. METHOD: Five pediatric clinicians in a Midwest clinic implemented the Multidimensional Assessment Profiles-Early Assessment Screener of Irritability (MAPS-EASI) for toddlers (24-30 months) and their families...

INTRODUCTION: Primary care is at the forefront of addressing the pediatric mental health (MH) crisis due to its broad reach to young children and prevention and health promotion orientation. However, the promise of the delivery system for population impact remains unrealized due to several barriers, including pragmatic screening, decisional uncertainty, and limited access to evidence-based services. METHOD: This article lays the conceptual foundations for the articles in this Special Section on Mental Health, Earlier in Pediatric Primary Care, which all apply a translational mindset to proposed strategies and solutions to overcome the barriers that have limited the potential of pediatric primary care for improving the MH and wellbeing of all children...

Leading national health organizations have declared pediatric mental health an urgent public health issue. Pediatric primary care is an ideal setting to improve mental health in young children; however, various existing barriers limit the effective identification of social-emotional risk among toddlers. This special section of Families, Systems, & Health includes four articles that identify multilevel barriers and facilitators to population-level early childhood mental health screening, identification, and referral and describe implementation strategies that may be used to improve pediatric mental health...

While there is considerable evidence that children's early ability to understand others' mental states, called "theory of mind," is shaped by family experiences, it remains unclear whether children's social interactions at school influence theory of mind (ToM) beyond early childhood. We tested whether the mean level ("quantity") and/or the diversity ("variety") of peers' ToM influenced children's own ToM. We also examined whether peer effects on ToM were independent of possible confounding variables (e.g., verbal ability, social isolation) and comparable across children with different initial levels of ToM and social status...

Positive and negative aspects of intimate relationships influence mental health and well-being in couples. According to the environmental sensitivity framework, individuals differ in how strongly they are affected by their environment, with some individuals being more or less sensitive to both negative and positive experiences. The present study examined the longitudinal associations between positive and negative relationship dynamics, including marital satisfaction, positive bonding, and negative communication, and psychological distress as well as the extent to which individual differences in genetic and subjective measures of environmental sensitivity moderated the association between relationship dynamics and psychological distress in a sample of couples in the U...

OBJECTIVE: To discuss current evidence on tapering antipsychotic drugs in view of changing vistas of psychosis, suggesting a provisional framework for safely tapering antipsychotic drugs to an optimal low dose, in collaboration with patients and their relatives, to promote functional recovery while preventing relapse. METHODS: Paradigm shifts during recent years regarding the nature of psychotic disorders and the role of the dopamine system are discussed, including the positive effects of dopamine blockade in acute psychosis and the limitations and drawbacks of dopamine blockade regarding negative and cognitive symptoms after remission of positive symptoms...

Engaging in behaviors that take advantage of one's personal strengths at work can promote employee flourishing in the workplace and mental health. Personal strengths use has thus gained increasing attention within occupational psychology and positive organizational scholarship. In this article, we first integrate work on personal strengths use with the latest developments in the job demands-resources theory (and its extensions) to develop a conceptual model explaining how and why personal strengths use on the job increases work engagement...