American Psychological Association

OBJECTIVE: This mixed-methods study explored whether physician associates/assistants (PAs) who are Black women (for brevity, called Black women PAs throughout this article) experience gendered racial microaggressions and whether these experiences correlated with psychologic distress. The phrase Black women encompasses those who identify with the sociocultural roles, behaviors, and expressions of being a Black woman. METHODS: We conducted an online survey of Black women PAs using the Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale during a 2-month period in 2019...

Cancer survivors including Asian American breast cancer survivors have reported their high needs for help during their survivorship process. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity of technology-based programs to address their needs for help without face-to-face interactions has been highlighted. The purpose of this randomized intervention study was to determine the efficacy of a technology-based program in reducing various types of needs for help among this specific population. This was a randomized clinical trial with repeated measures...

The emotional impact of surgical complications on urologists is a significant yet historically under-addressed issue. Traditionally, surgeons have been expected to cope with complications and their psychological effects in silence, perpetuating a culture of perfectionism and 'silent suffering.' This has left many unprepared to handle the emotional toll of adverse events during their training and early careers. Recognizing the gap in structured education on this matter, there is a growing movement to openly address and educate on the emotional consequences of surgical complications...

Background and Aims : Tryptophan is an essential amino acid transformed by host and gut microbial enzymes into metabolites that regulate mucosal homeostasis through Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activation. Alteration of tryptophan metabolism has been associated with chronic inflammation, however whether tryptophan supplementation affects the metabolite repertoire and AhR activation under physiologic conditions in humans, is unknown. Methods: We performed a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study in 20 healthy volunteers...

Mental health is a complex, multidimensional concept that goes beyond clinical diagnoses, including psychological distress, life stress and well-being. This study aims to use unsupervised clustering approaches to identify multidimensional mental health profiles that exist in the population, and their associated service use patterns. The data source for this study is the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey- Mental Health linked to administrative healthcare data holdings, included were all Ontario adult respondents...

OBJECTIVE: War profoundly impacts people's lives, causing death, displacement and psychological trauma but limited research has investigated adolescents' suicidality in this context. We compared suicidality or self-harm behavior among adolescents in regions that were, and were not, affected by Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014. METHOD: This cross-sectional study comprised 2,752 school students aged 11-17 years from war-affected Donetsk region and non-war Kirovograd region...

Quality of life and loneliness are closely associated with mental and physical health outcomes. This relationship is particularly important in Veterans who experience elevated rates of disabilities, comorbidities, and chronic health conditions as compared with non-Veterans. In the present project, we use data from the Military Health and Well-Being Project (n = 1469, 67.2% men, 32.3% women, 0.5% transgender, nonbinary, prefer not to say) to investigate the link between five domains of quality of life (i.e., general quality of life, physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment) with loneliness in American Military Veterans...

OBJECTIVE: Aiming to identify potential intervention targets to achieve more equitable outcomes from behavioral weight loss (BWL) programs, the current study examined whether Black and White individuals experienced similar increases in physical activity (PA) engagement, perceived PA barriers, and PA enjoyment during an 18-month BWL program. METHOD: Adults ( N = 290) enrolled in an 18-month BWL program from 2014 to 2016 completed accelerometer-based measurements of moderate-to-vigorous PA and self-reported measures of PA barriers and enjoyment at months 0, 6, 12, and 18...

OBJECTIVE: People likely have different attitudes toward different vaccines (e.g., they may hold a positive attitude toward the measles, mumps, and rubella-vaccine while simultaneously hold a neutral attitude toward the flu shot). To examine the dimensionality of vaccination intentions, we measured vaccination intentions toward 16 different diseases. We hypothesized that people differentiate between child-directed vaccination intentions and self-directed vaccination intentions. Furthermore, we hypothesized that some commonly studied factors (e...

With a U.S.-based sample of 219 people of color with diverse sexual orientations, the present study aimed to reveal how perceived privilege may be associated with distress intolerance, and the mediating roles of critical consciousness and entitlement. Data were also used to explore the interaction of sexual orientation status (heterosexual or sexual minority) with these paths. Via path analysis, we found that privilege was unrelated to critical consciousness, yielded a positive direct link to entitlement, and had a negative direct link to distress intolerance...

Participating in Global Mental Health program development and education and training efforts is rewarding and exciting work. The author describes several global experiences he has engaged in over the past 30 years, which has focused on teaching and encouraging family therapy and mental health care that support human rights and promote human development as innovated and promoted by the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health, formerly the American Orthopsychiatric Association. The author learned through participation that merely presenting mental health information and treatment approaches through lecture presentation was not adequate to help professionals and advocates in low- and middle-income countries to build sustainable mental health care systems in their home regions...

Parents of color's critical consciousness development (understanding of and actions to redress societal inequalities) is an important yet understudied area, especially relative to the burgeoning literature on youth's critical consciousness development. As with youth of color, ethnic-racial identity, or the meaning and importance placed on one's ethnic-racial group membership, likely plays a notable yet complex role in parents' critical consciousness. Specifically, parents' participation in activities that engage them in the culture of their racial-ethnic group (exploration), the importance they place on race-ethnicity (centrality), and their perceptions of how society views their group (public regard) may each be differentially associated with understanding of inequalities (critical reflection), motivation toward ending inequalities (critical motivation), and the behaviors parents engage in to address inequalities (critical action)...

The present study aims to prospectively investigate the relationships between interconnectedness, compassion, and participation in private and public forms of collective action for people with mental illness. Public form refers to collective action at the macrolevel such as large-scale protests and demonstrations going on in the communities. Private form refers to collective action happening at the microlevel that targets promoting awareness of social inequalities and positive changes among personal social circles, such as calling out microaggressions or correcting others' stigmatizing language...

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which depression severity, gender, acculturation, and enculturation are associated with help-seeking attitudes among Arab/Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Americans. A hierarchical linear regression was conducted with a sample of 296 Arab/MENA participants (154 women and 142 men). After controlling for pertinent demographic variables, depression severity was negatively associated with help-seeking. Further, there was a significant three-way interaction between depression severity, gender, and enculturation on help-seeking attitudes...

INTRODUCTION: Social media has become a ubiquitous part of everyday life; however, evidence suggests patterns of social media use can affect sleep health in children and adolescents. This study aimed to examine the associations of intense and problematic social media use (SMU) with sleep-onset difficulties in adolescence. METHODS: We analysed data from 212,613 adolescents aged 11-15 years (51.1% girls) from 40 European and North American countries that participated in the 2017/2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey...

In this review, we analyzed the possible relationship between the excessive use of screens and sleep patterns, and how this may affect certain behavioral and cognitive factors in preschool children. The selection, extraction and synthesis of the data were conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. The search was carried out in the electronic databases Medline (PubMed), PsycINFO (American Psychological Association), Scopus and Web of Science (WOS). Of the 597 articles initially identified, 13 met the inclusion criteria...

The transition from acute to chronic low back pain (LBP) in community settings has yet to be well understood. We recruited n=131 participants with acute LBP from the community and followed them for 3 and 6-month outcomes. Acute LBP was defined by a duration of < 4 weeks, and participants must have reported a 30-day LBP-free period before the current acute episode. Chronic LBP was defined as pain most or every day over the past 3 months. Baseline psychological, social, and demographic factors were examined as predictors of transition to chronic LBP at 3 months or continuation of chronic LBP at 6 months...

Past research examining lay theories of the origins of prejudice has focused on white Americans and has not considered how Black Americans' lay theories of prejudice may impact emotion regulation following discrimination. Across three samples of Black Americans ( N = 419), the present research examined relationships between endorsement of two lay theories of prejudice origins (1, beliefs that prejudice stems from shared social ignorance and 2, that prejudice stems from malice). Stronger beliefs that prejudice stems from shared ignorance were associated with greater expression suppression following experiences of racial discrimination (studies 1b and 2), which was, in turn, associated with psychological distress (study 2)...

BACKGROUND: Z-drugs (hypnotics such as zolpidem, zopiclone, and zaleplon) and benzodiazepines (BZDs) are sedative medications with misuse liability. The goals of this study are to report the (1) prevalence of past-year any Z-drug use, any BZD use, and any BZD misuse by sexual identity category and psychological distress; (2) associations among these 3 categories between sexual identity and past-year psychological distress; (3) associations among these 3 categories with sexual identity by past-year psychological distress status...

Disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) are common mental health problems among early childhood American youth that, if poorly managed, pose costly psychological and societal burdens. There is limited real world evidence on how parent management training (PMT) - the evidence-based treatment model of choice - implemented in common practice settings within the United States influences the behavioral progress of early childhood DBDs, and the risk factors associated with poor outcomes. This study used data from a measurement feedback system implemented within a U...