Phone follow up to families of COVID-19 patients who died at the hospital: families' grief reactions and clinical psychologists' roles

A proportion of persons affected by coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) die and do so in extraordinary circumstances. This can make grief management extremely challenging for families. The Clinical Psychology unit of an Italian hospital offered a bereavement follow-up call to such families. This study aimed to explore the families' experiences and needs collected during these calls, and the role that the psychologists played through the call. A total of 246 families were called over 3 months. Multiple qualitative methods included: (i) written reports of the calls with relatives of patients who died at the hospital for COVID-19; (ii) qualitative semi-structured interviews with psychologists involved in the calls; (iii) observation of psychologists' peer group discussions. A thematic analysis was conducted. Six themes emerged: without death rituals, solitary, unexpected, unfair, unsafe, coexisting with other stressors. Families' reactions were perceived by psychologists as close to a traumatic grief. Families' needs ranged from finding alternative rituals to giving meaning and expressing different emotions. The psychologists played both a social-institutional and a psychological-human role through the calls (e.g., they cured disrupted communication or validated feelings and choices). This study highlighted the potential of traumatic grief of families of COVID-19 victims, and provided indications for supporting them within the space of a short phone call.     

Family Socioeconomic Status and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: A Moderated Mediation Model

Low family socioeconomic status (SES) is linked with adolescents’ symptoms of depression, but little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this association. Based on ecosystem theory and the organism-environment interaction model, we tested whether emotional resilience mediated the relationship between family SES and depressive symptoms, and whether parent–child relationship quality moderated the relationship. Adolescents (N?=?724) from one middle school in central China completed self-reported questionnaires regarding demographic variables, family SES, emotional resilience, parent–child relationship quality, and depressive symptoms. Regression-based mediation analysis indicated that emotional resilience mediated the association between family SES and depressive symptoms. Parent–child relationship quality moderated two components of this mediation process, namely the effects of low SES on both emotional resilience and depressive symptoms. In both cases, a high quality parent–child relationship ameliorated the adverse effects of low family SES. That is, adolescents with a higher quality relationship with their parent appeared to be less affected by low family SES. The study reveals how and when family SES may affect adolescents’ depressive symptoms, and highlights the protective effect of a high quality parent–child relationship in a low SES environment.

     

Karma or Immortality: Can Religion Influence Space‐Time Mappings?

People implicitly associate the “past” and “future” with “front” and “back” in their minds according to their cultural attitudes toward time. As the temporal focus hypothesis (TFH) proposes, future‐oriented people tend to think about time according to the future‐in‐front mapping, whereas past‐oriented people tend to think about time according to the past‐in‐front mapping (de la Fuente, Santiago, Román, Dumitrache, & Casasanto, 2014). Whereas previous studies have demonstrated that culture exerts an important influence on people's implicit spatializations of time, we focus specifically on religion, a prominent layer of culture, as potential additional influence on space‐time mappings. In Experiment 1 and 2, we observed a difference between the two religious groups, with Buddhists being more past‐focused and more frequently conceptualizing the past as ahead of them and the future as behind them, and Taoists more future‐focused and exhibiting the opposite space‐time mapping. In Experiment 3, we administered a religion prime, in which Buddhists were randomly assigned to visualize the picture of the Buddhas of the Past (Buddha Dipamkara) or the Future (Buddha Maitreya). Results showed that the pictorial icon of Dipamkara increased participants' tendency to conceptualize the past as in front of them. In contrast, the pictorial icon of Maitreya caused a dramatic increase in the rate of future‐in‐front responses. In Experiment 4, the causal effect of religion on implicit space‐time mappings was replicated in atheists. Taken together, these findings provide converging evidence for the hypothesized causal role of religion for temporal focus in determining space‐time mappings.     

Efficacy of the Wilbarger Therapressure Program™ to Modulate Arousal in Women with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Pilot Study Using Salivary Cortisol and Behavioral Measures

This pilot study assesses the efficacy of using the Wilbarger Therapressure Program? to modulate the arousal and influence the sensory symptoms seen in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder. Salivary cortisol and behavioral measures were used in this single subject design study of four women with post-traumatic stress disorder. Significant positive changes were seen in three of the four the women. The exception was one woman whose post-traumatic stress disorder resulted from blast injuries.     

融合中的变化:传统史学与中国佛教方志的发展

中国佛教方志是复杂的融合体,它既具有强烈的佛教文化情结,也有中国传统文化的痕迹,其中尤以传统史学的影响更为深远。本文从中国佛教方志的发展与分期、传统史学对中国佛教方志的影响、传统史家对中国佛教方志的态度三方面探讨传统史学与中国佛教方志发展之间的关系。     

内群偏私：自我锚定还是社会认同？

以往关于内群偏私的研究大多采用社会认同理论（social identityt heory）做解释。近期,自我锚定（self-anchoring principle）原理被证实可用于解释内群偏私的原因。基于中国人及美国人在内群偏私的目的、方法上的不同,我们采用最小群体范式,验证这两种理论在中国大学生上的适用性。410名大学生（其中前测94名）在互联网上完成以认知能力评估为名的实验,实验控制反馈类型,要求参与者对自身、内群及外群在不同维度上评分。实验证明内群偏私存在;分化理论成立;采用演绎策略时,个体评价与内群评价的差异显著小于个体采用归纳策略时两者的差异,符合社会认同理论的假设。     

异常反应模式的识别和分类

通过对Drasgow等人的个人适合指标l2公式的再分解,发现该指标也属于残差型类的指标。特别是和Tatsuoka的广义个人适合指标ξ指标具有类似的数学结构,除符号相反外,不同之处仅是公式中加权项。其次,该研究定义了任意两个异常反应对象的类似度,在此基础上试用多维标度法对异常反应模式进行再分类。结果说明分类是有效、实用的。     

杏仁体与情绪及感觉功能的关系

近来研究表明杏仁体与感觉、情绪和记忆关系密切。对恐惧条件反射的研究发现杏仁体是情绪活动的关键性结构;导致恐惧条件反射的细胞及分子机制研究征实杏仁体具有情绪学习与记忆机能;杏仁体在向中感觉信息的筛选和凋制中具有显著作用和重要意义。本文将综述这方面的进展。     

6～12岁儿童脑电α波频率分布特点与信息加工速度的关系

本研究以 2 2 8名 6～ 12岁儿童为研究对象 ,采用脑电波超慢涨落分析技术 (简称ET) ,重点探讨了与认知功能有关的α波 ( 8～ 13Hz)的分布特点。研究结果表明 :①α波在全脑 12个脑区的比率 ,因频率成分不同而表现出不同的分布特点 ;②α波在左右对称脑区的分布比率也因频率不同而表现出不同的左右脑优势。除左前颞叶的平均频率显著大于右前颞叶外 ,其他左右脑对称区域的平均频率的差异均不显著。α波平均频率的从高到低依次为枕叶、中央区、顶叶、左前颞叶、后颞叶、额叶、右前颞叶 ;③信息加工速度与α波的关系并不明显 ,快组和慢组被试的 6种频率 ( 8～13Hz)α波的比率均无显著性差异