Catastrophizing,Depression and Anxiety During Pregnancy: Relation Between Lumbopelvic Pain and Physical/Social Functioning

Catastrophizing, a cognitive behavioral aspect of pain, is defined as an excessively negative orientation against a noxious stimulus. The primary goal of the present study is to assess the association between catastrophizing and lumbopelvic pain intensity during the pregnancy period, the secondary goal is to explore the variation of pain catastrophizing, anxiety and depression, and the tertiary goal is to investigate the relationship between catastrophizing and quality of life. After approval, pregnant women with lumbopelvic pain were invited to join in the study. During admission, participants were asked to complete questionnaires including Pain Catastrophizing Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory-II, and Short Form-36. Age, gravida, parity, number of abortus, number of live-births and the pain intensity score were recorded. A total of 429 women were enrolled in the study. Pain catastrophizing scores showed a fluctuation during pregnancy, and were significantly correlated with the scores of Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, Visual Analog Scale, and Short Form-36 sub-scales including social functioning, vitality, physical functioning and mental health. The present study demonstrated that catastrophizing level shows an alteration throughout the pregnancy period, and variation in catastrophizing shows an approximately similar course with pain intensity, depression and anxiety.     

More Property,Better Sex? The Relationship Between Property Ownership and Sexual Satisfaction Among Married Vietnamese Women

Since the first sexuality research in Vietnam was conducted in the late 1980s, scholarship on this field has proliferated and the topic is now less of a taboo in public discourse. Nevertheless, little is known about the area of sexual satisfaction as well as factors determining a satisfying sexual life for Vietnamese women. Using data from 2783 married women collected from a national survey, we explore the relationships among their sexual satisfaction, socio-demographic factors, and sexual experiences with a focus on their association with ownership of property. Results demonstrated that income, ethnicity, living region, frequency of sex, and sexual experience had a strong relationship with a satisfying sexual life for married women. Additionally, we found that property ownership was a strong predictor of sexual satisfaction: Women who had a savings or bank account in their own name as well as held ownership over their housing or residential land had higher odds of feeling more sexually satisfied. The present study is an important step toward follow-up research that should delve deeper into the field of human subjective sexual well-being not only from the health point of view, but also through a social and cultural lens. The study also has useful implications for those working on sexual health rights as well as for practitioners of women’s rights in development programs and projects that aim to empower women through altering traditional discourses and practices over women’s role in property ownership.     

The Effect of Religious Beliefs on the Publication Productivity of Countries in Circumcision: A Comprehensive Bibliometric View

Circumcision is one of the most common surgical operations in newborns, babies, and children due to cultural, religious, and medical reasons. Religious beliefs are known to have an important role in circumcision. Although bibliometric analyses have been performed about several topics with a lot of publications in literature, no studies in the literature were found to focus on male circumcision. This study aims to make a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of circumcision and investigate the relationship between publication productivity and religious beliefs of the countries. Web of Science was utilized to obtain the documents needed for bibliometric analyses. “Circumcision” keyword was used for search. The search included studies published between 1980 and 2018. The literature review indicated that there were 3694 publications about circumcision published between 1980 and 2018. Of these publications, 1770 (47.9%) were articles. This study provided a bibliometric summary of 1770 articles. The top five active countries about circumcision were the USA, England, South Africa, Turkey, and Kenya. The present study found that the religious beliefs of a country were directly related to publication productivity about circumcision. The top-cited study was the article entitled “Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya: a randomized controlled trial” written by Bailey et al. and published in the journal of Lancet. The keyword analysis results showed that HIV was the top keyword used in all articles about circumcision. This study is believed to help researchers interested in circumcision topic to access a summary of the literature, see contemporary and more important topics, and discover new ideas about the issue.

     

Change Pathways in Indigenous and Nonindigenous Youth Suicide

Multivariate dynamic relationships among suicide attempts, anxiety and/or depressive symptoms, hope, and help‐seeking were examined across time in Native Hawaiian and non‐Hawaiian adolescents, using data from a 5‐year longitudinal cohort study (N = 7,317). The rate of suicide attempts decreased over time, but this reduction was significantly less among Native Hawaiian youth than their non‐Hawaiian peers. There were also significant differences between groups in hope and help‐seeking, with Native Hawaiian youth increasing help‐seeking and decreasing hope to a greater degree. Youth‐centered, cultural approaches to suicide prevention are essential in enhancing well‐being in indigenous communities.     

Friendship, perceived mattering and happiness: a study of American and Turkish college students

Although it is well established that friendship is a consistent correlate of happiness, less is known about how friendship experiences might promote happiness. The current investigation addressed this gap by testing a mediational model proposing that perceived mattering explains the association of friendship quality with happiness among college students in Turkey and the United States. An alternative model suggesting friendship quality as the mediator was also tested to enhance confidence in the proposed model. SEM analyses revealed that perceived mattering mediated the association of friendship with happiness only in the American sample. In the Turkish sample, friendship quality mediated the association between mattering and happiness. Findings highlight the importance of cross-cultural research and suggest that the underlying processes and psychological mechanisms related to the friendship-happiness link might be different in different cultures.     

Assessing conspiracist beliefs across societies: Validation of the Serbian adaptation of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS)

Initial validation of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS) identified five correlated factors: Government Malfeasance, Malevolent Global Conspiracies, Extraterrestrial Cover-up, Personal Well-being and Control of Information. Despite replications of this structure, ensuing research, mostly using translated versions of the GCBS (i.e., Persian and Japanese), has reported factorial alternatives. Concomitantly, researchers postulated that belief in conspiracies was higher in historically troubled societies (e.g., Serbia). To further assess the cultural stability of the five correlated factor solution and test the assumption that GCBS scores are affected by social-political instability, a Serbian adaptation of the GCBS was assessed alongside the standard English language version. Data were collected from Serbian (n = 259, 44.40% males) and UK samples (n = 402, 52.25% males). Within samples, confirmatory factor analysis replicated the five-factor solution. Additionally, national and gender invariance was confirmed. National comparisons (Serbia vs. UK) revealed that the Serbian sample scored higher on Government Malfeasance, Malevolent Global Conspiracies, Personal Well-being and Control of Information, whereas the UK sample scored higher on Extraterrestrial Cover-up. There were no gender differences on GCBS factors. Findings indicated that while the Serbian GCBS was interpreted similarly to the GCBS, societal factors influenced endorsement of belief facets.     

The Happy Farmer: Self-Employment and Subjective Well-Being in Rural Vietnam

Using a unique survey data set this paper documents a positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. This direct effect is only partly offset by negative, indirect effects working through income and other variables. These findings are interpreted as effects of self-employment in farming on perceived autonomy, competence and relatedness. The results suggest that economic transformation is associated with a psychological cost, which may contribute to explaining earnings gaps between sectors and types of employment. We also investigate other determinants of happiness, and for example find strong positive effects of own income and strong negative effects of neighbors’ income, suggesting the importance of relative rather than absolute levels of income.     

Sensori-motor integration during stance: Time adaptation of control mechanisms on adding or removing vision

Sudden addition or removal of visual information can be particularly critical to balance control. The promptness of adaptation of stance control mechanisms is quantified by the latency at which body oscillation and postural muscle activity vary after a shift in visual condition. In the present study, volunteers stood on a force platform with feet parallel or in tandem. Shifts in visual condition were produced by electronic spectacles. Ground reaction force (center of foot pressure, CoP) and EMG of leg postural muscles were acquired, and latency of CoP and EMG changes estimated by t-tests on the averaged traces. Time-to-reach steady-state was estimated by means of an exponential model. On allowing or occluding vision, decrements and increments in CoP position and oscillation occurred within about 2 s. These were preceded by changes in muscle activity, regardless of visual-shift direction, foot position or front or rear leg in tandem. These time intervals were longer than simple reaction-time responses. The time course of recovery to steady-state was about 3 s, shorter for oscillation than position. The capacity of modifying balance control at very short intervals both during quiet standing and under more critical balance conditions speaks in favor of a necessary coupling between vision, postural reference, and postural muscle activity, and of the swiftness of this sensory reweighing process.