Psychosocial factors as longitudinal predictors of bulimic symptomatology among female collegiate athletes

ObjectivesThis study examined the within-variable stability and prospective cross-lagged pathways between body satisfaction, negative affect, self-reported intentions to engage in dietary restraint, and bulimic symptomatology among female collegiate athletes in weight-sensitive sports.DesignThis study employed a cross-lagged longitudinal design.MethodFemale collegiate gymnasts, swimmers, and divers (n = 325) completed paper-pencil survey batteries at the beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of their 5-month athletic season, including measures of body satisfaction, intentions to engage in dietary restraint, negative affect, and bulimic symptomatology.ResultsFrom Time 1 to Time 2, stability coefficients were highest for intentions to engage in dietary restraint and bulimic symptomatology. Significant cross-lagged relations revealed that Time 1 body satisfaction predicted a decrease in Time 2 negative affect, Time 1 bulimic symptomatology predicted a decrease in Time 2 body satisfaction, and Time 1 negative affect predicted a decrease in Time 2 intentions to engage in dietary restraint.ConclusionsThe relative stability of intentions to engage in dietary restraint and bulimic symptomatology suggests that certain disordered eating behaviors may become more resistant to change over the course of an athletic season and solidify while competing in college. The cross-lagged associations demonstrate the importance of targeting body satisfaction, negative affect, and bulimic behaviors when designing interventions for female collegiate athletes, and implementing such programs at the beginning of an athletic season. Risk factors for bulimic symptomatology should be examined over a time period longer than one athletic season and during transitional experiences (e.g., high school to college sports).     

Asking for work adjustments or initiating behavioural changes – what makes a ‘problematic co-worker’ score Brownie points? An experimental study on the reactions towards colleagues with a personality disorder

People with mental disorders, especially personality disorders, often face low acceptance at work. This is particularly problematic when returning to work after sick leave, because it impedes reintegration into the former workplace. This study explores colleagues’ reactions towards a problematic worker dependent on the returning person’s reintegration strategy: The returning person undertaking changes in their behaviour is compared with the person requesting adjustments of the workplace. In an experimental study, 188 employed persons read one of four vignettes that described a return-to-work-situation of a problematic co-worker. Across all vignettes, the co-worker was depicted as having previously caused problems in the work team. In the first vignette, the co-worker did not change anything (control condition) when she returned to work; in the second, she asked for workplace adjustments; in the third vignette she initiated efforts to change her own behaviour; and the fourth vignette combined both workplace adjustments and behavioural change. Study participants were asked for their reactions towards the problematic co-worker. Vignettes that included a behavioural change evoked more positive reactions towards the co-worker than vignettes without any behavioural change. Asking for workplace adjustments alone did not yield more positive reactions compared to not initiating any change. When preparing employees with interactional problems for their return to work, it is not effective to only instruct them on their statutory entitlement for workplace adjustments. Instead, it is advisable to encourage them to proactively strive for behaviour changes.     

Trends in burnout syndrome and emotional factors: an assessment of anesthesiologists in Southern Brazil, 2012

Burnout syndrome (BOS) is the result of chronic stress at work, and is characterized by emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and low professional accomplishment. Anesthesiologyis a stressful profession. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of burnout as well as the sociodemographic and working characteristics associated with this syndrome’s emotional factors, in anesthesiologists from Southern Brazil. We assessed burnout severity, depressive symptoms, and self-esteem using the Maslach burnout inventory, the Beck depression inventory, and the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, respectively. Of the 198 anesthesiologists included in this study, 48.7% were positive for burnout, 26.9% for EE, 41.3% for DP and 32.7% for low personal accomplishment. Trends in BOS was associated with a younger age, difficulty to conciliate family and work demands, low self-esteem, and depressive symptoms.     

“I find peace there”: how faith,church, and spirituality help mothers of colour cope with postpartum depression

This article reports the findings of 30 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with new African American and Latina mothers who have histories of postpartum depression (PPD) to learn how their faith, church participation, and spiritual practices helped them cope with PPD. Six themes emerged: relief from stress, feeling valued and less alone, experiencing gratitude, developing perspective and accepting God’s guidance, changing and developing relationships, and preventing self-harm. Specifically, mothers who adhered to their faith beliefs and engaged in spiritual practices described shifts in their perspectives on various life stressors known to contribute to PPD such as negative thoughts and feelings, and strained family relationships, which in turn led them to make positive changes in their lives.     

Teaching multiply controlled intraverbals to children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

Reciprocal conversations, instructional activities, and other social interactions are replete with multiply controlled intraverbals, examples of which have been conceptualized in terms of conditional discriminations. Although the acquisition of conditional discriminations has been examined extensively in the behavior‐analytic literature, little research has evaluated procedures to establish multiply controlled intraverbals. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the effects of procedures based on conditional discrimination training on the acquisition of multiply controlled intraverbals with 7 participants who had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. We evaluated the effects of prompt delay with error correction, a differential observing response (DOR), and a DOR plus blocked trials on the acquisition of intraverbals using a multiple baseline design. Accuracy of intraverbal performance increased for at least 1 set of stimuli for all participants under prompt delay with error correction conditions; however, 4 participants required additional teaching (i.e., DOR, modified DOR, modified prompt delay with error correction). Based on these findings, when prompt delay with error correction is not sufficient to establish multiply controlled intraverbals, prompted DORs may be an effective alternative.     

Mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy is effective as relapse prevention for patients with recurrent depression in Scandinavian primary health care

This study examined the effectiveness of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy (MBCT) in primary care for patients with recurrent depression (major depressive disorder: MDD). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), MDD is now the leading cause of disease burden in middle‐ and high‐income countries. Patients (N = 45) with three or more previous depressive episodes were recruited to participate in MBCT as a preventative intervention. Using a benchmarking approach, outcome data was compared with data from a recent efficacy study. The methodology is a rigorous approach to assessing effectiveness when evidence‐based UK protocols are transferred into the existing Scandinavian service delivery. Additionally, a person‐centred methodological approach was used to assess clinical significance on the Reliable Change Index (RCI). The analysis revealed comparable or larger effects from pre‐test to post‐test in reduced psychiatric symptoms, increased quality of life and level of mindfulness, and the effects were maintained over 14 months. Analysis of the relapse rate in the current study (16%) compared to the TAU in the efficacy study (68%) yielded an h value of 0.78, a moderate effect size. Only 13% dropped out of the treatment. According to the RCI findings, 65% to 67% of participants in the clinical group improved, no individual worsened, and women showed a significantly greater improvement of depression and anxiety than men. Therapeutic alliance and motivation had no impact on the outcome. The overall result suggests that MBCT can be implemented successfully in Scandinavian primary health care as a preventive intervention for patients with recurrent depression.     

Étude des liens entre la fréquence de pratique sportive et la santé des étudiants : mesure des effets de genre sur les troubles alimentaires et les consommations de substances

A number of previous studies have focused on the effect of sport practice on eating disorders and substance use. Most of these studies suggest that among students sport practice is related to low levels of health issues like eating disorders and substance use. However, there is a relative dearth of evidence for these relationships and previous findings are based on comparisons between people involved in sport practice and physical activity and sedentary or largely inactive people. The present study aims to test the effects of frequency of sport practice on college students’ eating disorders and substance use when also controlling for gender effects.MethodsOne thousand and seventy-three first year college students (35.6% boys, 64.4% girls) volunteered to participate in the study. Participants were divided into three groups according to the frequency of their sport practice: students who rarely participated in sport practice (less than one hour a week and not every week; 406 students, 26.4% boys vs 73.6% girls), students who frequently participated in sport practice (every week but less than eight hours a week; 173 students, 33.5% boys vs 66.5% girls), and students who had intensive sport practice (eight hours a week or more; 494 students, 43.9% boys vs 56.1% girls). Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use were assessed using the Alcohol Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST). Three different categories of eating disorders (Dieting, Bulimia, Oral control) were assessed using the EAT-26 inventory. ANOVAs were computed to test for gender differences across the three sport practice groups.ResultsResults of univariate ANOVAs revealed main effects for gender and sport practice on some of the substance use and eating disorder variables, ANOVA with multiple comparisons (Tamhan T Test) revealed a significant interaction effect of sport practice and gender on oral control and tobacco use. For girls, oral control and tobacco use do not vary within the three groups of sport practice whereas for boys the more frequent the sport practice, the lower their scores on oral control and tobacco use. For oral control, boys reported significantly higher scores than girls only when sport practice was rare. For tobacco use, boys reported significantly higher scores than girls when sport practice was rare and lower scores when sport practice was intensive.ConclusionThese results suggest that the positive effects of sport practice vary by gender and that the campaigns for promotion of physical activity might assist in the prevention of health issues amongst students but should be adapted according to the gender of the participants.     

Precursors of social emotional functioning among full-term and preterm infants at 12 months: Early infant withdrawal behavior and symptoms of maternal depression

This study forms part of a longitudinal investigation of early infant social withdrawal, maternal symptoms of depression and later child social emotional functioning. The sample consisted of a group of full-term infants (N = 238) and their mothers, and a group of moderately premature infants (N = 64) and their mothers. At 3 months, the infants were observed with the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB) and the mothers completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). At 12 months, the mothers filled out questionnaires about the infants’ social emotional functioning (Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-Social Emotional). At 3 months, as we have previously shown, the premature infants had exhibited more withdrawal behavior and their mothers reported elevated maternal depressive symptoms as compared with the full-born group. At 12 months the mothers of the premature infants reported more child internalizing behavior. These data suggest that infant withdrawal behavior as well as maternal depressive mood may serve as sensitive indices of early risk status. Further, the results suggest that early maternal depressive symptoms are a salient predictor of later child social emotional functioning. However, neither early infant withdrawal behavior, nor gestational age, did significantly predict social emotional outcome at 12 months. It should be noted that the differences in strength of the relations between ADBB and EPDS, respectively, to the outcome at 12 months was modest. An implication of the study is that clinicians should be aware of the complex interplay between early infant withdrawal and signs of maternal postpartum depression in planning ports of entry for early intervention.     

Partial body weight support treadmill training speed influences paretic and non-paretic leg muscle activation,stride characteristics,and ratings of perceived exertion during acute stroke rehabilitation

BackgroundIntensive task-specific training is promoted as one approach for facilitating neural plastic brain changes and associated motor behavior gains following neurologic injury. Partial body weight support treadmill training (PBWSTT), is one task-specific approach frequently used to improve walking during the acute period of stroke recovery (<1 month post infarct). However, only limited data have been published regarding the relationship between training parameters and physiologic demands during this early recovery phase.ObjectiveTo examine the impact of four walking speeds on stride characteristics, lower extremity muscle demands (both paretic and non-paretic), Borg ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), and blood pressure.DesignA prospective, repeated measures design was used.MethodsTen inpatients post unilateral stroke participated. Following three familiarization sessions, participants engaged in PBWSTT at four predetermined speeds (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 mph) while bilateral electromyographic and stride characteristic data were recorded. RPE was evaluated immediately following each trial.ResultsStride length, cadence, and paretic single limb support increased with faster walking speeds (p ⩽ 0.001), while non-paretic single limb support remained nearly constant. Faster walking resulted in greater peak and mean muscle activation in the paretic medial hamstrings, vastus lateralis and medial gastrocnemius, and non-paretic medial gastrocnemius (p ⩽ 0.001). RPE also was greatest at the fastest compared to two slowest speeds (p < 0.05).ConclusionsDuring the acute phase of stroke recovery, PBWSTT at the fastest speed (2.0 mph) promoted practice of a more optimal gait pattern with greater intensity of effort as evidenced by the longer stride length, increased between-limb symmetry, greater muscle activation, and higher RPE compared to training at the slowest speeds.     

Influence of maternal depression on children's brooding rumination: Moderation by CRHR1 TAT haplotype

There is growing evidence that brooding rumination plays a key role in the intergenerational transmission of major depressive disorder (MDD) and may be an endophenotype for depression risk. However, less is known about the mechanisms underlying this role. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to examine levels of brooding in children of mothers with a history of MDD (n = 129) compared to children of never depressed mothers (n = 126) and to determine whether the variation in a gene known to influence hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning—corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1) —would moderate the link between maternal MDD and children's levels of brooding. We predicted children of mothers with a history of MDD would exhibit higher levels of brooding than children of mothers with no lifetime depression history but that this link would be stronger among children carrying no copies of the protective CRHR1 TAT haplotype. Our results supported these hypotheses and suggest that the development of brooding among children of depressed mothers, particularly children without the protective CRHR1 haplotype, may serve as an important mechanism of risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression.