Psychosomatic Medicine

OBJECTIVE: Anxiety is highly prevalent in individuals with asthma. Asthma symptoms and medication can exacerbate anxiety, and vice versa. Unfortunately, treatments for comorbid anxiety and asthma are largely lacking. A problematic feature common to both conditions is hyperventilation. It adversely affects lung function and symptoms in asthma and anxiety. We examined whether a treatment to reduce hyperventilation, shown to improve asthma symptoms, also improves anxiety in asthma patients with high anxiety...

OBJECTIVE: In past decades, the field of nocebo research has focused on studying how sensory perception can be shaped by learning. Nocebo effects refer to aggravated sensory experiences or increased sensitivity to sensations such as pain and itch resulting from treatment-related negative experiences. Behavioral conditioning as well as verbal suggestions of a negative treatment outcome may aggravate pain and itch perception. Gaining a comprehensive view of the magnitude of nocebo effects and contributing factors will help steer nocebo research towards fruitful directions for understanding complex sensory phenomena...

OBJECTIVE: Sexual and physical abuse are highly prevalent among women living with HIV (WLWH) and are risk factors for development of mental health and substance use disorders (MHDs, SUDs), and cognitive and medical co-morbidities. We examined empirically-derived patterns of trauma, MHD, and SUD, and associations with later cognitive and health outcomes. METHODS: 1027 WLWH (average age = 48.6 years) in the Women's Interagency HIV Study completed the World Mental Health-Composite International Diagnostic Interview during 2010-2013 to identify MHDs, SUDs, and age at onset of sexual and physical abuse...

OBJECTIVE: This ecological study explored the association between regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions (RESE-NE) and heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of parasympathetic modulation of the heart that has been positively associated with a better ability to flexibly adjust to a changing environment and regulate emotions. METHOD: To test these associations, we used data from 161 adults working in relational professions (about 40% men; Mage = 40...

OBJECTIVE: In the United States, Hispanic/Latino adults face a high burden of obesity; yet, not all individuals are equally affected, partly due in part to this ethnic group's marked sociocultural diversity. We sought to analyze the modification of body mass index (BMI) genetic effects in Hispanic/Latino adults by their level of acculturation, a complex bio-social phenomenon that remains understudied. METHODS: Among 11,747 Hispanic/Latinos adults in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos aged 18-76 years from four urban communities (2008-2011), we 1) tested our hypothesis that the effect of a genetic risk score (GRS) for increased BMI may be exacerbated by higher levels of acculturation, and 2) examined if GRS acculturation interactions varied by gender or Hispanic/Latino background group...

OBJECTIVE: The heterogeneous conceptualizations and classifications of persistent and troublesome physical symptoms impede their adequate clinical management. Functional somatic disorders (FSD) is a recently suggested interface concept that is aetiologically neutral and allows for dysfunctional psychobehavioral characteristics as well as somatic comorbidity. But its prevalence and impact are not yet known. METHODS: We analysed 2379 participants (mean age 48.3 yrs...

OBJECTIVE: There is evidence that psychological distress increases the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but implications for prevention remain elusive. We examined the association between chronic stress and the German Diabetes Risk Score (GDRS) among adults without diabetes in Germany. METHODS: The study population consisted of 4,654 persons aged 18-64 years without known diabetes drawn from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Adults (DEGS1, 2008-2011)...

OBJECTIVE: This study's aim was to verify whether a psychoeducational intervention, with a brief expressive post-traumatic growth (PTG) component, could reduce heart failure (HF) patients' hospital readmissions and promote their quality of life (QoL) and PTG. METHODS: It adopted a parallel randomized clinical trial design, and its participants comprised HF patients from a hospital in Southern Brazil. All the participants completed the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-BREF) and posttraumatic growth inventory (PTGI) questionnaires at the pre (T1:baseline) and post (T2) assessments of the intervention...

OBJECTIVE: Research from Western countries suggests that there is an increase in mortality in parents bereaved by the death of a child. Few studies have investigated this issue in a non-Western context. We explored the impact of the death of a child on parental mortality in Taiwan. METHOD: By linking population-based national registers, we followed the 2004-2014 birth cohort (N = 2,083,972) up until 2016. A total of 11,755 child deaths were identified. For each deceased child, 4 living children matched on age and sex were randomly selected; their parents were the comparison group...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the presence of chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) impacts the likelihood that patients with diagnoses of depression will initiate depression treatment compared to those without CNCP. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study of Kaiser Permanente of Georgia members >18 years who received a diagnosis of depression. Demographics and medical history were extracted from the electronic health record database...

OBJECTIVE: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic life events are often coupled to chronic pain; possibly linked by central sensitization. We wanted to assess the prevalence of traumatic events and PTSD in chronic pain patients of a German university hospital outpatient pain clinic. Moreover, we evaluated the extent of indicators and co-occurring traits of central sensitization in comorbid patients. METHODS: We retrospectively divided 914 chronic pain patients into four groups depending on their trauma severity: no trauma, accidental trauma, interpersonal trauma, and PTSD...

OBJECTIVE: Poor sleep is associated with the experience of more somatic symptoms and a pro-inflammatory state, while a pro-inflammatory state may also result in the experience of more somatic symptoms. However, existing studies ignore individual differences in these associations. We aimed to study relations between sleep, inflammatory markers and somatic symptoms at a within-individual level. METHODS: Time series of daily data on sleep, somatic symptoms and inflammation markers in 10 healthy individuals (age 19 to 58, three men) over 63 days were analyzed...

Chronic diseases are among the top causes of global death, disability, and healthcare expenditure. Digital health interventions (e.g., patient support delivered via technologies such as smartphones, wearables, videoconferencing, social media, virtual reality) may prevent and mitigate chronic disease by facilitating accessible, personalized care. While these tools have promise to reach historically marginalized groups, who are disproportionately affected by chronic disease, evidence suggests digital health interventions could unintentionally exacerbate health inequities...

OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether childhood social isolation was associated with retinal neural layer changes in adulthood, and whether this association was independent of other childhood or adulthood risk factors, including adult social isolation. METHODS: Participants were members of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a longitudinal population-based birth cohort from Aotearoa New Zealand (n = 1037), born 1972-1973 and followed until age 45, with 94% of the living cohort still participating...

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether HIV-Pain and Sadness Support (HIV-PASS), a collaborative behavioral health intervention based on behavioral activation, is associated with decreased pain-related interference with daily activities, depression, and other outcomes in people living with HIV. METHODS: We conducted a three-site clinical trial (n = 187) in which we randomly assigned participants to receive either HIV-PASS or health education (HE) control condition. In both conditions, participants received seven intervention sessions, comprised of an initial in-person joint meeting with the participant, their HIV primary care provider and a behavioral health specialist (BHS), and six, primarily telephone-based, meetings with the BHS and participant...

OBJECTIVE: The ASTHMAXcel PRO mobile app provides asthma education and collects asthma outcome data. The objective of this study was to evaluate the associations between health/eHealth literacy and depressive symptoms with app usage and clinical outcomes. METHODS: Adults with persistent asthma were recruited to utilize the app. Participants completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) to assess for depressive symptoms, Asthma Control Test (ACT), Mini Asthma Quality of Life (QOL) Questionnaire, and the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) tool to measure health literacy...

OBJECTIVE: Insulin resistance is associated with elevated activation of food reward, which should be associated with an increased reinforcing value of food. Research has also shown that sugar is a macronutrient strongly associated with reward and reinforcing value of food. This research is designed to assess whether insulin resistance is associated with a stronger reinforcing value of sugar-sweetened foods, thus elevating blood glucose responses in obese people with varying degrees of insulin resistance...

OBJECTIVE: Psychological distress is common among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), and can interfere with disease self-management. We assessed the effectiveness of the personalized E-GOAL eHealth care pathway with screening and cognitive-behavioral therapy including self-management support, aimed to treat psychological distress and facilitate self-management among people with CKD not on dialysis (N = 121). METHODS: Primary outcome of the open two-arm parallel randomized controlled trial in 4 Dutch hospitals was psychological distress at post-test directly after the intervention and at 3-month follow-up...

OBJECTIVE: Type D personality, a joint tendency toward negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI), has been linked to adverse events in patients with heart disease, though with inconsistent findings. Here, we apply an individual patient-data meta-analysis to data from 19 prospective cohort studies (N = 11151), to investigate the prediction of adverse outcomes by Type D personality in acquired cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients. METHOD: For each outcome (all-cause mortality, cardiac mortality, myocardial infarction (MI), coronary artery bypass grafting, percutaneous coronary intervention, major adverse cardiac event (MACE), any adverse event), we estimated Type D's prognostic influence and the moderation by age, sex, and disease type...

OBJECTIVE: To examine race and APOE-e4 status differences in the longitudinal associations between loneliness and cognitive decline. METHODS: The study sample is comprised of participants (N = 7,696, 64% Black participants and 36% White participants) from the Chicago Health and Aging Project, a population-based cohort study. Mixed effects regression models were conducted to examine the longitudinal associations between loneliness on global cognitive function and individual tests of cognitive function...