Psychology & Health

BACKGROUND: Developing an infrastructure to support tobacco cessation through existing systems and resources is crucial for ensuring the greatest possible access to cessation services. The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a newly developed multi-component cessation among tobacco users in Non- Communicable Disease (NCD) clinics, functioning under the National Programme for Prevention & Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases, & Stroke (NPCDCS) of the Government of India...

INTRODUCTION: Previous research highlighted the importance of investigating distinct protective factors that predict the experience of positive emotions during stressful situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this longitudinal study, we specifically focused on positive expectancies towards the future (optimism, response expectancy, and response hope) in relation to the experience of positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our primary objectives were to identify the best predictors for experiencing short-term and long-term positive emotions and investigate their interrelationships...

OBJECTIVE: Gratitude has consistently been associated with various beneficial health-related outcomes, including subjective wellbeing, positive mental health, and positive physical health. In light of such effects, positive psychology researchers and practitioners have often implemented gratitude interventions in an attempt to build individuals' orientations toward appreciation and thankfulness. Recent meta-analyses and reviews have revealed, however, that these interventions often have mixed effects on gratitude or other health outcomes...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of two brief self-affirmation interventions, immediately prior to reading standard information about bowel cancer screening, on state anxiety, message acceptance and behavioural intention to screen for bowel cancer. METHODS: 242 adults aged 49 were randomised to one of two self-affirmation interventions (health or values) or one of two control conditions, before reading an NHS England bowel cancer screening leaflet. Participant friend and family history of bowel cancer, state anxiety, message acceptance, behavioural intention to screen, trait self-esteem and spontaneous self-affirmation were measured...

OBJECTIVE: International research highlights the detrimental impact of endometriosis on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), yet few studies have examined positive resources such as self-compassion and resilience as correlates. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the relationship between self-compassion and HRQoL in individuals with endometriosis in Aotearoa New Zealand. Resilience and perceived symptom severity were examined as potential mediators. METHODS AND MEASURES: Six hundred and three individuals with endometriosis completed an online questionnaire measuring demographic and endometriosis-related information, endometriosis symptoms (number and severity), HRQoL, self-compassion and resilience...

OBJECTIVE: African American (AA) women in the U.S. South experience significant HIV incidence, and efforts to support antiretroviral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake and maintenance among this group have been insufficient. This study aimed to explore perceptions, attitudes, and implementation preferences surrounding PrEP use for AA women in the U.S. South. METHODS AND MEASURES: The study team conducted qualitative interviews with AA cisgender women clients ( n  = 21) and their providers ( n  = 20) in Federally Qualified Health Centers and HIV clinics in Alabama...

OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical role of public engagement in health protective behaviors (e.g. masking, vaccination) to reduce viral spread and impact. Future public health efforts may be facilitated by identifying factors that impact the likelihood of adopting these behaviors. This study evaluated whether COVID-specific worry and/or generalized anxiety predicted subsequent uptake of COVID-19 vaccination and engagement in other COVID-preventive behaviors. METHOD AND MEASURES: Participants ( N  = 205) completed an online survey in July 2020, shortly after the onset of the pandemic, and a follow-up survey, over a year later, after vaccines were available to the public...

OBJECTIVES: The focus on physical appearance among gay men has potential implications for anti-fat attitudes, including those directed toward romantic partners. Partners often influence each other's behaviors including those linked to weight, but most research has examined the consequences of these influence strategies versus their antecedents. To address this research gap, we examined how men's own and their partners' anti-fat attitudes were related to both health-promoting (control) and health-compromising (undermining) types of diet-related influence and whether these associations differed by weight status...

This research seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the distinctive nature of burnout and depression. In a first study, we relied on employee samples from four European countries ( N  = 5199; 51.27% women; M age = 43.14). In a second study, we relied on a large sample of patients ( N  = 5791; 53.70% women; M age = 39.54) who received a diagnosis of burnout, depressive episode, job strain, or adaptation disorder. Across all samples and subsamples, we relied on the bifactor exploratory structural equation modelling to achieve an optimal disaggregation of the variance shared across our measures of burnout and depression from the variance uniquely associated with each specific subscale included in these measures...

Objective: This study investigated subgroups of adults with particular health behavior patterns, their stability over 19 years, and the role of sociodemographic and personality characteristics in these. Methods and Measures: Data on smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity were collected at ages 42, 50, and 61 in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development ( n  = 205-302). Latent class, latent transition, and logistic regression analyses were used...

OBJECTIVE: Health risk information is insufficient as a means of reducing alcohol use, particularly when it evokes negative emotional states amongst those for whom it is most personally relevant. Appraisal biases, or 'defensive processing', may be employed to mitigate the psychological discomfort posed by such information. Few studies have evaluated the role of defensive processing in people with different levels of alcohol consumption. DESIGN: Online participants ( n  = 597) completed measures of defensive processing of a health risk infographic, perceived susceptibility and severity of alcohol use, efficacy for resisting alcohol use, unrealistic optimism, the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test - Consumption (AUDIT-C) and demographics...

OBJECTIVES: This study tests a video intervention to reduce pregnancy smoking stigma among French healthcare students. DESIGN: The participants were randomly selected to watch online either an experimental video (presenting educational content regarding stigma and contact with pregnant smokers) or a control video (presenting standard educational content about the risks of smoking). The students completed scales assessing stigma, intention to address smoking cessation and self-efficacy to do so, before the intervention (T0, n  = 252), one week after the intervention (T1, n  = 187), and one month after the intervention (T2, n  = 131)...

OBJECTIVE: Undergraduate drinking is associated with childhood adversity, early alcohol experience, and drinker self-schema. However, the pathway linking childhood adversity to undergraduate drinking problems remains undefined. This study aimed to identify the effects of childhood poly-adversity on the sequelae of adolescent alcohol-use trajectory, drinker self-schema, and alcohol problems among undergraduates. We also examined whether adolescent alcohol-use trajectory and drinker self-schema mediated the effects of childhood poly-adversity on undergraduate alcohol problems...

OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness, self-compassion, gratitude, and optimism have each been associated with better sleep quality and quantity; however, their collective and relative contributions to future sleep outcomes remain unexplored. The current study therefore investigated whether baseline levels of these positive psychological traits could predict subsequent sleep quality and quantity. In addition, emotion regulation was examined as a potential common mediator of the relationships between each of the positive traits and sleep...

OBJECTIVE: This longitudinal study examined the associations of divine struggles with 25 psychological distress, psychological well-being, social well-being, prosociality, physical health, and health behavior outcomes assessed approximately nine years later. METHODS: We used three waves of data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States ( N  = 4041): M1 (1995-1996), M2 (2004-2006), and M3 (2013-2014). Following the analytic template for outcome-wide longitudinal designs, our primary analysis employed a series of regression models to estimate the associations between a continuous measure of divine struggles assessed at M2 with each outcome assessed at M3...

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of a 12-week aerobic exercise program with different frequencies on executive functions (EFs) in preschool children. METHOD: Four kindergartens, comprising 126 preschool children in Shanghai, were enrolled in this 12-week cluster randomized controlled trial with a 12-week follow-up period. Kindergartens were allocated to high-frequency (three times a week) or low-frequency (once a week) exercise groups using stratified block randomization...

The study aims to investigate the associations of compassion and self-compassion with body composition, and whether adulthood compassion and self-compassion moderate the relationship between childhood SEP and adulthood body composition. The participants came from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 Study ( n  = 789, 52.1% women), with a mean age of 34.0 years. Compassion and self-compassion were measured with the Dispositional Positive Emotions Scale and Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form, respectively...

OBJECTIVE: To test the associations of physical and psychosocial factors with physical and mental health in individuals living with endometriosis (EM) by means of cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. METHODS AND MEASURES: Data were gathered via an online survey between February and August 2021. At survey date t1, sociodemographic, EM-related and psychosocial factors as well as physical and mental health of people with EM were assessed. At survey date t2 three months later, physical and mental health was reassessed...

Objective. To enable future open-air festivals during a pandemic, model festivals tested restricted access and behavioural rules to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmissions. However, the uptake of health-protective measures depends on informed acceptance, meaning people are more likely to follow measures if they understand their effectiveness and related disease risks. Design and main outcome measures. With a series of online surveys, we studied risk perceptions of 6,500 festival guests and the association of perceived effectiveness of protective behaviours with reported compliance...

OBJECTIVE: Since sleep is an important part of life and too little sleep can lead to disastrous consequences, it is important to look at the factors that may disturb healthy sleep. While procrastination and in particular bedtime procrastination is such a disruptive factor, self-compassion on the other side might be a protective factor. METHODS: For this reason, in this study, we took a closer look at the interplay between bedtime procrastination, self-compassion, as well as at the actual sleep outcomes in a longitudinal diary study over 1 week...