COVID-19-CAUSED CHANGES IN PSYCHOSOCIAL FUNCTIONING AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A DISRUPTION AND OPPORTUNITY

Background and objectivesPositive and negative changes in outlook represent psychological changes that are the results of the cognitive processing of stressful and traumatic events by an individual. The objectives of the study were (1) to determine the level of occurrence and types of positive and negative changes in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic among adults in Slovakia and (2) to study the role of personality factors such as hope (dispositional and perceived) and life orientation (optimism and pessimism) in the prediction of positive and negative changes in adults during the fourth pandemic wave.MethodsA Short Form of the Changes in Outlook Questionnaire (CiOQ-S), the Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS), the Perceived Hope Scale (PHS), and the Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) were administered. The research sample consisted of 102 participants, whose ages ranged from 20 to 65 years (Mage = 38.90, SD = 14.28). The research design was quantitative, exploratory, and confirmatory.ResultsIn total, 95% of participants reported positive changes related to COVID-19. Concurrently, up to 70% of these participants also reported negative changes from the impact of the pandemic. Only 25% of participants reported positive changes without noticing any negative perception of the consequences of the pandemic. Overall, 68% of participants reported negative changes related to COVID-19. Only 29% of participants reported negative changes without noticing any positive perception of the consequences of the pandemic. In total, up to 86% of participants agreed with experienced psychological changes (positive or negative) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The high prevalence of positive changes along with the relatively high prevalence of negative changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic outline the question of whether reported positive changes represent real or illusory growth. Optimism and pessimism were found to be significant independent predictors of positive changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope was identified as a significant independent predictor of negative changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background and objectives: Despite a generally good prognosis, testicular cancer can be a life-altering event. We explored perceived positive and negative life changes after testicular cancer in terms of frequency, demographic and disease-related predictors, and associations with depression and anxiety. Materials and methods: All testicular cancer survivors receiving follow-up care at two specialized outpatient treatment facilities were approached at follow-up visits or via mail. We assessed a total of N = 164 patients (66% participation rate, mean time since diagnosis: 11.6 years, SD = 7.4) by the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI, modified version assessing positive and negative changes for each of 21 items), Patient-Health-Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and Generalized-Anxiety-Disorder-Scale-7 (GAD-7). We conducted controlled multivariate regression analyses. Results: Most survivors (87%) reported at least one positive change (mean number: 7.2, SD = 5.0, possible range: 0–21). The most frequent perceived positive changes were greater appreciation of life (62%), changed priorities in life (62%), and ability rely on others (51%). At least one negative change was perceived by 33% (mean number of changes: 1.1, SD = 2.5). Negative changes were most frequent for decreases in self-reliance (14%), personal strength (11%), and ability to express emotions (9%). A higher socioeconomic status was associated with more positive changes (β = 0.25, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.42); no other association with demographic and disease-related predictors emerged. While positive life changes were not associated with depression (β = −0.05, 95% CI −0.17 to 0.07) and anxiety (β = 0.00, 95% CI −0.13 to 0.13), more negative life changes were significantly associated with higher depression (β = 0.15, 95% CI −0.03 to 0.27) and anxiety (β = 0.23, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.36). There was no significant interaction of positive and negative changes on depression or anxiety. Conclusions: Although positive life changes after testicular cancer are common, a significant number of survivors perceive negative changes in life domains that have been primarily investigated in terms of personal growth. Early identification of and psychosocial support for patients who perceive predominantly negative changes may contribute to prevention of prolonged symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Both positive and negative changes are commonly reported by cancer survivors, and both may impact quality of life. Yet few studies have directly compared the associations of positive and negative changes across multiple life domains with multiple aspects of well-being. This study examined positive and negative changes and their conjoint relation to a range of well-being indices. We used correlational and regression analyses of data from 237 young to middle aged (X = 45.3 years) cancer survivors, several years after treatment. Measures included demographic and medical variables, medical post-cancer positive and negative changes on multiple life domains, and a range of positive and negative adjustment indices. Demographic factors, especially income, related to both positive and negative outcomes. On average, participants reported no change on most life domains, although modest amounts of both positive and negative changes were reported. Negative change, rather than positive change, was closely associated with cancer survivors’ adjustment. Detailed measurement of both positive and negative changes – as well as lack of change – is important to advance understanding of cancer's impact on survivors.

Objective: We generated items to assess COVID-19 changes among Hispanic college students and examined the concurrent and predictive effects of these changes vis-à-vis mental health. Participants: The sample consisted of 559 Hispanic first-year (69% women; age range 18–22; 88.1% U.S.-born; 84% Mexican/Mexican American) attending a public university in Texas. Methods: Students participated in a three-wave longitudinal online survey assessing stressors, COVID-19 changes, anxious and depressive symptoms, hope, and self-esteem. Results: Students experienced negative changes across six life domains as a result of the pandemic-related lockdowns: education; health; relationships; finances; social issues; death/loss. They also reported positive changes during the lockdowns. Negative changes were positively correlated with higher, and positive changes with lower, acculturative and perceived stress. Negative COVID-19 changes predicted lower mental health. Conclusions: Hispanic students experienced both negative and positive COVID-19 changes, which were related to their mental health. Results can guide research and decision-making during future pandemics.

Premenarcheal expectations and postmenarcheal experiences of positive and negative menstrual related changes

The impact of cancer on adult survivors of aggressive non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) is understudied. We examined positive and negative life changes (health behaviors, relationships, financial situation) experienced by survivors of NHL and their association with physical and mental function. Using the Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance Program, 744 questionnaires were mailed to adult survivors of NHL: 308 provided complete data for analyses (M age=59.8, SD=14.9). Perceptions of positive and negative life changes were common in our sample, with 77.9% of NHL survivors reporting at least one positive change and 78.6% reporting at least one negative change. Cancer had the greatest positive change on relationships and the most negative change on survivors' financial situation. There was an equal distribution of survivors classified as having experienced positive change and negative change on health behaviors. Regardless of whether positive and negative life change were entered into separate regression models or the same model, an increase in negative life change in each of the domains was significantly associated with a decrease in physical and mental functioning. Positive change was significantly associated only with physical functioning when examining overall change (p=.018) and health behaviors (p=.013), and the inclusion of negative change attenuated these associations. In designing interventions to improve the mental and physical function of NHL survivors, the greatest benefit may likely be achieved by reducing the negative effects of cancer. Perhaps positive life changes are related in more specific ways to other indexes of adjustment, but our findings failed to show a positive relationship with mental and physical function.

This mixed-methods study investigated healthcare staff members’ opinions on the most positive and negative changes in mental health services (MHSs) during the 2-year COVID-19 pandemic emergency in Italy, and whether those changes differed by professional role and type of service. At the end of the national health emergency (March–April 2022), staff members from 17 MHSs completed the MHS Transformations Questionnaire, which includes a quantitative section with 30 multiple-choice items addressing positive changes and a qualitative section with two open-ended items on the most positive and negative changes. The 714 participants who responded to at least one open-ended item in the qualitative section formed the sample. Qualitative responses were categorised according to the textual content of the response and the themes of the quantitative section. Flexibility and Ability to Reinvent the Service was the subscale with the highest mean score. The most positive and negative changes fell into the following categories: practices (49.1 and 39%), organisation (34.5 and 36.9%), teamwork values (45.0 and 34.5%), and relationships with users and their families (31.9 and 40.6%). The most positive changes differed by type of service (i.e. in the relationship with users and their families category) and by professional role (i.e. in the practices and relationship with users and their families categories), whereas the most negative changes differed by type of service (i.e. in the practices category). The results may elucidate the complex experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic in MHSs and reveal lessons to be considered in post-pandemic service planning.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Young Australian Adults’ Food Practices

(1) Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the lives of older people. In this study, we examine changes in physical activity, sleep quality, and psychosocial variables among older people during COVID-19 lockdown. We build on cross-sectional studies on this topic by assessing change longitudinally. We also examined whether participant characteristics including demographic, cognitive, personality, and health variables were related to more positive or negative changes during lockdown. (2) Methods: 137 older participants (mean age 84 years) from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study were included in the analysis. They completed the same questionnaires assessing physical activity, sleep quality, mental wellbeing, social support, loneliness, neighbourhood cohesion, and memory problems before (mostly 2 years earlier) and again during national lockdown. (3) Results: On average, levels of physical activity were reduced (those doing minimal physical activity increased from 10% to 19%) and perceived social support increased during lockdown (effect size drm = 0.178). More positive change in the psychosocial and behavioural outcome variables during lockdown was associated with personality traits (greater intellect, emotional stability, and extraversion) and having a higher general cognitive ability. Participants with a history of cardiovascular disease, more symptoms of anxiety, or who lived alone were more likely to experience negative changes in the outcome variables during lockdown. (4) Discussion: These results provide further insight into the experiences of older people during the COVID-19 pandemic and could help to identify those at greatest risk of negative psychosocial or behavioural changes during this time.

BackgroundPublic health recommendations and governmental restrictions during the COVID-19 epidemic have affect everyday life. This study aimed to examine temporal changes in health-related lifestyle and the accumulation of positive and negative changes in the key lifestyle factors (vegetable consumption, leisure-time physical activity, sleeping, alcohol consumption, smoking) in the same individuals among Finnish adults during the epidemic.MethodsThis study was based on a series of cross-sectional surveys conducted between April 2020 and June 2021 to investigate antibody levels for the new coronavirus in the population. In each survey, a random sample of adults (18 to 69 years) from five university hospital regions were invited. A total of 5655 (response rate 32%) responded to the questionnaire including questions on lifestyle changes during epidemic.ResultsOn average one-sixth of respondents (17%) reported at least two negative changes in the key lifestyle factors during the study period. An increase in snacking and sleep problems and decrease in leisure-time physical activity and active commuting to work were the most common of individual negative changes. The proportion of negative changes in physical activity increased as the epidemic drags on. In contrast, on average every seventh of the respondents (14%) reported at least two positive lifestyle changes in the key lifestyle factors. The most common individual positive changes were increased consumption of fruit, berries and vegetables and decreased consumption of alcohol. More negative changes were reported on average, when both negative and positive changes in the key lifestyle factors were summed. The most negative changes were reported in the late 2020.ConclusionThe results of the present study suggest that the lifestyle changes during the COVID-19 epidemic have been diverse being on average more commonly unfavorable than favorable for health. The deteriorated epidemic situation in the late 2020 and, on the other hand, prolonged epidemic predisposed to negative lifestyle changes. Further studies are important to examine whether these changes are maintained over time and to identify the factors that contribute to changes and their accumulation in the same individuals. Health promotion actions are needed to prevent the long-term effects of the epidemic on health and welfare.

Introduction: Good sleep is an important determinant of health. Poor sleep quality is associated with poor health outcomes. Restrictive measures introduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring 2020 have led to unprecedented changes in human lives worldwide warranting research on different aspects of the influence of restrictive measures on human health and behavior. Aim: To study associations between the restrictive measures during COVID-19 pandemic and sleep characteristics in Russia. Moreover, we studied factors associated with changes in sleep patterns. Methods: We conducted a national online survey between 26 April 2020 and 6 June 2020 when the tightest measures were in place. Eligible participants included all Russian adults aged 18 years and over. The questionnaire contained 31 items and included mostly close-ended questions. Sleep quality was assessed before the COVID-19 pandemic and in the last 7 days during the study period. The respondents were asked to determine whether they were getting enough sleep, whether they had trouble falling asleep, and whether they woke up earlier than they wanted. Results: In spring 2020, 2 432 individuals from 62 regions of Russia completed web-based questionnaires. Most of them were from the Republic of Tatarstan (n = 804), Irkutsk (n = 474), Sakhalin (n = 225) and Tver regions (n = 152). For most of the respondents, the sleep characteristics analyzed in the study did not change. Negative changes in comparison with the period before the pandemic were noted a fifth of respondents while positive changes were reported by by 12-30 %. A third of respondents (30.3%) reported that the number of days without getting enough sleep decreased , ranging from 13.8 % in Sakhalin Oblast to 56.9 % in Tver Oblast. Adherence to the self-isolation regimen (OR = 2.15, 95 % CI 1.62-2.86), the presence of children (OR = 0.7, 95 % CI 0.59-0.84) and living in rural areas (OR = 1.58, 95 % CI 1.26-1.98) were the main correlates of sleep problems. Conclusion: Most of responders did not report changes in sleep quality. However, substantial regional differences were identified. identification of characteristics associated with negative sleep changes may contribute to development of targeted measures to mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACTAlthough women predominantly report negative premenstrual changes, a substantial portion of women also reports positive changes. Little is known about factors related to report of positive and negative premenstrual changes. The aim of this experimental study at the Philipps-University of Marburg from January and February 2015 was to investigate the effect of manipulated information about premenstrual changes on the retrospective report of premenstrual changes. A total of 241 healthy women were randomly assigned either to an experimental group (EG) reading: (1) text focusing on negative and positive premenstrual changes (EG1 (+/−)); (2) text focusing on negative changes (EG2 (−)); or (3) control group (CG) text. At least one positive premenstrual change was reported by the majority of the participating women. The results of the MANOVA and discriminant analysis showed that, after having read the text, EG2 (−) reported more negative and fewer positive premenstrual changes in a retrospective screening compared to EG1 (+/−) and CG. No significant difference was observed between EG1 (+/−) and CG. The results show the negative influence of information focusing on negative premenstrual changes on the retrospective report of both negative and positive premenstrual changes.

Most studies in cancer patients on psychological changes focused on positive changes (so-called 'posttraumatic growth'), with surprisingly little attention on the possibility that patients may experience both positive and negative changes. This study investigated the relationship between positive and negative changes, and their association with positive and negative affect. We also examined the correlates of positive and negative changes, specifically the role of coping and goal reengagement. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 108 patients. We used Pearson correlations and Regression analyses to examine the research questions. Positive and negative changes were relatively unrelated to each other. More positive changes were related to more positive affect, whereas more negative changes were related to more negative affect and less positive affect. Approach coping by more positive reappraisal and goal reengagement was significantly associated with more positive changes. More use of avoidant coping by self-distraction was related to more negative changes. Patients experienced both positive and negative changes as a result of cancer. These changes were significantly related to patients' well-being, as well as to their coping and goal reengagement strategies. This knowledge may be incorporated in psychological interventions. Cancer patients can be assisted to learn to acknowledge both positive and negative changes in their life and to approach rather than avoid difficult situations. Patients may also be supported to engage in alternative meaningful goals in life. This is likely to help them find positive meaning.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global health crisis that affects many aspects of human lives. In the absence of vaccines and antivirals, several behavioral change and policy initiatives such as physical distancing have been implemented to control the spread of COVID-19. Social media data can reveal public perceptions toward how governments and health agencies worldwide are handling the pandemic, and the impact of the disease on people regardless of their geographic locations in line with various factors that hinder or facilitate the efforts to control the spread of the pandemic globally.ObjectiveThis paper aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people worldwide using social media data.MethodsWe applied natural language processing (NLP) and thematic analysis to understand public opinions, experiences, and issues with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic using social media data. First, we collected over 47 million COVID-19–related comments from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and three online discussion forums. Second, we performed data preprocessing, which involved applying NLP techniques to clean and prepare the data for automated key phrase extraction. Third, we applied the NLP approach to extract meaningful key phrases from over 1 million randomly selected comments and computed sentiment score for each key phrase and assigned sentiment polarity (ie, positive, negative, or neutral) based on the score using a lexicon-based technique. Fourth, we grouped related negative and positive key phrases into categories or broad themes.ResultsA total of 34 negative themes emerged, out of which 15 were health-related issues, psychosocial issues, and social issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic from the public perspective. Some of the health-related issues were increased mortality, health concerns, struggling health systems, and fitness issues; while some of the psychosocial issues were frustrations due to life disruptions, panic shopping, and expression of fear. Social issues were harassment, domestic violence, and wrong societal attitude. In addition, 20 positive themes emerged from our results. Some of the positive themes were public awareness, encouragement, gratitude, cleaner environment, online learning, charity, spiritual support, and innovative research.ConclusionsWe uncovered various negative and positive themes representing public perceptions toward the COVID-19 pandemic and recommended interventions that can help address the health, psychosocial, and social issues based on the positive themes and other research evidence. These interventions will help governments, health professionals and agencies, institutions, and individuals in their efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 and minimize its impact, and in reacting to any future pandemics.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been recognised to affect families' socio-emotional well-being. Collecting the views of families in diverse socio-economic contexts can contribute to understanding their specific needs and resources in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. The overarching objective of the current research was to explore the views and experiences of families in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, who were living in the Republic of Ireland, including in areas designated as disadvantaged. In Study 1, the objective was to explore changes, difficulties, and concerns experienced by parents of children up to six years old during the pandemic, and related associations with socio-demographic characteristics. Data were collected from 168 parents/carers via an online questionnaire, and examined using conceptual content analysis. The most frequently identified experiences related to restrictions, social isolation, negative impacts on parents' emotional and psychological well-being, negative impacts on children's emotional well-being and development, concerns with physical health, uncertainty about the future, and positive changes regarding family time and activities. Associations were found with parents' age and work situation, and family's income and composition. In Study 2, the objective was to explore the views of children, parents, and service providers about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on families' life, and relevant supports. Data were collected from 50 children aged between eight and 17 years old, 17 parents, and 20 service providers through focus group discussions, and examined using thematic analysis. The participants reported experiences related to challenges with online education, uncertainty regarding children's education, food poverty, and children's socio-emotional health. The findings of both studies reinforced the importance of implementing measures to promote parents' and children's socio-emotional well-being, combat educational inequalities, and ensure economic and employment security.