Battery Of Surveys Research Articles

Association between negative life events and suicidal behavior in adolescents: roles of core self-evaluation, depression and gender.

Negative life events are essential proximal factors that may induce suicidal behavior in adolescents, but the mechanisms connecting this link remain to further explored. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between negative life events (NLEs) and adolescents' suicidal behavior, and the roles of core self-evaluation, depression and gender playing between them. Using the whole-group sampling approach, 5296 Chinese adolescents (51.5% males, Meanage = 12.93) took part in this cross-sectional study in September 2021 and completed a battery of surveys including NLEs, suicidal behavior, CSE (core self-evaluation) and depression. Logistic regression and latent structural equation models were used to test the direct and indirect effects between NLEs and suicide behavior with multi-group path analysis, gender differences in this serial mediating effect were also tested. After controlling for age and gender, NLEs were directly associated with adolescents' suicidal behavior. CSE and depression played significant serial mediating effects in this relationship. Moreover, significant gender differences were obtained in these serial mediating pathways, with stronger effects in girls. Integrating the environmental, individual cognitive and emotional factors, our findings would be helpful in understanding the mechanism of these antecedents on adolescents' suicide behavior, which has specific practical significance for preventing and reducing suicidal behavior.

Establishing the measurement precision of the patient health questionnaire in an adolescent sample

BackgroundTechnically sound measures are necessary for accurately identifying youth at risk for depression, but many studies rely on classical test theory metrics or adult samples to evaluate measures. This study examined the use of the PHQ-8, a common and freely available pediatric depression screener, in an adolescent sample using item response theory (IRT). MethodsSecondary analyses were conducted on data from a study conducted in Midwestern middle schools in which 1224 youth completed the PHQ-8 as part of a battery of surveys. Polytomous IRT analyses (a Graded Response Model) were used to evaluate the PHQ-8. Items were examined for their ability to distinguish between respondents of different latent depression severity and for differential item functioning (DIF) across demographic categories. ResultsAll PHQ-8 items had adequate discriminative abilities. Items measuring anhedonia and psychomotor disturbances performed relatively poorly, and items measuring somatic symptoms (appetite and sleep) were most informative when respondents endorsed extreme response options (“not at all” or “nearly every day”). No DIF was found across grade level or race, but several items were flagged for DIF by gender and student income level. LimitationsThese results might not be generalizable to a broader youth population due to administration setting and the unique demographic characteristics of this sample (76.0 % African American). ConclusionsTools such as the PHQ-8 are appropriate to quickly screen for depression in adolescents, but further scrutiny of adolescent response patterns is warranted. Future research should examine items measuring anhedonia and psychomotor and somatic disturbances in adolescents.

Burden and Depression among Empirically-Derived Subgroups of Family Caregivers for Individuals With Dementia.

Dementia caregiving experiences are not universal and different factors may influence the risk for burden and depression. This study examined factors such as the relationship with the care recipient, severity of dementia, and relationship satisfaction to uncover different types of caregiver burden profiles using baseline assessment for a telephone-based intervention study for dementia caregivers. Participants (n = 233) completed a battery of psychological and caregiving related surveys. The sample was predominantly White and female. Latent class analysis suggested four class models in subsamples of spousal caregivers and adult children caregivers. The results suggested four distinct classes among samples of spousal and adult child caregivers. Differences in burden emerged across both spouses and adult children, and differences in depression also emerged in the spousal sample. Our findings demonstrate the diversity of the caregiving experience and suggest that future psychosocial interventions may benefit from being tailored to the needs of caregiver subgroups.

The psychological effects of sports disruptions in NCAA Division I and II athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods analysis.

Improving mental health outcomes in college athletics requires better understanding of how student-athletes respond to stress-inducing events. Using a cross-sectional design, this study aimed to assess student-athletes' mental health status during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible participants (N.=489) included Division I and II student-athletes at least 18 years of age with plans to compete in the 2020-2021 sport season. Participants completed an online battery of psychological health surveys. Survey results suggested high psychological strain (APSQ: 20.58±8.08), mild symptoms of anxiety (GAD-7: 7.66±5.51) and depression (PHQ-9: 7.51±5.65), and burnout (ABQ: 2.37±0.96). A subset of student-athletes reported symptoms of psychological strain, depression, and anxiety warranting follow-up clinical evaluation and/or treatment according to scoring guidelines. Findings encourage psychological screening, particularly during sport-disrupting events, to better support athletes' mental health during high-stress conditions.

Chronic pain and problematic substance use for veterans during COVID-19: the moderating role of psychological flexibility.

Chronic pain and problematic substance use are commonly co-occurring and highly detrimental issues that are especially prevalent in U.S. veteran populations. Although COVID-19 made clinical management of these conditions potentially difficult, some research suggests that certain veterans with these conditions did not experience this period as negatively as others. It is thus important to consider whether resilience factors, such as the increasingly-studied process of psychological flexibility, might have led to better outcomes for veterans managing pain and problematic substance use during this time of global crisis. This planned sub-analysis of a larger cross-sectional, anonymous, and nationally-distributed survey (N = 409) was collected during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Veteran participants completed a short screener and battery of online surveys assessing pain severity and interference, substance use, psychological flexibility, mental health functioning, and pandemic-related quality of life. For veterans with chronic pain and problematic substance use, the pandemic resulted in a significant lowering of their quality of life related to meeting basic needs, emotional health, and physical health compared to veterans with problematic substance use but no chronic pain diagnosis. However, moderation analyses revealed that veterans with these comorbid conditions experienced less negative impacts from the pandemic on quality of life and mental health when they reported greater psychological flexibility. For veterans with problematic substance use only, psychological flexibility was also related to better mental health functioning, but did not significantly correlate with their quality of life. Results highlight how COVID-19 differentially impacted veterans with both problematic substance use and chronic pain, such that this group reported particularly negative impacts of the pandemic on multiple areas of quality of life. However, our findings further emphasize that psychological flexibility, a modifiable resiliency process, also buffered against some of the negative impacts of the pandemic on mental health and quality of life. Given this, future research into the impact of natural crises and healthcare management should investigate how psychological flexibility can be targeted to help increase resiliency for veterans with chronic pain and problematic substance use.

The Clinical Phenotype of Binge Eating Disorder among Postmenopausal Women: A Pilot Study.

Binge eating disorder (BED), a form of overnutrition, may impact healthy aging for postmenopausal women. In community samples, 12-26% of older women (ages 60+) engage in binge eating. In younger adults, BED is comorbid with physical and psychological morbidities. However, little is known regarding the clinical phenotype, including medical and psychiatric comorbidities, of BED in postmenopausal women. This pilot study sought to identify psychosomatic, cardiometabolic, body composition, and physical function characteristics of postmenopausal, older adult (age ≥60 years) women with BED. Participants (N = 21, ages 60-75) completed a battery of physical assessments and surveys assessing psychosomatic health. Overall, 62% of women reported BE onset during peri- or post-menopause. Rates of comorbid depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and a history of severe menopausal symptoms were high. Cardiometabolic health was poor, and 42.9% met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. Additionally, 71.4% met the BMI criteria for obesity, and 40% of this sample met the criteria for sarcopenic obesity. Almost half of the sample presented with at least one mobility limitation; 85.7% had poor endurance. Evidence suggests that BED is highly comorbid with other chronic health conditions and may complicate treatment of these conditions, warranting further investigation and increased attention from healthcare providers serving postmenopausal women.

Feasibility and acceptability of remote smartphone cognitive testing in frontotemporal dementia research.

Remote smartphone assessments of cognition, speech/language, and motor functioning in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) could enable decentralized clinical trials and improve access to research. We studied the feasibility and acceptability of remote smartphone data collection in FTD research using the ALLFTD Mobile App (ALLFTD-mApp). A diagnostically mixed sample of 214 participants with FTD or from familial FTD kindreds (asymptomatic: CDR®+NACC-FTLD=0 [N=101]; prodromal: 0.5 [N=49]; symptomatic ≥1 [N=51]; not measured [N=13]) were asked to complete ALLFTD-mApp tests on their smartphone three times within 12 days. They completed smartphone familiarity and participation experience surveys. It was feasible for participants to complete the ALLFTD-mApp on their own smartphones. Participants reported high smartphone familiarity, completed ∼ 70% of tasks, and considered the time commitment acceptable (98% of respondents). Greater disease severity was associated with poorer performance across several tests. These findings suggest that the ALLFTD-mApp study protocol is feasible and acceptable for remote FTD research. The ALLFTD Mobile App is a smartphone-based platform for remote, self-administered data collection.The ALLFTD Mobile App consists of a comprehensive battery of surveys and tests of executive functioning, memory, speech and language, and motor abilities.Remote digital data collection using the ALLFTD Mobile App was feasible in a multicenter research consortium that studies FTD. Data was collected in healthy controls and participants with a range of diagnoses, particularly FTD spectrum disorders.Remote digital data collection was well accepted by participants with a variety of diagnoses.

Use of serial smartphone-based assessments to characterize diverse neuropsychiatric symptom trajectories in a large trauma survivor cohort

The authors sought to characterize adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae (APNS) symptom trajectories across ten symptom domains (pain, depression, sleep, nightmares, avoidance, re-experiencing, anxiety, hyperarousal, somatic, and mental/fatigue symptoms) in a large, diverse, understudied sample of motor vehicle collision (MVC) survivors. More than two thousand MVC survivors were enrolled in the emergency department (ED) and completed a rotating battery of brief smartphone-based surveys over a 2-month period. Measurement models developed from survey item responses were used in latent growth curve/mixture modeling to characterize homogeneous symptom trajectories. Associations between individual trajectories and pre-trauma and peritraumatic characteristics and traditional outcomes were compared, along with associations within and between trajectories. APNS across all ten symptom domains were common in the first two months after trauma. Many risk factors and associations with high symptom burden trajectories were shared across domains. Both across and within traditional diagnostic boundaries, APNS trajectory intercepts, and slopes were substantially correlated. Across all domains, symptom severity in the immediate aftermath of trauma (trajectory intercepts) had the greatest influence on the outcome. An interactive data visualization tool was developed to allow readers to explore relationships of interest between individual characteristics, symptom trajectories, and traditional outcomes (http://itr.med.unc.edu/aurora/parcoord/). Individuals presenting to the ED after MVC commonly experience a broad constellation of adverse posttraumatic symptoms. Many risk factors for diverse APNS are shared. Individuals diagnosed with a single traditional outcome should be screened for others. The utility of multidimensional categorizations that characterize individuals across traditional diagnostic domains should be explored.

The Consequences of the Pandemic for Subjective Well-Being: Data for Improving Policymaking.

The pandemic has affected people's lives and emotions in profound ways, which governments ignore at their peril. Among the often disregarded consequences of the pandemic, especially in developing countries, are its toll on subjective well-being and its implications for health policymaking. This paper uses a battery of surveys with over 1800 observations collected in 2019 and 2020, which inform on many aspects of subjective well-being before and during the pandemic in Cali, Colombia. The results show a dramatic and widespread reduction in life satisfaction in several dimensions of well-being beyond health, and not just among those directly affected by COVID-19. This analysis focuses on differences in well-being by gender and health status, providing information about gender variances and differences in subjective well-being between those who experienced and those who did not experience physical illness (including the COVID-19 infection) during the pandemic. This analysis aims at contributing to the body of research that studies the consequences of the pandemic for life satisfaction and well-being, in the context of a city experiencing profound social unrest during the pandemic.

Racial/ethnic discrimination and suicide-related risk in a treatment-seeking group of ethnoracially minoritized adolescents.

Despite growing evidence demonstrating the negative mental health effects of racism-related experiences, racial/ethnic discrimination is seldom examined in youth suicide risk. The present study tested the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and well-supported correlates of suicide-related risk including emotion reactivity and dysregulation, and severity of psychiatric symptoms in a sample of ethnoracially minoritized adolescents receiving outpatient psychiatric services. Participants were adolescents (N = 46; 80.4% female; 65.2% Latinx) who ranged in age from 13-20 years old (M=15.42; SD=1.83) recruited from a child outpatient psychiatry clinic in a low-resourced community in Northeast US. Youth completed a clinical interview and a battery of surveys. Findings from separate linear regression models show that increases in frequency of racial/ethnic discrimination were associated with increases in severity of suicidal ideation (SI), independent of emotion reactivity and dysregulation, and symptoms of PTSD and depression. Discriminatory experiences involving personal insults, witnessing family being discriminated, and school-based contexts were uniquely associated with SI. Preliminary findings support the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and increased severity of suicide-related risk in ethnoracially minoritized adolescents. Accounting for racial/ethnic discrimination may improve the cultural responsiveness of youth suicide prevention strategies within outpatient psychiatric care.

Effects Of A Virtual Reality Exercise Intervention On Health-related Physiological And Psychological Outcomes Among College Students

PURPOSE: This study examined the effectiveness of a 4-week virtual reality (VR) exercise intervention on college students’ health physiological and psychological health outcomes. METHODS: A total of 36 college students completed the intervention (Mage = 23.89, SD = 3.57; MBMI = 25.29, SD = 3.96). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: (1) intervention group - participants exercised on an immersive VR-based exercise bike for one hour per session, two times per week, for 4 weeks; (2) control group - participants maintained their usual activities for 4 weeks. Participants’ percent body fat (%BF) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) were assessed using validated instruments at baseline and 4 weeks. Their exercise motivation, mood, and depressive symptoms were assessed using a battery of surveys at baseline and 4 weeks. Two-way repeated measures ANOVAs examined between-group differences on the preceding physiological and psychological outcomes over time. RESULTS: Significant time x group interactions were observed for %BF (F(1,34) = 17.26, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.34) and CRF (F(1,34) = 30.05, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.47). Specifically, intervention participants’ %BF and CRF observed significant improvements after 4 weeks. In addition, significant interactions were observed for identified regulation (F(1,34) = 6.55, p = 0.02, ηp2 = 0.16), intrinsic regulation (F(1,34) = 11.21, p = 0.02, ηp2 = 0.25), confusion (F(1,34) = 6.72, p = 0.01, ηp2 = 0.17), fatigue (F(1,34) = 6.46, p = 0.02, ηp2 = 0.16), tension (F(1,34) = 10.44, p = 0.003, ηp2 = 0.24), vigor (F(1,34) = 7.22, p = 0.01, ηp2 = 0.18), and depression symptoms (F(1,34) = 5.53, p = 0.03, ηp2 = 0.14). Specifically, intervention participants’ motivation, mood, and depressive symptoms were significantly improved after 4 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicated that a 4-week VR-based exercise intervention was effective in promoting college students’ exercise motivation, improving overall mood states, depressive symptoms, cardiorespiratory fitness, and body composition.

Greater negative affect reduction expectancies moderate the interactive relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and distress tolerance in predicting loss-of-control eating.

Loss-of-control eating (LOCE) is often conceptualized as a negative reinforcement mechanism. However, LOCE does not consistently reduce negative affect (NA). One explanation for continued LOCE, despite a lack of NA reduction, may be expectations of NA reduction. Emotion regulation difficulties and low distress tolerance often predict LOCE, but have not been examined in the context of NA reduction expectancies. This study examined the main and interactive relationships between emotion regulation difficulties, distress tolerance and NA reduction expectancies on LOCE in US adults (n=3331). This study consisted of a battery of surveys administered to a national sample of US adults. Results indicate NA reduction expectancies are robust, eclipsing the predictive effects of other emotion regulation variables. Distress tolerance was only able to attenuate the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and LOCE when NA reduction expectancies were low. These findings identify NA reduction expectancies as having a strong relationship with LOCE, such that the protective factor of distress tolerance is only relevant when such expectancies are low. Clinical implications suggest that targeting NA reduction expectancies in eating interventions that bolster emotion regulation difficulties and distress tolerance may improve the effectiveness of said interventions. Additionally, stand-alone expectancy interventions should be assessed for the purpose of LOCE reduction. Directions for future research are discussed.

Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment Among Chinese Hospital Staff: The Mediating Roles of Job Satisfaction and Job Burnout.

PurposeThe affective commitment of hospital staff is important for human resources management and the sustainable development of hospitals. Psychological safety is an important factor that contributes to an emotional connection to an organization among staff, yet its functional mechanism remains unclear. This study explored how psychological safety influenced affective commitment through the mediating roles of job satisfaction and job burnout.MethodsA battery of surveys were administered to all medical staff (n = 267) in a local second-grade comprehensive hospital. The surveys included the Psychological Safety Scale, Affective Commitment Scale, Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory–Human Service Survey, and Perceived Organizational Support Scale.ResultsJob satisfaction and job burnout fully mediated the relationship between psychological safety and affective commitment among hospital staff. In addition, perceived organizational support moderated the mediating path via job burnout, and the indirect effect of job burnout decreased when perceived organizational support increased.ConclusionPsychological safety may enhance the affective commitment of hospital staff through improving job satisfaction or reducing job burnout. Perceived organizational support may counteract the deleterious effect of job burnout on affective commitment. Effective strategies to improve affective commitment among hospital staff may require consideration of job burnout and job satisfaction.

Pediatric Pain Screening Identifies Youth at Risk for Chronic Pain in Sickle Cell Disease

▪Introduction: Chronic pain related to pediatric sickle cell disease (SCD) contributes to high healthcare use and poor quality of life. Factors that contribute to the transition from acute to chronic pain in SCD remain largely unknown. Thus, chronic SCD pain remains a challenging problem that is difficult to manage due to the complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social determinants that contribute to its onset and maintenance. Common sequelae of chronic SCD pain in children and adolescents include functional impairment, frequent school absences, elevated depressive symptoms, and high levels of anxiety or catastrophic thinking. Early identification of youth who are at risk of developing chronic SCD pain is needed to help prevent the onset and exacerbation of chronic pain. This study aimed to identify youth at increased risk for chronic SCD pain and its sequelae through the integration of a brief psychosocial pain screening tool. Children and adolescents with SCD identified as “high risk” on the pain screening tool were expected to demonstrate a psychosocial profile consistent with chronic SCD pain, including increased pain frequency and duration, high levels of functional impairment, elevated anxiety and depressive symptoms, and reduced quality of life.Methods: Children and adolescents with SCD presenting to a pediatric SCD clinic completed the Pediatric Pain Screening Tool, a brief 9-item self-report questionnaire developed for rapid identification of risk in youth with pain complaints. Youth also completed a battery of surveys about their pain characteristics (pain frequency and duration), pain burden (SCD Pain Burden Interview for Youth), functional impairment (PROMIS Pain Interference), anxiety (Pain Catastrophizing Scale-Child; Fear of Pain Questionnaire), depressive symptoms (Children's Depression Inventory -2), and quality of life (Pediatric Quality of Life-SCD Module).Results: Youth (n=45) were on average 13.5 years old (SD = 4.4), 89% Black or African American, 80% HbSS, 85.5% prescribed hydroxyurea, and 16.7% receiving chronic transfusions. Youth were classified into Low (n=15, 33.3%), Medium (n=15, 33.3%), and High (n=15, 33.3%) risk groups based on pain screening. Risk groups did not significantly differ by age, race, hemoglobin type, or treatment with hydroxyurea or chronic transfusions. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) showed significant risk group differences on pain characteristics, pain burden, functional impairment, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and quality of life (Wilks' λ = 0.13, F16, 54 = 6.02, p < .001). Post-hoc univariate tests revealed that youth in the High Risk group had significantly higher pain frequency (M=15.2 days/month, SD= 2.2) and duration (over 1 year) compared to the Low (M=1.8, SD= 2.3; duration 1.2 months) and Medium (M=7.6, SD= 2.3; duration 2.5 months) Risk groups. The High Risk group also had significantly higher pain burden, functional impairment, catastrophic thinking, depressive symptoms, and poorer quality of health compared to the Low and Medium Risk groups. The High Risk group had significantly higher levels of fear of pain relative to the Low Risk group, but there was no significant difference in fear of pain between the Medium and High Risk groups.Conclusions: Brief psychosocial pain screening may be a helpful tool to support the early identification of youth at risk for chronic SCD pain. Youth classified as High Risk based on pain screening demonstrated a psychosocial profile consistent with other pediatric chronic pain conditions. Additionally, the High Risk group reported high pain frequency and duration that is consistent with the primary diagnostic criteria for chronic SCD pain (i.e., ≥15 days of pain per month, lasting ≥ 6 months). Further validation with a larger sample of children and adolescents with SCD is needed to support the utility of the Pediatric Pain Screening Tool in identifying youth at risk of transitioning from acute to chronic pain.Supported by NCATS Award UL1TR000454. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. DisclosuresNo relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Engagement in Health Care From the Perspective of Older Adults.

Patient engagement is essential for improving health outcomes and lowering health care costs. The use of patient portals is becoming increasingly important for patient health care engagement. A convenience sample of 100 community-dwelling older adults completed a battery of surveys to explore the use of patient portals as an engagement tool. Criterion sampling was used to select a subset of 23 participants from the initial telephone survey to participate in one of four focus groups based on prior experience with a patient health portal (yes or no) and level of health literacy (low or high). Two core concepts and corresponding themes emerged: Patient Engagement Behaviors included the themes of managing health care, collaborating with providers, relying on family support, being proactive, advocating for health care, and seeking information. Patient-Provider Interactions included the themes of providers coordinate care, providers they can trust, two-way communication with providers, providers know them well, and providers give essential health information. Findings revealed a synergistic relationship among Patient Engagement Behaviors, Patient-Provider Interactions, and family support that can be strengthened in combination to promote the health care engagement capacity of older adults. [Research in Gerontological Nursing, 14(3), 138-149.].

“It’s not a deaf thing, it’s not a black thing; it’s a deaf black thing”: a study of the intersection of adolescents’ deaf, race, and STEM identities

Deaf students are under-enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, making it important to explore how and why deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students connect (or fail to connect) with STEM. Engaging students in informal STEM with attention to how such experiences interact with their identities has the potential for broad impact on supporting DHH adolescents’ entry into STEM areas of postsecondary study and later into STEM careers. We explored the intersectionality of DHH minority racial/ethnic high school students’ identities and how it relates to their connection to STEM during a summer program and throughout the following school year. We report on three case studies, followed by a cross-case analysis. Participants were DHH high school students from underrepresented minority racial/ethnic groups. Our case studies were of one female and two male students. Data sources included a battery of surveys assessing scientific sensemaking, affinity toward STEM, and reading ability, as well as a focus group during summer STEM camp, individual interviews the following school year, and observations of photographs taken during camp by volunteers working at the camp. We pinpoint instances of connection to and disconnection from STEM in our three cases. Cross-case analysis implicates a need for applied learning opportunities that overcome language-related barriers for American Sign Language (ASL) users. They also suggest a role for STEM-relevant mentorship that is sensitive to adolescents’ intersectional identities, particularly employing adult mentors with whom adolescents can identify. Finally, findings suggest that adolescents are attempting to connect STEM with their everyday lives, particularly their career aspirations. Importantly, our three cases were better able to apply STEM to the real world and career goals in an informal summer STEM camp than in their formal science, math, and engineering classrooms. We discuss implications for curriculum, instruction, and teacher preparation.

The Impact of Moral Injury and Disclosure of Military Experiences on Veterans

While many veterans face physical, psychological, and spiritual difficulties, research suggests that the reintegration process from military service to civilian life, is a complex one. Our study focused on the role of moral injury and the disclosure of military experience in this transition, and how they might combine to affect veterans’ life satisfaction. We gave a battery of surveys to a large and diverse sample of veterans, measuring aspects of military culture and service, the moral ramifications of military experiences and attitudes and experiences with disclosing these experiences to civilians. Most important, we found that greater moral injury was associated with greater concerns about disclosure. Greater disclosure concerns were associated with lower perceptions of disclosure support, which in turn was associated with lower life satisfaction. We conclude that these findings suggest that a more nuanced account is required to fully understand the relationship between moral injury, disclosure attitudes, and life satisfaction. For promoting healthy reintegration and greater satisfaction with life, and we discuss several possibilities for future research.

TILES-2018, a longitudinal physiologic and behavioral data set of hospital workers

We present a novel longitudinal multimodal corpus of physiological and behavioral data collected from direct clinical providers in a hospital workplace. We designed the study to investigate the use of off-the-shelf wearable and environmental sensors to understand individual-specific constructs such as job performance, interpersonal interaction, and well-being of hospital workers over time in their natural day-to-day job settings. We collected behavioral and physiological data from n = 212 participants through Internet-of-Things Bluetooth data hubs, wearable sensors (including a wristband, a biometrics-tracking garment, a smartphone, and an audio-feature recorder), together with a battery of surveys to assess personality traits, behavioral states, job performance, and well-being over time. Besides the default use of the data set, we envision several novel research opportunities and potential applications, including multi-modal and multi-task behavioral modeling, authentication through biometrics, and privacy-aware and privacy-preserving machine learning.

Associations Between Social Anxiety, Depression, and Use of Mobile Dating Applications.

This study explores associations between symptoms of social anxiety (SA) and depression with participants' extent of dating app use, self-reported motivations for dating app use, and likelihood of initiating interaction with dating app matches. Three-hundred seventy-four participants completed an online battery of surveys that examined psychopathology and dating app use. SA and depression symptoms were positively associated with participants' extent of dating app use, and symptoms of psychopathology and gender interacted to predict various dating app use motivations. Symptoms of SA and depression predicted lower likelihood of initiating contact with a dating app match among men but not women. This study provides an initial step toward understanding the relationship between SA, depression, and use of dating apps.

Prevalence and correlates of body dysmorphic disorder in health club users in the presence vs absence of eating disorder symptomology.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) has been consistently linked with eating disorders, however studies that stratify associations between BDD in subjects with and without eating disorder symptomology are sparse. It was, therefore, the aim of this study to assess correlates of BDD (including social media use, motivations for exercise, exercise addiction, and sexuality) stratified by eating disorder symptomology. Cross-sectional study of 1665 health club users recruited online completed a battery of surveys. BDD prevalence rates were calculated and logistic regression models were created in two sub-samples: indicated or no-indicated eating disorder symptomology. The key findings showed the prevalence of BDD in participants with indicated-eating disorder symptomology was significantly higher than in participants without indicated-eating disorder symptomology, yielding an odds ratio of 12.23. Furthermore, several correlates were associated with BDD only participants with an absence of eating disorder symptomology (gender, BMI, exercise addiction, exercising for mood improvement, attractiveness and tone), with others being significantly associated with BDD in participants in the presence of indicated eating disorders symptomology (exercising for health and enjoyment, relationship status, and ethnicity). This study provides more evidence of the complex relationship that exists between BDD and eating disorders. Furthermore, it is recommended that practitioners working with BDD subjects should screen for eating disorders due to the high morbidity associated with eating disorders. Level III: case-control analyticstudy.