Daily Worries Research Articles

Daily Rumination Among Older Men and Women: The Role of Perceived Family and Nonfamily Social Partner Life Stress.

Women tend to ruminate more than men, and are generally more hypervigilant to the emotions of others in order to maintain positive social ties. Thus, compared to men, women may ruminate more when their social partners have greater life stresses. However, the literature on stressful events typically focuses on individuals' experiences and perceptions of stressors experienced by specific social ties such as spousal partners and adult children. The purpose of this study was to examine links between perceptions of a broad array of family and nonfamily social partner stresses and daily rumination among older men and women. Adults aged 65 and older (N = 293, 55% women) completed baseline assessments of family and nonfamily life stressors and 5-6 consecutive nightly assessments regarding rumination, interpersonal tensions, worries, and support provision. Multilevel structural equation models revealed that perceptions of greater family and nonfamily life stressors were associated with greater rumination. The links between family stress and rumination varied by gender: family stress was related to greater rumination among women and not men. Moreover, among women, family and nonfamily stress-rumination links were accounted for by greater daily worries about others, and among men, the nonfamily stress-rumination link was due to greater interpersonal tensions as well as daily worries. These findings may be due in part to gender role socialization and women's greater kin-keeping and investment in family ties.

The imaginary doctor and his speech mask in the works of A.P. Chekhov and in Russian humorous literature at the end of the 19th century

The proposed study delves into the depiction of an imaginary doctor in mass humor during the late 19th century and in Chekhov’s early work. Its aim is to provide an explanation for Chekhov’s innovative humor, which stands out in comparison to that of his contemporaries. The work’s scientific novelty lies in the clarification of the concept of “speech mask in literature”. This refers to a hybrid of two languages, one inherent to the hero and the other appropriated from someone else, presented in a dialogic manner. Chekhov’s contemporaries such as Leikin, Amfiteatrov, and Shcheglov created simplistic comic scenarios in their works. The intentions of these authors were aimed solely at entertaining and distracting readers from their daily worries. Chekhov takes a complex stance on mass humor. On one hand, he must adhere to its demands in order to publish his stories in magazines. On the other hand, he subverts existing conventions by complicating his heroes’ speech characteristics through a speech mask. Chekhov not only entertains his readers, but also provides depictions of provincial customs and various social types. The image of the doctor in Chekhov’s mature works is ambivalent and only indirectly related to the imaginary doctor from his humorous pieces.

Feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of school-based dance movement psychotherapy for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties.

BackgroundSchools have been increasingly employing dance movement psychotherapists to support children cope with daily worries and stress, express and understand their emotions, develop self-awareness and self-esteem. However, evidence on the impact of dance movement psychotherapy as a tool for prevention of mental health difficulties in childhood remains limited.MethodsSixteen children (aged 7–9) with mild emotional and behavioral difficulties from two primary schools were randomly assigned to a Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) intervention or to a waiting list, within a larger pilot cross-over randomized controlled study which aimed to (a) test whether all elements of study design can work together and run smoothly in a full-scale RCT; and (b) investigate the effectiveness of arts therapies in improving children’s health related quality of life (HRQOL; EQ-5D-Y), wellbeing and life functioning (Child Outcome Rating Scale; CORS), emotional and behavioral difficulties (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; SDQ), and duration of sleep (Fitbits). The therapeutic process was also evaluated through interviews with children, participant observations, the Children’s Session Rating Scale (CSRS), and ratings of adherence to the therapeutic protocol.ResultsThe findings indicated that DMP led to improvements in children’s life functioning, wellbeing, duration of sleep, emotional and behavioral difficulties, but not in quality of life. The improvements were maintained at the follow-up stages, up to 6 months post-intervention. Interviews with children also suggested positive outcomes, such as self-expression; emotional regulation; mastery and acceptance of emotions; improved self-confidence and self-esteem; reduced stress; and development of positive relationships. However, children would have preferred smaller groups and longer sessions.ConclusionThis study indicated that all outcome measures would be suitable for inclusion in a larger randomized controlled trial, though the EQ-5D-Y is not recommended as a stand-alone measure due to its lack of sensitivity and specificity for young participants. The adherence to the therapeutic protocol ratings differed between children and adults, highlighting the need to include children’s voice in future research. Strategies are also proposed of how to conduct randomization of participants in ways that do not hinder the therapeutic process.

Extracting Multiple Worries From Breast Cancer Patient Blogs Using Multilabel Classification With the Natural Language Processing Model Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers: Infodemiology Study of Blogs.

BackgroundPatients with breast cancer have a variety of worries and need multifaceted information support. Their accumulated posts on social media contain rich descriptions of their daily worries concerning issues such as treatment, family, and finances. It is important to identify these issues to help patients with breast cancer to resolve their worries and obtain reliable information.ObjectiveThis study aimed to extract and classify multiple worries from text generated by patients with breast cancer using Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers (BERT), a context-aware natural language processing model.MethodsA total of 2272 blog posts by patients with breast cancer in Japan were collected. Five worry labels, “treatment,” “physical,” “psychological,” “work/financial,” and “family/friends,” were defined and assigned to each post. Multiple labels were allowed. To assess the label criteria, 50 blog posts were randomly selected and annotated by two researchers with medical knowledge. After the interannotator agreement had been assessed by means of Cohen kappa, one researcher annotated all the blogs. A multilabel classifier that simultaneously predicts five worries in a text was developed using BERT. This classifier was fine-tuned by using the posts as input and adding a classification layer to the pretrained BERT. The performance was evaluated for precision using the average of 5-fold cross-validation results.ResultsAmong the blog posts, 477 included “treatment,” 1138 included “physical,” 673 included “psychological,” 312 included “work/financial,” and 283 included “family/friends.” The interannotator agreement values were 0.67 for “treatment,” 0.76 for “physical,” 0.56 for “psychological,” 0.73 for “work/financial,” and 0.73 for “family/friends,” indicating a high degree of agreement. Among all blog posts, 544 contained no label, 892 contained one label, and 836 contained multiple labels. It was found that the worries varied from user to user, and the worries posted by the same user changed over time. The model performed well, though prediction performance differed for each label. The values of precision were 0.59 for “treatment,” 0.82 for “physical,” 0.64 for “psychological,” 0.67 for “work/financial,” and 0.58 for “family/friends.” The higher the interannotator agreement and the greater the number of posts, the higher the precision tended to be.ConclusionsThis study showed that the BERT model can extract multiple worries from text generated from patients with breast cancer. This is the first application of a multilabel classifier using the BERT model to extract multiple worries from patient-generated text. The results will be helpful to identify breast cancer patients’ worries and give them timely social support.

Music and Urban Health: Listening and Driving to Music in Lagos, Nigeria

This study investigates how music affects urban health and liveability among drivers in Lagos city. According to historical documentations of the automotive industry, driving and music listening have remained subjects of discourses for decades. However, in-depth research on the influences of music listening on the mood and behaviour of drivers in a city like Lagos is limited. This study fills this gap by unveiling the effects of music listening on mood and behaviour while driving, the response of drivers to music while driving, and how music listening contributes to road safety, and urban health in relation to coping with stress. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, we carried out a survey of drivers of both public and private vehicles. Findings show that listening to music while driving affects drivers from two points of view: arousal and distraction. Respondents report that music listening serves as a companion while driving on a long-distance journey, and it also minimise attention to daily worries. By implication, when music is appropriately applied and utilised in vehicles while traveling, living in an ever-bustling urban city will become more tolerable. The study concludes by calling for the enactment of carefully designed protocols for listening to music while driving with attendant modalities for enforcing such policies to enhance road safety and to reduce stress in urban areas.

코로나19 팬데믹(COVID-19 Pandemic)에 따른 태권도 도장 지도자들의 일상과 걱정

본 연구는 코로나19 팬데믹으로 인하여 변화된 태권도 지도자들의 일상과 걱정을 심층적으로 탐색하고 국내 태권도 도장의 현실과 상황을 구체적으로 살펴봄으로써 태권도 도장의 환경을 이해하는데 기여할 수 있는 학문적 자료를 제공하는데 본 연구의 필요성과 목적이 있다. 이러한 연구의 목적을 달성하기 위하여 경기도에서 태권도 도장을 운영하고 있는 태권도 지도자 3명을 연구 참여자로 선정하였고 문헌연구와 심층면담을 실시하여 자료를 수집하였으며, 수집된 자료는 귀납적 범주 분석을 통해 자료를 분석하였다. 이러한 절차에 따라 도출된 요약은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 코로나19로 인하여 자발적, 행정적 명령에 의하여 휴관과 개관이 반복적으로 이루어지고 있고 이에 따라 태권도장 관원 수가 감소하고 있는 것을 발견하였다. 둘째, 태권도 도장의 휴관과 관원 수 감소로 인하여 경제적 피해와 손실이 발견되었다. 셋째, 태권도 도장의 지속적 운영을 위하여 위생, 방역 등의 예방활동을 성실히 하는 동시에 파트타임으로 배달과 대리운전 등으로 생계를 유지하고 있는 것을 발견하였다. 넷째, 코로나의 장기화와 기존 수련생들의 미복귀로 인해 생계에 대한 걱정과 태권도 도장 운영의 방향성 및 지속 여부에 대해 심각한 고민과 걱정이 일어나고 있는 것을 발견하였다. 다섯째, 태권도협회의 지원금이나 지원 물품 등에 대해 물질적, 심리적으로 만족감을 느끼지 않고 있었으며, 장기적인 관점에서 태권도 도장의 성실한 예방활동과 안전한 시설임을 알리는 협회 차원의 홍보가 절실히 필요한 것을 발견하였다.

The Eucalyptus Grove (an excerpt)

FICTION The Eucalyptus Grove (an excerpt) by Ruby Namdar I’ve seen it more than once: the raised axe swings and chops into the last remnant; Lying still in the dirt is the moving, glowing crown. – Rahel, Eucalyptus T he gray-green tops of the eucalyptus trees were the first thing Avi saw every year as the sluggish Fishermen’s Island ferry slowed down at the entrance to the port. Searching for the treetops, his eyes flitted over the green horizon, spotted gray by the rooftops of the sprawling vacation homes, and didn’t come to rest until finding them, as strange and familiar as always. Seemingly, the eucalyptus trees didn’t belong on the island: they were unusually tall and towered over the local brush; their leaves had a faded, arid look; the gray dirt of the grove was also different from the island’s dark, fertile soil. And yet, though the trees were utterly alien to the landscape and climate of Fishermen’s Island, nothing symbolized his bond to the place better, a bond that began over thirty years earlier when he and his first wife, Odelia, bought a house on the island and started spending their summers there. But something was different about the view this year, and Avi’s visual search went awry. His gaze sped back and forth over the horizon, going faster and faster, searching in vain for the silvery-greenish stain of the grove. They weren’t there, they were gone. His eucalyptus trees had disappeared as if they had been swallowed by the earth, as if they had never been there. Avi WORLDLIT.ORG 71 PHOTO BY MYRTLE SCHILLING ON UNSPLASH was gripped by an eerie, intense unease. The sudden disappearance of the trees disrupted the festive sense of anticipation that filled him every year when the ferry drew close to Fishermen’s Island, separating him from his daily worries and routine concerns and carrying him to this calm, wonderful place for which he had such intimate feelings, even though it was so different from the landscapes of his distant childhood. His large hands gripped the damp rail tightly. He leaned over and continued to scan the horizon as if believing he could will the lost trees back into existence. The ferry blew its loud, metallic foghorn, alerting the crew at the pier of its imminent arrival. He had to go find Lauren and the kid, who were probably still amusing themselves by throwing bits of bread to the seagulls that hovered over the ferry, hoping for scraps, and take them to the car down in the hold. Avi detached himself from the handrail, gazed for the last time at where the eucalyptus trees were supposed to be, and went to look for his young wife and their three-year-old, Alex. The short drive to the house was spent in unpleasant silence. He was distracted. He forgot to slow down before stop signs and had to make abrupt stops that made the car shudder, the bottles of wine in the back clink in protest, and Lauren to flare up in annoyance. Upon the long-awaited arrival at the house, the usual festive feeling was still absent. Avi clambered out of the car, stretched his legs, and looked around, but he wasn’t suffused with strange joy as he usually was; he didn’t take in the salty sea air with relish; he didn’t ramble busily between the rooms of the house, checking the taps and fixtures to make sure they were working properly; he didn’t even unload the wine from the trunk of the car, a crateful that he had selected with great care and pleasure at his wine shop in Princeton, a cherished annual rite forced upon him by the puritanical laws preserved since Prohibition in many counties and towns in the state of Massachusetts, including wide swaths of Fishermen’s Island where the sale of alcoholic beverages was completely banned. He helped the still-scowling Lauren with the suitcases, muttered a confused excuse that even he didn’t comprehend, got back in the car, and drove in the direction of the main road, not knowing where he...

The Eucalyptus Grove <em>(an excerpt)</em>

FICTION The Eucalyptus Grove (an excerpt) by Ruby Namdar I’ve seen it more than once: the raised axe swings and chops into the last remnant; Lying still in the dirt is the moving, glowing crown. – Rahel, Eucalyptus T he gray-green tops of the eucalyptus trees were the first thing Avi saw every year as the sluggish Fishermen’s Island ferry slowed down at the entrance to the port. Searching for the treetops, his eyes flitted over the green horizon, spotted gray by the rooftops of the sprawling vacation homes, and didn’t come to rest until finding them, as strange and familiar as always. Seemingly, the eucalyptus trees didn’t belong on the island: they were unusually tall and towered over the local brush; their leaves had a faded, arid look; the gray dirt of the grove was also different from the island’s dark, fertile soil. And yet, though the trees were utterly alien to the landscape and climate of Fishermen’s Island, nothing symbolized his bond to the place better, a bond that began over thirty years earlier when he and his first wife, Odelia, bought a house on the island and started spending their summers there. But something was different about the view this year, and Avi’s visual search went awry. His gaze sped back and forth over the horizon, going faster and faster, searching in vain for the silvery-greenish stain of the grove. They weren’t there, they were gone. His eucalyptus trees had disappeared as if they had been swallowed by the earth, as if they had never been there. Avi WORLDLIT.ORG 71 PHOTO BY MYRTLE SCHILLING ON UNSPLASH was gripped by an eerie, intense unease. The sudden disappearance of the trees disrupted the festive sense of anticipation that filled him every year when the ferry drew close to Fishermen’s Island, separating him from his daily worries and routine concerns and carrying him to this calm, wonderful place for which he had such intimate feelings, even though it was so different from the landscapes of his distant childhood. His large hands gripped the damp rail tightly. He leaned over and continued to scan the horizon as if believing he could will the lost trees back into existence. The ferry blew its loud, metallic foghorn, alerting the crew at the pier of its imminent arrival. He had to go find Lauren and the kid, who were probably still amusing themselves by throwing bits of bread to the seagulls that hovered over the ferry, hoping for scraps, and take them to the car down in the hold. Avi detached himself from the handrail, gazed for the last time at where the eucalyptus trees were supposed to be, and went to look for his young wife and their three-year-old, Alex. The short drive to the house was spent in unpleasant silence. He was distracted. He forgot to slow down before stop signs and had to make abrupt stops that made the car shudder, the bottles of wine in the back clink in protest, and Lauren to flare up in annoyance. Upon the long-awaited arrival at the house, the usual festive feeling was still absent. Avi clambered out of the car, stretched his legs, and looked around, but he wasn’t suffused with strange joy as he usually was; he didn’t take in the salty sea air with relish; he didn’t ramble busily between the rooms of the house, checking the taps and fixtures to make sure they were working properly; he didn’t even unload the wine from the trunk of the car, a crateful that he had selected with great care and pleasure at his wine shop in Princeton, a cherished annual rite forced upon him by the puritanical laws preserved since Prohibition in many counties and towns in the state of Massachusetts, including wide swaths of Fishermen’s Island where the sale of alcoholic beverages was completely banned. He helped the still-scowling Lauren with the suitcases, muttered a confused excuse that even he didn’t comprehend, got back in the car, and drove in the direction of the main road, not knowing where he...

Importance of patient reported and clinical outcomes for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer and their treating physicians. Do clinicians know what patients want?

IntroductionSeveral factors are included in decision making for treatment of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, including a trade-off between risks and gains of both clinical and functional outcomes. However, it is largely unknown which outcomes are most important to patients and whether this differs between patients and clinicians. MethodsBoth clinicians and patients treated for locally advanced rectal cancer were invited to fill out an online questionnaire, including a choice-based conjoint experiment. Participants were presented 14 comparisons of two hypothetical case presentations, characterized by different treatments and outcomes of care (6 attributes) and were asked to select the case with the best outcome at that moment. Hierarchical Bayes Estimation was used to calculate the relative importance (RI) of each of the six attributes. ResultsIn total, 94 patients and 128 clinicians completed the questionnaire. For patients, avoiding surgery with permanent stoma was most important (RI 24.4, 95%CI 21.88–26.87) and a 2-year difference in disease-free survival was least important (RI 5.6, 95%CI 4.9–6.2). Clinicians assigned highest importance to avoiding severe and daily worries about cancer recurrence (RI 30.7, 95%CI 29.1–32.4), while this was ranked 4th by patients (RI 17.9, 95%CI 16.5–19.4, p < 0.001). ConclusionWhen confronted with different outcomes within one case description, patients find the duration of disease free survival the least important. In addition, considerable differences were found between the importance assigned by patients and clinicians to clinical and functional outcomes, most notably in avoiding surgery with permanent stoma and worries about recurrence.

Marcel Schwob, epistolario

Un estudio de la correspondencia espistolar de Marcel Schwob, escritor francés (1867-1905). Se exponen y analiza la correspondencia familiar y profesional de este escritor con otros escritores y amigos de su época como Mallarmé, Valéry, Claudel, Renard, Gide, Stevenson. Parte de su correspondencia ha sido editada por Pierre Champion, Marcel Schwob et son temps y J. A. Green, Correspondance Inédite. Una determinada correspondencia fruto de su viaje al hemisferio austral fue publicada como libro de viaje con el titulo de Viaje a Samoa, donde encontramos las cartas enviadas a su mujer Marguerite Moreno. This article shows and analyzes the interesting correspondence that Marcel Schwob kept up with his family, friends and many writers with he stablished an epistolary relationship on account of his writing profession. Marcel Schwob had a relationship with the most prominent writers and artists in his time, between them, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Valéry, Claudel, Gourmont or Jarry; overall, it was an unrepeatable period for the literature and the art. It will make a special reference to R. - L. Stevenson because his works had an important influence on Schwob who considered Stevenson as a master. The letters sent to his family and to Marguerite Moreno, with he married and who stayed with him to his last day, present a simple man, a close person with daily worries and suffering from a serious disease.

Maxim Gorky’s Critique of the Meshchanstvo as a Particular “Arrangement of the Soul”

The author turns to Maxim Gorky’s literary–philosophical understanding of the meshchanstvo as a sociopsychological state and attitude to the world for which the main feature is the desire “to comfortably furnish the soul.” In this manifestation, the meshchanstvo instills “the poison of nihilistic individualism” in man, placing his Ego in the center of the world, an Ego devoid of social and cultural self-identification, which destroys a person from the inside. The most acute and irreconcilable of his evaluations of the meshchanstvo appeared in so called “Okurov Series”, which include The Town of Okurov, The Life of Matvei Kozhemiakin, and the unfinished Great Love. Gorky introduced a concept of “meshchanstvo” in two senses: a social/class sense and a spiritual/ethical sense, which, both individually and together, expressed a social force that was attempting to halt the passage of time. Recounting the daily worries and relationships of Okurov’s inhabitants, Gorky paints gloomy pictures of their everyday life, one colored by a state of “sleepy stupor,” which leads people toward a line behind which the original meanings of life disappear.

Preventing cognitive decline in chronic schizophrenia: Long-term effectiveness of integrated psychological therapy and emotional management training.

Effective group psychological therapies in the chronic phases of schizophrenia are rare. This paper describes the results of testing a group therapy that includes integrated psychological therapy (IPT) together with an adaptation of emotional management therapy (EMT), delivered in a sample of outpatients with chronic schizophrenia. 42 patients received the psychological intervention during eight months and they were assessed at baseline, posttreatment and 1, 3, 6 and 12 months follow-up. The program was well accepted, and there was only one dropped out during the therapy and 2 hospital admissions during the 20 months of contact with patients along the study. Improvements were observed in cognition, social functioning, and quality of life after the treatment, and these results were maintained to the long-term follow-up. To summarize, patients were better 12 months after the treatment than in baseline. the integrative psychological program applied was effective and it was well accepted and could be used in public mental health services as a protective factor, reducing hospitalizations, preventing cognitive decline, helping patients to manage their daily worries and making them feel more supported.

Mindfulness, Worries, and Parenting in Parents of Children With Type 1 Diabetes.

Parents of children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) often experience distress and worries, which may negatively impact their parenting behaviors. The current study investigates parental mindfulness (i.e., an enhanced attention to and awareness of current experiences or present reality) as a resilience mechanism. Using a daily diary approach, the predictive role of parental mindfulness for daily diabetes-related worries was examined, its impact upon protective parenting behaviors, and its buffering role in the relationship between daily worries and protective parenting behaviors. Participants were 56 parents of 40 children with T1D (2-12 years). Trait mindfulness was assessed with the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. Subsequently, parents completed a diary for 14 consecutive days, assessing parental worries about hypo- and hyperglycemia and general and diabetes-specific parental protective behavior. Multilevel analyses showed that parental diabetes-related worries fluctuated substantially across days and positively predicted daily protective behavior. Higher levels of parental mindfulness predicted less daily worries about hypoglycemia and lower engagement in general protective behavior and hypoglycemia avoidance behavior. In addition, the relationship between worries about hyperglycemia and general protective behavior was moderated by parental mindfulness. The present findings highlight the importance of daily parental worries in explaining parental protective behaviors on a daily basis. Mindfulness emerged as a promising resilience factor in parents of children with T1D, resulting in less daily worries and protective parenting. These results have important clinical implications and point to the promising role of mindfulness interventions in this context.

Do Co‐Worker Conflicts Enhance Daily Worries about Job Insecurity: A Diary Study

The long‐term negative consequences of job insecurity on employees’ health and well‐being have been demonstrated by several studies, but there is very little evidence on the daily experience of job insecurity and on the factors that may influence it. Therefore, we investigated whether short‐term changes occur in the experience of job insecurity and whether these are influenced by daily co‐worker conflicts. We carried out a diary study, in which 66 employees answered a questionnaire over the course of five working days. We conducted a multilevel analysis in which we included co‐worker conflicts as a predictor, and type of contract, emotional stability, and aggregated job insecurity perceptions as control variables. Our results revealed that job insecurity varies on a daily level, and that 23 per cent of the variance could be explained at a within‐person level. Co‐worker conflicts were a significant positive predictor for perceived job insecurity in subsequent days after controlling for aggregated job insecurity perceptions at person level. Reversed causation was not found. Practical implications for organisations should focus on the promotion of positive social relations in the work environment in order to mitigate or avoid the negative consequences of social stressors in uncertain times.

Adverse childhood experiences, daily worries, and positive thoughts: A daily diary multi-wave study.

To examine adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as a prospective predictor of the day-to-day associations between worries and positive thinking among late adolescents. Cumulative ACEs were measured from parent and youth reports between the ages of 9.9 and 18.1. Late adolescents (N=103) reported daily worries and positive thoughts across ten days. Adverse childhood experiences predicted higher and more variable levels of day-to-day worry. Increases in positive thinking on one day predicted less next-day worry for adolescents with low, but not high, ACE scores. Daily worry during late adolescence may be an important consequence of earlier exposure to ACEs. Early interventions focused on worry reduction and improved emotion regulation might mitigate worry among high-ACE youth.

Crafting Well-Being: Meanings and Intentions of Stay-at-Home Mothers' Craft-Based Leisure Activity

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to explore the meanings of and intentions behind craft-based leisure activities among stay-at-home mothers. The study attempts to shed light on the meanings of craft in relation to the participants’ and their families’ well-being. This qualitative study was based on the written narratives of 34 stay-at-home mothers, ages 23–40. The meanings of craft-making was described by home centeredness, items as personal fingerprints, mental resources, personal growth and identity, and social relationships. The intentions behind crafting were to help the stay-at-home mothers escape their daily worries, to pursue craft as a form of enjoying their family-centric life, and to enhance self-realization without the added stress of having to do so while negotiating their family's needs. The findings revealed that although the participants’ intentions were to enhance their subjective well-being, they in fact reflected their concern for the well-being of their families.

Adolescents' Daily Worry, Morning Cortisol, and Health Symptoms

PurposeTo assess short-term effects of daily worries on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity and later implications for adolescents' health symptoms. We hypothesized that heightened worry would be associated with stronger next-morning cortisol awakening response (CAR) to prepare the body for the demands of the upcoming day. Guided by biological adaptation to stress theories, we also hypothesized that dysregulated CAR would heighten associations between worries and later health symptoms, while also testing direct associations between worries and dysregulated CAR and health. MethodsNinety-nine late adolescents during waves 5 and 6 of a longitudinal study reported on 26 worries for 10 days. On 3 of the 10 days, participants also provided morning saliva samples that were assayed for cortisol to capture the CAR. At both waves, participants reported on 22 common health symptoms. ResultsMultilevel models showed significant within-person associations between high daily worries and next-morning heightened CAR for females. Contrary to expectation, worries were inversely related to concurrent health symptoms. For the whole sample, CAR moderated the effect of worries on later health symptoms: Worries were positively associated with health symptoms in adolescents with high CAR and inversely associated with health symptoms for those with low CAR. ConclusionsIn this sample of typically developing adolescents, worries alone do not increase the risk for common health complaints and may be somewhat protective in the short run. However, high worries in the context of high CAR appear to increase the risk for health symptoms.

Adolescents’ Daily Worries and Risky Behaviors: The Buffering Role of Support Seeking

With worries and risky behaviors becoming more prominent in adolescence, this study investigated bidirectional temporal connections between these two important adolescent concerns, that is, whether change in one concern is linked to change in the other either within the same day or during the next day. We also tested whether the coping strategy of seeking support from family and friends moderated the link between worries and risky behaviors. For 10 days, an ethnically and racially diverse sample of adolescents (N = 103; M age = 18.0) reported on 26 common worries, 18 risky behaviors, and the impact of seeking support from others. Multilevel models showed that worries and risky behaviors covaried on the same day and that worries predicted next-day risky behavior for male but not female participants. In contrast, risky behaviors did not predict next-day worries. For adolescents reporting negative experiences of support seeking, worries led to next-day risky behaviors and risky behaviors led to next-day worries. Female adolescents’ positive support-seeking experiences buffered the association between risky behaviors and next-day worries. These results were significant beyond any influence of daily negative mood or depressive and anxiety symptoms. The data demonstrate that worries and risky behaviors may be situational triggers for each other and highlight the importance, from intervention perspectives, of adolescents’ communication of concerns to others.

Gender Differences in the Life Concerns of Persons Seeking Alcohol Detoxification

BackgroundThis study explored the life concerns of persons seeking alcohol detoxification, a group with multiple life and psychosocial challenges. Gender may be an important contributor to the particular life concerns of persons with alcohol use disorders. MethodsUsing a 32-item, previously-validated life concerns survey that captures ten conceptual domains, we interviewed persons entering inpatient alcohol detoxification asking them to rate their level of concern about health and welfare items. ResultsParticipants (n=189) were 27% female, with a mean age of 43.5years. Overall, concern about alcohol problems was perceived as the most serious, followed by mental health, cigarette smoking, financial, and relationship problems. Men were significantly more concerned than women about six of the ten domains including money, drug use, transmissible diseases, and physical illness. ConclusionsRecognition of the daily worries of persons seeking inpatient alcohol detoxification persons could allow providers to better tailor their services to the context of their patients' lives. Focusing on pressing life concerns such as mental health, financial, relationship problems, and other drug use may influence detoxification services and aftercare treatment choices.

Comparing the life concerns of prescription opioid and heroin users

This study explored life concerns of prescription opioid (PO) and heroin users. Persons entering opioid detoxification rated their level of concern about 43 health and welfare items. Using exploratory factor analysis and conceptual rationale, we identified ten areas of concern. Participants (N=529) were 69.9% male, 87.5% non-Hispanic Caucasian, and 24.2% PO users. Concern about drug problems was perceived as the most serious concern, followed by money problems, relationship problems, mental health, and cigarette smoking. PO users expressed significantly lower concern about drug problems (p=.017) and transmissible diseases (p<.001), but were more concerned about alcohol use (p<.001) than heroin users. There were no significant differences with regard to the other 7 areas of concern. Recognition of the daily worries of opioid dependent persons could allow providers to better tailor their services to the context of their patients' lives.