Healthy Psychological Well-being Research Articles

Impact of Family Dysfunction on The Psychological Wellbeing of Pupils in Inclusive Schools in Lagos State, Nigeria

Family plays a significant role on how children develop and a steady family that is steady (responsibility and functionality) is extremely important to the development of a child. A child's home environment should offer a favourable framework for healthy psychological wellbeing. Thus, this study investigated the impact of family dysfunction on the psychological wellbeing of pupils in inclusive schools in Lagos State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study and simple random sampling technique was used to select 216 respondents from 12 inclusive schools in Lagos State. Two questionnaires titled Family Dysfunction and Psychological Wellbeing Scales (PWBS) were used. Percentage analysis was used to answer the research questions and PPMC was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 alpha level. The study revealed that the level of family dysfunction among pupils in inclusive school in Lagos was relatively high, the state of psychological wellbeing of pupils in inclusive schools in Lagos was relatively low and there was significant negative impact of family dysfunction on psychological wellbeing of pupils in inclusive schools in Lagos State. The study concluded that social support (emotional support) should be highly encouraged by the school authorities to emotional support struggling pupils and their counterparts.

The roles of child temperament, parent stress, and parenting style in family mealtimes

Family mealtimes are associated with benefits for children, including healthy eating, fewer behavior problems, and healthy psychological well-being. However, the interactions during family mealtimes, and the parent and child characteristics, which may affect both the family mealtime environment and the associated benefits in children are not fully understood. The goal of this study was to examine the role of child and parent characteristics on the family mealtime environment. We tested several mediation models to explain how child temperament (negative affectivity), parent stress, and the dimensions of parent feeding style (responsiveness and demandingness) interact and influence each other to impact the structure and quality of the mealtime environment. Parents (68 mothers; 82 fathers) of children between 2 and 6 years completed an online survey. Measures included the Children's Behavior Questionnaire, Perceived Stress Scale, Caregiver's Feeding Styles Questionnaire, and The Meals in Our Household Questionnaire. Child negative affectivity was associated with poorer mealtime quality and structure. These associations were mediated through parent responsiveness, but not demandingness. The role of demandingness in family mealtimes may depend on parent responsiveness. When examined together in a serial mediation model, child negative affectivity increased parent stress, which reduced responsiveness, and led to poorer mealtime quality and structure. These results emphasize the complex relationships between child temperament, parent stress, and the dimensions of parenting styles that occur within the mealtime context. This line of research is essential for understanding family mealtime dynamics and informing future studies aimed at creating positive interactions between parents and children during mealtimes.

Differentiating the impact of family and friend social support for single mothers on parenting and internalizing symptoms

• Family and friends are important yet distinct sources of social support for single mothers. • Both family and friend support related to more parenting support, but only friend support related to fewer internalizing symptoms. • There was a significant interaction between family and friend support on internalizing symptoms. When friend support was high, family support augmented friends’ benefits on single mothers’ internalizing symptoms. • Latent profile analysis indicated single mothers who primarily relied on family support were at higher risks for internalizing symptoms. There is growing interest in what helps parents maintain good parenting when they encounter stressors. The United States has the world's highest rate of single-parent households. These families often experience higher adversity and, in turn, mental distress. Supportive relationships are widely recognized as indispensable for healthy psychological well-being; however, the sources of support have often not been differentiated in research. The present study investigated the relative roles of family support and friend support in predicting single mothers’ internalizing symptoms and parenting support. The sample included 200 single mothers from a Midwest state recruited during Fall 2019. Hierarchical linear regressions found both family and friend support predicted more parenting support, whereas only friend support predicted fewer internalizing symptoms. In addition, family and friend support interacted in predicting internalizing symptoms. When friend support was high/sufficient, family support could augment friends’ positive impact on single mothers’ mental health. Latent profile analysis identified four profiles: kinship network, friendship network, socially isolated , and widely connected . The widely connected profile had the most optimal outcome. Both socially isolated and kinship network profiles were presented with unique risks. Taken together, our findings underscored the importance of friend support and the potential risk of only accessing family support. Implications for social support interventions for single mothers are discussed.

Gratitude and Its Relationship with Students’ Psychological Well-Being and Happiness

This study examines gratitude among undergraduate students of a public university in Malaysia and its relationship with psychological well-being and happiness. This study took 149 samples randomly from 235 undergraduate students who were asked to participate in answering Gratitude Questionnaire-6, Ryff's Scale of Psychological Well Being, and Subjective Happiness Scale. Correlation analysis shows a positive relationship between gratitude and students' psychological well-being and happiness. This study supports the previous studies that practicing gratitude is a positive way to enhance students' healthy psychological well-being and happiness in their life. This study recommends the university management to take consideration to cultivate gratitude practice embedded in the curriculum or in the extracurricular activities.

Joint Exposure to Positive Affect, Life Satisfaction, Depressive Symptoms, and Neuroticism and Incident Type 2 Diabetes

Objectives: Using a comprehensive indicator to measure the association between psychological wellbeing score and type 2 diabetes and whether this association was modified by genetic predisposition. Methods: In UK Biobank, a total of 127,496 participants were included in this prospective cohort study without type 2 diabetes at baseline. The healthy psychological wellbeing score was calculated according four factors: happiness, life satisfaction, broad depression and neuroticism. Cox proportional hazard models were used to test the association between quartile of weighted psychological wellbeing score and type 2 diabetes risk. Interaction analysis between psychological wellbeing and weighted genetic risk score to diabetes was further performed. Results: During the median follow-up of 10.0 years (about 1.3 million person-years), 2,547 incident type 2 diabetes were documented. Moderate to extreme unhappiness, satisfaction score ≤3, presence of broad depression and neuroticism score ≥3 were all significantly associated with increased risk of incident diabetes when mutually adjusted. When considered as a comprehensive indicator, there was a significant association between weighted psychological wellbeing score quartiles and type 2 diabetes. Compared with individuals in the highest quartile, which means healthiest, the fully adjusted HRs (95% CI) of type 2 diabetes in lower quintile groups were 1.39(1.19-1.63), 1.44(1.23-1.67) and 1.86(1.60-2.17), respectively. In the stratified analysis, we observed the significant interactions among age, physical activity, HbA1c and type 2 diabetes (P interaction <0.001, 0.038 and <0.001, respectively). However, there was no significant interaction between psychological wellbeing score and genetic susceptibility to diabetes (P interaction 0.691). Conclusion: Lower psychologic wellbeing score (worse overall psychologic wellbeing) was associated with an increased risk of incident type 2 diabetes in a dose-response fashion, independent of traditional risk factors. The association was strengthened by the genetic diabetes susceptibility, even though the interaction was statistically nonsignificant. Funding: This study was supported by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (19140902400, 20YF1423500), Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau (2020074), Clinical Research Plan of SHDC (SHDC2020CR4006), National Natural Science Foundation of China (91857117). Declaration of Interest: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported for any author. Ethical Approval: The North West Multi-Center Research Ethics Committee Study approved the UKB study, and all participants provided a written informed consent.

Father–daughter relationship dynamics & daughters’ body image, eating patterns, and empowerment: An exploratory study

ABSTRACT Research indicates the role of parents in women’s body dissatisfaction and maladaptive eating patterns. Fathers, in particular, have unique roles in determining daughters’ protection against these health risks. Additionally, self-esteem, feminist values, and psychological empowerment are linked with body dissatisfaction and maladaptive eating patterns among women. This study examined the contributions of these psychological factors, family relational factors, and the role of fathers in empowering their daughters. Seventy-seven young adult women from intact families were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and a university campus and completed self-report surveys. Participants were between the ages of 18 and 38 and primarily White. Results indicate that women with higher self-esteem and psychological empowerment endorsed greater body satisfaction. Women with higher self-esteem and endorsement of feminist values also reported significantly fewer maladaptive eating patterns. Greater family conflict was related to more maladaptive eating patterns. Analyses indicated increased body dissatisfaction and increased eating disorder risk decreased the odds of women reporting agency and fatherly supportive resources in their father–daughter communication narratives. Narrative data analysis revealed that fathers play a crucial role in promoting daughter’s empowerment, egalitarian gender-role socialization, and healthy psychological wellbeing. Implications for research and clinical community-based treatment and prevention strategies are discussed.

IMPACT OF INFORMAL AND FORMAL SOCIAL NETWORKS DURING A WILDFIRE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL RECOVERY

Having the support of a social network can play an important role towards psychological well-being for those impacted by a disaster. The purpose of this study was to investigate how type (emotional, tangible, informational) and source (family, friends, others) of social support during three Southern California wildfires impacted the psychological well-being of three victim-groups (based on severity of exposure) of community-residing adults (N= 203; meanage = 63.4 years; range 50-94 years) who responded to surveys about their experiences during the 2007, 2014, and 2017 northern San Diego County, CA wildfires. Analyses revealed that emotional social support from friends and neighbors was the most frequently received type and source of support, especially for the primary victim-group, those with residential loss. All victim-groups exhibited healthy psychological well-being. Discussion will focus on how informal groups differed and were similar to formal groups in providing social support during a disaster to encourage psychological recovery.

The neural mechanisms able to predict future emotion regulation decisions.

Emotion regulation is crucial in maintaining healthy psychological well-being, and its dysregulation is often linked to a range of neuropsychiatric disorders including depression. The neurobiological underpinnings of cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy, have been shown to include the amygdala and regions of the prefrontal cortex. A novel study by Doré, Weber, and Ochsner (J Neurosci 37: 2580-2588, 2017) has demonstrated that neural activity in these regions during uninstructed visualization of affective stimuli can successfully predict which individuals are more likely to subsequently employ emotion regulation, and under what circumstances.

Psychological well-being and chronic condition in Portuguese adolescents

Objective: To examine the differences in the psychological well-being of Portuguese adolescents' (1) living with a chronic condition (CC) and (2) living with a CC and feeling it affects/not affects school participation. Methods: There were 5050 Portuguese adolescents as participants of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children/WHO. Results: Adolescents without CC often feel rarely or never ‘sad/depressed’, ‘irritated/bad humour’, ‘nervous’, ‘fearful’ or ‘so sad that it seems I can't take it’, compared with their healthy peers. Young people living with CC and feeling that it does not affect participation in school, often feel rarely or never ‘sad/depressed’, ‘fearful’ or ‘so sad that it seems I can't take it’, comparing with the ones with CC and feeling it affects school. All of these symptoms were higher in adolescents living with a CC. Conclusions: Adolescents living with a CC and feeling that it affects participation in school can be at a higher risk for a healthy psychological well-being. Future early interventions based on a ‘health assets’ approach should be implemented.