Psychic Discomfort Research Articles

Prevalence of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress in military health personnel in training exposed to COVID-19

Objective The COVID-19 health crisis triggered an increase in prevalence of psychological distress in health personnel in training. This study aims to estimate the prevalence of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress in health personnel who have cared for patients with COVID-19. Method A cross-sectional study was carried out, from March to September 2021, among health personnel enrolled in some medical specialty of the Military Graduate School of Health. Symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress were measured, as well as associated demographic factors. Results A study sample of 170 health personnel in training were surveyed online; 76% reported being a doctor and 24% were nurses, 54% were female sex, 52% in the age group between 30 and 39 years, most with single marital status and no children. Of the participating health personnel, we found prevalence’s of 30% anxiety, 34% depression, and 6% post-traumatic stress. When performing Pearson’s correlation, it was found that variables such as infected family member, number of times infected, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7), were significantly associated with the total of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL-5) score. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant psychological impact, manifesting itself in the form of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress in military health personnel in training. Therefore, it is of great importance to detect at least this psychic discomfort from the pandemic in front-line personnel, so that decision-makers in health policies address them as priority problems for health personnel.

Seeking recognition through carceral health care bureaucracy: Analysis of medical care request forms in a County Jail

People experiencing incarceration in the U.S. have a constitutional right to have access to health care. Yet actualizing this right is constrained by the everyday reality of an environment designed to punish and limit autonomy. The principal means for accessing health care in a carceral facility is for an individual to submit a written request, which then gets handled through the jail's bureaucratic processes. In this paper, we provide quantitative and qualitative analyses of the content and circulation of one month of these written requests—called “medical care request” (MCR) forms—at an urban, U.S. jail to understand the meanings of health and health care for a group of individuals who are systematically marginalized. In one month in 2012 at this jail housing 140 individuals, 527 MCRs were submitted. We coded requests into categories: medications, amelioration of living conditions, specific symptoms, and requests for a specific health care service. The most common request was for pain medication. In qualitative analysis, four key themes emerged: reliance on the clinic to mediate the needs of daily life; deservingness of health care; hyperawareness of bodily and psychic discomfort; and temporal techniques for asserting control over individuals' time and bodies in jail. We show that MCRs are a key mechanism through which incarcerated individuals seek recognition of their physical and psychic suffering, and more broadly, of their very existences. When considered in the broader context of controlling carceral regimes and health inequities that characterize U.S. society, MCRs become dynamic terrain through which jail health care providers and incarcerated people negotiate the tensions of deservingness of care.

Children experienced new or worsening tic issues when they were separated from their parents during the Italian COVID-19 lockdown.

Decades of research have confirmed that children develop best when they are in safe, supportive, nurturing relationships (1). Positive relationships with parents are essential for children's growth, health and wellbeing (1,2), as they protect them and help them to regulate their emotions during stressful times. If children are unnecessarily and traumatically removed from their parents, their physical and mental health and wellbeing will suffer (1,2).

‘Killing off’ the (unbearable) sex worker: prostitution law reform in Ireland

ABSTRACTThis article draws on the work of Jessica Benjamin and of Sarah Ahmed to argue that the adoption of a Sex Purchase Ban (SPB) by the Irish state constituted a form of affective governmentality that was derived from a deep psychic discomfort towards the presence of ‘errant’ female sexuality. The ban, enshrined in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, followed a long campaign by radical feminist activists but also saw, for the first time in Irish history, pro-sex work activism in the form of sex worker organisation.

Un modèle de dispositif de prévention partenarial pédopsychiatrie et éducation nationale en faveur des collégiens et lycéens. Analyse de 26 années de fonctionnement

The organization presented here has existed since January 1991 in the department of Vienne. Its longevity permits us to have a critical opinion on the conditions necessary to install and thereafter to make function this dispositive. The originality of this is the association between two systems: permanence in secondary schools by nurses working in mental health services for the adolescents themselves (PEC) and another system for helping teachers and other members of the school community (EAR). This partner system allowed a better regulation for directing an adolescent with psychic discomfort to psychiatry services which has a real effect on the waiting list in medical and psychological centers. It has also sensitized mental health nurses to the impact of scolarization on presence of mind and allowed them to be conscious of difficulties which teachers have and the constraints of a school's organization. On the other hand, frequent meetings and discussions with mental health nurses and school personnel have resulted in a true formation within the school. We have also analyzed statistics after 11years of functioning. The results of our study are exactly identical to those of the literature.

Consideration Regarding Harassment Offence

Harassement represents an ex novo charge in the Romanian criminal law. It is a consequence of the present day life in which some individuals are unnecessary being put under surveillance, are being stalked in the streets, are being intimidated or scared through the means of modern mass media devices. This fact instills the individuals psychic discomfort, fears and worries.

The emotional resonances of breastfeeding in public: The role of strangers in breastfeeding practice

This papers considers some of the disparate emotional and affective resonances that breastfeeding can produce. On the one hand, breastfeeding is the iconic symbol of succour and comfort-giving. It is associated with better health for babies as well as lower rates of post-natal depression for mothers (as well as other health benefits). Yet it can also be a source of both physical and psychic discomfort, with the variance in the emotional resonance breastfeeding produces being bound up with where it takes place and the ‘sense’ of whether or not breastfeeding is welcome in that locale. In this paper I begin by putting the UK’s very low rates of breastfeeding beyond the first weeks post-birth in an international context, then trace in broad outline the spatial variability in breastfeeding rates across the UK. I then consider women’s experiences breastfeeding in public through a combination of interviews, survey-work, participant observation, and 770 posts to the UK parenting website mumsnet. I take conceptual work forward by arguing that strangers play an important role in breastfeeding assemblages in terms of shaping mothers’ experiences and feelings about breastfeeding practice. Drawing on concepts of affective atmospheres (Anderson 2009), public comfort (Ahmed 2004 & 2010), and secret-keeping (Deleuze and Guattari 1998), I argue that women’s (often negative) affective experiences breastfeeding in public is a contributing factor in why breastfeeding rates in the UK are so low. Finally, I highlight some of the social and material changes that would be needed to make public space in the UK more breastfeeding-friendly.

Telemetry System Utilization for Stress Monitoring of Pilots During Training

Air transport development brings an increased focus on the safety of piloting. The safety conditions can be assessed by mental workload. Psychic discomfort or excessive stress on pilots can negatively influence the course of flights. Therefore it appears convenient to monitor such parameters, which represent the mental wellbeing, or discomfort of a pilot. Since physiological measurements can provide a good information about mental workload or stress, this work primarily focuses on the observation of the change in heart rate, as it is an indicator of stress during the training of pilots, using the designed modular telemetry system. Another aim of this study is to evaluate the influence of a change in the avionic data visualization. This can have an unfavorable effect on the piloting of an airplane. This work, based on the evaluation of heart rate shows, that the switch from analog visualization to glass cockpit creates increased levels of stress in pilots, which was proved for all examined subjects except one. Significant level of correlation in the heart beat rate change in subjects in the course of training was also discovered.

Computer Addiction: Clinical Picture, Dynamics, Primary Clinical Forms

the rapid growth of Computer Addiction (CA) induces to study it in detail. to study the structural, phenomenological, clinical and dynamical features of CA and discriminate its primary clinical forms. clinical, mathematical, statistical. 49 patients were examined (45 males, 4 females). The mean age was 20.1 ± 6.7 years. The inclusion criterion was the pathological inclination to computer use, on the basis of F63.8 (ICD-10). Patients were divided into 2 groups: A – CA as isolated disorder (40.81%), B – CA with another psychiatric disorder (59.18%). all patients reported having a strong desire of using computer, constant mental return to positive emotions related with virtual activities. All of them had psychic comfort while using computer and psychic discomfort in its absence. All the individuals had difficulty in controlling time limit while using computer and feelings of tachychronia. Suppression of vital functions was observed in all cases. Poor memory and concentration problems were detected in 89.79% cases. 91.83% patients had physical discomfort in absence of computer usage. Many behavior problems related to restriction of computer usage were detected: progressive social isolation – 100%, conflicts with relatives – 100%, robbing – 22.44%, suicidal behavior – 4.08%. Two stages of CA development were identified: initial and stage of expanded clinical picture. Two clinical forms were recognized: primary and secondary. CA has staging, progressive course. Clinical phenomenological structure of CA includes syndromes of changed reactivity, psychophysical dependence and changed personality.

Arteterapia como acompañamiento para la construcción y empoderamiento de la subjetividad femenina

Studies dedicated to female subjectivity show that women are susceptible to suffer psychosomatic disturbances and states of disease, as a result of a "standard" mode of socialization (values, beliefs, assumptions...) which prevents the construction of own desires and an inhibition of the self, giving rise to "subordinate States of subjectivity". This article will expose, on the one hand, the application of art as a therapy for the treatment of women suffering from fibromyalgia syndrome. On the other hand, it will invite the reader to reflect on the relationship between traumatic chronology in the family saga of the subject, the incorporation of dominant values on women and the psychic discomfort through creative expression. Through the illustrative material of the artistic production of a case study, it will show art from the multifunctionality that can be characterized, being some of them: the possibility of art as an accompaniment for the creation and transformation of emotional conflicts and the building and empowerment of female subjectivity. This study is part of a doctoral process with international mention, currently funded by the Consortium for researchers in the European Union, the EDEN project. The participating universities are: Granada, Madrid, London, and Israel.

Amalia, la sorella isterica (I. Svevo, Senilità , 1898)

The essay is dedicated to Amalia Brentani, the sister of the protagonist of Senilita (1898), by Italo Svevo. She is, in fact, a crucial figure: because of the narrative and symbolic symmetries between the two siblings; because of the continuous expression of a desire sometimes missed, sometimes denied desire, sometimes affirmed in the form of physical and psychic discomfort. Hysteria is the main device used to develop her identity, but it is not just a theme: it becomes a real character in the plot. It hides the narrative truths unveiled by the rhetoric of the text. Amalia is not a person in flesh and bones, nor she is a real clinical case: she is a literary character born from the imagination of an author who belongs to his time, or even resambles it. In particular, it is the time when experimental psychology begins to tackle the complexity of the human soul (and therefore also of desire), first and foremost interrogating the psychophysical oddities of female nature.

Síndrome de Stendhal: origen, naturaleza y presentación en un grupo de neurólogos

Introduction Travelling, when searching for knowledge and emotion, can cause psychic discomfort that occasionally leads the traveller to seek medical attention. The psychiatrist Graziella Magherini described, in tourists visiting Florence, acute attacks including disorders of thought and affects, and even including, anxiety attack. She named it the Stendhal syndrome (SS) remembering the experience of the writer when visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Methods We attempt to investigate the incidence of SS or isolated symptoms related to it, in a homogeneous group of travellers. We review other artists who experienced emotion sickness during their trips throughout history. Results At the end of the III Neurohistory Meeting (Spanish Neurology Society, Italy, February, 2008) a questionnaire was handed out to the participant neurologists, in order to evaluate if during the practical workshops included in the meeting they had experienced symptoms as those described in SS. A total of 48 questionnaires were completed. The mean age was 50 ± 9 years and the male/female ratio 1.7/1. Twenty-five percent of the subjects considered they had experienced a partial SS. No panic attacks or thought disorders were identified, but they did suffer artistic effects, mainly in pleasure (83%) and emotion (62%). Conclusions No SS case was identified among neurologists attending this Neurohistory meeting, but most of them experienced mild disorders of affects and one out of four recognized they have had a partial form of the syndrome.

Stendhal syndrome: Origin, characteristics and presentation in a group of neurologists

Introduction Travelling, when searching for knowledge and emotion, can cause psychic discomfort that occasionally leads the traveller to seek medical attention. The psychiatrist Graziella Magherini described, in tourists visiting Florence, acute attacks including disorders of thought and affects, and even including, anxiety attack. She named it the Stendhal syndrome (SS) remembering the experience of the writer when visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Methods We attempt to investigate the incidence of SS or isolated symptoms related to it, in a homogeneous group of travellers. We review other artists who experienced emotion sickness during their trips throughout history. Results At the end of the III Neurohistory Meeting (Spanish Neurology Society, Italy, February, 2008) a questionnaire was handed out to the participant neurologists, in order to evaluate if during the practical workshops included in the meeting they had experienced symptoms as those described in SS. A total of 48 questionnaires were completed. The mean age was 50 ± 9 years and the male/female ratio 1.7/1. Twenty-five percent of the subjects considered they had experienced a partial SS. No panic attacks or thought disorders were identified, but they did suffer artistic effects, mainly in pleasure (83%) and emotion (62%). Conclusions No SS case was identified among neurologists attending this Neurohistory meeting, but most of them experienced mild disorders of affects and one out of four recognized they have had a partial form of the syndrome.

Estructura y funcionalidad de la familia durante la adolescencia: relación con el apoyo social, el consumo de tóxicos y el malestar psíquico

To find out the family structure and functionality of the family of the adolescent and their relationships with social support, consumption of drugs and alcohol, and psychic discomfort.Cross-sectional descriptive study.Pupils in obligatory secondary education in one rural and one urban area.Self-administered questionnaire in which details of, age, sex, family structure, family Apgar test, Saranson social support questionnaire (SSQ-6), drug and alcohol consumption, and the Goldberg anxiety-depression scale (GADS), were recorded.A total of 386 adolescents participated, and had a mean age of 14.3 years +/-0.3 and with 51+/-2.5. The nuclear family structure was predominant, with 84%+/-1.9%, single parent family in 7%+/-1.3%, extended in 7%+/-1.3%, and binuclear in 2%+/-0.6%, and was not associated with any of the variables studied. The family function was normal in 54.5%+/-2.5%, with slight dysfunction in 38.3%+/-2.5% and severe dysfunction in 7.2%+/-1.3%. The SSQ-6 (satisfaction 4.6+/-0.1; number of supports 3.1+/-0.1) varied according to family function (satisfaction: normal, 4.9+/-0.6; slight dysfunction, 4.4+/-0.5; severe dysfunction, 3.4+/-1.8: P< .01, ANOVA). Severe family dysfunction was associated with a higher consumption of drugs and alcohol: there was 27%+/-6.4% (P< .01, chi2 test) higher alcohol consumption, with a quantitative increase of 4.3+/-0.9 standard drink units/week (P< .001, ANOVA); 32%+/-5.9% (P< .01, chi2 test) more smoking, with an increase in consumption of 4.3+/-1.4 cigarettes/day (P< .001, ANOVA), and the consumption of other illegal drugs increased to 13%+/-4.7% (P< .087, chi2). A high prevalence of psychic discomfort (GADS: anxiety, 92.0%+/-1.4%, depression, 74.1%+/-2.2%); there were more depressive symptoms when the family function was more intense (P< .01, chi2 test).Structure does not influence family function during adolescence. However, the adolescent perception of the family structure influences social support, the consumption of drugs and alcohol and the presence of depressive symptoms.

A qualitative analysis of a dyad approach to health-related quality of life measurement in children with asthma

The measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in children often relies on parents as proxy respondents. Yet, several studies have shown poor to moderate correlations between parent and child responses, questioning the validity of the parent as proxy. This qualitative study examined a dyad approach, where parent and child were interviewed together. The objective was to observe and describe the interaction in a dyad interview, wherein both parent and child perspectives are used and where the parent may expand the child's cognitive abilities to create a more meaningful description of the child's HRQOL. Children aged 8–15 years with a clinical diagnosis of asthma and their primary caregivers were recruited from The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada. The dyads were administered the Health Utilities Index Mark II/III, the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire and the PedsQL™ Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Interviews were audio-taped and a second researcher recorded observations. Consistent with Grounded Theory methodology, observations were indexed according to categories and subcategories related to the response process. Data were analysed using open, axial and selective coding and constant comparison. Saturation was achieved at 16 dyad interviews. A cultural review and reflexive role taking were included to minimize interviewer bias and enhance rigour. Findings were grouped in the following 11 themes: recall difficulty, respondent bias, interviewer bias, frustration, coercion/parental influence, inter-relational conflict, psychic discomfort for health states, emotional sensitivity, parent as advocate, parent as enabler and comprehension. The specification of these categories facilitated the creation of an interview guide to accompany the administration of standardized HRQOL questionnaires to parent–child dyads. Such a guide would facilitate discussion between parent and child and enhance the consistency of the interview process.

"lives - like Dollars": Dickinson and the Poetics of Witness

"Lives - like Dollars":Dickinson and the Poetics of Witness Cynthia Hogue (bio) Abstract The term "witness" was often, when it first gained currency in the 1990s, conflated with the status of war's or injustice's victims, those speaking firsthand from the position of having suffered in some profound and unspeakable way. Dickinson does not liken her personal suffering to those suffering in the war, but the war haunts her own experience of pain; the poems of Fascicle 24 speak through the experience of war as it disturbs notions of truth, ethics, and the ways human life can be valued. For the last few years I have been looking, rather obsessively, at how women poets as civilians address the fact of a war from a relative position of both physical safety and psychic discomfort. Do I repeat myself? Very well, then, I repeat myself. I am unable to contain the contradictions. Author's note Emily Dickinson is now considered a poet whose poetry bears witness to the Civil War, following Shira Wolosky's ground-breaking argument in Emily Dickinson: A Voice of War (1984), and Dickinson's sense of the psychological wages that art pays to war to sing "off charnel steps" is surely among the more haunting phrases for what is an ethical as well as aesthetic dilemma.1 She is, she acknowledges, writing her poems from the vantage point of the death house stairs (and stares), and it is that proximity which makes all the difference to her awareness, the consciousness in her poems. I want to look at the way the war enters into a few poems—I'll focus on Fascicle 24—in the context of the notion of Dickinson as a poet of witness, an approach for which I have to thank the young Russian poet, Ilya Kaminsky, who recently remarked to me that he thought of her in this way. How so? I asked, intrigued. I've thought a good deal about the concept, but not in relation to Dickinson. It isn't what she saw externally, he said, but the way her poems are structured internally by the mind's unfolding visions. You're taking "witness" too figuratively, I said. You take them for imaginary when in fact many of the poems are carefully observed in their details. Not at all, he said, I look at how the poems see as compressed stories. [End Page 40] We were standing in the close stacks of Serendipity books in Berkeley, that fragile and rare thing these days, an independent bookseller—this one stuffed to the ceiling with used books. Books towered over us. The stacks, we discovered, moved. There were books behind books. Is there any Barbara Guest? I asked the owner. Did you try the women's bathroom? he asked me. No, I said, it did not occur to me to look in the women's bathroom. So, in he went to look for me. No Guest (he later found two of her books—one quite rare—in a pile under his desk). Ilya had wandered off to see if there was some Cid Corman.The moment's exchange had been supplanted by other matters. There was a lunch. There would be a reading. Then a cab to catch a plane. The term "witness" was often, when it first gained currency in the 1990s, conflated with the status of war's or injustice's victims, those speaking firsthand from the position of having suffered in some profound and unspeakable way. There is little doubt that some personal trauma caused Dickinson to suffer, and that her poems bear witness to the experience, although its origins are mysterious because she never names it. As Benjamin Friedlander observes of her method in the first study of Dickinson and trauma, she relies on analogy "to represent an experience whose chief characteristic is its resistance to representation" (177).2 Trauma is defined, he notes, as an "experience too extreme to be accommodated safely or adequately in consciousness or language" (182). The poem of witness serves then as "trace" of an event that remains beyond language but is, as Carolyn Forché writes, testament that something took place (31). The poetic...

Sedation of pediatric patients for minor laceration repair: Effect on length of emergency department stay and patient charges

Sedating children can facilitate minor laceration repair by minimizing physical and psychic discomfort. However, some clinicians are reluctant to use sedation, in part because of concern about increased patient charges and fear that the emergency department (ED) stay will be prolonged. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which sedative use during the repair of simple facial lacerations in children increased the length of ED stay and patient charges. This was a retrospective cohort study of 152 children with small, simple, facial lacerations. Patients with complex lacerations and those requiring specialty consultation were excluded. Patients, at the discretion of the treating physician, received either intramuscular ketamine (n = 14), intranasal or rectal midazolam (n = 38), or no sedation (n = 100). Length of ED stay and the total patient charges were analyzed. Groups were equal with respect to age, sex, and length of the wound. The mean patient time in the ED, from placement in examination room to discharge, was significantly longer for those given ketamine (149+/-37 minutes) and midazolam (98+/-31 minutes) compared with those given no sedation (82+/-28 minutes). Patient charges were also higher in those given ketamine ($695+/-172) or midazolam ($498+/-153) compared with those receiving no sedation ($390+/-86). The results of this study demonstrate that sedation with ketamine or midazolam increases the length of ED stay compared with using no sedation. However, the increased lengths of stay were modest, particularly for midazolam. Fear of prolonged recovery time should not dissuade clinicians from using either sedative for minor procedures. The patient charges are considerably higher with both midazolam and ketamine, but they may not reflect the actual cost of patient care.

Depression, self-derogation, substance use, and suicide ideation: lack of purpose in life as a mediational factor.

A theoretical model of adolescent behavior is examined separately for males and females (N = 722). The model hypothesizes that depression and self-derogation may lead to a lack of purpose in life, which, in turn, may lead to suicide ideation and substance use. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation procedures were used to examine the model, using Bentler's (1984) EQS computer program, which is available from BMDP. For both the men and women, the model adequately accounted for the data although there were some important differences between the sexes. In response to psychic discomfort (i.e., Depression and Self-derogation), men are more apt to turn to drugs and alcohol, whereas women consider suicide. Conversely, the situation changes in response to feelings of meaninglessness or a lack of purpose in life. Here, the females appear to turn to substance use, whereas the males react with thoughts of suicide.

Profile of the Alcoholic Jew

One factor contributing to low rates of alcoholism among Jews is the understanding that this in not a Jewish problem. Recognition and treatment of the disease, when it does occur, is delayed when the Jewish community and/or professionals deny its existence. Sixteen recovered alcoholic Jews described their family background, exposure to alcohol, attitudes about drinking and drunkenness, history of alcoholism and recovery. They drank primarily to relieve stress and psychic discomfort; social drinking was minimal. Shame was increased because they interpreted their behaviour as non-Jewish. Treatment was impaired because of the lack of culturally congruent facilities. No differences in attitude were detected between Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular Jews.

Mobility as a factor in adolescent identity problems.

Social mobility has been viewed as creating psychic discomfort for an individual. This study examined the self-images of 40 college students (20 upper-middle-class, 20 socially mobile) by means of a semantic differential designed to measure Erikson's concept of ego-identity. Contrary to expectations, the socially mobile group appeared to have more positive self-images than did the upper-middle-class group. The socially mobile viewed themselves as mote autonomous and more productive than did their upper-middle class counterparts, and this contributed to their view of themselves as competent individuals. In adolescence, social mobility may be related to psychic ease rather than to the postulated psychic discomfort.