Psychosocial Stress Events Research Articles

Psychiatric care in Croatia during COVID-19 lockdown and earthquake: significant decrease in admissions to University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce in Zagreb

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on both physical and mental health of people around the world.ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to evaluate the number and characteristics of people seeking emergency psychiatric help during combined psychosocial stressful events in March 2020.MethodsData for 3927 patients seeking emergency psychiatric help were collected and analyzed for the months preceding, during and after lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic and concomitant earthquake that took place on 22nd March 2020 in Zagreb, and compared with the same months of 2019.ResultsA significant decrease in both the number of visits and admissions to the hospital was found for the month of lockdown. There was a significant decrease in the number of out-patients visits and day hospital admissions. Compared with other months, more women and younger patients sought help. There was a significant rise in the number of patients presenting with suicidal thoughts, as well as a larger percentage of involuntary admissions.ConclusionsOverall less people sought psychiatric help in the face of an unpredictable acute threat, which was interpreted in the light of prioritizing fear of infection over mental health issues. Alternatively, it is possible that people threatened with immediate danger mobilize short- term compensatory psychological resources which help deal with or put off mental illness. This research was conducted as part of the project of the Croatian Science Foundation CORONA-04-2086 Life in the time of COVID-19-social implications on the security and well-being of vulnerable groups in the European context.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Linking Psychosocial Stress Events, Psychological Disorders and Childhood Obesity.

There is scientific evidence that supports a strong association between early exposure to stressful life events and the presence of health complications throughout adulthood and, to a lesser extent, in adolescence and childhood. The aim of this study was to examine the accumulation of Psychosocial Stress Events (PSE) and the prevalence of mental disorders in children from 8 to 12 years. The association between these factors and child weight measurements was analysed. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 children classified by weight status (obesity, overweight and normal-weight). The assessment was carried out in primary care centres and primary schools. An experienced team carried out a structured medical-psychosocial history and a semi-structured interview aimed at identifying an early diagnosis of psychological disorders. Children filled out a questionnaire to evaluate PSE. The obesity group presented the greatest accumulation of PSE and highest prevalence of psychiatric diagnosis, compared to overweight and normal-weight children. To exceed four or more stressful events was positively associated with psychological problems and child body mass index (BMI z-score). A predictive model confirmed the interaction between a larger number of PSE and the occurrence of a psychiatric diagnosis as variables that predispose children by 26.2 times more to increased weight status. In conclusion, the accumulation of PSE in the family, school and social environments of the children was related to greater psychological distress. If not managed, the likelihood of suffering from other health complications, such as excess weight, may increase. It is important to monitor these variables to ensure positive health outcomes while specifically addressing childhood obesity. This is especially relevant for children from a disadvantaged social background and disharmonious family environments.

Aged rats are hypo-responsive to acute restraint: implications for psychosocial stress in aging

Cognitive processes associated with prefrontal cortex and hippocampus decline with age and are vulnerable to disruption by stress. The stress/stress hormone/allostatic load hypotheses of brain aging posit that brain aging, at least in part, is the manifestation of life-long stress exposure. In addition, as humans age, there is a profound increase in the incidence of new onset stressors, many of which are psychosocial (e.g., loss of job, death of spouse, social isolation), and aged humans are well-understood to be more vulnerable to the negative consequences of such new-onset chronic psychosocial stress events. However, the mechanistic underpinnings of this age-related shift in chronic psychosocial stress response, or the initial acute phase of that chronic response, have been less well-studied. Here, we separated young (3 month) and aged (21 month) male F344 rats into control and acute restraint (an animal model of psychosocial stress) groups (n = 9–12/group). We then assessed hippocampus-associated behavioral, electrophysiological, and transcriptional outcomes, as well as blood glucocorticoid and sleep architecture changes. Aged rats showed characteristic water maze, deep sleep, transcriptome, and synaptic sensitivity changes compared to young. Young and aged rats showed similar levels of distress during the 3 h restraint, as well as highly significant increases in blood glucocorticoid levels 21 h after restraint. However, young, but not aged, animals responded to stress exposure with water maze deficits, loss of deep sleep and hyperthermia. These results demonstrate that aged subjects are hypo-responsive to new-onset acute psychosocial stress, which may have negative consequences for long-term stress adaptation and suggest that age itself may act as a stressor occluding the influence of new onset stressors.

Multisystem physiological dysfunction is associated with depressive symptoms in a population‐based sample of older adults

To evaluate the association between multisystem physiological dysfunction and depressive symptom severity in the US older adults. We examined 2405 adults of age 60 years and older by using the data from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We constructed a summary score of "physiological dysfunction," encompassing cardiovascular function, glucose regulation, liver function, and renal function. Overall depressive symptoms were obtained from the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale, and factor analysis was used to derive affective and somatic symptom scores. We employed multiple linear regression models to estimate associations between physiological dysfunction scores and affective, somatic, and overall depressive symptoms, while adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic factors, and other potentially confounding factors. Greater multisystem physiological dysfunction scores were associated with an increased severity of overall, affective, and somatic depressive symptoms. These associations persisted after adjusting for all covariates: beta = 0.23 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.13, 0.32); beta = 0.08 (95% CI = 0.04, 0.11); beta = 0.12 (95% CI = 0.06, 0.18), respectively. Our results suggest that the multisystem physiological dysfunction is associated with late-life depressive symptoms. Additional longitudinal studies of links between allostatic load, psychosocial stress events throughout the life course, and late-life depressive symptoms may shed further light on this association.

Intergroup and Within-Group Perceived Discrimination Among U.S.-Born and Foreign-Born Latino Youth

Despite the deleterious mental health and health consequences experiences of perceived discrimination can have on ethnic and racial minorities in the United States, a dearth of qualitative studies exist to develop a better understanding of such experiences. As part of a larger study examining psychosocial stress events, and in an effort to fill this gap, this study sought to explore stressful life experiences of intergroup and within-group perceived discrimination among a heterogeneous sample of U.S.-born and foreign-born Latino youth ( n = 170) residing in Los Angeles, California, and Trenton, New Jersey. Focus group methodology was implemented, and data were analyzed using grounded theory and constant comparison method. Findings suggest that Latino youths’ experiences of intergroup and within-group discrimination vary by nativity status and region of the United States. Findings may be helpful for researchers, practitioners, and others working with Latino youth.

Panic disorder during pregnancy and postpartum period

Background. – Earlier studies on the influence of pregnancy and postpartum period on the course of panic disorder have been inconsistent. The present study aims to quantify panic manifestations in these periods in large sample of women. Method. – Panic manifestations, including exacerbations and new manifestations of panic disorder, were assessed retrospectively in a sample of 128 women with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia, 93 of whom had had 195 pregnancies. Results. – Panic manifestations were fewer during pregnancy and more frequent in the postpartum period when compared with the control period. Women who had never been pregnant had significantly more panic manifestations than women with prior pregnancies. Breastfeeding and miscarriages did not have a significant effect. Women with postpartum panic reported more psychosocial stress events during this period. Conclusions. – Possible reasons for postpartum panic and the protective effects of pregnancy are discussed, including psychosocial or hormonal factors and other neurobiological changes. Postpartum panic coincides with a sudden drop of hormones after delivery.

Psychological and social stressors and psychiatric comorbidity in patients with migraine without aura from headache centers in Italy: a comparison with tension-type headache patients

A multicenter study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of psychosocial stressors and psychiatric comorbidity in patients suffering from migraine without aura (MWO) according to the International Headache Society criteria. Two hundred four adult MWO outpatients underwent a structured psychiatric interview (CIDI-c) to determine the presence of anxiety, and mood and somatoform disorders according to DSM-III-R criteria. An ad hoc questionnaire was used to assess psychosocial stress events. Anxiety disorders were found in 39.2% of the sample, mood disorders occurred in 23.0% and somatoform disorders in 21.6%. Psychosocial stressors were identified in 22.5% of the migraineurs without any difference between patients with and without psychiatric comorbidity. No correlation was found between psychiatric comorbidity and migraine duration or frequency. When the migraine patients were compared with a homogeneous group of tension-type headache sufferers, a higher frequency of psychiatric comorbidity was found in the latter group (56.4% vs. 77.8%, p = 0.01). These data suggest that migraine as well as tension-type headache are associated with an increased vulnerability to psychiatric disorders. Whether this is related to a common genetic susceptibility or is the effect of a psychoneurobiological loop related to the stress response activation remains to be investigated.

The effect of stress on the onset and progression of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: results of a German pilot case-control study.

The association between Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and stressful life events was examined in a pilot case-control study in Germany. The study sample consisted of 37 CJD cases and 37 controls, both groups were frequency-matched for age and sex. In standardised interviews of close relatives of the cases and the controls, all stressful life events were assessed and subsequently grouped into one of the following three subgroups: psychosocial stress events, medical operations with hospitalisation, and other serious medical examinations. A significantly higher proportion of CJD cases experienced stressful life events during the last six months before disease onset than controls (65% vs. 32%, p = 0.01), yielding an odds ratio (OR) of 3.85 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.33-11.30). We found the clearest distinction between cases and controls for the subgroup of medical operations where an OR of 6.97 (95% CI: 0.76-329.20) was observed. Further data indicated that stressful events seem to influence not only the onset of CJD but also the progression of the disease. Although based on a rather small study sample, this pilot case-control investigation suggests evidence that stressful life events in the last six months before disease onset may influence CJD occurrence and may modify the course of disease. This 'stress hypothesis', which is in line with findings from other epidemiological and experimental studies in CJD, is thus a promising direction for future CJD research as it could enlighten the pathophysiological mechanisms and point towards strategies for the prevention and therapy of CJD.