A growing literature examines the correlates and sequelae of spiritual struggles. Particular attention has been focused on three specific types of such struggles: (a) divine, or troubled ...relationships with God; (b) interpersonal, or negative social encounters in religious settings; and (c) intrapsychic, or chronic religious doubting. To date, however, this literature has focused primarily on one or another type, leaving open the possibility that these are highly correlated and may tap a single, underlying dimension. Further, because studies have relied mostly on small, specialized samples, it is not clear whether the associations between spiritual struggles and psychological functioning vary across key subgroups in the US population. Using data from the 1998 NORC General Social Survey we address these issues. Findings reveal strong and independent associations between each type of spiritual struggle and psychological distress, and they also show that these patterns are robust across most population subgroups, except for variations by age and marital status. Implications, study limitations, and directions for further research are identified.
Introduction: Work-related musculoskeletal pain is a serious public health issue affecting healthcare providers, particularly, sonographers. The lack of research into this issue, together with the ...limited knowledge of factors associated with pain among Saudi sonographers promoted the authors to perform this study. Aim: To explore the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal pain and potential factors related to this disorder among sonographers. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study targeted 102 sonographers working in the Radiology Departments of hospitals located in the Makkah province from September 2019 to February 2020. The questionnaire comprised 27 questions11 questions related to demographic and psychosocial, nine on work scheduling and task factors (average time per scan and amount of job tasks), one on anatomical areas affected by pain over the last six months, six questions on work-related posture factors (position of the body during scanning). Bivariate analysis was considered to investigate the relationships between workrelated musculoskeletal pain and potential factors affecting the musculoskeletal system of sonographers. Results: The prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal pain among Saudi sonographers was 81 (98.78%), and the pain was located at a single or multiple body sites, with the highest being in shoulders (70, 86.4%), followed by lower back (61, 75.3%), hand and wrist (58, 71.6%). Mental stress was only associated with shoulder pain (p-value: 0.03), and demographic factors were related to lower back, hand and, wrist pain (p-value ≤0.003). Upper back pain was significantly related to workrelated posture factors (p-value ≤0.008), and both work related posture factors, as well as task factors, have shown a significant relationship with lower back pain (p-value ≤0.04). Conclusion: Work-related musculoskeletal pain is highly prevalent among Saudi sonographers and the pain from different anatomical parts were found to be associated with different factors including psychological, demographic, task, and work-related posture factors.
Despite decades of theory and empirical research on employee burnout, its temporal and developmental aspects are still not fully understood. This lack of understanding is problematic because burnout ...is a dynamic phenomenon and burnout interventions may be improved by a greater understanding of who is likely to experience changes in burnout and when these changes occur. In this article, we advance existing burnout theory by articulating how the 3 burnout dimensions should differ in their pattern of change over time as a result of career transition type: organizational newcomers, internal job changers (e.g., promotions or lateral moves), and organizational insiders (i.e., job incumbents). We tested our model in a broad sample of 2,089 health care employees, with 5 measurement points over 2 years. Using random coefficient modeling, we found that burnout was relatively stable for organizational insiders but slightly dynamic for organizational newcomers and internal job changers. We also found that the dimensions of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were more sensitive to career transition type than reduced personal accomplishment. Finding some differences among different types of employees as well as the dimensions of burnout may begin to explain longstanding inconsistencies between theory and research regarding the dynamics of burnout, offering directions for future research that address both dynamism and stability.
The health disparities literature has identified a common pattern among middle-aged African Americans that includes high rates of chronic disease along with low rates of psychiatric disorders despite ...exposure to high levels of cumulative socioeconomic status (SES) risk. The current study was designed to test hypotheses about the developmental precursors to this pattern. Hypotheses were tested with a representative sample of 443 African American youths living in the rural South. Cumulative SES risk and protective processes were assessed at ages 11-13 years; psychological adjustment was assessed at ages 14-18 years; genotyping at the 5-HTTLPR was conducted at age 16 years; and allostatic load (AL) was assessed at age 19 years. A latent profile analysis identified 5 profiles that evinced distinct patterns of SES risk, AL, and psychological adjustment, with 2 relatively large profiles designated as focal profiles: a physical health vulnerability profile characterized by high SES risk/high AL/low adjustment problems, and a resilient profile characterized by high SES risk/low AL/low adjustment problems. The physical health vulnerability profile mirrored the pattern found in the adult health disparities literature. Multinomial logistic regression analyses indicated that carrying an s allele at the 5-HTTLPR and receiving less peer support distinguished the physical health vulnerability profile from the resilient profile. Protective parenting and planful self-regulation distinguished both focal profiles from the other 3 profiles. The results suggest the public health importance of preventive interventions that enhance coping and reduce the effects of stress across childhood and adolescence.
We tested the feasibility of automated discrimination of patients with panic disorder (PD) from healthy controls (HCs) based on multimodal physiological responses using machine learning. ...Electrocardiogram (ECG), electrodermal activity (EDA), respiration (RESP), and peripheral temperature (PT) of the participants were measured during three experimental phases: rest, stress, and recovery. Eleven physiological features were extracted from each phase and used as input data. Logistic regression (LoR), k‐nearest neighbor (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithms were implemented with nested cross‐validation. Linear regression analysis showed that ECG and PT features obtained in the stress and recovery phases were significant predictors of PD. We achieved the highest accuracy (75.61%) with MLP using all 33 features. With the exception of MLP, applying the significant predictors led to a higher accuracy than using 24 ECG features. These results suggest that combining multimodal physiological signals measured during various states of autonomic arousal has the potential to differentiate patients with PD from HCs.
Introduction and Aim: Mental stress may impact dramatically on dynamic autonomic control on heart. Many studies have demonstrated association of high body mass index (BMI) with greater risk for ...cardiovascular disease with disturbance in autonomic neuronal activity. Analysis of Heart rate variability (HRV)during acute mental stress assesses the autonomic status of the individual. Hence, we aimed to study the effect of acute mental stress on time domain measures in obese adults.
Materials and Methods:Sixty male volunteers of 30 each in study group (obese individuals) and control group (non-obese individuals) were recruited for the study. A basal recording of ECG in lead II was done on all the individuals. Then they underwent mental arithmetic stress task for 5 minutes during which again ECG was recorded. The change in time domain measures of HRV during rest and stress task was analyzed and compared between both the groups.
Results: Analysis of time domain measures of HRV revealed a statistically significant increase (p ? 0.001) in mean heart rate in both obese and non-obese individuals, while rMSSD(root mean square differences of successive RR interval) and SDNN (standard deviation of all NN intervals) showed a statistically significant (p? 0.001) decrease in obese individuals and non-obese individuals did not show any statistically significant change during the mental stress task.
Conclusion: In response to acute mental stress there was increased heart rate in both the groups. But the autonomic neuronal activity differed by way of sympathetic dominance in non-obese individuals and parasympathetic withdrawal in obese individuals.
Partnerships between school staff and mental health professionals have the potential to improve access to mental health support for students, but uncertainty remains regarding whether and how they ...work in practice. We report on two pilot projects aimed at understanding the implementation drivers of tailored strategies for supporting and engaging front-line school staff in student mental health. The first project provided regular, accessible mental health professionals with whom school staff could meet and discuss individual or systemic mental health concerns (a school 'InReach' service), and the other offered a short skills training programme on commonly used psychotherapeutic techniques (the School Mental Health Toolbox; SMHT). The findings from the activity of 15 InReach workers over 3 years and 105 individuals who attended the SMHT training demonstrate that school staff made good use of these services. The InReach workers reported more than 1200 activities in schools (notably in providing specialist advice and support, especially for anxiety and emotional difficulties), whilst most SMHT training attendees reported the utilisation of the tools (in particular, supporting better sleep and relaxation techniques). The measures of acceptability and the possible impacts of the two services were also positive. These pilot studies suggest that investment into partnerships at the interface of education and mental health services can improve the availability of mental health support to students.
Real-time mental stress monitoring from surgeons and surgical staff in operating rooms may reduce surgical injuries, improve performance and quality of medical care, and accelerate implementation of ...stress-management strategies. Motivated by the increase in usage of objective and subjective metrics for cognitive monitoring and by the gap in reviews of experimental design setups and data analytics, a systematic review of 71 studies on mental stress and workload measurement in surgical settings, published in 2001-2020, is presented. Almost 61% of selected papers used both objective and subjective measures, followed by 25% that only administered subjective tools - mostly consisting of validated instruments and customized surveys. An overall increase in the total number of publications on intraoperative stress assessment was observed from mid-2010 s along with a momentum in the use of both subjective and real-time objective measures. Cardiac activity, including heart-rate variability metrics, stress hormones, and eye-tracking metrics were the most frequently and electroencephalography (EEG) was the least frequently used objective measures. Around 40% of selected papers collected at least two objective measures, 41% used wearable devices, 23% performed synchronization and annotation, and 76% conducted baseline or multi-point data acquisition. Furthermore, 93% used a variety of statistical techniques, 14% applied regression models, and only one study released a public, anonymized dataset. This review of data modalities, experimental setups, and analysis techniques for intraoperative stress monitoring highlights the initiatives of surgical data science and motivates research on computational techniques for mental and surgical skills assessment and cognition-guided surgery.
Zusammenfassung
Hintergrund
Die Gefährdungsbeurteilung psychischer Belastung bei der Arbeit kann als Instrument nur wirksam werden, wenn zum einen die Prädiktoren gesundheitlicher Zielgrößen bekannt ...sind und zum anderen belegt ist, dass bei einer Änderung der Arbeitsbedingungen hin zu einer günstigen Ausprägung diese gesundheitlichen Zielgrößen zum Positiven veränderbar sind.
Fragestellung
Am Beispiel des Burnout wird in einer Längsschnittanalyse untersucht, ob Änderungen der Arbeitsbedingungen mit entsprechenden Änderungen in der Ausprägung von Burnout einhergehen.
Material und Methoden
In der „Studie zur mentalen Gesundheit bei der Arbeit (S-MGA)“ wurden die psychosozialen Arbeitsbedingungen mit dem Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ), Burnout mit dem Oldenburger Burnout-Inventar (OLBI) erfasst. Die Daten der Erwerbstätigen beider Erhebungswellen (
n
= 2005) wurden zu einem Längsschnittdatensatz zusammengefügt. Um den Einfluss der Änderung der COPSOQ-Skalenwerte im Fünf-Jahres-Beobachtungszeitraum auf den Burnout-Score zu ermitteln, wurden Regressionsmodelle mit COPSOQ-Differenzvariablen und den COPSOQ-Ausgangswerten unter Berücksichtigung von möglichen Confoundern angepasst.
Ergebnisse
Die Analyse zeigt, dass der Burnout-Score über einen Zeitraum von 5 Jahren sowohl vom Ausgangsniveau der Anforderungen und Ressourcen als auch von deren Veränderungen abhängt, d. h. sinkende Werte bei den Anforderungen und steigende Werte bei den Ressourcen führen zu sinkenden Burnout-Scores. Die stärksten Effekte in allen Modellen, auch bei gegenseitiger Adjustierung der COPSOQ-Skalen, weist die Arbeitsmenge auf. Ebenso weist die Arbeitsplatzunsicherheit stets signifikante Effekte auf. Anders ist dies bei den Ressourcen, die einzeln im Modell jeweils signifikant sind, bei gegenseitiger Adjustierung der COPSOQ-Skalen jedoch im Effekt nachlassen und teilweise ihre Signifikanz verlieren. Eine Ursache dafür sind die hohen paarweisen Korrelationen der Ressourcen.
Diskussion
Die Analyse zeigt, dass der Burnout-Score im Fünf-Jahres-Längsschnitt sowohl von den Ausgangswerten der Anforderungen und Ressourcen als auch deren Änderungen abhängig ist, also sinkende Anforderungen und steigende Ressourcen zu einem verringerten Burnout-Score führen. Folglich sollten Arbeitsgestaltungsmaßnahmen, die an diesen Arbeitsbedingungen ansetzen, zu einer Verringerung von Burnout beitragen.
Introduction: Dentistry is considered a stressful profession. Stress is defined as a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. In particular to ...paediatric dentistry, dental student’s anxiety and stress level is elevated to the peak as managing a child in the dental chair is a great challenge for any dentist. Aim: To evaluate self-reported levels of stress of dental students about performing different procedures in paediatric dentistry in Riyadh city. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among final year dental students in seven different dental schools in Riyadh city. The final questionnaire was used following literature review of similar studies, focus group and piloting stage. The questionnaire addressed upon stress of performing treatment on a child patient and the future specialty preference for final year dental students. Descriptive analysis was done using Microsoft Excel. The statistical analysis were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) (Version 22.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) and conducted at a Confidence Interval (CI) of 95%, and a significance level of 0.05. Internal consistency of the questionnaire was assessed by calculating Cronbach’s alpha. The level of significance was set at p-value <0.05. Results: The study included 176 participants of which 92 males and 84 females. A 43.8% of the dental students are not stressed of having the patient’s guardian in the clinic during the time of treatment, some are little confident in using the non-pharmacological management approaches for uncooperative child. A 54% of the students are quite stressed when performing dental treatment for preschool children. Conclusion: The current study revealed that both genders show some similarity in their answers, with the majority having no or little stress providing paediatric treatment. Dental students in Saudi Arabia were more stressed when performing pain stimulating procedures on preschool children.
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