Interest in presenteeism, attending work while ill, has flourished in light of its consequences for individual well-being and organizational productivity. Our goal was to identify its most ...significant causes and correlates by quantitatively summarizing the extant research. Additionally, we built an empirical model of some key correlates and compared the etiology of presenteeism versus absenteeism. We used meta-analysis (in total, K = 109 samples, N = 175,965) to investigate the correlates of presenteeism and meta-analytic structural equation modeling to test the empirical model. Salient correlates of working while ill included general ill health, constraints on absenteeism (e.g., strict absence policies, job insecurity), elevated job demands and felt stress, lack of job and personal resources (e.g., low support and low optimism), negative relational experiences (e.g., perceived discrimination), and positive attitudes (satisfaction, engagement, and commitment). Moreover, our dual process model clarified how job demands and job and personal resources elicit presenteeism via both health impairment and motivational paths, and they explained more variation in presenteeism than absenteeism. The study sheds light on the controversial act of presenteeism, uncovering both positive and negative underlying mechanisms. The greater variance explained in presenteeism as opposed to absenteeism underlines the opportunities for researchers to meaningfully investigate the behavior and for organizations to manage it.
The collection of large-scale administrative records in electronic form by many cities provides a new opportunity for the measurement and longitudinal tracking of neighborhood characteristics, but ...one that will require novel methodologies that convert such data into research-relevant measures. The authors illustrate these challenges by developing measures of "broken windows" from Boston's constituent relationship management (CRM) system (aka 311 hotline). A 16-month archive of the CRM database contains more than 300,000 address-based requests for city services, many of which reference physical incivilities (e.g., graffiti removal). The authors carry out three ecometric analyses, each building on the previous one. Analysis 1 examines the content of the measure, identifying 28 items that constitute two independent constructs, private neglect and public denigration. Analysis 2 assesses the validity of the measure by using investigator-initiated neighborhood audits to examine the "civic response rate" across neighborhoods. Indicators of civic response were then extracted from the CRM database so that measurement adjustments could be automated. These adjustments were calibrated against measures of litter from the objective audits. Analysis 3 examines the reliability of the composite measure of physical disorder at different spatiotemporal windows, finding that census tracts can be measured at two-month intervals and census block groups at six-month intervals. The final measures are highly detailed, can be tracked longitudinally, and are virtually costless. This framework thus provides an example of how new forms of large-scale administrative data can yield ecometric measurement for urban science while illustrating the methodological challenges that must be addressed.
The Measurement of Multimorbidity Nicholson, Kathryn; Almirall, José; Fortin, Martin
Health psychology,
09/2019, Letnik:
38, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Overview: The presence of multiple concurrent medical conditions (also known as multimorbidity) is now a common phenomenon, hence the importance of its measurement. Objective: The purpose of this ...paper is to review the multimorbidity measures that have been published in the literature to date and that are available for use in future research studies. Method: Two main groups of measures of multimorbidity could be distinguished. The first group of measures is constituted by a simple count from various lists of chronic conditions. The second group of measures introduces a weighting for included chronic conditions thus creating a "weighted index" of multimorbidity. These groups are not mutually exclusive as the list of medical conditions in some weighted indices can be used as a list of conditions without weighting. This article includes a review of the multimorbidity literature to date that has reported these groups of measurements, showing the variety of existing measurements and highlighting their differences to provide an overview of the possibilities that are available to a researcher intending to measure multimorbidity. Conclusion: Finally, we outline some guidelines for the choice of a measurement of multimorbidity for research studies. We hope that this review of the existing literature will help inform the careful use of these tools by researchers moving forward. In addition to this review, it is advised that readers attempt to keep updated on the ever-increasing multimorbidity literature.
Duane F. Alexander (1940-2020) Friedman, Sarah L.; Bachrach, Christine; Scheidt, Peter
The American psychologist,
04/2022, Letnik:
77, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article is in memory of Duane F. Alexander, who directed the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) from 1986 to 2009. (PsycInfo Database Record ...(c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Comorbidity of severe mental disorders and physical illness: issues arising Comorbidity of mental and physical illness is a major, perhaps main problem facing medicine in the years before us. In ...addition to shortening the life expectancy of people with mental illness comorbidity with physical illness comorbidity significantly and negatively affects the quality of life of the people who experience the mental and physical illnesses and their carers and increases the cost of health care. What makes the problem even more and challenging is that medicine is currently in the process of fragmentation into ever more narrow specialties which adds difficulty in the provision of care, Most of the solutions which have been proposed – collaborative care, in-service education of general practitioners and others did not turn out to be effective solutions in dealing with the problems of comorbidity. A significant revision of undergraduate and postgraduate training in medicine is most probably an essential component of the answer to the challenge of this type of comorbidity which will also require a reorganization of health services and their financing. Disclosure No significant relationships.
Among people exposed to major psychological stressors in early life, there are elevated rates of morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases of aging. The most compelling data come from studies of ...children raised in poverty or maltreated by their parents, who show heightened vulnerability to vascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and premature mortality. These findings raise challenging theoretical questions. How does childhood stress get under the skin, at the molecular level, to affect risk for later diseases? And how does it incubate there, giving rise to diseases several decades later? Here we present a biological embedding model, which attempts to address these questions by synthesizing knowledge across several behavioral and biomedical literatures. This model maintains that childhood stress gets "programmed" into macrophages through epigenetic markings, posttranslational modifications, and tissue remodeling. As a consequence these cells are endowed with proinflammatory tendencies, manifest in exaggerated cytokine responses to challenge and decreased sensitivity to inhibitory hormonal signals. The model goes on to propose that over the life course, these proinflammatory tendencies are exacerbated by behavioral proclivities and hormonal dysregulation, themselves the products of exposure to early stress. Behaviorally, the model posits that childhood stress gives rise to excessive threat vigilance, mistrust of others, poor social relationships, impaired self-regulation, and unhealthy lifestyle choices. Hormonally, early stress confers altered patterns of endocrine and autonomic discharge. This milieu amplifies the proinflammatory environment already instantiated by macrophages. Acting in concert with other exposures and genetic liabilities, the resulting inflammation drives forward pathogenic mechanisms that ultimately foster chronic disease.
The personality trait of neuroticism refers to relatively stable tendencies to respond with negative emotions to threat, frustration, or loss. Individuals in the population vary markedly on this ...trait, ranging from frequent and intense emotional reactions to minor challenges to little emotional reaction even in the face of significant difficulties. Although not widely appreciated, there is growing evidence that neuroticism is a psychological trait of profound public health significance. Neuroticism is a robust correlate and predictor of many different mental and physical disorders, comorbidity among them, and the frequency of mental and general health service use. Indeed, neuroticism apparently is a predictor of the quality and longevity of our lives. Achieving a full understanding of the nature and origins of neuroticism, and the mechanisms through which neuroticism is linked to mental and physical disorders, should be a top priority for research. Knowing why neuroticism predicts such a wide variety of seemingly diverse outcomes should lead to improved understanding of commonalities among those outcomes and improved strategies for preventing them.
Objective: Evidence from psychosomatic and nocebo research has indicated that believing one will develop symptoms makes the experience of such symptoms more likely. We applied this idea in the ...context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Specifically, we assessed whether beliefs regarding COVID-19 predict COVID-like symptoms 3-4 weeks later, and what specific belief has the greatest influence on symptom experience. Method: We conducted two studies with over 300 participants, approached at two successive timepoints, 3-4 weeks apart. Participants reported their experienced symptoms, COVID-19-related beliefs, demographics, and state anxiety. To target COVID-like symptoms, participants who reported having contracted COVID-19 or attributed their symptoms to another known cause were excluded. Regression analyses were conducted to test the predictive value of beliefs regarding COVID-19 on experienced symptoms. Results: A particular belief regarding one's estimated symptom severity if infected with coronavirus predicted the experience of symptoms 3-4 weeks later (β = .17, p = .011). This result persisted after controlling for potential confounds, including state anxiety (β = .22, p = .002). Findings were preregistered and replicated in a separate cohort. A novel scale for perception of the body's ability to fight diseases contributed to mediating the effect of estimated symptom severity on later experienced symptoms. Conclusions: A particular belief about estimated symptom severity if infected with COVID predicted the experience of COVID-like physical symptoms several weeks later. These findings contribute to the understanding of the development of unexplained physical symptoms. Furthermore, identification of a particular belief that increases the likelihood of symptoms informs intervention that may mitigate its effects.
Objective: Pain, depression, and fatigue function as a symptom cluster and thus may share common risk factors. Interpersonal relationships clearly influence health, suggesting that loneliness may ...promote the development of the pain, depression, and fatigue symptom cluster. We hypothesized that loneliness would be related to concurrent symptom cluster levels and increases in symptom cluster levels over time. Method: We utilized two observational studies with distinct longitudinal samples. Study 1 was a sample of cancer survivors and benign controls (N = 115) assessed annually for 2 years. Study 2 was a sample of older adults caring for a spouse with dementia (caregivers) and noncaregiver controls (N = 229) assessed annually for 4 years. Participants completed annual measures assessing loneliness, pain, depression, and fatigue. Results: Across both samples, lonelier participants experienced more concurrent pain, depression, and fatigue and larger increases in symptom cluster levels from one year to the next than less lonely participants. Sleep quality did not mediate the results in either study. All analyses were adjusted for relevant demographic and health variables. Conclusions: Two longitudinal studies with different populations demonstrated that loneliness was a risk factor for the development of the pain, depression, and fatigue symptom cluster over time. The current research helps identify people most at risk for pain, depression, and fatigue, and lays the groundwork for research about their diagnosis and treatment. These data also highlight the health risks of loneliness; pain, depression, and fatigue often accompany serious illness and place people at risk for poor health and mortality.
The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially changed our daily lives, career trajectories, and sense of safety. Current research posits that younger adults without persisting health conditions may be at ...reduced risk for complications of COVID-19 infection. However, young adults are often in unstable places in their careers, education, and social lives, which may be more disrupted by policy changes than those of older adults. Thus, it is imperative to identify young adult subgroups who are at increased risk for mental health difficulties to develop targeted interventions to mitigate emotional distress. This study recruited 620 young adults, Ages 18-35 (M = 26.59; SD = 5.24), to determine whether there were differences in self-reported anxiety and depression in the weeks following the pandemic declaration by gender (male, female, or nonbinary) and health status (i.e., the absence of health conditions, the presence of either physical or mental health conditions, and the presence of both physical and mental health conditions) using a 3 × 4 analysis of variance. For both depression and anxiety, nonbinary participants reported the highest levels, followed by female participants. For health status, those with both mental and physical health conditions reported the highest anxiety and depression, followed by those with mental health conditions, physical health conditions, and no health conditions. These findings call for resources to be directed toward individuals who fall into groups reporting greater emotional distress, so that clinicians can intervene as early as possible to prevent mental health decline.
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