Publications by authors named "Ana Nunes da Silva"

Background: The transtheoretical conceptualization of the working alliance and the resultant evaluation tools often overestimate the collaboration between therapist and client, while neglecting the negotiation process. The degree to which therapists and clients can negotiate disagreements regarding goals and tasks is an important indicator in establishing and maintaining the alliance. Even though the negotiation concept is not new, there is still a lack of reliable and parsimonious self-report measures of the construct.

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The COVID-19 pandemic involved a complex set of stressors affecting the health and well-being of the population. The understanding of the psychological processes that influence well-being in response to the pandemic and their interrelation is vital. A promising process in understanding the emotional impacts of these stressors is psychological flexibility.

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The COVID-19 pandemic substantially impacted the mental health of the general population and particularly vulnerable individuals and groups. A wealth of research allows for estimating this impact and identifying relevant factors contributing to or mitigating it. The current paper presents and synthesizes this evidence into a multiaxial model of COVID-19 mental health impacts.

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Recalled parental emotion socialisation has been associated with psychological distress in adulthood. Since emotional schemas develop from interpersonal interaction and can result in pathological reactions, they can be an important mechanism. The present study analyses the mediator role of emotional schemas in the relationship between recalled parental emotion socialisation and psychological distress.

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Background: Identifying common factors that affect public adherence to COVID-19 containment measures can directly inform the development of official public health communication strategies. The present international longitudinal study aimed to examine whether prosociality, together with other theoretically derived motivating factors (self-efficacy, perceived susceptibility and severity of COVID-19, perceived social support) predict the change in adherence to COVID-19 containment strategies.

Method: In wave 1 of data collection, adults from eight geographical regions completed online surveys beginning in April 2020, and wave 2 began in June and ended in September 2020.

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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans' social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and sought to understand whether region-specific differences exist.

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A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted during the first COVID-19 wave, to examine the impact of COVID-19 on mental health using an anonymous online survey, enrolling 9565 individuals in 78 countries. The current sub-study examined the impact of the pandemic and the associated lockdown measures on the mental health, and protective behaviors of cancer patients in comparison to non-cancer participants. Furthermore, 264 participants from 30 different countries reported being cancer patients.

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Despite being a longstanding and well-established concept, alexithymia is unfamiliar for many clinicians. This article aimed to address the alexithymia concept from a clinical perspective based on a review of the research on alexithymia intervention. Several strategies are proposed to help clinicians better work with alexithymic clients in psychotherapy.

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Illness perceptions (IP) are important predictors of emotional and behavioral responses in many diseases. The current study aims to investigate the COVID-19-related IP throughout Europe. The specific goals are to understand the temporal development, identify predictors (within demographics and contact with COVID-19) and examine the impacts of IP on perceived stress and preventive behaviors.

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This study aimed to compare the mediation of psychological flexibility, prosociality and coping in the impacts of illness perceptions toward COVID-19 on mental health among seven regions. Convenience sampled online survey was conducted between April and June 2020 from 9130 citizens in 21 countries. Illness perceptions toward COVID-19, psychological flexibility, prosociality, coping and mental health, socio-demographics, lockdown-related variables and COVID-19 status were assessed.

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States of mind are forms of subjective experience that involve cognitions, emotions, needs, desires and physical sensations, subjectively, some charged with emotional suffering and some charged with well-being. This study presents a new questionnaire designed of States of Mind Questionnaire (SMQ), focused on the self-assessment of recurring patterns of subjective experience. We first review the literature leading to the development of SMQ and then we investigate its psychometric properties.

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered vast governmental lockdowns. The impact of these lockdowns on mental health is inadequately understood. On the one hand such drastic changes in daily routines could be detrimental to mental health.

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The transtheoretical conceptualization of the working alliance and the ensuing evaluation tools tend to overestimate the collaboration between therapist and patient and to disregard the negotiation. The degree to which therapists and patients are able to negotiate their disagreements between goals and tasks is an important variable for establishing and maintaining the alliance. The purpose of this study was to adapt the Alliance Negotiation Scale - which operationalizes the theoretical construct of negotiation - to the Portuguese population.

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Alexithymia has been associated with poor outcomes in psychotherapy. This association has been attributed to a difficulty in patients processing emotions and engaging in emotional tasks. The possibility of alexithymia being modified by psychotherapy remains a topic of great debate but with little empirical research.

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Objective: Although alexithymia has been associated with difficulties in emotional regulation, both constructs are complex and this association remains unclear. This research attempts to study the relation between both constructs to identify better ways to guide clinical intervention.

Method: Emotion awareness, differentiation, and regulation were tested as mediators of the associations between alexithymia and severity of symptoms.

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Synopsis of recent research by authors named "Ana Nunes da Silva"

  • Ana Nunes da Silva's recent research focuses on the psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring constructs such as psychological flexibility and illness perceptions, while highlighting their impact on mental well-being and adherence to preventive measures.
  • She has developed and assessed psychometric tools, like the Alliance Negotiation Scale, to enhance therapeutic practice and understand the negotiation process in the therapist-client relationship.
  • Additionally, her work analyzes the influence of factors like emotional schemas and recalled parental socialization on psychological distress, contributing to the understanding of emotional and social dynamics within mental health contexts.

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