Factors associated with clinically significant insomnia among pregnant low-income Latinas.

Background: Poor sleep, common during pregnancy, is associated with negative health risks. The study aimed to identify predictors of clinically significant insomnia among pregnant Latinas.

Methods: A total of 1289 pregnant Latinas recruited from obstetric clinics completed the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and questions about demographics and sleep.

Antenatal identification of major depressive disorder: a cohort study.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to estimate the frequency of identification of major depressive disorder by providers during prenatal care.

Study Design: A cohort of pregnant women who were participating in a randomized controlled trial and who had received a diagnosis of major depressive disorder was examined. Women were included in the current study if prenatal clinic records were available and legible.

Acupuncture for depression during pregnancy: a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To estimate the efficacy of acupuncture for depression during pregnancy in a randomized controlled trial.

Methods: A total of 150 pregnant women who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) criteria for major depressive disorder were randomized to receive either acupuncture specific for depression or one of two active controls: control acupuncture or massage. Treatments lasted 8 weeks (12 sessions).

Insomnia and depression: a multifaceted interplay.

Historically, insomnia has been viewed as a symptom of depressive illness that is expected to resolve with adequate treatment of the depressive disorder. This article reviews the evidence that increasingly challenges this simplistic view and summarizes research demonstrating the multifaceted interplay between insomnia and depression. It discusses the prevalence, clinical significance, and time course of insomnia, distinguishing between poor sleep and an insomnia disorder.

Orienting, emotion, and memory: phasic and tonic variation in heart rate predicts memory for emotional pictures in men.

Arousal-related processes associated with heightened heart rate (HR) predict memory enhancement, especially for emotionally arousing stimuli. In addition, phasic HR deceleration reflects "orienting" and sensory receptivity during perception of stimuli. We hypothesized that both tonic elevations in HR as well as phasic HR deceleration during viewing of pictures would be associated with deeper encoding and better subsequent memory for stimuli.

Cardiac vagal control in the severity and course of depression: the importance of symptomatic heterogeneity.

Background: Impaired cardiac vagal control (CVC), as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia, has been investigated as a risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD), but prior findings are mixed with respect to whether impaired CVC predicts greater global depression severity and/or a more severe course of disorder. One possible explanation for mixed findings is that CVC abnormalities in MDD are related more closely to specific depression symptoms than to the syndrome as a whole.

Methods: Depression severity (both global and symptom-specific indices) and electrocardiogram measures of resting CVC were obtained from 151 diagnosed MDD participants at intake, before randomization to a novel treatment for depression (acupuncture), and again after 8 and 16 weeks.

Sex differences in cardiac vagal control in a depressed sample: implications for differential cardiovascular mortality.

Previous studies suggest depression is a risk factor for all cause mortality, with depressed men at greater risk than depressed women. Diminished cardiac vagal control (CVC) in depressed patients has also been found to increase risk of cardiac mortality. Previous research found that depressed women have higher CVC than depressed men suggesting CVC might be related to the discrepancy in mortality rates between depressed men and women.

Acupuncture for depression: a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of acupuncture as an intervention for major depressive disorder (MDD).

Method: Acupuncture was examined in 151 patients with MDD (DSM-IV) who were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups in a double-blind randomized controlled trial. The specific intervention involved Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)-style acupuncture with manual stimulation for depression; the control conditions consisted of (1) a nonspecific intervention using a comparable number of legitimate acupuncture points not specifically targeted to depressive symptoms and (2) a waitlist condition, which involved waiting without intervention for 8 weeks.

Evaluation of guided imagery as treatment for recurrent abdominal pain in children: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Because of the paucity of effective evidence-based therapies for children with recurrent abdominal pain, we evaluated the therapeutic effect of guided imagery, a well-studied self-regulation technique.

Methods: 22 children, aged 5-18 years, were randomized to learn either breathing exercises alone or guided imagery with progressive muscle relaxation. Both groups had 4-weekly sessions with a therapist.

The many metrics of cardiac chronotropy: a pragmatic primer and a brief comparison of metrics.

This paper focuses on pragmatic issues in obtaining measures of cardiac vagal control, and overviews a set of freely available software tools for obtaining several widely used metrics that putatively reflect sympathetic and/or parasympathetic contributions to cardiac chronotropy. After an overview of those metrics, and a discussion of potential confounds and extraneous influences, an empirical examination of the relationships amongst these metrics is provided. This study examined 10 metrics in 96 unselected college students under conditions of resting baseline and serial paced arithmetic.

Patients' perception of their depressive illness.

Perception of illness has been described as an important predictor in the medical health psychology literature, but has been given little attention in the domain of mental disorders. The patient's Perception of Depression Questionnaire (PDIQ) is a newly developed measure whose factor structure and psychometric properties were evaluated on a sample of 174 outpatients meeting criteria for major depressive disorder. The clinical utility of the questionnaire was assessed on a sub-sample of 121 participants in a study of acupuncture treatment for depression.

Vagal tone as an indicator of treatment response in major depression.

Increased vagal tone has been associated with treatment success using pharmacological agents and cognitive-behavioral treatment in major depression, but not using electroconvulsive therapy. The present study investigated whether increases in vagal tone would be associated with favorable treatment response with nonpharmacological treatment. At baseline and following treatment, 16 subjects were administered the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) followed by electrocardiographic recording.