Objective: There are well-documented health disparities among sexual and/or gender minority (LGBTQ+) individuals generally, but there is limited research investigating the disparities in health-related lifestyle factors and mental health among LGBTQ+ graduate students, which is a group that may be especially vulnerable.
Participants: This project was a secondary analysis of data from the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment's (NCHA) Fall 2019 wave, which included 7,766 graduate students.
Methods: Students self-reported engagement in health-related lifestyle factors and psychological distress.
Poor sleep is becoming increasingly prevalent and is associated with adverse health outcomes. Sunlight exposure may improve sleep by regulating circadian rhythms, increasing vitamin D, and influencing melatonin production. However, research on the sunlight-sleep association is limited, especially outside of cross-sectional designs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVarious components of social functioning predict depression and these associations can vary by gender. Bi-directional associations may be important to consider as social factors may influence depressive symptoms while depressive symptoms may impact social factors. Most previous longitudinal research examining bi-directional effects has traditionally used the cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), which has some inherent weaknesses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Coll Health
December 2023
College student mental health has been decreasing and lifestyle factors may be an important factor in improving mental health. These behaviors may cluster together in complex ways, which could impact the success of lifestyle interventions. Two samples of U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic pain, sleep problems, and psychological distress (PD) can be disabling conditions and previous research has shown that they are associated. The nuances of the comorbid nature of these conditions may be important to understand for those who treat these conditions. This study examined the bidirectional associations of these health factors concurrently and over time in a sample of U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLifestyle behaviors such as exercise, sleep, smoking, diet, and social interaction are associated with depression. This study aimed to model the complex relationships between lifestyle behaviors and depression and among the lifestyle behaviors. Data from three waves of the Midlife in the United States study were used, involving 6898 adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to significant stressors and shifts in social life, yet social interactions experienced by people with trauma exposure during the COVID pandemic is largely unknown. This study assessed frequency of interactions, social support given and received, and prosocial behavior using online survey methods (=1049). We examined differences in experiences across three groups: no trauma exposure, trauma-exposed with low PTSD symptoms, and trauma-exposed with high PTSD symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Social distancing and sheltering-in-place mitigate the physical health risks of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19); however, there are concerns about the impact on mental health and social engagement.
Methods: We used data from a U.S.
J Health Psychol
March 2022
This study investigated the pathways linking daily nature enjoyment to affect by testing whether the associations would be fully explained by exercise and social interaction. Participants ( = 782; 55.6% female; age 25-74, M = 47.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Previous research has shown that intentions, implementation intentions, active planning and coping planning predict engagement in important health behaviours. This study investigated the role of general daily planning as opposed to specific behaviour planning as a predictor of engagement in lifestyle behaviours. The study also examined conscientiousness and mean levels of planning as moderators of that relationship.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: Many lifestyle behaviors such as diet, exercise, social interaction, and substance use are related to physical and mental health. Less understood are the day-to-day associations of these behaviors with both psychological distress, well-being, and with each other.
Objective: This study investigated how a number of common lifestyle behaviors were associated with psychological distress and well-being using a daily diary study with multilevel modeling.
Doris (2015b) develops a theory of moral agency to avoid a skeptical challenge arising from psychology studies indicating that (im)moral behavior is caused by trivial situational factors. His theory is flawed in attending only to situational influences on behavior and neglecting individual differences such as moral identity and virtue. A focus on individual differences in resilience to influence from trivial situational factors defangs the skeptical challenge and offers a better account of moral agency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChild Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am
October 2016
Adolescent substance use is a major risk factor for negative outcomes, including substance dependence later in life, criminal behavior, school problems, mental health disorders, injury, and death. This article provides a user-friendly, clinically focused, and pragmatic review of current and evidence-based family treatments, including multisystemic therapy, multidimensional family therapy, functional family therapy, brief strategic family therapy, ecologically based family therapy, family behavior therapy, culturally informed flexible family treatment for adolescents, and strengths-oriented family therapy. Outcomes, treatment parameters, adolescent characteristics, and implementation factors are reviewed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this article, we review the research evidence generated over 40 years on Brief Strategic Family Therapy illustrating the NIH stages of intervention development and highlighting the translational process. Basic research (Stage 0) led to the discovery of the characteristics of the population and the nature of the problems that needed to be addressed. This step informed the selection of an intervention model that addressed the problems presented by the population, but in a fashion that was congruent with the population's culture, defined in terms of its value orientations.
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