Publications by authors named "Bettina Pfeffer"
[Mental Health and Social Media Use of Adolescents and Young Adults During COVID-19 Pandemic].
Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr
November 2023
Article Synopsis
- Social restrictions during COVID-19 significantly affected youth mental health, with over 50% of surveyed adolescents and young adults showing high levels of somatization, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress.
- Females reported greater mental health challenges compared to males, while adolescents were more active on social media than young adults.
- No direct link was found between social media use and worse mental health, although young adults experiencing higher levels of distress the more they used social media suggests potential adverse effects that warrant careful consideration.
Background: Conspiracy beliefs have become widespread throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have shown that endorsing conspiracy beliefs leads to lower protective guideline adherence (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs a global health crisis, COVID-19 has led to a rise in overall stress levels. Concurrently, conspiracy beliefs regarding the origin and spread of the disease have become widespread. Engaging in such beliefs can be explained as a form of coping in order to deal with elevated levels of stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) constitutes a valid paradigm for social stress induction, less is known about the effects of a virtual reality (VR) TSST on short- and long-term hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic-adreno-medullar (SAM) axis responses. Hence, this study set out to evaluate reactivity and habituation of self-reported stress and HPA and SAM reactivity in a real TSST and VR-TSST when compared to a placebo TSST.
Method: Sixty-eight healthy young adults (50% female) were randomly assigned to either a real TSST, a VR-TSST, or a placebo TSST, all of which were conducted three times (one day and one week post initial exposure).