The faces of Long-COVID: interplay of symptom burden with socioeconomic, behavioral and healthcare factors.

Aims: The long-term effects of COVID-19 (Long COVID) include 19 symptoms ranging from mild to debilitating. We examined multidimensional correlates of Long COVID symptom burden.

Methods: This study focused on participants who reported having had COVID in Spring 2023 (n = 656; 85% female, mean age = 55, 59% college).

Associations of cognitive appraisal and patient activation on disability and mental health outcomes: a prospective cohort study of patients undergoing spine surgery.

Background: With the increased use of patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) to assess spine surgery outcomes, it is important to understand how patients interpret their health changes over time. The measurement of cognitive-appraisal processes enables the quantification of how individuals think about quality of life (QOL). This study examined how appraisal processes were associated with patients' views of their role in managing their health-patient activation.

Disabled from work and depressed: cognitive factors associated with exacerbated or attenuated depression over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: People who were disabled from working reported substantially worse depression in recent research [1] despite adjustment for demographic covariates, cognitive-appraisal processes, and COVID-specific stressors, thus motivating the present work.

Objective: This study sought to "drill down" to understand employment-group differences (employed, retired, unemployed, disabled) in cognitive factors, and how these factors played into paths to depression during COVID early in the pandemic and depression trajectories over 15.5 months of follow-up.

Emerging priorities and concerns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: qualitative and quantitative findings from a United States national survey.

Purpose: The present study examines how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) experience affected values and priorities.

Methods: This cross-sectional study collected data between January and April 2023, from 1,197 individuals who are chronically ill or part of a general population sample. Using open-ended prompts and closed-ended questions, we investigated individuals' perceptions about COVID-19-induced changes in what quality of life means to them, what and who are important, life focus, and changes in norms and stressors.

A new framework for understanding stress and disease: the developmental model of stress as applied to multiple sclerosis.

This paper proposes a new model of stress that integrates earlier models and adds insights from developmental psychology. Previous models describe the behavioral and physical effects of stress events, but have not explained the translation of experiences into stress itself. The Developmental Model of Stress shows how psychosocial developmental challenges in childhood create persistent negative beliefs and behaviors that increase threat perception and maladaptive stress responses.

Fatigue Item Response among Hemoglobin-Normalized Patients with Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria: PEGASUS Trial Results at 16 and 48 Weeks.

A common symptom of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) is fatigue, which in some patients can be severe. Eculizumab (Ecu) has proven efficacy in controlling intravascular hemolysis, but commonly results in persistent anemia and fatigue. Pegcetacoplan's (Peg) efficacy was documented in the PEGASUS phase III clinical trial, showing improved hemoglobin (Hb) and patient-reported fatigue.

Functional Status Correlates of Change and Stability in Appraisal after Spine Surgery: Earlier versus Later Effects.

Spine surgery generally yields a notable improvement in patients' health state, and there is variability in measured patient outcomes after spine surgery. The present work aimed to describe for clinicians how appraisal underlies their patients' experience of healthcare interventions. This prospective longitudinal cohort study (n = 156) included adults undergoing spine surgery for degenerative spinal conditions.

Development and validation of the HDSIM™ assessment system: a measure of hemorrhoid disease symptom impact.

Background: Hemorrhoid disease (HD) affects 10 million people in the US at any given time, and 50% of the US population will develop symptomatic hemorrhoids during their lifetime. Approximately 60% of people with hemorrhoids experience symptoms. Despite its prevalence and impact on quality of life, the existing patient-reported outcome measures of HD have not been validated using standard psychometric methods.

Mental health after lumbar spine surgery: cognitive appraisal processes and outcome in a longitudinal cohort study.

Background Context: A not uncommon finding following spine surgery is that many patients do not achieve mental health improvement up to population norms for their age cohort, despite improvement in pain and functioning.

Purpose: This study examined how patients who were categorized as depressed versus not depressed think about health-related quality of life as assessed by cognitive-appraisal processes. It examined cross-sectional and longitudinal differences over 12 months postsurgery.

Reserve-building as a buffer for depression among individuals living with disability: a longitudinal study of current activities related to brain health.

Aims: This study examined whether reserve-building activities are associated with attenuated reported depression among people who were disabled from work due to a medical condition as compared to employed, retired, and unemployed participants.

Methods: This secondary analysis included 771 individuals who provided data at three time points: baseline (late Spring 2020), follow-up 1 (Spring 2021), and follow-up 2 (Fall 2021). The DeltaQuest Reserve-Building Measure assessed current activities related to brain health.

Individual differences in the long-term impact of the pandemic: moderators of COVID-related hardship, worry, and social support.

Purpose: Understanding people's response to the pandemic needs to consider individual differences in priorities and concerns. The present study sought to understand how individual differences in cognitive-appraisal processes might moderate the impact of three COVID-specific factors-hardship, worry, and social support-on reported depression.

Methods: This longitudinal study of the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic included 771 people with data at three timepoints over 15.

Depression trajectories during the COVID-19 pandemic: a secondary analysis of the impact of cognitive-appraisal processes.

Purpose: This study characterized depression trajectories during the COVID pandemic and investigated how appraisal and changes in appraisal over time related to these depression trajectories.

Methods: This longitudinal study of the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic included 771 people with data at three timepoints over 15.5 months.

Impact of comorbidities on people with and without cancer early in the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study.

Background: The present study sought to investigate how comorbidity burden influences cancer survivors' quality of life (QoL) and the challenges/adaptations during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID) pandemic, and to examine how appraisal processes are related to this impact.

Methods: This cross-sectional study, administered in spring/summer 2020, compared cancer survivors to a general-population comparison sample. QoL was assessed with standardized tools.

Response-shift effects in childhood cancer survivors: A prospective study.

Background: Treatment-related late effects can worsen over time among cancer survivors. Such worsening health states may trigger changes in internal standards, values, or conceptualization of quality-of-life (QOL). This "response-shift" phenomenon can jeopardize the validity of QOL assessment, and misrepresent QOL comparisons over time.

Predictors of hospital-acquired pressure injuries in patients with complete spinal cord injury: a retrospective case-control study.

Background: Despite current best practices, pressure injuries (PI) remain a devastating and prevalent hospital-acquired complication for patients with acute traumatic spinal cord injuries (SCIs). This study examined associations between risk factors for PI development in patients with complete SCI, such as norepinephrine dose and duration, and other demographic factors or lesion characteristics.

Methods: This case-control study included adults with acute complete SCIs ASIA-A, who were admitted to a level-one trauma center between 2014-18.

Toward patient-centered treatment goals for duchenne muscular dystrophy: insights from the "Your Voice" study.

Background: Patient-centered research has emerged as critically important for understanding the impact of treatments on key stakeholders. The subjective experience of quality of life (QOL) is increasingly recognized as fundamental to delineating treatment goals. The present study utilized content analysis of qualitative data and quantitative analysis to highlight important domains of disease burden and underlying reasons for their importance, and to characterize goals for new treatments for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).

Cognitive Processes during Recovery: Moving toward Personalized Spine Surgery Outcomes.

This paper focuses on a novel application of personalized medicine: the ways one thinks about health (i.e., appraisal processes) as relevant predictors of spine-surgery response.

Race-related differences in the economic, healthcare-access, and psychological impact of COVID-19: personal resources associated with resilience.

Background: The impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID) is worse among those with fewer financial resources, in jobs not amenable to remote work, and in denser living conditions. People of color are more likely to be among these vulnerable groups. Although race itself is a social construction and not based on underlying genetic/biological differences, this study investigated race/ethnicity differences in the negative repercussions of COVID and in the benefits of psychological and social resources.

Listening to the elephant in the room: response-shift effects in clinical trials research.

Background: While a substantial body of work postulates that adaptation (response-shift effects) may serve to hide intervention benefits, much of the research was conducted in observational studies, not randomized-controlled trials. This scoping review identified all clinical trials that addressed response shift phenomena, and characterized how response-shift effects impacted trial findings.

Methods: A scoping review was done of the medical literature from 1968 to 2021 using as keywords "response shift" and "clinical trial.

Patient life aspirations in the context of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: a mixed-methods case-control study.

Background: Aspirations refer to wishes, ways of defining quality of life (QOL), and life goals. Living with chronic illness likely impacts a person's life aspirations. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an inherited disorder characterized by the inevitable and progressive loss of ambulation and independence.