Social contributions to meaning in life: the role of romantic relationship quality, parenting, and gender.

Introduction: The present study tests the association between romantic relationship quality and number of children on meaning in life (i.e., sense of purpose, coherence, and significance) and considers interactions between these constructs and gender.

Loss during COVID-19: Moderating effects of meaning and romantic relationships on anxiety and depressive symptoms.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated experiences of loss and grief for many individuals and posed a challenging mental health crisis. Compared to studies examining a singular type of loss, the present study investigated the cumulative impacts of COVID-related losses on anxiety and depressive symptoms and examined whether meaning in life, marital status, or relationship quality offered a protective moderating role.

Method: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted approximately 1 year into the pandemic among 434 diverse individuals (32.

The birth of a story: Childbirth experiences, meaning-making, and postpartum adjustment.

The present study investigated how meaning-making around a birth experience predicts relationship quality and parenting stress across the transition to first-time parenthood, a time that many new parents find stressful and challenging. Childbirth experiences may set the stage for these challenges, and how new parents make meaning of childbirth could play a role in their subsequent postpartum adjustment. Meaning-making processes (sense making, benefit finding, and changes in identity) were coded from birth narratives collected from 77 mixed-sex biological parent dyads ( = 154 individuals) shortly after the birth of their first child.

What happens when romantic couples discuss personal loss? Relational, emotional, and physiological impacts.

Does talking about loss with a romantic partner have salutary personal and relationship effects? Prior evidence reveals the benefits of emotional disclosure in couple relationships, yet disclosure about loss has been overlooked in research on couple communication. Using a novel communication paradigm with young-adult heterosexual romantic partners ( = 114 couples), we investigated emotions, physiological arousal (skin conductance responses [SCR]), and relationship closeness when narrating a personal loss and listening to the partner's loss, and compared these loss discussions to discussions about desired relationship changes. Based on partners' self-reports, narrating loss elicited more vulnerable and, unexpectedly, more antagonistic emotions.

Physiological linkage in pregnancy: Couples' cortisol, negative conflict behavior, and postpartum depression.

Within-couple concordance in momentary cortisol levels ("cortisol linkage") may reflect meaningful relationship dynamics. In this study, we examined couple cortisol linkage during pregnancy, associations with negative conflict couple behavior, and subsequent postpartum depressive symptoms. Eighty-two opposite-sex couples expecting their first child engaged in a conflict discussion, provided six salivary cortisol samples over the course of a laboratory visit, and then reported on depressive symptoms six months after their baby's birth.

Prenatal relationship conflict behavior predicts childbirth experiences and birth outcomes.

Despite evidence linking prenatal psychosocial stress and social support to perinatal maternal and infant health, no study has explored couple conflict behavior during pregnancy as a predictor of subsequent birth outcomes. The current study examines whether couples' positive and negative conflict behaviors during pregnancy predict their stress during the birth experience and gestational and birth outcomes. Forty-seven first-time expectant couples participated in a conflict discussion during pregnancy that was observationally coded.

Young adult couples' behavioral and physiological responses to the infant simulator: A preliminary illustration of coparenting.

This exploratory application of the infant simulator with two couples is designed to illustrate individual reactivity and coparenting behaviors in young couples in serious relationships who do not yet have children. A 35-min protocol with standardized onsets and offsets of inconsolable baby cries was used to capture partner's individual behavioral and physiological responses as well as the couple's joint efforts to soothe the crying baby. Task feasibility was demonstrated by couples' persistent and wide-ranging efforts to calm the baby including rocking, feeding, changing, talking to the baby, and singing.

The weight of fatherhood: identifying mechanisms to explain paternal perinatal weight gain.

Men appear to gain weight during the transition to parenthood, and fathers are heavier than non-fathers. Paternal perinatal weight gain may set weight trajectories in midlife and have long-term health implications. Since men do not undergo the physical demands of pregnancy and breastfeeding, the specific mechanisms underlying weight gain in new fathers warrant investigation.

A pilot randomized controlled trial of cognitive bias modification to reduce fear of breast cancer recurrence.

Background: The most common, persistent concern among survivors of breast cancer is the fear that their disease will return, yet to the authors' knowledge, few interventions targeting fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) have been developed to date. The current pilot study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a home-delivered cognitive bias modification intervention to reduce FCR. The intervention, called Attention and Interpretation Modification for Fear of Breast Cancer Recurrence (AIM-FBCR), targeted 2 types of cognitive biases (ie, attention and interpretation biases).

Bereavement Follow-Up After the Death of a Child as a Standard of Care in Pediatric Oncology.

After a child's death to cancer, families commonly want continued connection with the healthcare team that cared for their child, yet bereavement follow-up is often sporadic. A comprehensive literature search found that many bereaved parents experience poor psychological outcomes during bereavement and that parents want follow-up and benefit from continued connection with their child's healthcare providers. Evidence suggests that the standard of care should consist of at least one meaningful contact between the healthcare team and bereaved parents to identify those at risk for negative psychosocial sequelae and to provide resources for bereavement support.

Mental Health Services for Parents Who Lost a Child to Cancer: If We Build Them, Will They Come?

Purpose: To examine bereavement mental health service use, barriers to use, and factors associated with use in parents bereaved by cancer.

Patients And Methods: A multicenter, cross-sectional study of 120 parents bereaved by cancer between 6 months and 6 years after their loss was performed. Parents completed self-report assessments of mental health service use and barriers, prolonged grief, depression, anxiety, attachment styles, and sense of meaning by phone, in person, or on their own.

Prognostic awareness and communication of prognostic information in malignant glioma: a systematic review.

Malignant glioma (MG) is a devastating neurological disease with a uniformly poor prognosis and a clinical course characterized by progressive functional and cognitive impairment. A small body of literature addresses patients' and caregivers' prognostic awareness (PA), or understanding of prognosis in patients with cancer. Studies that examine PA and desire for prognostic information among patients with MG are limited.

What do parents want to know when considering autopsy for their child with cancer?

Research has suggested that autopsy in pediatrics is a valued way for parents to better understand and process their child's death, yet physicians often express hesitancy in discussing this topic with parents. To better assist clinicians with initiating discussion about this often sensitive topic, the current study examined bereaved parents' preferences about the timing and content of the autopsy discussion as well as reasons for considering autopsy. This study explored the views of 30 parents who lost a child to a variety of malignancies between 6 months and 6 years ago.

Visible ink: A flexible and individually tailored writing intervention for cancer patients.

Objectives: Subjective reports on the effectiveness of and satisfaction with writing interventions in medical populations have indicated that they can have a profound impact on patients. Further, past research on these programs has demonstrated that they can lead to a number of different positive outcomes depending on the personal characteristics of the participating patients and the type of writing with which they are tasked. For this reason, a flexible and individually tailored writing intervention may be particularly effective for patients, molding its approach to their desires and backgrounds.

Sharing a diagnosis of HPV-related head and neck cancer: the emotions, the confusion, and what patients want to know.

Background: Oropharyngeal cancers are increasingly associated with human papillomavirus (HPV). Little is known about the experience of patients receiving this diagnosis.

Methods: Semistructured interviews were conducted with ten survivors of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer.