Background And Aims: Emotional and behavioural problems occur frequently in childhood and are usually associated with burdens on children, families, and society. Preventive interventions could reduce these burdens, but are rarely used despite their availability and effectiveness. The aim was to identify general, individual, structural, and family-related barriers/facilitators to potential and actual participation in prevention programs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocial anxiety is common in childhood and potentially transitions into clinical disorders including depression. The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of an indicated prevention program for children screened in routine care. Data came from the PROMPt project, a prospective implementation study (10/2018-09/2022) that explored a novel care chain, starting with screening with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as part of regular health check-ups, followed by indicated assignment and participation in a prevention program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim Of The Study: Evaluation of the implementation of a standardized screening using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as part of the routine pediatric health check-ups in the Dresden area (Germany) in order to detect emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) in children early and allocate them to indicated preventive programs and/or to further counselling and treatment services.
Methods: 1.) Semi-structured interviews were performed with participating pediatricians (n=4), practice staff (n=4) and custodians of screened children (n=17) and subjected to content analysis regarding feasibility, advantages and disadvantages of the screening and the targeted allocation, as well as barriers and facilitators of using the screening and the preventive programs and further services.
Bundesgesundheitsblatt Gesundheitsforschung Gesundheitsschutz
January 2024
Background: Mental health problems usually have their onset in childhood. Undiagnosed, they may progress into mental disorders. Despite their effectiveness, existing preventive programs have been rarely used.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRes Child Adolesc Psychopathol
February 2024
Unfavorable interpersonal behavior in social anxiety disorder (SAD) contributes to the maintenance of the disorder and may also be related to the development of secondary depression. Since there is limited research on daily life behavior in SAD, this study aimed to describe social interaction behavior and analyze the effect of positive interactions on depression, anxiety, and mental state. Data were obtained from the Behavior and Mind Health study (11/2015-12/2016), an epidemiological cohort study of adolescents and young adults (n = 1,180, aged 14-21 years) from Dresden, Germany.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompact optically-pumped magnetometers (OPMs) are now commercially available with noise floors reaching 10 fT/Hz. However, to be used effectively for magnetoencephalography (MEG), dense arrays of these sensors are required to operate as an integrated turn-key system. In this study, we present the HEDscan, a 128-sensor OPM MEG system by FieldLine Medical, and evaluate its sensor performance with regard to bandwidth, linearity, and crosstalk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZ Evid Fortbild Qual Gesundhwes
December 2023
Introduction: Teachers can help identify mental health issues in adolescents and act as gateway-providers by referring adolescents at risk to a mental health professional. Studies have so far investigated awareness concerning mental health issues among primary school teachers in the USA. The present study uses case vignettes to examine whether secondary school teachers in Germany can detect and assess the presence and severity of mental disorders in adolescents, and which factors predict referral to professional support services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The association between mode of delivery (MOD) and parent-infant-bonding has only been studied in mothers and findings have been inconclusive. The aim of this study was to prospectively investigate how MOD relates to postpartum parent-infant-bonding in both mothers and fathers and whether these associations are mediated by birth experience.
Methods: This study is part of the prospective cohort study "Dresden Study on Parenting, Work, and Mental Health" (DREAM).
Despite striking empirical support, exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders are underutilized. This is partially due to clinicians' concerns that patients may reject exposure or experience severe side effects, particularly in intensive forms of exposure. We examined acceptance and side effects of two randomly assigned variants of prediction error-based exposure treatment differing in temporal density (1 vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAvoidance-based emotion regulation plays a central role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders across the life span. However, measures for children that account for different avoidance strategies, are scarce. Derived from Gross' Process Model of Emotion Regulation, the Bochum Assessment of Avoidance-based Emotion Regulation for Children (BAER-C) was developed to assess avoidance strategies (cognitive avoidance, behavioural avoidance, verbal reassurance, and social reassurance) and reappraisal in anticipatory anxious situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present dynamic field compensation (DFC), whereby three-axis field measurements from reference magnetometers are used to dynamically maintain null at the alkali vapor cells of an array of primary sensors that are proximal to a subject's scalp. Precision measurement of the magnetoencephalogram (MEG) by zero-field optically pumped magnetometer (OPM) sensors requires that sensor response is linear and sensor gain is constant over time. OPMs can be operated in open-loop mode, where the measured field is proportional to the output at the demodulated photodiode output, or in closed-loop, where on-board coils are dynamically driven to maintain the internal cell at zero field in the measurement direction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Many women experience traumatic events already prior to or during pregnancy, and delivery of a child may also be perceived as a traumatic event, especially in women with prior post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Birth-related PTSD might be unique in several ways, and it seems important to distinguish between lifetime PTSD and birth-related traumatization in order to examine specific consequences for mother and child. This analysis aims to prospectively examine the relation of both, lifetime PTSD (with/without interpersonal trauma) and birth-related traumatization (with/without postpartum depression) with specific maternal and infant outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe radio frequency telecommunication at a kilohertz range through an electrically conductive medium is often impeded by the strong reflection and absorption at the interface. The polarization helicity of the magnetic field can be modulated/demodulated to provide a new communication protocol to potentiality circumvent these issues. Here, a miniature magnetic quantum receiver, capable of simultaneously discriminating the two possible helicities of a magnetic field, is presented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To explore the longitudinal associations between prepartum fear of childbirth (FOC), birth experience, and postpartum mother-child-bonding, and the potential mediator role of the birth experience.
Design: Women from the prospective cohort study DREAM completed questionnaires during pregnancy, 8 weeks, and 14 months after the birth.
Participants: A community sample of = 645 pregnant women from a large city in Eastern Germany participated in the study.
Klin Monbl Augenheilkd
January 2022
Introduction: Congenital microphthalmos can either occur alone (simple microphthalmos) or be associated with other ocular malformations, such as sclerocornea or cataract (complex microphthalmos). As this is a rare condition, there are no uniform recommendations for treatment.
Material And Methods: Retrospective case series of 103 patients or a total of 114 eyes with congenital microphthalmos, with reporting of age, sex, visual acuity, pupil reaction, axial length, horizontal width of the palpebral fissure, type of therapy performed and complications.
Background: There is a notable comorbidity between externalizing disorders and anxiety disorders, which may be explained by the co-occurrence of two prevalent early-onset disorders, by shared vulnerability and risk factors, or as evidence that one disorder group might be causally related to the other.
Aim: To investigate the longitudinal trajectories of externalizing disorders, their interplay with anxiety disorders, and putative predictors for symptom progression in youth.
Methods: 1053 adolescents (14-17 years) from the general population were assessed at baseline and prospectively at 2, 4, and 10-year follow-up using a standardized interview of mental disorders (DIA-X/M-CIDI) to assess "early" (oppositional-defiant disorder, conduct disorder, ADHD) and "late" (antisocial behavior, substance use disorders) externalizing disorders as well as anxiety disorders.
Background: Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) has been considered a prototypical mitochondriopathy and a textbook example for maternal inheritance linked to certain disease-causing variants in the mitochondrial genome. Recently, an autosomal recessive form of LHON (arLHON) has been described, caused by disease-causing variants in the nuclear encoded gene .
Methods And Results: In this study, we screened the gene in a large Central European cohort of patients with a clinical diagnosis of LHON or other autosomal inherited optic atrophies (OA).
Background: The transition to parenthood is characterized by far-reaching changes in life. However, little prospective-longitudinal evidence from general population samples exists on changes of general physical and mental health in the years around the birth of a child among mothers and fathers.
Methods: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), this study examined continuous and discontinuous short- and long-term changes of general physical and mental health from five years before until five years after the birth of the first child in women (N = 1,912) and men (N = 1,742).
In treating childhood anxiety disorders, therapists use highly individualized anxiety hierarchies to assess anxiety-eliciting situations and to personalize treatment. In contrast, psychometric assessment of anxiety symptoms in children usually consists of standardized questionnaires, assessing either total anxiety or disorder-specific symptom scores, prioritizing comparability over individual information. To account for interindividual differences, the Anxiety and Avoidance Scale for Children (AVAC) was developed, following a precise, personalized, assessment approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScalar optically-pumped magnetometers (OPMs) are being developed in small packages with high sensitivities. The high common-mode rejection ratio of these sensors allows for detection of very small signals in the presence of large background fields making them ideally suited for brain imaging applications in unshielded environments. Despite a flurry of activity around the topic, questions remain concerning how well a dipolar source can be localized under such conditions, especially when using few sensors.
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