Publications by authors named "Melanie L Bozzay"

Objectives: This study investigated whether honor ideology, or a belief that one's reputation must be defended at all costs, is related to firearms ownership in soldiers.

Methods: N=301 active-duty soldiers completed online self-report measures in this cross-sectional study.

Results: Honor ideology was higher in soldiers who privately own a firearm compared with those who do not currently own and do not plan to after military separation.

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  • Older adults with heart failure are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, potentially influenced by insomnia and depression.
  • This study analyzed data from over 203,000 Veterans to determine how insomnia and depressive episodes affect the timing of dementia diagnosis.
  • Findings showed that patients with both insomnia and depression had the quickest progression to dementia, highlighting the need for screening these conditions to improve early detection and intervention.
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Medical comorbidity, particularly cardiovascular diseases, contributes to high rates of hospital admission and early mortality in people with schizophrenia. The 30 days following hospital discharge represents a critical period for mitigating adverse outcomes. This study examined the odds of successful community discharge among Veterans with schizophrenia compared to those with major affective disorders and those without serious mental illness (SMI) after a heart failure hospital admission.

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Although aggression occurs across a range of disorders, associations between dimensions of psychopathology and self- and other-directed aggression are not well understood. Investigating associations between psychopathology dimensions and aggression helps further understanding about the etiology of aggression, and ultimately, can inform intervention and prevention strategies. This study adopted a multi-method approach to examine associations between internalizing and externalizing dimensions of psychopathology and self- and other-directed aggression as a function of reporter (participant and informant) and modality of aggression measurement (subjective and objective).

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Objective: Adults with serious mental illness (SMI) have high rates of cardiovascular disease, particularly heart failure, which contribute to premature mortality. The aims were to examine 90- and 365-day all-cause medical or surgical hospital readmission in Veterans with SMI discharged from a heart failure hospitalization. The exploratory aim was to evaluate 180-day post-discharge engagement in cardiac rehabilitation, an effective intervention for heart failure.

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Claims data are a valuable resource for studying Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). Alzheimer's disease and related dementias is often identified using a list of claims codes and a fixed lookback period of 3 years of data. However, a 1-year lookback or an approach using all-available lookback data could be beneficial based on different research questions.

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Although sleep loss is theorized to increase aggression risk, knowledge regarding the sleep-aggression relationship, or explanatory psychological processes, is limited. This study examined whether recent sleep duration predicted subsequent laboratory aggression, and whether neurocognitive indices of attentional and motor inhibition and negative emotional processing explained the sleep-aggression relationship. Participants (=141) wore Fitbit Flex devices and kept a sleep diary for three days.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the prevalence of Alzheimer Disease and related dementias (ADRD) among heart failure patients and how it relates to coexisting conditions like insomnia and depression.
  • It analyzed data from nearly 374,000 veterans hospitalized for heart failure between 2011 and 2020, finding that dementia prevalence was significantly higher in those with both insomnia and depression (34%).
  • The findings suggest that patients suffering from both insomnia and depression have a greater risk of ADRD and higher mortality rates, highlighting the importance of screening for these conditions in potentially at-risk patients.
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Research identifying the biobehavioral processes that link threat exposure to cognitive alterations can inform treatments designed to reduce perpetration of stress-induced aggression. The present study attempted to specify the effects of relatively predictable versus unpredictable threat on two attention networks, attentional alerting and executive control. In a sample of adults (n = 74, 35 % identifying as women, M = 32.

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The biobehavioral study of aggression has implications for expanding our understanding of transdiagnostic processes that increase risk for disinhibited behaviors. Toward this end, our study tested tenets from the process model of aggression (Verona & Bresin, 2015). First, we expected that the predictability of threat would differentially alter cognitive networks, including attentional alerting and executive control.

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Background: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is highly comorbid with depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and can complicate their treatment. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a promising treatment for these disorders, yet prior research often excluded AUD patients out of concern for safety or poorer outcomes. To this end, we revisited a prior study of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) for PTSD, to evaluate whether mild AUD impacted safety and clinical outcomes.

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A prominent characteristic of externalizing psychopathology is the inability to suppress or modulate behavioral responses and impulses. These tendencies have been associated with cognitive indicators of inhibitory control (P3) and error processing (error-related negativity [ERN] and positivity [Pe]). However, the extent to which these trait-like components are characteristic of specific manifestations, or externalizing proneness more generally, remains unclear.

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The transition from psychiatric hospitalization to home is marked by high clinical vulnerability, characterized by risk of symptom rebound, exposure to preexisting stressors, and challenges with outpatient treatment linkage. Rates of rehospitalization during this post-discharge period, particularly for those with bipolar disorder, are reported to be high. This study evaluated demographic and clinical predictors of early rehospitalization (within 30 days) in a sample of hospitalized adults with Bipolar I disorder (BD-I).

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