Treatment Mechanisms With Homeless Veterans.

Objective: Emotion regulation and social processes that longitudinally predict depressive symptom change have not yet been investigated as mechanisms of change within a residential treatment context for homeless veterans with substance use issues.

Methods: A longitudinal data analysis of 186 homeless veterans enrolled in a six-month residential rehabilitation and addiction treatment program was conducted to investigate the role of six different emotion regulation variables as well the impact of two relationship quality constructs when measured at three time points across treatment.

Results: A large effect size reduction in depressive symptoms occurred during treatment (η = .

Opioid use patterns and association with pain severity and mental health functioning in chronic pain patients.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between patterns of opioid use, pain severity, and pain-related mental health in chronic pain patients prescribed opioids.

Design: The study was designed as a one-time patient interview with structured pain and opioid use assessments.

Setting: The study was set in a tertiary care medical center in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

Conflict and collaboration in middle-aged and older couples: II. Cardiovascular reactivity during marital interaction.

Marital strain confers risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), perhaps though cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stressful marital interactions. CVR to marital stressors may differ between middle-age and older adults, and types of marital interactions that evoke CVR may also differ across these age groups, as relationship contexts and stressors differ with age. The authors examined cardiovascular responses to a marital conflict discussion and collaborative problem solving in 300 middle-aged and older married couples.

Conflict and collaboration in middle-aged and older couples: I. Age differences in agency and communion during marital interaction.

Prior theory and research regarding age differences in marital interaction suggest that older couples display and experience more positivity and less negativity than middle-aged couples. However, studies of overt behavior in older couples are relatively rare and have emphasized disagreement, neglecting other important contexts for older couples such as collaboration during everyday problem solving. Further, the affiliation or communion dimension of social interaction (i.

Associations of self-reports versus spouse ratings of negative affectivity, dominance, and affiliation with coronary artery disease: where should we look and who should we ask when studying personality and health?

Objective: Aspects of negative affect and social behavior studied as risk factors for coronary heart disease are usually examined separately and through self-reports. Using structural models of these personality domains, we tested associations of self-reports and spouse ratings of anxiety, depressive symptoms, anger, affiliation and dominance with coronary artery disease (CAD).

Design: In 154 healthy older couples, the authors tested cross-sectional associations with CAD of three facets of negative affectivity and two dimensions of the Interpersonal Circumplex, (IPC) using scales derived from the NEO-PI-R.

Task control and cognitive abilities of self and spouse in collaboration in middle-aged and older couples.

Collaborative problem solving may be used by older couples to optimize cognitive functioning, with some suggestion that older couples exhibit greater collaborative expertise. The study explored age differences in 2 aspects of collaborative expertise: spouses' knowledge of their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities and the ability to fit task control to these cognitive abilities. The participants were 300 middle-aged and older couples who completed a hypothetical errand task.