Publications by authors named "Natalia Kascakova"

Objectives: The Short Form-8 (SF-8) is a widely used 8-item tool for health-related quality of life assessment. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Slovak version of the SF-8 in a population sample.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey on a Slovak representative sample (n = 1018; mean age 46.

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Article Synopsis
  • In psychology, people often think of happiness and subjective well-being as the same thing, but this text argues they are different.
  • It suggests that cultures that focus a lot on being super happy (especially in Western countries) might be influenced by their nicer living environments.
  • Lastly, the text warns that trying to make everyone happy the same way can be tricky because it doesn't work for all cultures equally.
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Background: Exposure to traumatic events in childhood, including bullying, can negatively affect physical and mental health in adulthood. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of bullying in different sociodemographic groups of the Slovak Republic and to assess the moderating effect of bullying on the associations between childhood trauma, resilience, and the later occurrence of psychopathology.

Methods: For the analyses, a representative sample of the population of the Slovak Republic was used (N = 1018, mean age 46.

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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic and its related restrictions, mainly social distancing, had an impact on the mental health of various groups, including adolescents.

Methods: The main goal of our study was to explore the impact of gender, age, resilience (measured using the Brief Resilience Scale), attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance (both measured using the Experiences in Close Relationships Revised Scale for adolescents), and mental and general health (measured using items of SF-8 Health Survey) on COVID anxiety (measured using the COVID Anxiety Scale) among a sample of Slovak adolescents ( = 1,786, age 15 to 19, mean age = 16.8, SD = 1.

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Objective: Long-term isolation, including lockdowns and quarantines, may have a distressing effect on anyone experiencing it. Adolescent brain architecture is very sensitive to environmental adversities, and the mental health development of adolescents may be particularly vulnerable during the pandemic era. In order to better understand the triggers for perceived adolescent stress (PSS) during the COVID-19 lockdown, the present study aimed to assess the effects of social well-being and changes in time use during the lockdown, as well as the family COVID experience of adolescents.

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Objective: The abuse and neglect of a child is a major public health problem with serious psychosocial, health and economic consequences. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between various types of childhood trauma, selected long-term diseases and alcohol and nicotine use disorder in Czech and Slovak representative samples.

Methods: Data on retrospective reporting about selected long-term diseases, alcohol and nicotine use disorder (CAGE Questionnaire) and childhood maltreatment (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire; CTQ) in two representative samples (Czech sample: n = 1800, 48.

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Despite negative connotations, surviving trauma can result in improvements in some domains of a person's life. This phenomenon is known as posttraumatic growth (PTG), and it is typically measured using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Given the ambiguous results of the existing validation studies, the present study aimed to verify the psychometric properties of the Slovak version of the PTGI in a representative sample of Slovak citizens.

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The COVID-19 outbreak has raised questions about how vulnerable groups experience the pandemic. Research that focuses on the view of individuals with pre-existing mental health conditions is still limited, and so are cross-country comparative surveys. We gathered our sample of qualitative data during the first lockdown after governmental measures against the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus came into force in Austria, Czechia, Germany, and Slovakia.

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Objective: There is evidence that experiencing childhood trauma and life stressors across the lifespan together with lower resilience is associated with chronic pain-related conditions. The aim of this study was to explore the potential mediating role of resilience in the relationship between childhood trauma and long-term pain and to explore a possible moderating role of serious life stressors in the last year.

Methods: The participants, drawn from a representative sample of citizens of the Czech Republic (n = 1800, mean age: 46.

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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic elicited huge stress responses in most world populations, and at this time psychotherapy is an important protective service against this stress. However, a somewhat neglected question is: How stressful was the COVID-19 outbreak for psychotherapists themselves? The main aim of the present study was to investigate whether dispositional resilience predicted the perceived stress reported by psychotherapists during the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 338 psychotherapists organized within the national psychotherapy associations of three European countries (Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia) were included in this online study (mean age 46.

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This study was focused on verifying the factor structure of the shortened version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) on a representative sample of adult Slovak citizens ( = 1018, 49% men, age 18-85 years, and mean age 46.2). The shortened version of the SWBS consists of 10 items divided into two subscales: religious well-being (RWB) and existential well-being (EWB).

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Objective: In recent years, resilience has become a focus of research in the medical and behavioral sciences. The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) was developed to assess the individual ability to recover from stress ("to bounce back") after experiencing adversities. The aim of the study was to validate the Czech and Slovak versions of the BRS.

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Background: Previous research has shown a strong relationship between childhood trauma and worsened physical and mental health. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) is a commonly used tool assessing early traumatic experiences. The aim of this study was to verify the psychometric properties of the Slovak version of the CTQ.

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Background: Stress has been suggested to play a potential role in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) pathogenesis, but studies focussing on the occurrence of specific life stress events among IBD patients are scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore the association between various life stress events and IBD.

Methods: Patients with IBD (N = 98, mean age: 38.

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Psychotherapists around the world are facing an unprecedented situation with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). To combat the rapid spread of the virus, direct contact with others has to be avoided when possible. Therefore, remote psychotherapy provides a valuable option to continue mental health care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Background: People exposed to childhood trauma show insecure attachment patterns and are more prone to chronic and pain-related conditions, including migraine. The aim of this study was to explore the mediating role of attachment in the association between childhood trauma and adulthood chronic health conditions, with a focus on migraine.

Methods: Respondents from a representative sample of citizens of the Czech Republic ( = 1800, mean age: 46.

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Background: Food addiction receives attention because of its participation in the rising obesity prevalence that affects the quality of life. The Czech Republic's prevalence of obesity belongs to the highest in Europe.

Methods: We used the nationally representative non-clinical sample of 1841 respondents ( = 1841; 48,8% of men and 51.

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Background: Childhood trauma is considered to be a risk factor for developing anxiety as well as chronic pain. The aim of this study was to assess the association between childhood trauma and reporting anxiety and long-term pain conditions in the general and clinical populations.

Methods: Respondents from a representative sample in the Czech Republic ( = 1800, mean age: 46.

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The family environment is associated with religiosity and spirituality as well as many aspects of adolescent lives, including their health behaviour. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess family environment associations with adolescent religious attendance (RA), i.e.

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The aim of this study was to create a shorter Czech version (ECR-R-16) of the Revised Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-R) questionnaire and to assess its psychometric properties. Data from a representative sample of the Czech population from 15 to 90 years old (N = 1000, M age = 46.0 years, SD = 17.

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