Publications by authors named "R Mewes"
Asylum seekers often experience ethnic discrimination on the flight or in the host country, which may be associated with chronic stress and impaired mental health. Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a known physiological correlate of chronic stress, can be assessed using hair cortisol concentrations (HCC). The present study aimed to investigate how different forms of perceived ethnic discrimination are associated with mental health outcomes, HCC, and protective factors in asylum seekers living in Germany.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Studies have suggested that listening to music can reduce psychological and biological responses to a stressor. However, it is unclear whether music has the same effect on stress recovery. According to field studies, people commonly use music in daily life for the specific purpose of relaxation.
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- * The study found that sleep problems were significantly associated with the severity of PTSD symptoms, both as rated by clinicians and self-reported by participants.
- * Interestingly, sleep problems did not independently predict social impairment or quality of life when accounting for other PTSD symptoms, suggesting that further research is needed to explore these relationships over time.
Article Synopsis
- Chronic ethnic discrimination has negative psychological effects, but little is known about how acute discrimination affects those who already experience chronic discrimination, particularly among Turkish immigrants in Austria.
- The study involved 90 male Turkish immigrants tracking real-time discriminatory events over 30 days, along with daily assessments of stress, coping, and emotional responses.
- Results showed that those facing chronic discrimination reported heightened stress and negative emotions on days with acute discrimination, leading to increased maladaptive coping strategies and ongoing stress the following day, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to address these issues in ethnic minority populations.
Recent developments on psychological factors in medically unexplained symptoms and somatoform disorders.
Front Public Health
November 2022
Somatic symptoms which are not fully explained by a medical condition (medically unexplained symptoms) have a high relevance for the public health. They are very common both in the general population and in patients in health care, and may develop into chronic impairing conditions such as somatoform disorders. In recent years, the relevance of specific negative psychological factors for the diagnosis and the stability of somatoform disorders and for the impairment by medically unexplained symptoms gained more and more attention.
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