Multiple sclerosis twin study reveals distinct genetic, disease-specific, and psychometric impact on coping with critical life events.

Background: Critical life events challenge our competence to develop coping strategies. In people with multiple sclerosis (MS), the impact of genetics, disease-specific, and psychometric factors on coping strategies have not been explored to date.

Methods: In a unique cohort of 56 monozygotic twins discordant for MS, we applied comprehensive psychometric and clinical testing to measure factors influencing the psychosocial impact (including stressors and coping strategies) of a critical life event, exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic (measured by the COVID-19 Pandemic Mental Health Questionnaire, CoPaQ).

Mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic among residents of Jimma town: a cross-sectional study.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge to community wellbeing and mental health. However, quantifiable information on the extent of mental health problems and associated factors due to the pandemic is still lacking in low-income countries. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the levels of depression, anxiety, and stress and their association with risk and resilience factors among residents of Jimma town in Southwestern Ethiopia.

Nightmares and psychiatric symptoms: A systematic review of longitudinal, experimental, and clinical trial studies.

Nightmares occur across a wide range of psychiatric disorders, but outside of PTSD presentations are infrequently considered a treatment priority. We aimed to assess evidence for a contributory causal role of nightmares to the occurrence of psychiatric disorders, and vice versa. A systematic review was conducted of longitudinal, experimental, and clinical trial studies.

Association of loneliness and social network size in adulthood with childhood maltreatment: Analyses of a population-based and a clinical sample.

Background: Perceived loneliness and objective social network size are related but distinct factors, which negatively affect mental health and are prevalent in patients who have experienced childhood maltreatment (CM), for example, patients with persistent depressive disorder (PDD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD). This cross-diagnostic study investigated whether loneliness, social network size, or both are associated with self-reported CM.

Methods: Loneliness and social network size were assessed in a population-based sample at two time points (Study 1,  = 509), and a clinical group of patients with PDD or BPD (Study 2,  = 190) using the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the Social Network Index.

Loneliness is associated with maladaptive schema modes in patients with persistent depressive disorder.

Objectives: Though loneliness represents a public health concern, this complex unpleasant feeling is commonly neglected in psychiatric care and may constitute a new treatment target in clinical groups particularly prone to feeling lonely and socially isolated, e.g., persistent depressive disorder (PDD).