Trauma echoes: factors associated with peritraumatic distress and anxiety five days following Iranian missile attack on Israel.

On 13-14 April 2024, Iran launched ∼300 drones and missiles at Israel, in an unprecedented attack. As most studies examine the effects of trauma months or years later, less is known about its effects days later. To fill this gap, this study gauged the population response, five days after the attack.

Intergenerational effects of the Holocaust following the October 7 attack in Israel.

Descendants of traumatized individuals may exhibit latent vulnerability, meaning they are typically well-functioning yet more vulnerable to stressful and traumatic events. Nevertheless, such vulnerability is not omnipresent, and some descendants are more prone than others to develop posttraumatic disorder (PTSD) and other psychopathologies. Ancestral PTSD was suggested as an aggravating factor for intergenerational effects.

Trauma reactivation 50 years later: Yom Kippur war veterans after the October 7 attack.

Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War began with a surprise attack, the October 7 terror attack caught Israelis off guard in yet another surprise attack. The current study assessed the extent to which Yom Kippur War veterans thought about the linkage between the two wars, and whether such thoughts were associated with trauma reactivation and exacerbation of distress. A web-based random sample of 297 Yom Kippur War veterans (age range 68-88) completed questionnaires five months before (T1) and two months after the October 7 attack (T2).

The Skill of Positive Solitude Moderates the Relationship between 24 Character Strengths and Flourishing in the Second Half of Life.

Objectives: Aging may challenge life and even affect individuals' wellbeing and flourishing. This includes the challenges of diminished social connections and the experience of solitude in later life while seeking to leverage personal strengths. The current study examines two important personal resources, i.

Taking the Extra Listening Mile: Processing Spoken Semantic Context Is More Effortful for Older Than Young Adults.

Objectives: Older adults use semantic context to generate predictions in speech processing, compensating for aging-related sensory and cognitive changes. This study aimed to gauge aging-related changes in effort exertion related to context use.

Design: The study revisited data from Harel-Arbeli et al.

PTSD symptoms and subjective traumatic outlook in the Israel-Hamas war: Capturing a broader picture of posttraumatic reactions.

This study examined the unique associations of both probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and subjective traumatic outlook (STO) with psychiatric and psychological concomitants among Israelis during the Israel-Hamas War. While PTSD reflects phenomenological psychiatric reactions to traumatic events, STO reflects subjective evaluations that one is traumatized. A convenience sample of 375 Israelis aged 20-87 from around Israel completed an online survey in the first two months of the war.

Cultural Differences in Daily Coupling of Subjective Views of Aging and Negative Affect.

Objectives: The established link between subjective views of aging (VoA) and well-being shows variations across different cultures. Although VoA show daily fluctuations, little is known about cultural differences in such fluctuations and the daily coupling of VoA and well-being. We compared Israeli Arabs to Israeli Jews in the daily coupling of VoA and negative affect (NA).

Exploring the efficacy of sense of Okayness (SOK) as an antidote for stress in older adults: the role of SOK elevation intervention, heart rate variability (HRV), and cognitive performance in stressful and relaxing situations.

Sense of Okayness (SOK) is an emerging concept that describes a person's ability to remain stable and unshaken in the face of life transitions and hardships. This quality enables effective stress regulation and heightened tolerance to uncertainty. To investigate the possible role of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) in mediating the relationship between SOK and stress regulation among older individuals, an analytical sample of N  =  69 participants (74% women) with a mean age of 78.

The Architectural Layout of Long-Term Care Units: Relationships between Support for Residents' Well-Being and for Caregivers' Burnout and Resilience.

With a growing need for long-term care facilities in general, and for specialized dementia units in particular, it is important to ensure that the architectural layouts of such facilities support the well-being of both the residents and the unit caregivers. This study aimed to investigate correlations between the support provided by the architectural layout of long-term care units for enhancing residents' well-being and for decreasing unit caregivers' burnout and increasing their resilience-as layouts may impact each party differently. The Psycho Spatial Evaluation Tool was utilized to assess the support provided by the layouts of seventeen long-term care units (ten regular nursing units and seven specialized dementia units) for the residents' physical and social well-being (five dimensions); a questionnaire was used to measure the unit caregivers' burnout and resilience.

The Holocaust Experience and Its Role in the Association Between Meaning in Life, Depressive Symptoms and Life Satisfaction.

Holocaust survivors often reveal long-term depressive symptoms, while demonstrating life satisfaction. The present study examined the role of meaning in life (MIL) of Holocaust survivors in this context. Survivors ( = 44) and comparisons ( = 51) provided background information and completed MIL, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction scales.

Age differences in acute stress and PTSD symptoms during the 2023 Israel-Hamas war: Preliminary findings.

Traumatic exposure can result in acute stress symptoms in the immediate aftermath and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms that persist beyond the initial weeks. Both short-term and long-term reactions require research and clinical attention. There is considerable evidence for age differences in PTSD, and older adults frequently present lower rates of PTSD compared to young adults.

Associations among loneliness, internal locus of control and subjective accelerated ageing in older adults who received the booster vaccination.

Background: A rise in loneliness among older adults since the COVID-19 outbreak, even after vaccination, has been highlighted. Loneliness has deleterious consequences, with specific effects on perceptions of the ageing process during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coping with stressful life events and the challenges of ageing may result in a perception of acceleration of this process.

The Role of Subjective Age in Predicting Post-Hospitalization Outcomes of Older Adults.

Introduction: Studies of community-dwelling older adults find subjective age affects health and functional outcomes. This study explored whether younger subjective age serves as a protective factor against hospital-associated physical, cognitive, and emotional decline, well-known consequences of hospitalization among the elderly.

Methods: This study is a secondary data analysis of a subsample (N = 262; age: 77.

Echoes of ancestral trauma: Russo-Ukrainian War salience and psychological distress among subsequent generations in Holocaust survivor families.

Objective: The Russo-Ukrainian War intensified when Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The current study examined whether children (second generation; G2) and grandchildren (third generation; G3) of Holocaust survivors are more preoccupied with the war relative to comparisons. Moreover, whether there was more exacerbation in psychological distress in Holocaust survivor families relative to comparisons since the escalation of the war.

Factors associated with ICD-11 posttraumatic stress disorder and complex posttraumatic stress disorder among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ICD-11 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD have been understudied in the older population. The study focused on the associations between traumatic exposure before the pandemic, COVID-19 worries, depression, and loneliness with current PTSD and CPTSD among older adults. A random sample of five hundred and twelve Israeli older adults ( 72.

Let there be light: The moderating role of positive solitude in the relationship between loneliness and depressive symptoms.

Positive solitude (PS), the choice of being alone to engage in meaningful inner or physical, spiritual, mental, or cognitive activity/ experience, was recently suggested as a stand-alone phenomenon differentiated from loneliness and negative solitude. As loneliness was previously found to have adverse implications for mental health, the present study examined whether the ability to engage in PS can moderate the harmful effect of loneliness on depressive symptoms. The sample consisted of 520 community-dwelling older adults in Israel aged 68-87 (Mage = 72.

Meaning reconstruction 70 years later: Processing older adults' unfinished business in a drama therapy group.

Unfinished business (UB), when individuals appraise their relationship with others or themselves as incomplete or unresolved, entails difficult emotions such as regret, remorse, and guilt. UB is often associated with bereavement and is considered to be a predictor of complicated grief. Here we report two case studies describing the processing of the sudden death of a significant other in the context of a randomized controlled study of 12-week drama therapy groups for older adults.

Trauma-related and risk factors associated with perceived exacerbation in psychological distress due to the Russo-Ukrainian war.

This study examined trauma-related and other potential risk factors associated with perceived exacerbation in psychological distress among Israelis due to the Russo-Ukrainian War. Specifically, we assessed how vulnerability factors such as previous traumatic exposure, having relatives and friends affected by the war, media exposure, having a Holocaust familial background, lower levels of resilience, and probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) are associated with perceived exacerbation in psychological distress. A random sample of 845 Israeli Jews aged 18-75 who reported exposure to at least one traumatic event participated in the study.

Dental anxiety and ageing anxiety: Moderated mediation roles of Oral Health-Related Quality of Life and subjective accelerated ageing.

Background: Oral health and its relation to ageing is an important topic often neglected among geriatric populations. Proper oral rehabilitation may aid in alleviating mental health burdens in such populations.

Objectives: The present study aimed to explore the association between dental anxiety and ageing anxiety, with regard to the interplay of Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) as mediator and subjective accelerated ageing as a moderator.

Reclaiming hope: Subjective nearness to death as a moderator between posttraumatic stress symptoms and hope among older adults.

Perceiving one's remaining time until death, can serve as a source of resilience when faced with adversity in the second half of life. The current work is based on a prospective study and examines whether subjective nearness-to-death (SNtD) moderates the association between posttraumatic-stress symptoms (PTSS) and hope among adults in the second half of life. The first wave was conducted after the end of a military conflict in the south of Israel, and included 170 participants (M = 66.

Sow in tears and reap in joy: Eye tracking reveals age-related differences in the cognitive cost of spoken context processing.

Older adults have been found to use context to facilitate word recognition at least as efficiently as young adults. This may pose a conundrum, as context use is based on cognitive resources that are considered to decrease with aging. The goal of this study was to shed light on this question by testing age-related differences in context use and the cognitive demands associated with it.

Self and Perceived Others' Views of Aging and Their Association with Mental Health in the Second Half of Life.

This study focuses on the concepts of subjective age and subjective nearness-to-death (views-of-aging) and examines the association between individuals' chronological age, self, and others' perceptions of these variables and mental health. A total of 267 participants aged 40-95 = 64.33 provided sociodemographic information and filled out scales assessing self and others' views-of-aging, depressive symptoms, and their well-being.