Psychology Research and Behavior Management最新文献

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the efficacy of metacognitive training (MCT) as an adjunctive treatment strategy for schizophrenia, particularly its impact on negative symptoms and potential mechanisms.

Patients and methods: This study included a total of 73 inpatients with schizophrenia. 36 patients were in the MCT group and 37 patients were in the control group. Both groups of patients were receiving a single second-generation antipsychotic drug treatment. The MCT group underwent a 4-week MCT program consisting of 8 modules, while the control group received non-cognitive psychological support for the same duration and frequency. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) five-factor model and negative symptom two-factor model were used to assess psychiatric symptoms, and the Snyder's Self-Monitoring Scale (SSMS) and the Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP) were used as functional evaluation indicators.

Results: After treatment, compared to the control group, the MCT group had significantly lower scores in the PANSS total score (p<0.001), negative factor (p=0.002), and hostility factor (p=0.046). Further, the PSP score (p<0.001) and SSMS score (p=0.042) were significantly improved. In the two-factor analysis of negative symptoms, the MCT group showed significant improvements in both diminished expression (DE) symptoms (p<0.001) and social amotivation (SA) symptoms (p=0.010) after treatment. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that changes in the reduction rates of P2 (Conceptual disorganization), N7 (stereotyped thinking), and SA scores had a significant impact on the reduction in DE scores; changes in the reduction rates of P6 (Suspiciousness/persecution) and DE scores had a significant impact on the reduction rate of SA scores (p<0.05).

Conclusion: MCT can improve the clinical symptoms and functions of patients with schizophrenia, especially in the DE factor characterized by conceptual disorganization and stereotyped thinking, and the SA factor prominent in suspiciousness/persecution symptom. This provides insights for the precise treatment of negative symptoms.

Purpose: Depressive symptoms is highly prevalent among individuals in drug abstinence and substantially hinders rehabilitation. Grounded in the biopsychosocial model, this study examined the associations among endogenous oxytocin, perceived social support, drug abstinence self-efficacy, and depressive symptoms among drug abstainers.

Patients and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 339 participants recruited from a compulsory drug abstinence center in China in November 2023. Salivary oxytocin levels were assessed using enzyme immunoassay. Participants completed validated self-report measures of depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), perceived social support (PSSS), and drug abstinence self-efficacy (SELD). Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and the PROCESS macro with 5000 bootstrap samples to test the proposed mediation and moderated mediation models.

Results: Higher endogenous oxytocin was associated with lower depressive symptoms and greater perceived social support. Perceived social support partially mediated the oxytocin-depressive symptoms association. Drug abstinence self-efficacy moderated both the direct and indirect paths, with stronger associations observed among individuals with higher self-efficacy.

Conclusion: Endogenous oxytocin may be a protective correlate of depressive symptoms in drug abstainers, partly through its association with perceived support. These associations are amplified by greater drug abstinence self-efficacy. The findings bridge biological, social, and cognitive perspectives, proposing practical intervention approaches to mitigate depressive symptoms and enhance abstinence outcomes for drug abstainers.

Introduction: The rapid growth of social media use among students has raised concerns about its impact on mental health. While excessive engagement can increase anxiety and stress, emerging virtual technologies show potential as tools for psychological support.

Methods: A mixed-methods experimental study was conducted in a university in Kazakhstan, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. A student survey assessed patterns of social media use and their association with anxiety, stress, and self-esteem. A content analysis of Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter posts identified prevalent mental health themes, formats, and engagement patterns. An experimental intervention tested the effects of virtual reality (VR) meditations and autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) content on reducing anxiety and stress.

Results: Higher intensity of social media use correlated with increased anxiety and stress, and lower self-esteem. Both VR and ASMR interventions significantly reduced anxiety, with VR showing the strongest effect. Content analysis revealed that social media can both amplify anxiety triggers and serve as a source of emotional support.

Discussion: Findings align with existing literature linking social media to poorer emotional well-being, while highlighting the potential of immersive digital interventions for stress reduction. The integrated MDI-STUDENT model was developed, combining relaxation techniques, digital hygiene practices, and reflective activities to build resilience.

Conclusion: Excessive social media use is associated with adverse mental health outcomes in students, but structured virtual interventions, especially VR, can mitigate these effects. The study supports integrating digital stress management strategies into university mental health programs.

Background: Procrastination can be defined as voluntarily delaying or postponing a task that is often regarded as important or necessary to do. It often has short-term benefits but high future burdens. The Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) is a 9-item self-reporting scale that focuses on the implemental aspect of procrastination and are clearly worded and easy to understand, making it easier for participants to express their opinion. A few efforts have been made to adapt procrastination scales for Arabic-speaking populations and provide procrastination scales to Arabic-speaking populations and countries. The objectives of our study were to evaluate the validity of the Arabic version of IPS, assess its internal reliability and explore concurrent validity of the IPS based on patterns of correlations between procrastination and time perspectives.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from February to March 2023 and involved 684 young adults, mostly female participants from various regions of Lebanon. The Exploratory-to-Confirmatory (EFA-CFA) strategy was used to confirm the IPS validity.

Results: The CFA results revealed that the fit indices of the one-factor model were not good: CFI= 0.923, TLI = 0.898 RMSEA = 0.124 [90% CI 0.111, 0.136] and SRMR = 0.114. Therefore, we randomly split the sample into two groups; an EFA was first conducted on the first subsample (n = 343). Items 2, 6 and 9 were removed since their loading factor was below 0.4. A CFA was then performed on the second subsample (n = 341). The hypothesized one-factor model was specified with six items loading on the latent construct (CFI = 0.990, TLI = 0.984, SRMR = 0.061, RMSEA = 0.087 [90% CI 0.071, 0.104]). The internal reliability of the scale was excellent (α = 0.89 and ω = 0.89). Model fit for configural, metric, scalar and strict invariance was shown. Higher time perspective dimensions' scores, namely past negative, past positive, present fatalistic and present hedonistic, were significantly associated with higher irrational procrastination.

Conclusion: The validated Arabic IPS provides a reliable tool for screening procrastination, with potential applications in clinical assessment, interventions, and cross-cultural research on its psychological, social, and cultural determinants.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with suicidal ideation and to develop a prediction model for early suicide ideation risk using machine learning algorithms based on the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD-24).

Methods: A total of 374 patients with depression were included from the outpatient department of the Psychology Department at the Second People's Hospital of Changzhou City. Depression severity was assessed using the HAMD-24, while the Beck Suicide Ideation (BSI) Questionnaire (Chinese Version) was employed to categorize patients into those with and without suicidal ideation. Suicide ideation risk in patients with depression was predicted using four machine learning models: support vector machine, naive Bayes classification, random forest, and extreme random trees classification (ERTC). This superiority is attributed to ERTC's extreme randomization which mitigates overfitting in high-dimensional symptom data. The models were evaluated based on accuracy, precision, recall, F1 scores, Kappa coefficients, Matthew's correlation coefficients, and area under the curve values. The optimal model was then selected, and the factors most strongly associated with suicidal ideation using the HAMD-24 were identified and analyzed.

Results: The ERTC model outperformed SVM, NBC and RF (accuracy 77.75%, AUC 0.80), and despair, guilt, inferiority complex, work and interests loss, depression emotions were the strongest predictors of suicidal ideation. Demographically, patients with suicidal ideation were significantly younger and less likely to be using antidepressants. This is likely attributable to its ensemble structure and inherent randomization during node splitting, which enhances robustness against overfitting and improves generalization when handling the complex, potentially non-linear relationships between HAMD-24 items and suicidal ideation.

Conclusion: We identified the optimal model and then analyzed the factors most strongly associated with HAMD-24 suicidal ideation. The ERTC model, demonstrating superior performance, enables early interventions, and reduces suicide rates. Moreover, this model provides a theoretical reference for the development of new scales focused on depression and suicide.

Background: Although there is extensive evidence linking cyberbullying perpetration to adolescents' suicidal ideation, studies have not yet explored the longitudinal relationship between cyberbullying perpetration and adolescents' suicidal ideation, nor have they elucidated the mechanisms underlying this relationship. To address these gaps, this study employed a three-wave longitudinal design to examine the relationship between cyberbullying perpetration and suicidal ideation among Chinese vocational school adolescents, and the mediating effect of depression and the moderating effect of need to belong (NTB) in this relationship.

Methods: Using a cluster sampling method, 802 adolescents (M_age = 17.5, SD=4.3, 51.6% female) from two vocational schools completed the questionnaires measuring cyberbullying perpetration, suicidal ideation, depression, and NTB across three waves at six-month intervals. T1 depression was treated as a control variable in the statistical model. This study used SPSS 27.0 and PROCESS macro to test the research hypotheses.

Results: The results demonstrated that (1) T1 cyberbullying perpetration positively predicted T3 suicidal ideation; (2) T2 depression fully mediated the relationship between T1 cyberbullying perpetration and T3 suicidal ideation; (3) T2 NTB moderated the indirect relationship between T2 depression and T3 suicidal ideation. Specifically, the relationship between T2 depression and T3 suicidal ideation was stronger for vocational school adolescents with high NTB than for those with low NTB.

Conclusion: These findings indicate that cyberbullying perpetration impacts adolescents' suicidal ideation via depression, and that adolescents with high NTB are more vulnerable to suicidal ideation when experiencing depression. This research highlights the importance of adopting a depression-focused intervention, thus preventing cyberbullying perpetration from escalating to suicidal ideation among vocational school adolescents, particularly those with high NTB.

Background: The Voices Acceptance and Action Scale (VAAS) is a tool used to measure acceptance and autonomous action in people with schizophrenia who are undergoing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Aim: Translate and investigate the psychometric properties of the Egyptian (Arabic) version of the Voices Acceptance and Action Scale.

Design: A descriptive cross-sectional research design following STROBE guidelines.

Methods: A convenience sample of 300 clients with schizophrenia completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Arabic VAAS, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II. The scale was translated using a forward-backward translation method. Content validity was assessed by 10 experts. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) were conducted to assess construct validity. Internal consistency was measured using Cronbach's alpha, and test-retest reliability was evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results: The Arabic version of the VAAS demonstrated good content validity (S-CVI = 0.94). EFA supported a five-factor structure, and CFA confirmed acceptable model fit (CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.087). The tool showed strong internal consistency (α = 0.993) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.85-0.95). No floor or ceiling effects were observed.

Conclusion: The Egyptian Arabic version of the VAAS is a reliable and valid measure for assessing acceptance and autonomous action toward auditory hallucinations among Arabic-speaking individuals with schizophrenia.

Impact: The Voices Acceptance and Action Scale is a tool used to measure acceptance and autonomous action in people with schizophrenia who are undergoing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Objective: The study aimed to conduct a psychometric validation of the Chinese version of the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) and to explore the association between metacognitive factors and post-traumatic growth (PTG).

Methods: 313 young and middle-aged patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were recruited between October 2023 and June 2024 from a tertiary hospital in Zhengzhou, China. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test established factor structures of the MCQ-30. The reliability tests, criterion-related validity analyses, and regression models were conducted.

Results: CFA results supported the five-factor structure of the MCQ-30, with satisfactory model fit and good reliability. Criterion-related validity was also supported by significant positive correlations between the five factors and depression/anxiety symptoms. All five metacognition factors were also significantly correlated with PTG.

Conclusion: The findings support the use of the Chinese version of the MCQ-30 as a potentially reliable and valid instrument for assessing metacognitive beliefs in young and middle-aged AMI patients. Given the sampling method and cross-sectional design, results should be interpreted cautiously. Further research with larger sample sizes, and longitudinal design is needed to validate the above results.

Background: The "hollow heart disease" phenomenon is on the rise today. We introduce a new concept, "hollow syndrome", and explore its multiple influencing factors as well as its relationship with mental resilience. This study aims to provide support to mental health for university population and to provide a reference for the intervention of hollow syndrome.

Methods: We used Hollow Syndrome Scale and Mental Resilience Scale to conduct cross-sectional study and data collection from 3,173 Chinese university students. After thorough reliability and validity test on the two scales, independent samples t-tests and one-way ANOVA were used to explore differences in hollow syndrome across demographic characteristics, and least significant difference was performed after stratification for grade level. Pearson correlation analyses were used to find correlations between mental resilience and hollow syndrome. Finally, we used multiple linear regression to explore its risk and protective factors..

Results: Medical major (P=0.011, Cohen's d=0194), grade, overweight, major satisfaction, experience of being left-behind before 18, participant's disease status, paternal disease status (Cohen's d=0.207), maternal disease status differed significantly on total Hollow Syndrome Scale score (all P<0.001). Grade (β=0.042, P=0.019), major satisfaction (β=0.122, P<0.001,Cohen's d=-0.582) were positively correlated with total score; overweight (β=-0.064, P<0.001,Cohen's d=0.179), experience of being left-behind before 18 (β=-0.065, P<0.001,Cohen's d=0.249), participant's disease status (β=-0.068, P<0.001,Cohen's d=0.282), maternal disease status (β=-0.053, P=0.007,Cohen's d=0.151) were negatively correlated with total score. There was a significant difference in total scores in second and graduated year compared to the first-year students (P<0.001). Overall, the first and the third year had lower Hollow Syndrome Scale score. This suggests that students in both grades are more likely to develop hollow syndrome.

Conclusion: The psychological problems of medical students need to be taken seriously. Attention should be focused on the first and third year medical university students.

Background: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a chronic and debilitating mental health condition characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. The Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire-9 is a concise tool designed to assess the dysfunctional beliefs central to OCD. This study aimed to translate, adapt, and validate the OBQ-9 for use in Arabic-speaking populations.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 392 Lebanese adults. Participants completed the Arabic OBQ-9, the Eating Attitudes Test-7, and the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-12 through online self-administered questionnaires. The OBQ-9 was translated using a forward-backward method and validated through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal consistency reliability, gender invariance testing, and concurrent validity assessment.

Results: The CFA supported a three-factor structure of the Arabic OBQ-9, with fit indices improving significantly after minor modifications (χ2/df = 4.23, RMSEA =0.091, SRMR =0.060, CFI =0.941, TLI =0.908). The OBQ-9 demonstrated good internal consistency, with adequate Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega values for the total score and subscales as follows: total score (ω =0.84; α =0.84), Factor 1 (ω =0.74; α =0.73), Factor 2 (ω =0.71; α =0.70) and Factor 3 (ω =0.81; α =0.81). Gender invariance was confirmed, with no significant differences between male and female scores (p =0.446). Concurrent validity was supported by significant correlations between OBQ-9 scores and both EAT-7 (r =0.21, p <0.001) and OCI-12 (r =0.41, p <0.001) scores.

Conclusion: The Arabic OBQ-9 is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing obsessive beliefs in Arabic-speaking populations. It can enhance the accuracy of OCD diagnosis and treatment in clinical and research settings. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies and broader demographic samples to further validate the OBQ-9 and explore its applicability in other cultural contexts.