BMC Psychology最新文献

College students' mental health problems have become an important challenge facing higher education. As a low-threshold and highly accessible form of social support, the mechanisms of peer support in mental health maintenance remain unclear. This study adopted a three-year longitudinal tracking design, collecting data from 1,842 college students at six time points, and used structural equation modeling and latent growth curve modeling to test the long-term enhancement effects of peer support on mental health through the chain mediation mechanism of self-efficacy and social adaptation. Results showed that peer support had a significant positive predictive effect on mental health (total effect β = 0.33, SE = 0.04, 95% CI [0.25, 0.41], p < .001), with indirect effects totaling 0.21 (SE = 0.03, 95% CI [0.15, 0.27], p < .001), accounting for 63.6% of the total effect. Specifically, the simple mediation effect through self-efficacy was 0.10 (30.3% of total effect), through social adaptation was 0.06 (18.2% of total effect), and the chain mediation effect through "self-efficacy → social adaptation" was 0.05 (15.1% of total effect), with Bootstrap confidence intervals for all indirect effects excluding zero. Longitudinal analysis found that all four core variables showed significant linear growth, with social adaptation having the largest growth slope (0.12). Cross-lagged tests confirmed the causal priority and cumulative enhancement characteristics of peer support. The Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) analysis further confirmed that within-person effects accounted for 58.2% of the total within-person association, supporting genuine individual change processes. The study also found a significant compensatory growth pattern (r = - .18), with students having lower initial mental health levels showing faster growth rates. Gender and regional moderation effects indicated that female students and students from western regions benefited more from peer support. The progressive "support-efficacy-adaptation-health" mechanism revealed in this study deepens understanding of social support theory and provides empirical evidence for universities to build stratified and classified peer psychological support systems. It suggests that college mental health education should focus on cultivating a supportive campus culture and promoting the coordinated development of students' self-efficacy and social adaptation abilities through structured peer counseling programs.

Background: Workers face significant mental health challenges from stress, anxiety, and depression, impacting individuals, organizations, and society. Emerging research indicates a link between the gut microbiome and mental well-being, suggesting probiotics as a potential support. This study objectively evaluated probiotic supplementation's effects on depression, anxiety, stress, sleep, and related biological markers in this population.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis following PRISMA 2020 guidelines. EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and PubMed were searched for randomized controlled trials assessing probiotic supplementation on a range of psychological outcomes. The primary outcomes were perceived symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and sleep quality. The secondary outcomes were physiological markers of mental health, such as cortisol and C-reactive protein levels, in working populations. Eligible studies included healthy employed adults (≥ 18 years), without psychiatric, neurodegenerative, genetic, infectious, or endocrine disorders, including pregnancy.

Results: Twelve studies involving 3,350 participants were incorporated. Probiotic consumption had a modest yet statistically significant positive effect on subclinical psychological outcomes, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, in healthy working adults (standardised mean difference (SMD) = -0.21, 95% CI [-0.34, -0.09], p = 0.001). These findings were maintained despite moderate statistical heterogeneity that was likely due to variations in probiotic strains, dosages, and duration of supplementation used. Moreover, the probiotic interventions were associated with a statistically significant reduction in cortisol levels, a key biomarker of physiological stress (SMD = -0.26, 95% confidence interval [CI] [-0.45, -0.08], p = 0.005). Conversely, no statistically significant effects were observed for probiotic supplementation on the C-reactive protein levels, a marker of systemic inflammation. However, due to the lack of available evidence, it was impossible to draw firm conclusions about the effects of probiotics on sleep quality and biomarkers of oxidative stress.

Conclusion: This systematic review and meta-analysis provide preliminary evidence suggesting that probiotic supplementation may hold promise as an approach to improve mental well-being within working populations. However, further high-quality randomised controlled trials targeting this population are needed to determine the optimal probiotic strains, dosages, and treatment durations for addressing specific mental health outcomes.

Trial registration: PROSPERO number CRD42024510170.

Background: Nurses, as the largest and most patient-facing group in healthcare systems, play a vital role in delivering high-quality care. However, they constantly work in high-risk and high-stress environments. Workplace incivility, a subtle yet pervasive stressor, may cause persistent harm to nurses' health. Identifying how different sources of incivility affect nurses' suboptimal health status and examining whether adverse childhood experiences moderate this relationship are essential for developing targeted health promotion strategies.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary hospital in Shandong Province, China, from October 2024 to April 2025, involving 481 registered nurses. The Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) was applied to determine the relative impact of different dimensions of workplace incivility on suboptimal health status. Hierarchical regression models were used to explore the moderating role of adverse childhood experiences in the relationship between workplace incivility and suboptimal health status. Additionally, an interactive tool was used to visually present the results.

Results: XGBoost results indicated that supervisor incivility had the strongest association with suboptimal health status, followed by patient incivility, physician incivility, nurse incivility and general incivility. Hierarchical regression revealed that adverse childhood experiences significantly moderated the relationship between workplace incivility and suboptimal health status. The pattern of moderation aligned with the stress inoculation model, suggesting that higher levels of early adversity weakened the negative impact of workplace incivility on suboptimal health.

Conclusion: Workplace incivility is an important factor influencing nurses' suboptimal health status, with incivility from supervisors exerting the most pronounced effects. Adverse childhood experiences play a protective moderating role, implying that moderate early-life adversity may enhance psychological resilience. Management strategies should prioritize addressing high-risk sources of incivility and incorporate individual differences in early-life experiences to design more tailored health support programs.

Although the growing importance of AI integration in education is widely acknowledged, limited empirical research has explored how school support addressing teachers' basic psychological needs fosters AI literacy, especially in Chinese higher education. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study investigated how school support influences the development of AI literacy among university English teachers in China, focusing on the roles of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In this study, AI literacy involves understanding, application, evaluation, and ethical reflection on AI technology-key factors in educational technology integration. Through survey data from 412 teachers and semi-structured interviews with 23 teachers, the study developed and validated a model linking school support, basic psychological need satisfaction (BPNS), and AI literacy. Quantitative analysis indicated that school support enhances teachers' BPNS, which in turn mediates the impact of school support on AI literacy. Qualitative findings identified several key institutional strategies that address teachers' autonomy, competence, and relatedness, promoting AI literacy development. Together, these findings highlight the pivotal role of school support and teachers' BPNS in fostering AI literacy, providing insights for educational policy and teacher professional development.

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic spread rapidly worldwide, posing a serious health challenge to the global public. College students, lacking sufficient psychological resilience and coping skills, are more prone to depressive. Social isolation and online learning have led to increased health risk behaviors and decreased life satisfaction among college students. However, few studies exist on the association between health risk behaviors and depression among Chinese college students during the stage. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the prevalence of depression and its risk factors among college students during the pandemic.

Methods: A total of 2150 first and second-year college students (whose age from 16 to 20) were recruited for this study from April to June 2020. Data were collected through the Adolescent Students' Life Satisfaction Scale, Health Risk Behavior Scale, Self-rating Anxiety Scale, and Self-rating Depression Scale. A self-administered questionnaire collected other demographic data.Binary logistic regression was conducted to analyze the risk factors of depression.

Results: The prevalence of depressive state of college students was 32.1%. Students with health-compromising behavior (OR = 1.128, p < 0.001) were positively correlated with depression. Furthermore, satisfaction with friendships (OR = 0.941, p < 0.001), freedom (OR = 0.955, p = 0.004), school (OR = 0.966, p = 0.010), and the environment (OR = 0.933, p < 0.001) were protective factors for students' depression.

Conclusions: To reduce this depression, schools should increase publicity and education to promote a regular diet among college students, channel adolescents' destructive emotions to prevent them from self-injury and self-harm, enrich their after-school life to strengthen their interpersonal communication, and enhance friendship- building among them.