Psychologica Belgica最新文献

Although increasingly disputed, the white coat uniform is ubiquitous in geriatric care, which may reflect a phenomenon called medicalisation of ageing. This narrative review is the first attempt at integrating several theoretical approaches, such as the "white coat effect" and "enclothed cognition", in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the use of this clothing item. Based on extensive empirical evidence, we will examine the consequences of wearing a uniform, not only on patients (in this case, older patients) and healthcare professionals, but also on their relationship. The white coat has powerful symbolic functions for healthcare professionals and is still preferred by older adults. However, the negative repercussions of wearing a uniform require us to question its use, particularly in environments where older persons live, such as nursing homes.

The Brief Irritability Test (BITe, Holtzman et al., 2014) is a brief, reliable, and valid self-report measure of irritability. Despite the growing interest to understand the underlying causes and consequences of irritability, this questionnaire has not been developed and validated for a French-speaking population yet. In the present study, 413 participants completed our French adaptation of the BITe (i.e., TCI; Test Court d'Irritabilité) and measures of associated constructs (depression, anger, hostility, and aggression) and well-being (life satisfaction and social support). Descriptive, psychometric (i.e., Cronbach alpha and Spearman correlation coefficients), and factor analyses were conducted. An exploratory factor analysis in sample 1 (n = 209), yielded one single factor. The confirmatory factor analysis in sample 2 (n = 204) showed a reasonable fit of this single factor model explaining 55.5% of the variance and presenting a strong internal consistency (α = .80). Compared to the original English questionnaire, the TCI shares similar unidimensional factor organization and correlations with other constructs, although a gender bias was identified, with women scoring higher than men. Irritability was higher among respondents in the age range 17-25, compared to older adults. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that TCI scores significantly predict depressive symptoms when demographics were controlled for. In summary, the TCI presents good psychometric properties and could constitute a valuable tool to evaluate irritability in clinical and research contexts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been shown to induce several psychological consequences (e.g., increases in anxiety and stress). Accordingly, it seems relevant to investigate how individuals cope with their emotions. Indeed, when facing negative emotions, individuals need to rely on adaptive emotion regulation strategies to alleviate their negative impacts (e.g., decrease in quality of life, increase in sleep disturbances). Moreover, lockdown's measures led to a restriction of the access to activities which, in turn, might have decreased the "environmental satisfaction". Then, this research investigates the pandemic's psychological impacts on emotions and regulation strategies, intolerance of uncertainty, and environmental satisfaction. Our approach's originality relies on comparing one's actual psychological functioning (i.e., since the pandemic) to one's general psychological functioning (i.e., before the pandemic). This study also assesses the relationships between both negative and positive emotions and (1) emotion regulation strategies, (2) intolerance of uncertainty and, (3) environmental satisfaction since the pandemic and its lockdown. The total sample comprised 948 adults from the general population. Results show that, since the pandemic, individuals experience higher levels of negative emotions, lower levels of positive emotions and environmental satisfaction. They also tend to worry less and to resort to acceptance more often. Also, environmental satisfaction is the most important predictor of both negative emotions and positive ones. Overall, findings confirm previous ones and seem to indicate that environmental satisfaction should be addressed more thoroughly.