Psychotherapie Psychosomatik Medizinische Psychologie最新文献

Objective: Wisdom can be understood as the ability to solve unsolvable problems. Wise persons are better in coping with difficult life situations. Wise strategies help them to do so. The question is whether the same or different wisdom strategies make sense for different life problems.

Methods: A total of 416 persons (40.4 years old) read two situational vignettes, one about a work problem and one about a private problem. After each situational vignette, they were asked about their wisdom strategies regarding the respective situation. Wisdom strategies were measured by means of a self-rating wisdom scale.

Results: People agreed similarly with wisdom strategies for both situations. For both situations, participants agreed most strongly to use factual and procedural knowledge, perception and acceptance of emotions, value relativism and relativization of problems and aspirations. The order of the remaining eight wisdom strategies was the same for both situations.

Discussion and conclusion: People agreed similarly with wisdom strategies regardless of the situation type. Wisdom strategies seem to be meaningful across different life problems. This is of interest for the design of interventions to promote psychological resilience.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world of work. Due to additional occupational health and safety measures early childhood professionals were faced with an increased workload, which may lead to an increased risk for their individual health. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to obtain updated prevalences of psychosocial work stress (effort-reward imbalance, ERI), overcommitment as well as somatic symptoms and their association during the COVID-19 pandemic. Early childhood professionals from a large city in North Rhine-Westphalia (N=1009) participated in the survey between June 2020 and May 2021. The Effort-Reward Imbalance at work questionnaire (16 items version) was used to assess work stress, and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-15) was used to assess somatic symptoms. A multiple logistic regression tested the association between work stress and somatic health. In total, 72.3% of the sample showed an effort-reward imbalance, 25.0% showed a high overcommitment. The overall prevalence of somatization at a moderate to high level was 45.2%. Effort-reward imbalance and high overcommitment increased the odds of severe symptom presence by a factor of 4.12 and 5.20, respectively. This study shows the high number of effort-reward imbalances, the high overcommitment and the above-average prevalence of somatic complaints among early childhood professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. In view of these high prevalences and their relationships, there is still a strong need for action and research to reduce work-related stress in this occupational group as well as to investigate the persistence of and the management of somatic symptoms in order to develop long-term preventive measures.

Objective: In view of the cruelty of acts of terrorism and violent extremism, it is often inconceivable what the underlying motives are. Analyzes of the attacks in Ansbach (2016), Halle (2019) and Hanau (2020) showed a picture of different psychological conspicuities among the perpetrators, which highlights the need to involve health care professionals in the prevention of extremism. Against this background, the treatment of people with extremist attitudes appears to be crucial in order to prevent negative consequences for those affected, but also for society.

Methods: Within the framework of an anonymous online survey, physicians and psychological psychotherapists were asked about previous experiences, attitudes and wishes regarding the treatment of patients with extremist attitudes. Furthermore, data on their own work was collected.

Results: A total of 364 physicians (18%), psychological psychotherapists (72%) and participants with other job descriptions (10%) took part in the study. Only one fifth state that they felt well trained in the subject. About half of the respondents would offer a place in therapy (if they could decide on the patients themselves), likewise about half have already dealt with the topic of extremism and the majority see a need to deal with the topic more in the future and indicate a need for further training. The analyses show that physicians have so far dealt with the topic somewhat more than those with psychological psychotherapeutic training, and professionals in private practive are more likely to see a connection between extremism and psychiatric illnesses than professionals in hospitals, but would be less willing to offer patients with extremist attitudes a place in therapy.

Discussion: Physicians and psychotherapists need further training on extremisms and should be better prepared fo the challenges of treating patients in this context.

Conclusion: In order to increase the chances of providing adequate care for mentally ill people with extremist attitutdes, health professionals should be better prepared for the topic in the future, for example through further training or opportunities for cooperation.

Background: Studies on stigmatization of cancer patients show a moderate or high relevance of perceived stigmatization. To date, there are no studies with explicit focus on stigma in relation to oncological therapy. We investigated the role of oncological therapy on perceived stigma in a large sample.

Methods: Quantitative data from 770 patients (47,4% women; 88%≥50 years) with breast, colorectal, lung, or prostate cancer were analyzed as part of a registry-based bicentric study. Stigma was assessed with the German version of the SIS-D; the validated instrument includes four subscales in addition to a total score. Data were analyzed using the t-test and multiple regression with various sociodemographic and medical predictors.

Results: Of the 770 cancer patients, 367 (47,7%) received chemotherapy, possibly in combination with other therapy (surgery, radiotherapy). All stigma scales showed significant mean differences (effect sizes up to d=0,49) with higher scores for patients receiving chemotherapy. The multiple regression analyses of the respective SIS-scales demonstrate a significant influence of the variables age (ß≤- 0,266) and depressivity (ß≤0,627) on perceived stigma in all five models, and (in four models) a significant influence of the variable chemotherapy (ß≤0,140). Radiotherapy shows only a weak influence in all models and surgery has no relevance. The explained variance ranges from R2=27 to 46,5%.

Discussion and conclusion: The findings support the assumption of an association of oncological therapy, especially chemotherapy, on the perceived stigmatization of cancer patients. Relevant predictors are depression and younger (<50) age. These (vulnerable) groups should therefore receive special attention and psycho-oncological care in clinical practice. Further research on the course and mechanisms of therapy-related stigmatization is also necessary.

Background: Approximately 6,2 million people with limited literacy live in Germany. They are unable to communicate in written language beyond single sentences and thus experience limited social participation in many everyday areas. In addition, they are also excluded from participation in survey-based social science research.

Method: In order to enable persons with limited literacy to participate in written surveys, existing questionnaires need to be converted to easy language and their psychometric quality needs to be reexamined. We went through this process for the Self-Efficacy Expectancy (SWE) questionnaire and tested the new scale in easy language (SWE-LS) on a representative sample of the German population aged 14 years and older (N=2,531).

Results: The SWE-LS scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's-Alpha=0,84) and adequate item difficulty and discriminatory power. We found correlations consistent with expectations for the demographic variables surveyed. Thus, men and persons with higher education and higher income showed significantly higher self-efficacy expectations. The effect was also evident for East Germans versus West Germans, married persons living together versus separated, unmarried, or persons living as singles.

Discussion: Compared to the original SWE scale, the SWE-LS scale in easy language has no methodological disadvantages. The additional effort of linguistic adaptation and renewed psychometric testing is thus directly offset by enabling participation in survey-based research by over 12% of the adult population. A systematic translation of particularly frequently used questionnaires or those that do not concern fundamental research but research areas in which demographic variables themselves are part of the research object would be desirable.