Journal of Mental Health最新文献

Purpose: We examined odds of anxiety and depression symptomology among sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals compared to straight and cisgender individuals, stratified by race.

Methods: Data represented 918,892 households in the Household Pulse Survey from July 2021-October 2022. The Patient Health Questionnaire-2 measured depression symptoms (Scores >3 = depression symptoms). The Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-2 measured anxiety symptoms (Scores >3 = anxiety symptoms). Sexual orientation was categorical: "Gay/Lesbian," "Straight," "Bisexual," "Something Else," or "Don't know." Gender identity had 3 levels: "Cisgender Male," "Cisgender Female," or "Transgender/other gender identity." Logistic regression estimated odds ratios(OR) and 95% confidence intervals(CI) for depression and anxiety among sexual minority individuals compared to straight individuals and transgender individuals compared to cisgender males. Intersection of sexual orientation/gender identity was also examined. Models (adjusted for sociodemographic factors) were stratified by race/ethnicity.

Results: Transgender individuals showed doubled odds of depression (OR:2.30 95%CI:1.98,2.67) and anxiety (OR:2.41 95%CI:2.23,2.61) versus cisgender individuals. Bisexual individuals had nearly tripled odds versus straight individuals. Transgender bisexual individuals showed highest odds versus cisgender males (depression OR:6.22 95%CI:5.06,7.64; anxiety OR:7.11 95%CI:6.13,8.24). Non-Hispanic White individuals typically showed highest symptomology.

Conclusion: SGM individuals showed increased anxiety and depression symptomology, with unexpected racial disparities warranting further intersectionality research.

Background: Children of parents with mental illness (COPMI) have not received sufficient support in China despite their genetic and environmental risk of adverse mental health outcomes.

Aims: This study was conducted for the first time in China to assess mental distress in adolescent COPMI compared with the population-based control (PBC) group of parents without mental disorders.

Methods: A total of 1,114 participants including 558 COPMI and 556 PBC, aged 12-17, were recruited from the communities and assessed by self-report scales about anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Regression and mediation analyses were used to identify risk factors for mental distress.

Results: The estimated prevalence of anxiety and depression in the COPMI group was significantly higher than in the PBC group (anxiety: 3.9% vs. 1.6%, depression: 5.9% vs. 3.4%). A history of parental mental illness was associated with the lack of family communication, which in turn had a significant (BootCI = (0.020 - 0.062)) indirect effect on the increased anxiety and depression levels of the adolescent offspring.

Conclusions: Our findings emphasized the necessity to early identify mental distress in COPMI and provide timely and targeted intervention to improve family communication and mental health well-being for these high-risk adolescents.

Background: Adolescent mental health problems have increased in prevalence. Teachers' Mental Health Literacy (MHL) may play an important role in public mental health prevention approaches. This systematic review and narrative synthesis aimed to identify what is known globally about the extent of secondary school teachers' MHL and the types and effectiveness of MHL interventions for secondary school teachers.

Methods: PsycINFO, PubMed, ERIC, EBSCO-Psychological and behavioural sciences collection, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched to identify studies until 29/04/2024. Two independent reviewers screened the returns.

Results: Twenty eligible studies were reviewed. Most intervention studies were from high-income countries and used a psycho-educative approach. Pre-intervention, teachers' levels of MHL were mixed across MHL domains. Post-intervention, increases in mental health knowledge and attitudes and decreases in mental health stigma were reported. Low use of standardised MHL measures, lack of randomised controlled trials, and lack of follow-up data affect evidence quality.

Conclusion: Interventions to improve secondary school teachers' MHL can be effective, at least in the short term. Evidence quality needs to be improved to inform recommendations on whether they should be part of a public mental health approach for adolescents.

Background: Concerns have been raised that international students are at high risk of poor mental health and wellbeing.

Aims: The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature on the mental health and wellbeing of international students in Australia.

Methods: A literature search was conducted using CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Academic Search Complete using EBSCOhost interface for articles published from 2000. A pre-determined set of eligibility criteria was used to screen articles and eligible articles were quality appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Due to considerable heterogeneity, the data was narratively analysed, considering the statistical significance and the text narratives. Nineteen studies (N = 19) met the inclusion criteria.

Results: Mental health issues experienced by international students included anxiety (2.4-43%, N = 5), depression (3.6-38.3%, N = 6), psychological stress/distress (31.6-54%, N = 9) and gambling problems (3.3-50.7%, N = 3). Factors affecting student wellbeing included loneliness/isolation (60-65%, N = 4), work/financial difficulties (15.4-95%, N = 4) and discrimination/safety concerns (9-50%, N = 3). Other factors affecting students included cross-cultural transition experiences, language difficulties, social interaction, university belonging, technology difficulties, self-harm, use of counselling services and mental health literacy.

Conclusion: International students in Australia experience various issues affecting their mental health and wellbeing. More effort needs to be made to better support students.

Background: Limited reviews address the role of social support for university students with mental health issues, despite its proven significance for other vulnerable groups.

Aims: The current review aims to examine the current evidence on the nature and impact of social support for students with self-reported and diagnosed mental health problems, along with the availability and effectiveness of social support interventions.

Methods: Electronic databases (CENTRAL, CINAHL, Embase, HMIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Web of Science) and grey literature databases (EThOS, SSRN) were systematically searched from inception to March 2024 Articles were eligible for inclusion if they reported on the nature and role of social support for university students with mental health problems. Data from included articles were extracted and narratively synthesised. Quality of included studies was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool.

Results: Ten studies, involving 3669 participants, were included. Findings indicated high social support significantly mitigated against suicide, depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. Barriers to support access and both positive and negative impacts on mental health were identified.

Conclusions: Results underscore the need to consider the distinct support requirements of students with mental health problems, who often face insufficient access to high social support. This emphasises the potential for effective interventions in this population.

Background: Adolescents with depression are at heightened risk of suicide, with a distinct sex difference in suicidal behaviour observed. This study explores the sex-specific factors influencing suicide attempts among Chinese adolescents with depression.

Methods: Data were collected from 2343 depressed adolescents across 14 hospitals in 9 provinces through self-report questionnaires. The survey was conducted between December 2020 and December 2023. Thirty-six potential risk factors were selected from validated measures of psychological, sociodemographic, and social stress domains. The dataset was split by sex, and SMOTE was applied to address class imbalance. Logistic regression, elastic net regression, random forest, XGBoost, and neural networks were used to model the data, evaluated by accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score. The optimal model was employed for SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis to identify key factors influencing suicide attempts.

Results: The Random Forest model exhibited the best performance for both sexes (AUC: females 0.720, males 0.736). Non-suicidal self-injury and depression were significant predictors for both sexes. Among females, factors like difficulty identifying emotions and physical abuse had a stronger impact, while resilience and hopelessness were more predictive for males.

Conclusions: The study highlights sex differences in suicide attempt predictors, emphasizing the need for sex-specific prevention strategies.

Background: Adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health have been well-documented, but only a few studies have characterized distinct trajectories of anxiety over time. Further, whether specific emotion regulation and coping efforts to manage pandemic distress predict these distinct trajectories remains unexamined.

Aims: The study characterized anxiety trajectories across the first year of the pandemic and identified emotion regulation and coping strategies that predict these classes of anxiety trajectories. A national sample of 1108 U.S. adults completed online surveys six times in the first year of the pandemic. Five emotion regulation and coping strategies were assessed (substance use, active, behavioral disengagement, positive reappraisal, and catastrophizing). Latent Growth Mixture Modeling (LGGM) analyses were performed to identify anxiety trajectory classes.

Results: LGMM revealed five latent classes: Resilience (consistently very low anxiety; 79.9%), Moderate Anxiety (8.8%), Chronic High Anxiety (4.6%), Improving-Worsening Anxiety (3.2%), and Worsening-Improving Anxiety (3.5%). Using substances, disengagement, and catastrophizing to deal with COVID-19 stress consistently predicted trajectories higher in anxiety as did active coping, while positive reappraisal was unrelated to trajectory class membership.

Conclusions: These results identify emotion regulation and coping strategies that appeared to exacerbate anxiety during the course of the pandemic.

Background: Prior research has shown a strong association between anxiety and envy (i.e. benign/malicious envy). However, empirical evidence is lacking regarding their predictive connection.

Aims: To examine how benign/malicious envy impacts anxiety and how anxiety affects both types of envy respectively from a developmental viewpoint.

Methods: In Study 1, a three-wave longitudinal survey of 998 teenagers was conducted to examine the link between trait anxiety and trait benign/malicious envy. Cross-lagged panel analyses were used. In Study 2, 117 adolescents engaged in an experience-sampling method study to track their state anxiety and state benign/malicious envy. Hierarchical linear models were used.

Results: Study 1 showed a positive bidirectional relationship between trait malicious envy and trait anxiety, a negative reciprocity between trait benign envy and trait anxiety, constituting a circular effect across time respectively. Study 2 supported the results of Study 1. The relationship between variables at the state level was consistent with that at the trait level.

Conclusion: Benign envy may help alleviate anxiety, while malicious envy has the opposite effect. These findings offer a reliable framework for comprehending the connection between envy and anxiety, which extends current knowledge about the development of such relations across adolescent.

Objectives: Digitally native university students face challenges to their well-being and up to a third develop mental health problems. "Whitu: seven ways in seven days" is an app based on positive psychology, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and psychoeducation principles.

Methods: Ninety-first year university students (45 per arm) participated in a randomised controlled trial of Whitu against a university self-help website ("Be Well"). Primary outcomes were changes in well-being on the World Health Organisation 5-item well-being index (WHO-5) and the short Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale (SWEMWBS). Secondary outcomes were changes in depression, anxiety, self-compassion, stress, sleep and self-reported acceptability of the app.

Results: At 4 weeks (primary endpoint), participants in the intervention group experienced significantly higher mental well-being (mean difference: 2.53 (95%CI: 0.53, 4.52); p = 0.013) and significantly lower depression (-4.23 (-8.32, -0.15); p = 0.042), compared to controls. Emotional well-being was greater in the intervention group at 3 months (12.23 (3.93, 20.54; p = 0.004). Other outcomes were similar between groups. User feedback was positive, with 88% saying they would recommend the app to a friend.

Conclusions: Whitu is an acceptable, effective, scalable and multi-modal means of improving some aspects of well-being and mental health among university students.

Trial registration: This study was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Network Registry: ACTRN12622000053729.