Health Psychology最新文献

Objective: To compare the preliminary efficacy and acceptability of three narrative communication messages about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to a fact-based informational control message among parents with an unvaccinated child.

Method: A national sample of 948 U.S. parents/guardians with an unvaccinated child aged 9-17 years participated in an online experiment in June or July of 2023. Forty-nine percent of children were female, 23% were a racial or ethnic minority, and 55% received free school lunch. Parents were randomly assigned to watch one of four brief videos: a nonnarrative informational control, a role model only narrative, a precancer survivor narrative, or a cancer survivor narrative. The primary outcome variable was HPV vaccination intentions. The secondary outcomes were message acceptance and rejection. Covariates and a potential mediator were also assessed. Intervention effects were assessed using analysis of variance, hierarchical linear regression, and mediation analyses.

Results: Parents were satisfied with all four messages, as indicated by high levels of message acceptance and low levels of message rejection. Higher intentions to vaccinate were observed for parents exposed to the HPV cancer survivor narrative message (vs. the control message) and the effect remained statistically significant after controlling for covariates including child age, free lunch status (a proxy for family income), parent gender, provider recommendation, and previous refusal of HPV vaccine. Exploratory mediation analyses indicated that the cancer survivor narrative effect was mediated by increases in emotional engagement with the message.

Conclusion: Cancer survivor narratives are a highly acceptable and potentially promising intervention strategy for increasing HPV vaccine uptake. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Diabetes mellitus (DM) negatively impacts functioning and disability, particularly when comorbid with mental health diagnoses. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) increases the risk of developing DM and may have a particularly deleterious impact on DM-related outcomes. This study aimed to determine the extent to which PTSD and DM comorbidity was associated with poorer functioning and greater disability relative to neither or single diagnoses in older adult veteran men and women.

Method: Data came from two large cross-sectional studies of Vietnam era veteran men (N = 5,367) and women (N = 4,102). Participants completed self-report measures of diagnosed physical health conditions, functioning, and disability. PTSD and other mental health conditions were assessed via a telephone-administered diagnostic interview, and military characteristics were gathered from service records.

Results: In sex-specific weighted linear regression analyses adjusted for relevant covariates, veterans with PTSD only, DM only, and PTSD + DM reported significantly worse mental and physical health functioning and greater disability compared with veterans with neither condition. PTSD + DM comorbidity was associated with worse outcomes than DM only and worse physical health functioning than PTSD only. The pattern of results was similar for men and women.

Conclusions: Older adult veterans with both PTSD and DM may experience worse health functioning and greater disability relative to veterans with neither or single diagnoses only. Although effects were small to medium, potential clinical implications include assessment of PTSD among veterans with DM and intervention efforts that address the effects of both conditions on health and well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Burn injuries are a leading cause of preventable childhood trauma that threatens family functioning and well-being. This study aimed to analyze changes over time in parental psychosocial adjustment and child's burn-related outcomes, specifically burn scar quality and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), as well as the mediating role of family functioning.

Method: Data were collected at four different assessment moments: during the hospital stay (T0), 1 month (T1), 3 months (T2), and 6 months (T3) postdischarge. Parental coping and distress symptoms (anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress), family functioning, the child's burn scar quality and HRQoL were assessed.

Results: A total of 100 parents and their preschool-aged children were included. The results showed significant changes in all variables. In general, parental distress symptoms decreased over time, parental coping significantly increased from T1 to T2, and family functioning significantly decreased at all assessment moments compared to T0. The child's burn scar quality and HRQoL improved over time. In addition, family functioning fully mediated the relationship between parental distress and burn scar quality. The results suggested the importance of family functioning in the relationship between parental psychosocial adjustment and the child's physical recovery.

Conclusion: Implementing an integrated care approach, including family-centered empowerment care and routine psychosocial screening for parents, is highly recommended. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Life satisfaction has been linked to lower mortality risk, yet the extent to which this relationship varies across population subgroups remains poorly understood.

Method: We used a machine-learning-based causal survival forest to evaluate how the association between life satisfaction and all-cause mortality over an 8-year follow-up differed across individuals and to characterize those who appeared to benefit most from life satisfaction. We leveraged data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 13,674), a national cohort study of U.S. adults aged 50 and older.

Results: On average, higher life satisfaction was linked to a 3.56-month increase in restricted mean survival time (95% confidence interval = [1.61, 5.52]). While we observed evidence of between-individual heterogeneity in this association, the estimated effect of life satisfaction appeared beneficial for most individuals in this study. Evidence of the protective effect of life satisfaction was more pronounced among those who identified as racial minorities and reported lower educational attainment, fewer economic resources, and poorer prebaseline health.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that population-level strategies to foster higher life satisfaction could improve the health of older adults on average, while decreasing existing disparities in longevity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: A two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial evaluated the impact of Body Confident Athletes (BCA) on girls' (N = 568, 11-17 years) body image, sports enjoyment, and affect.

Method: Sports organizations were randomly allocated (1:1) into either an intervention (BCA; k = 29) or waitlist control condition (k = 33). Girls and coaches in the intervention condition completed three 60-min sessions over three consecutive weeks. Primary outcomes were the immediate and short-term changes in girls' body esteem, with secondary outcomes assessing changes in girls' body appreciation, self-objectification, attuned self-care, sports enjoyment, and affect.

Results: Girls in the BCA condition reported significant small improvements in body esteem, body appreciation, attuned self-care, self-objectification, and negative affect at postintervention, with several effects either maintained (attuned self-care at 1-month follow-up [T3], but not at 3-month follow-up [T4]) or reemerging at later follow-up points (body esteem and self-objectification at T4, but not at T3). Effects were not maintained for body appreciation or negative affect, nor did effects emerge for sports enjoyment or positive affect. Coaches were effective interventionists (i.e., 80% accuracy), with most girls comprehending key intervention messages (85.1%).

Conclusion: BCA is the first coach-led positive body image intervention designed for girls in sport. The findings of the current trial show that BCA is a scalable body image intervention accurately delivered by sport community members, resulting in immediate and short-term improvements in girls' body image. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: While nearly 60% of cancer survivors report a heightened fear of cancer recurrence (FCR), not all of them experience functional impairment and want professional psychological care. We applied the network approach to study how different components of FCR (symptoms, triggers, perceived risk, and coping strategies) are interconnected to both FCR severity and functional impairment to better understand which survivors are likely to require psychological care.

Method: We applied network analysis to cross-sectional data from 3,370 cancer survivors from nine different countries, spanning Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, from the international Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory database. The shortest path analysis was applied to study what components were directly connected to both FCR severity and functional impairment.

Results: FCR severity was mainly connected to symptoms and triggers while functional impairment was mainly connected to coping strategies. The shortest paths indicated that worry and bodily triggers were directly connected to both higher FCR severity and more functional impairment.

Conclusion: Worry and bodily triggers appear to be core components of FCR that are experienced as impairing in daily life. Our findings suggest that assessing functional impairment, worry, and bodily triggers, in addition to FCR severity, could be valuable when screening for clinical levels of FCR. To further improve our conceptual understanding of FCR, future studies should apply intensive longitudinal designs to explore how these components interact over time and within the individual. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: This study aimed to examine the longitudinal connections between early observed parenting and coparenting relationship quality and children's later cardiometabolic health outcomes.

Method: Structural equation modeling was used to examine (a) the associations between fathers' and mothers' sensitive engagement with their children and competitive-withdrawn coparenting during infancy (10 months) and toddlerhood (24 months); (b) the extent to which these parenting and coparenting factors predicted four markers of children's cardiometabolic health in middle childhood (∼7 years); and (c) indirect pathways from parenting and coparenting at 10 months to cardiometabolic markers (C-reactive protein [CRP], interleukin-6, total cholesterol, and glycated hemoglobin [HbA1c]) at 7 years, via parenting and coparenting at 24 months, within a longitudinal, cross-lagged framework. The sample comprised 292 child-father-mother triads from a randomized trial of Family Foundations, a preventive intervention focused on enhancing coparenting interactions between first-time parents.

Results: Fathers' sensitive engagement at 10 months was negatively associated with their competitive-withdrawn coparenting at 24 months, which subsequently predicted lower levels of child CRP and HbA1c. Furthermore, fathers' competitive-withdrawn coparenting at 24 months explained the association between their sensitive engagement at 10 months and later child CRP and HbA1c. These associations were not significant in a parallel model for mothers.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the influence of child-father interactions and coparenting dynamics on long-term child health. Promoting supportive coparenting and positive paternal involvement may represent valuable preventive strategies for reducing child cardiometabolic risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Cellular epigenetic aging has become an important marker of healthy or unhealthy aging. The current study examined whether lifelong cumulative stressors across multiple domains were linked with epigenetic age acceleration (EAA; i.e., epigenetic age greater than chronological age) and whether psychological factors moderated this association. Dimensions of psychological well-being were hypothesized as protective factors, while neuroticism was posited as a vulnerability factor.

Method: Data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Genomics Project (N = 1,006) were used, which include deoxyribonucleic acid methylation data from a subset of participants in MIDUS Core Wave 2 and MIDUS Refresher Wave 1. Epigenetic aging values were calculated using the deoxyribonucleic acid methylation profiles at cytosine-phosphate-guanine sites. Cumulative stressors and psychological factors were assessed using the survey data at MIDUS Core Wave 2 and MIDUS Refresher Wave 1.

Results: The results revealed that cumulative stressors were not directly associated with EAA but were contingent on the levels of psychological well-being and neuroticism. Specifically, higher levels of cumulative stressors were significantly linked to EAA, measured by GrimAge2, among those who had lower levels of psychological well-being (β = -.23 to -.36, SE = .12 to .13, p = .04 to < .01) or higher neuroticism (β = .26, SE = .12, p = .03). Conversely, EAA in individuals who had higher levels of psychological well-being or lower neuroticism was not impacted by the levels of cumulative stressors.

Conclusions: The findings underscore the importance of considering individual psychological assets and vulnerabilities in the pathways linking cumulative stressors to epigenetic aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: This study explores the impact of iAmHealthy, a rurally focused pediatric obesity intervention, on mental health outcomes and examines how baseline mental health affects body mass index (BMI) outcomes for child-parent dyads in rural communities.

Method: Eighteen schools were randomly assigned to iAmHealthy or the Newsletter Control group. iAmHealthy consists of health coaching and group sessions via televideo. Child and parent height and weight, child depression, child quality of life, and parent distress were assessed at baseline, posttreatment (8 months), and follow-up (20 months) from October 2017 to December 2021. Multilevel modeling assessed treatment effects on mental health and baseline mental health on change in BMI outcomes.

Results: In total, 148 dyads were randomized to iAmHealthy (n = 64) or control (n = 84). Dyads broadly reported minimal parent distress, child depressive symptoms, and high child quality of life. While there was no treatment group by time interactions, the iAmHealthy group had significant decreases in child depression at posttreatment and follow-up and significant decreases in parent distress at follow-up. Control participants had no significant changes in child depression, quality of life, or parent distress at any time point. Significant interactions between treatment group and baseline mental health predicted child body mass index z score/parent BMI change.

Conclusions: Parents experiencing baseline distress particularly benefited from the support of iAmHealthy, but unsustained effects at follow-up suggest that long-term support may be beneficial to these families. Future studies examining populations with heightened mental health challenges may provide deeper insights into how pediatric obesity interventions affect mental well-being within families from rural communities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: No previous research has examined both clinical and psychological predictors of quality of life (QoL) in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients over time. Theoretically informed by the common-sense model, this study aimed to examine how beliefs about illness and treatment, cognitive and behavior responses (CBR) to symptoms, and AF-related interventional procedures predicted QoL over 12 months.

Method: AF patients (N = 188) recruited from outpatient clinics, and because of undergo catheter ablation or cardioversion, completed questionnaires assessing social and clinical demographics, illness representations, treatment beliefs, CBR to AF, and QoL at baseline, 3, 6, and 12 months. Mixed effects linear regression models examined QoL predictors over 12 months.

Results: Restoration of sinus rhythm, greater beliefs about personal control, and lower scores on timeline beliefs (beliefs that AF is an acute condition) were statistically significantly associated with greater QoL over 12 months. Patients with a profile of procedural treatment success and improved positive illness representations (timeline, illness triggers, personal control) had significantly greater QoL compared with those who had only successful treatment, or positive illness representations, alone.

Conclusion: Successful procedural treatment and helpful illness representations are both important predictors of QoL in AF. Alongside clinical procedural treatments, future interventions aimed at improving QoL should therefore incorporate techniques to address self-efficacy around AF self-management and reduce beliefs that AF is long-term/incurable and that symptoms can be triggered by wide-ranging sources (particularly relating to health behaviors and comorbidities). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).