BioPsychoSocial Medicine最新文献

Background: Disordered eating behaviors, emotional eating (EE), uncontrolled eating (UE), and cognitive restraint (CR) contribute to weight dysregulation and remain public health concerns in Japan. Body image distortion (BID), or the misperception of one's body size, has been linked to both being underweight and overweight. While health literacy (HL) and BID are individually associated with eating behaviors, the influence of higher-order HL domains-communicative and critical literacy-and their interactions with BID remain unclear. This study examined how HL and BID jointly influence multidimensional eating behaviors.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study of Japanese adults, HL was measured using the 14-item Health Literacy Scale. BID was defined as the discrepancy between the perceived (via the Figure Rating Scale) and actual body size (via BMI) and categorized as underestimation, no distortion, or overestimation. Eating behaviors (UE, EE, and CR) were assessed using the Japanese version of the 18-item Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18V2. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the association between HL and BID, and general linear models were used to test whether BID moderated the effects of higher-order HL domains on eating behavior.

Results: Among the participants, 13.0% were underweight, 60.2% had a normal weight, 18.7% were overweight, and 8.0% were obese. BID was categorized as overestimation (36.7%), non-distortion (53.6%), or underestimation (9.7%). HL scores were not significantly associated with overestimation or underestimation; however, a higher BMI was inversely related to overestimation. Higher functional HL was associated with lower EE, UE, and CR across all BID subgroups. However, associations for communicative HL varied by BID (interaction P = 0.002 for EE, 0.070 for CR); it was positively associated with EE and CR in the underestimated group, but inversely associated with EE in the overestimated group. Critical HL was positively associated with CR in the overestimation group (interaction, P = 0.015).

Conclusion: Fostering functional HL may support healthier eating behaviors, regardless of BID. Communicative HL may be beneficial for individuals with overestimation-type BID, but potentially counterproductive for those with underestimation. Critical HL appears to encourage more restrictive eating, specifically among individuals with overestimated HL.

Objective: This study explores the level of frailty and the factors that influence elderly HF inpatients. It also examines the correlation between social frailty, perceived social support, and psychological resilience. It verifies psychological resilience and perceived social support as mediators between social frailty and frailty.

Method: This cross-sectional study collected four hundred fifty-six questionnaires from Northeast China, Northwest China and South China. The research assessment tools include the FRAIL scale (frailty), MSPSS scale (perceived social support), CD-RISC10 (psychological resilience), and HALFT scale (social frailty). Data analysis was performed using multiple regression analysis and the SPSS PROCESS Macro plug-in Model 6 and Model 4.

Results: Female (β = 0.085, p = 0.036), number of hospitalizations (β = 0.342, p < 0.001), and NYHA class (β = 0.325, p = 0.004) were risk factors for frailty in elderly HF inpatients. Frailty was found to be at a medium-high level, negatively correlated with perceived social support (ρ=-0.471, p < 0.01) and psychological resilience (ρ=-0.670, p < 0.01), and positively correlated with social frailty (ρ = 0.596, p < 0.01). Psychological resilience and perceived social support mediated the relation between social frailty and frailty, with an indirect effect of 27.18%, 10.49%, and 24.19%, respectively, all partial mediation.

Conclusion: NYHA class, number of hospitalizations, and female sex are indicators of the frailty level of elderly HF patients. Social frailty, psychological resilience, and perceived social support are interrelated. Psychological resilience and perceived social support are mediators in the relation between social frailty and frailty.

Background: Interoception refers to the multisensory integration and perception of the body's internal state within the central nervous system, which involves learning, memory, emotions, and experiences. Interoceptive dysfunction has been associated with alexithymia and alexisomia. Despite growing academic interest in interoception, standardized evaluation methods have yet to be established. The widely used Heartbeat Counting Task (HCT), a representative method for assessing interoceptive accuracy, has limitations owing to the potential influence of knowledge of heart rate, time perception, and tactile sensations. Therefore, more reliable assessment methods are needed. This study focused on the feasibility of the heaviness perception test as a method for assessing interoceptive accuracy and investigates its relationship with other interoceptive indices.

Methods: A total of 41 healthy volunteers (19 female; mean age 19.1 ± 0.8 years) participated in the study. The heaviness perception test was conducted using an approach similar to the method of adjustment applied to psychophysical measurements, and the absolute error scores were calculated. Other interoceptive indices investigated in this study include the HCT, Body Perception Questionnaire-Body Awareness Very Short Form (BPQ-VSF), the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and Shitsu-Taikan-Sho-Scale (STSS) for alexisomia.

Results: Interoception accuracy assessed using the heaviness perception test showed a significant positive correlation with the BPQ-VSF score (r = .504, p < .01) and a negative correlation with the TAS-20 and STSS scores (TAS-20: r = -.342, p < .05; STSS: r = -.353, p < .05). However, there was no correlation between the heaviness perception test score and the absolute error score on the HCT.

Conclusions: The results suggest that the heaviness perception test is a feasible and useful method for assessing interoceptive accuracy and that it may be useful as an evaluation tool.

Background: Hwabyung is a psychiatric syndrome originally described in Korea that presents as chronic psychosomatic distress with emotional dysregulation and heightened somatic arousal. However, no objective analysis to clarify its progressive mechanism within a universal biopsychological framework has as yet been done that incorporates insights from traditional East Asian medical psychology.

Methods: We recruited 118 patients with Hwabyung and assessed their psychological and somatic symptoms using the Hwabyung Test (HB). Levels of depression, anxiety, and anger expression, as well as biopsychological features were evaluated with the Sasang Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). Psychological and somatic symptoms of Hwabyung were predicted through a regression analysis that used three SPQ subscales: behavioral activation (SPQ-B), cognitive flexibility (SPQ-C), and emotional responsiveness (SPQ-E). Hwabyung subgroups were identified by K-means analysis and their psychosomatic and biopsychological patterns were analyzed with HB and SPQ through ANCOVA and Profile Analysis to explore underlying biopsychological dimensions beyond culture-specific frameworks.

Results: The SPQ subscales explained 26.0% of the psychological and 14.3% of the somatic symptoms of Hwabyung. Three distinct Hwabyung subgroups (mild, moderate, and severe) were identified based on the severity of psychological and somatic symptoms. Patients with severe symptoms showed a unique SPQ subscale profile with high SPQ-B, low SPQ-C, and low SPQ-E scores, reflecting volatile, aggressive, rigid, pessimistic, repressed, and isolated biopsychological characteristics.

Discussion: This study suggests a representative SPQ subscale profile of Hwabyung and underlying mind-body interaction mechanisms within East-Asian biopsychological theory. It offers a more comprehensive and generalizable understanding of Hwabyung and other culture-bound psychosomatic syndromes, supporting improved diagnostic and intervention strategies across populations.