Longitudinal changes in depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of COVID-related factors.

OBJECTIVE: This study is an investigation of five specific COVID-related stressors and their longitudinal impact on adult depression and anxiety. METHOD: A total of 592 adults comprised the initial sample at Time 1 in April/May 2020. Follow-ups were conducted about a month later, again in March 2021 and then in March 2022. RESULTS: Applied linear mixed effect models showed a significant decrease in mean depression scores and anxiety scores from Time 1 to both Times 3 and 4. Neither change over time in anxiety or depression were found to be related to COVID diagnosis, COVID hospitalization, or COVID death. Self-quarantine was related to changes over time in both depression and anxiety, and household quarantine was related to changes over time in depression. CONCLUSION: While the fallout of the pandemic continues, it is important to understand how these factors may be affecting mental health to better understand where intervention is necessary.

Regulatory Focus and Substance Use in Adolescents: Protective Effects of Prevention Orientation.

BACKGROUND: Substance use is a major risk factor for negative health and functioning outcomes among middle schoolers. The purpose of this study was to assess whether individual differences in the adolescents' goal orientation are associated with elevated or attenuated risk for substance use. Regulatory focus theory stipulates that individuals vary in their strength of orientation toward promotion goals ("making good things happen") and prevention goals ("keeping bad things from happening"). Objectives: We sought to examine the association between individual differences in regulatory focus and adolescents' reports of their own and their friends' substance use. Methods: Participants were 241 seventh grade students who completed measures of regulatory focus (promotion and prevention orientation), self-reported substance use, perceived substance use habits of peers, and demographics. Logistic regression models were used to examine adjusted odds of lifetime tobacco use, alcohol use, and marijuana use for both participants' own use and their reports of friends' use. Results: Prevention orientation was associated with lower odds of all self-reported lifetime substance use outcomes (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana). Prevention orientation was also associated with lower odds of reporting all types of substance use among friends. Promotion orientation was not associated with any self-reported substance use outcome, and was only associated with higher odds of reporting lifetime alcohol use among friends. Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of regulatory focus as it relates to adolescent substance use. Future research may seek to incorporate regulatory focus within interventions intended to prevent or delay initiation of substance use in adolescents.

Personality traits and perceived social support among depressed older adults.

The contribution of personality traits and social support to mental health is well established, but to our knowledge there have been no longitudinal investigations of the relation between personality and social support in depressed older adults. In the current study, we examined a repeated measures multi-level mixed model of change in perceived social support to determine whether personality traits and depressive symptoms were associated with changes in perceived social support over the 3 year study interval in a sample of depressed older adults. Results suggest that Conscientiousness and Extraversion were personality traits that were significantly predictive of changes in perceived social support over this time interval. Based on these results it appears that, among depressed older adults, those with conscientious or extraverted personality traits are more likely to resist impulses to withdraw from relationships. In addition, these traits may lead to more satisfying interactions and greater perceived social support over time. The implications of these results are discussed.

Religious attendance and mortality: implications for the black-white mortality crossover.

This study investigates the relationships among religious attendance, mortality, and the black-white mortality crossover. We build on prior research by examining the link between attendance and mortality while testing whether religious involvement captures an important source of population heterogeneity that contributes to a crossover Using data from the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly, we find a strong negative association between attendance and mortality. Our results also show evidence of a racial crossover in mortality rates for both men and women. When religious attendance is modeled in terms of differential frailty, clear gender differences emerge. For women, the effect of attendance is race- and age-dependent, modifying the age at crossover by 10 years. For men, however; the effect of attendance is not related to race and does not alter the crossover pattern. When other health risks are modeled in terms of differential frailty, wefind neither race nor age-related effects. Overall, the results highlight the importance of considering religious attendance when examining racial and gender differences in age-specific mortality rates.