Psychotic-like experiences and associated factors in resident physicians: A Canadian cross-sectional study.

AIM: Medical residency training is associated with a range of sociodemographic, lifestyle and mental health factors that may confer higher risk for psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in residents, yet little research has examined this question. Thus, we aimed to document the prevalence and associated factors of PLEs among resident physicians. METHODS: Physicians enrolled in residency programmes in the Province of Québec, Canada (four universities) were recruited in Fall 2022 via their programme coordinators and social media. They completed an online questionnaire assessing PLEs in the past 3 months (the 15-item Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences), as well as sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle and mental health. Analyses included survey weights and gamma regressions. RESULTS: The sample included 502 residents (mean age, 27.6 years; 65.9% women). Only 1.3% (95% CI: 0.5%, 4.0%) of residents met the screening cut-off for psychotic disorder. Factors associated with higher scores for PLEs included racialised minority status (relative difference: +7.5%; 95% CI: +2.2%, +13.2%) and English versus French as preferred language (relative difference: +7.9% 95% CI: +3.1%, +12.9%), as well as each additional point on scales of depression (relative difference: +0.8%; 95% CI: +0.3%, +1.3%) and anxiety (relative difference: +1.3%; 95% CI: +0.8%, +1.7%). In secondary analyses, racialised minority status was associated with persecutory items, but not with other PLEs. Gender, residency programmes and lifestyle variables were not associated with PLEs. CONCLUSIONS: This study found low reports of PLEs in a sample of resident physicians. Associations of PLEs with minoritised status may reflect experiences of discrimination.

Toward a memory perspective on eating psychopathology: An investigation of the types of childhood and adolescence memories that are associated with eating disorder symptoms.

The cognitive mechanisms through which specific life events affect the development and maintenance of eating disorders (ED) have received limited attention in the scientific literature. The present research aims to address this gap by adopting a memory perspective to explore the type of life events associated with eating psychopathology and how these events are encoded and reconstructed as memories. Two studies (n = 208 and n = 193) were conducted to investigate the relationship between specific memories and eating disorder psychopathology. Study 1 focused on parent-related memories, while Study 2 examined childhood/adolescence memories. Results from both studies revealed that need thwarting and shame in memories were associated with eating disorder symptoms, but only when individuals drew symbolic connections between these memories and food or eating behavior. Moreover, need thwarting and shame in such memories were associated with other eating and body image outcomes, including uncontrolled eating and body esteem. These results also held after controlling for a host of known predictors of eating disorder psychopathology, such as BMI, perfectionism, or thin ideal internalization. Overall, the present findings suggest that the reprocessing of memories symbolically and idiosyncratically linked to food and eating behavior might be a fruitful clinical intervention.

Associations between digital media use and psychotic experiences in young adults of Quebec, Canada: a longitudinal study.

PURPOSE: Digital media use has been associated with psychotic experiences in youth from the community, but the direction of association remains unclear. We aimed to examine between- and within-person associations of digital media use and psychotic experiences in youth. METHODS: The sample included 425 participants aged 18-25 years (82.5% female) from the community, followed between May 2021 and January 2022 over 3 time points-of which 263 participants (61.9%) completed at least 2. Digital media use was self-reported as time spent daily on TV and streaming platforms, social media, and video games over the past 3 months. Psychotic experiences in the past 3 months were measured with the 15-item Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences. Associations between digital media use and psychotic experiences were estimated using a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model. RESULTS: On average, individuals who reported greater digital media use also reported higher levels of psychotic experiences (r = 0.34, 95% CI 0.15, 0.53). However, a person's variation in digital media use, relative to their personal average, was not significantly associated with subsequent variations in their levels of psychotic experiences, or vice-versa. Results were similar across TV/streaming, social media and video game use, and after adjusting for age, sex, education, sleep, physical activity, and cannabis use. CONCLUSION: Individuals with a tendency for higher levels of digital media use also had a tendency for higher levels of psychotic experiences. Understanding this association may help personalize mental health interventions for people with psychotic experiences, which may be offered digitally to promote their accessibility.

Increased urban greenspace in childhood associated with lower inattention deficit among adolescents.

PURPOSE: There is a growing interest in assessing the benefits of exposure to urban greenspace on mental health due to the increased urbanization of youth and concerns for their mental health. We investigated the prospective associations of residential greenspace in childhood and mental health in adolescence. Use of a well-characterized birth cohort permitted adjustment for a range of potential confounding factors including family and neighborhood characteristics in addition to prior mental health problems, and exploration of moderation effects by sex and family socioeconomic status. METHODS: We analyzed longitudinal data collected from 742 urban-dwelling participants of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Children Development. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) within 250, 500, and 1000 m buffer zones surrounding the home residence was used to indicate childhood exposure to greenspace. Six self-reported mental health problems at 15/17 years were examined using the Mental Health and Social Inadaptation questionnaire: inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, conduct, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. RESULTS: Childhood urban greenspace was associated with lower inattention problems in both females and males. We observed a 0.14 reduced standard deviation (SD) (ß = - 0.14, SE = 0.05, p < 0.01) in relation to an interquartile range (IQR) increase of NDVI (0.15) at the 250 m buffer zone, and similar results were found in 500 m and 1000 m buffer zones. These associations only slightly attenuated after adjustment for individual (sex, childhood mental health), family (family SES, maternal age at birth, parental mental health, family composition), and neighborhood (material and social deprivation) characteristics (ß = - 0.13, SE = 0.06, p = 0.03). No association was found for other mental health problems, and no moderation associations of sex or family socioeconomic status were observed. CONCLUSION:  These findings suggest that increasing residential greenspace in cities may be associated with modest benefits in attentional capacities in youth, necessitating further research to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.

Associations between self-care practices and psychological adjustment of mental health professionals: a two-wave cross-lagged analysis.

Cultivation of self-care is believed to foster more well-being and to mitigate the psychological difficulties that mental health professionals experience. However, how the well-being and psychological distress of these professionals impact their personal self-care practice is rarely discussed. In fact, studies have yet to investigate whether the use of self-care improves mental health, or whether being in a better place psychologically makes professionals more prone to using self-care (or both). The present study aims to clarify the longitudinal associations between self-care practices and five indicators of psychological adjustment (well-being, posttraumatic growth, anxiety, depression, and compassion fatigue). A sample of 358 mental health professionals were assessed twice (within a 10-month interval). A cross-lagged model tested all associations between self-care and psychological adjustment indicators. Results showed that self-care at T1 predicted increases in well-being and in post-traumatic growth, and a reduction in anxiety and depression at T2. However, only anxiety at T1 significantly predicted greater self-care at T2. No significant cross-lagged associations were found between self-care and compassion fatigue. Overall, findings suggest that implementing self-care is a good way for mental health workers to "take care of themselves." However, more research is needed to understand what leads these workers to use self-care.

The effects of walking in nature on negative and positive affect in adult psychiatric outpatients with major depressive disorder: A randomized-controlled study.

BACKGROUND: While walking in nature has been shown to improve affect in adults from the community to a greater extent than walking in urban settings, it is unknown whether such benefits apply to individuals suffering from depression. Using a parallel group design, this randomized controlled trial examined the effects of a single walk in nature versus urban settings on negative and positive affect in adult psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD). METHOD: Participants recruited from a psychiatric outpatient clinic for adults with MDD were randomly assigned to a nature or urban walk condition. Thirty-seven adults (mean age = 49 years) completed a single 60-minute walk. Negative and positive affect were assessed using The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule or PANAS at 6 time points: before the walk, halfway during the walk, immediately post-walk, at home before bedtime, 24 h post-walk, and 48 h post-walk. RESULTS: Controlling for baseline levels of affect before the walk, individuals who walked in nature experienced overall lower levels of negative affect, F(1, 35.039) = 4.239, p = .047, compared to those who walked in urban settings. Positive affect did not differ across walk conditions. LIMITATIONS: The generalizability of results are limited by the small sample size and the presence of more female than male participants. CONCLUSIONS: Walking in nature might be a useful strategy to improve negative affect in adults with MDD. Future research should investigate different ways to integrate the beneficial effects of nature exposure into existing treatment plans for psychiatric outpatients with MDD.

Psychological distress of mental health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison with the general population in high- and low-incidence regions.

OBJECTIVE: Despite their essential role during this health crisis, little is known about the psychological distress of mental health workers (MHW). METHOD: A total of 616 MHW and 658 workers from the general population (GP) completed an online survey including depressive, anxiety, irritability, loneliness, and resilience measures. RESULTS: Overall, MHW had fewer cases with above cut-off clinically significant depression (19% MHW vs. 27%) or anxiety (16% MHW vs. 29%) than the GP. MHW in high-incidence regions of COVID-19 cases displayed the same levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms than the GP and higher levels compared to MHW from low-incidence regions. MHW in high-incidence regions presented higher levels of irritability and lower levels of resilience than the MHW in low-incidence regions. Moreover, MHW in high-incidence regions reported more feelings of loneliness than all other groups. CONCLUSION: Implications for social and organizational preventive strategies to minimize the distress of MHW in times of crisis are discussed.

Corrigendum: Conspiracy Theories: A Public Health Concern and How to Address It.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.682931.].

Depression and anxiety symptoms in young adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a Canadian population-based cohort.

BACKGROUND: Concerns have been raised that the COVID-19 pandemic could increase risk for adverse mental health outcomes, especially in young adults, a vulnerable age group. We investigated changes in depression and anxiety symptoms (overall and severe) from before to during the pandemic, as well as whether these changes are linked to COVID-19-related stressors and pre-existing vulnerabilities in young adults followed in the context of a population-based cohort. METHOD: Participants (n = 1039) from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development reported on their depression (Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, short form) and anxiety (General Anxiety Disorder-7 Scale) symptoms and completed a COVID-19 questionnaire during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020 (age 22 years). Assessments at age 20 (2018) were used to estimate pre-pandemic depression and anxiety symptom severity. RESULTS: While mean levels of depression and anxiety symptoms did not change from before to during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., the mean of depressive symptoms was 9.30 in 2018 and 9.59 in 2020), we observed a slight increase in rates of severe depression (scores ≥ 21) from before (6.1%) to during (8.2%) the pandemic. Most COVID-19-related variables (e.g., loss of education/occupation, frequent news-seeking) - except living alone - and most pre-existing vulnerabilities (e.g., low SES, low social support) were not associated with changes in depression or anxiety symptoms. However, results varied as a function of pre-pandemic levels of depression and anxiety: depression and anxiety symptoms increased among adults with the lowest levels of symptoms before the pandemic, while they decreased among those with the highest levels of symptoms, possibly reflecting a regression to the mean. CONCLUSIONS: Depression and anxiety symptoms in young adults from Québec in Summer 2020 were mostly comparable to symptoms reported in 2018. Most COVID-19-related stressors and pre-existing vulnerabilities were not associated with changes in symptoms, except living alone and pre-existing symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, the increased rate of severe depression warrants further investigation.

Conspiracy Theories: A Public Health Concern and How to Address It.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was characterized by a significant increase in the endorsement of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are narratives that can enable and accentuate distrust toward health professionals and authorities. As such, they can lead to violent radicalization and should be considered a public health issue. This perspective article aims to further the understanding of professionals on conspiracy theories via the 3N model of radicalization and self-determination theory. Based on empirical research, theory, and existing interventions, potential initiatives intended to tackle the issue of conspiracy theories during pandemics are also presented.

Loss-related mental states impair executive functions in a context of sadness.

Stress and anxiety have been shown to temporally impair executive functions, but the role of other emotions, such as sadness, has been inconclusive. Moreover, the role of affect regulation in this relationship has not been extensively studied. The present research investigated whether certain types of mental states (mental output resulting from the use of affect regulation within a specific context or with respect to a specific material or theme) relative to the context of loss would predict impairment of executive functions. Participants were randomly assigned to read either a loss-related newspaper article inducing sadness or a neutral newspaper article. Results showed that low mental states relative to loss (maladaptive affect regulation) predicted impairment of executive functions following an induction of sadness, but not following the neutral induction. Conversely, high mental states (adaptive affect regulation) were not predictive of impairment of executive functions in both the sadness and neutral condition. These findings have implications for the boundaries within which emotion can disrupt high-order cognitive processes.

Is the negative always that bad? Or how emotion regulation and integration of negative memories can positively affect well-being.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether coherent integration of negative memories into the self could positively predict well-being over time, and whether certain emotion regulation strategies could facilitate this coherent integration. In turn, coherent integration of negative memories was expected to further facilitate adaptive emotion regulation strategies over time. METHOD: A total of 303 participants took part in this longitudinal study. At Phase 1, they completed measures of emotion regulation and well-being. Three months later, they described the memory of the most negative event they experienced since Phase 1, and completed measures assessing its integration. One month later, participants completed the well-being measures again, and another month later, their emotion regulation was reassessed. RESULTS: Adaptive emotion regulation predicted adaptive memory integration, which in turn led to increases in well-being and adaptive emotion regulation. Contrariwise, the incapacity to adaptively regulate emotions predicted poor memory integration, which in turn led to decreases in well-being. CONCLUSION: The way people regulate their negative emotions acts as an individual difference influencing how negative memories are integrated into the self, which can in return alter well-being and emotion regulation capacity over time.

Cognitive integration of personal or public events affects mental health: Examining memory networks in a case of natural flooding disaster.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research was to examine whether memories of personal or public events could affect mental health through the way those memories are integrated in memory networks. METHOD: Participants from the general population (N = 224, age mean = 36.62 years, 74% female) were either directly or indirectly personally affected by a natural flooding disaster with moderate consequences or had simply learned about it. A prospective design (during the floods and two months later) was used to examine the impact that such a personal or public event memory could have on their mental health. RESULTS: Results showed that flood-affected individuals reported poorer mental health compared to the unaffected. However, both affected and unaffected individuals who had encoded a current floods-related event in memory as need satisfying or who had embedded such an event in need satisfying memory networks showed better mental health over time. These results held after controlling for the effect of various demographics and dispositional emotion regulation styles. CONCLUSION: Simply learning about public events can impact mental health through the way those events are integrated in memory, which appears as a critical individual difference.

Development of a Dualistic Model of Sexual Passion: Investigating Determinants and Consequences.

In empirical research, sexual passion has frequently been conceptualized as the interdependent dynamics experienced with a partner and as following a unidimensional continuum of intensity. A recent theoretical model conceptualized sexual passion as an intrapersonal motivation, which can energize both partnered and non-partnered sexual behaviors (Philippe, Vallerand, Bernard-Desrosiers, Guilbault, & Rajotte, 2017). This model also departs from the typical unidimensional continuum by positing the existence of two types of sexual passion: harmonious sexual passion (HSP) and obsessive sexual passion (OSP). The purpose of the present research was to extend the development of such a dualistic model by examining key theoretical determinants and consequences of each type of sexual passion. Study 1 provided empirical evidence of discriminant validity for such a model with respect to key-related constructs in the sex literature (e.g., sexual desire, hypersexuality, self-determined motives). The results of Study 2 showed that both types of sexual passion were associated with a high engagement in various sexual activities, but that only HSP combined it with couple adjustment. Finally, Study 3 indicated that both HSP and OSP were associated with common as well as distinct determinants, while being conducive to different personal and interpersonal consequences. Overall, there were very few moderations by biological sex. The results of these three studies provide empirical support for the sexual passion model and pave the way for new research directions.

Wanting or having to: The role of goal self-concordance in episodic future thinking.

While it is established that goal processing is a central component of episodic future thinking, how personal goals shape future event representations is not fully understood. Here, we explored the influence of the source of motivation underlying goal pursuit. Personal goals differ in their degree of self-concordance, which depends on the primary motives underlying goal pursuit. We distinguished between self-concordant (what one wants to achieve) and non-self-concordant (what one has to achieve) goals. Participants were asked to imagine specific future events associated with each type of goals. We found that self-concordant future events have a privileged phenomenological status: they are associated with a stronger sense of "realness" and of pre-experiencing the future, are more integrated with autobiographical knowledge, and are characterized by more positive and intense emotions. Furthermore, psychological need satisfaction was a characteristic component of self-concordant future thoughts. Implications of these findings for motivation and goal pursuit are discussed.

Networks of self-defining memories as a contributing factor to emotional openness.

Emotional openness is characterised by a capacity to tolerate threatening self-relevant material and an interest towards new emotional situations. We investigated how specific networks of memories could be an important contributing factor to emotional openness. At Phase 1, participants completed measures of personality traits and emotional intelligence, described a self-defining memory, provided other memories associated with it, and rated the valence of each of their memories. A score assessing the complexity of this memory network, comprising the number of memories reported and their valence diversity, was created. Two weeks later, in laboratory, participants watched an anxiety-inducing film and took part in an interview assessing their emotional openness to the film. They completed a cognitive task before and after the film to measure ego depletion. Controlling for traits and emotional intelligence, memory network complexity was positively associated with emotional openness and negatively with ego depletion. The mental organisation of self-defining memories thus appears to be a critical factor contributing to emotional openness.

Fungal malignant otitis externa.

An 89-year-old man presented to the outpatient clinic with a 2-month history of persistent unilateral left-sided otalgia, otorrhoea and reduced hearing despite oral and topical antibiotics. Treatment was protracted, requiring a 4-month hospital admission for intravenous antifungal medication as well as 3 further months of oral antifungal treatment. We describe the clinical presentation, complications and treatment of this potentially fatal condition in the context of an unusual, and easily missed, causative organism.

Understanding the cognitive and motivational underpinnings of sexual passion from a dualistic model.

Sexual passion has always been conceptualized as a one-dimensional phenomenon that emerges from interactions with partners. Drawing from the literature on passionate activities, sexual passion was defined in terms of its intrapersonal motivational and cognitive components and examined from a dualistic perspective. More specifically, in 5 studies, we investigated how 2 types of sexual passion, harmonious and obsessive, can lead to clearly distinct subjective, relational, and cognitive outcomes. Study 1 validated a scale measuring harmonious and obsessive sexual passion, and showed that each type of sexual passion leads to common, but also distinct, subjective consequences during sexual activity engagement for both singles and romantically engaged individuals. Studies 2 and 3 differentiated the constructs of harmonious and obsessive sexual passion from competing constructs existing in the literature and provided evidence for its predictive validity regarding various relational outcomes, including relationship sustainability over time. Finally, Studies 4 and 5 investigated the cognitive consequences of each type of sexual passion by showing how they reflect distinct levels of integration of sexual and relational representations, and how they can lead to biased processing of sexual information (Study 4) and conflict with ongoing sex-unrelated goals (Studies 5a and 5b). Overall, the present series of studies provides a new look at sexual passion from a motivational and cognitive intrapersonal perspective that is not restricted to interpersonal ramifications with partners. (PsycINFO Database Record

Commitment in romantic relationships as a function of partners' encoding of important couple-related memories.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how significant couple-related events are encoded in the episodic memory of each partner of a romantic relationship and how they relate to each of these partners' level of commitment in an independent and additive fashion. Each partner of a couple reported a significant couple-related memory and rated their level of need satisfaction experienced during the event of the memory. In addition, each partner was shown his/her partner's memory and also rated their own level of need satisfaction for this event. Results showed that partners need satisfaction ratings of their own memory positively predicted their own commitment to the relationship directly (for women) as well as through their need satisfaction generally experienced in the relationship (for men). In addition, men's need satisfaction ratings of their own memory were associated with women's commitment while controlling for women's need satisfaction ratings of men's memory, but no such cross-partner effects were found for women. Overall, the findings shed light on an initial understanding of how a person's own memory of an event can impact another person's attitudes even when taking into account this other person's memory encoding of that same event.