Avoidance-motivational intensity modulated the effect of negative emotion on working memory.

Although many studies have explored the association between negative emotion and working memory, the findings remain controversial. The present study investigated the role of avoidance-motivational intensity in modulating the effect of negative emotion on different processes (maintenance versus manipulation) of verbal and spatial working memory. Two experiments employed the modified delayed match-to-sample paradigms to separate the two processes of verbal and spatial working memory under different emotional states, respectively. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to perform the delayed match-to-sample task with or without reordering the characters (manipulation process of verbal working memory). In Experiment 2, mental rotation was used as the manipulation process of spatial working memory. The results showed that negative emotion only affected the manipulation process, but not the maintenance process. Relative to neutral and low avoidance-motivated negative conditions, the manipulation processes of both types of working memory were impaired under the high avoidance-motivated negative condition. No significant difference was observed between low avoidance-motivated negative condition and neutral condition. Our results are discussed in relation to efficiency processing theory and motivational dimensional model of affect. We conclude that negative emotional states with high avoidance-motivational intensity impair the manipulation process of verbal and spatial working memory.

Psychophysical Risk Perceptions and Sleep Quality of Medical Assistance Team Members in Square Cabin Hospitals: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association between the perceptions of psychophysical risks and sleep quality of Medical Assistance Team Members (MATMs) in Square Cabin Hospitals. Methods: Repeated cross-sectional data collection was conducted in Square Cabin Hospitals during two large-scale lockdowns. The first wave was sampled from MATMs dispatched to Wuhan and the second was from MATMs dispatched to Shanghai. Participants completed online questionnaires comprised of the Risk Perception Questionnaire (RPQ), Positive and negative emotions scale (PANAS), and Sleep Quality Scale (SQS), measuring the psychophysical risk perceptions about the MATMs' current work, emotional states, and sleep quality. Changes across two waves of data collection were statistically parsed using the exploratory factor analysis and regression models. Results: Data of 220 participants from first-wave samples [S1] and 300 from second-wave samples [S2] were analyzed. Participants reported more worries about physical risks, such as inadequate protection methods and being infected, and S1 rated higher on all risks compared with S2 (as the biggest p-value was 0.021). Across the different situations, the dominant emotional states of MATMs were positive; a higher level of psychophysical risk perceptions, negative emotional states, and poor sleep quality were consistently interrelated. The psychophysical risk perceptions predicted sleep quality. Negative emotions as a state variable intensified the relationship between physical risk perceptions and sleep quality (bindirect effect = 1.084, bootstrapped CI = [0.705, 1.487]). Conclusions: The results provide important evidence that MATMs' higher level of psychophysical risk perceptions associated with negative emotions could indicate worse sleep quality.

Corrigendum: Risk Perception and PTSD Symptoms of Medical Staff Combating Against COVID-19: A PLS Structural Equation Model.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.607612.].

Education and subjective well-being in Chinese rural population: A multi-group structural equation model.

PURPOSES: This study aimed to explore the effect of education on subjective well-being (SWB) of Chinese rural dwellers who just shook off poverty in 2019 and to investigate the mediating role of social support and moderating role of age on the association. METHODS: Social support rating scale (SSRS) and General Well-Being Schedule (GWBS) were administrated among 1094 Chinese rural dwellers from Anqing, Anhui Province, China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group SEM were performed to examine the mediating role of social support and moderating role of age in the link between education and SWB, respectively. RESULTS: The findings indicated that social support fully mediated the relationship between education and SWB in rural residents. Age moderated the indirect relationship between education and SWB (first stage moderation model) such that the effect of education on social support would be strengthened with aging process. CONCLUSIONS: The results add to our understanding of the protective role of education in SWB among Chinese rural dwellers, and shed new light on the potential mechanisms underlying the association between education and SWB with respect to the mediating role of social support and moderating role of age.

Posttraumatic stress symptoms among health care workers during the COVID-19 epidemic: The roles of negative coping and fatigue.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) exposed to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are not immune to stressors. This study aimed to explore the prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among HCWs during the COVID-19 epidemic and investigate the associations among negative coping, fatigue and PTSS. A total of 507 HCWs from Anhui province enrolled in the study and completed the cross-sectional survey including demographic data, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ), 14-item Fatigue Scale (FS-14), and PTSD Checklist-civilian Version (PCL-C). Univariate linear regression, Pearson correlation and Mackinnon's four-step procedure were performed in the statistical analysis. Results indicated that the prevalence of PTSS among HCWs during the pandemic was 24%. Univariate linear regression showed HCWs aged 31-40 years exhibited significantly higher scores of PTSS than those aged 51-60 (ß = 0.20, 95% CI: 0.59 to 9.41). Having at least one child was associated with a higher risk of developing PTSS (ß = 0.01, 95% CI: 0.36 to 5.45). Negative coping and fatigue were positively correlated with all three PTSS (all P < 0.001), including re-experiencing, avoidance and hyper-arousal. Fatigue has mediated the association between negative coping and PTSS among HCWs during the pandemic (ab = 0.09, SE = 0.03, bootstrap 95% CI: 0.04 to 0.14). A considerable proportion of HCWs was traumatized during the COVID-19 outbreak. Hence, the institutions should screen out and pay close attention to HCWs who tend to use negative coping (e.g., withdrawal thinking, distraction and blaming others) and arrange work scientifically to avoid overfatigue and PTSS amid the public health crisis.

Hydrogen Nanobubble Water Delays Petal Senescence and Prolongs the Vase Life of Cut Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) Flowers.

The short vase life of cut flowers limits their commercial value. To ameliorate this practical problem, this study investigated the effect of hydrogen nanobubble water (HNW) on delaying senescence of cut carnation flowers (Dianthuscaryophyllus L.). It was observed that HNW had properties of higher concentration and residence time for the dissolved hydrogen gas in comparison with conventional hydrogen-rich water (HRW). Meanwhile, application of 5% HNW significantly prolonged the vase life of cut carnation flowers compared with distilled water, other doses of HNW (including 1%, 10%, and 50%), and 10% HRW, which corresponded with the alleviation of fresh weight and water content loss, increased electrolyte leakage, oxidative damage, and cell death in petals. Further study showed that the increasing trend with respect to the activities of nucleases (including DNase and RNase) and protease during vase life period was inhibited by 5% HNW. The results indicated that HNW delayed petal senescence of cut carnation flowers through reducing reactive oxygen species accumulation and initial activities of senescence-associated enzymes. These findings may provide a basic framework for the application of HNW for postharvest preservation of agricultural products.

The Mediating Role of Perceived Social Support Between Resilience and Anxiety 1 Year After the COVID-19 Pandemic: Disparity Between High-Risk and Low-Risk Nurses in China.

Introduction: One year after the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, China has made substantial progress in the prevention and control of the pandemic, while the epidemic situation remains grim in China since virus may easily survive with the falling temperature in winter. The present study aimed to compare the prevalence and associated factors of anxiety between high-risk and low-risk nurses 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak, and examine the association between resilience and anxiety and its underlying mechanisms. Method: Connor-Davidson Resilience scale, Perceived Social Support Scale and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale were administrated to 701 nurses from Jiangsu Province, China, 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak. The mediating effect was examined by Mackinnon's four-step procedure, while the moderated mediation model was tested by Hayes PROCESS macro. Results: The findings presented the prevalence of anxiety among nurses was 21.4% 1 year after the COVID-19 pandemic. High-risk nurses presented a higher prevalence of anxiety (24.5 vs. 19.3%) than low-risk nurses. Age and professional title were significantly associated with anxiety only in high-risk nurses (all P < 0.05). Perceived social support mediated the association between resilience and anxiety and the indirect effect was stronger for high-risk nurses than low-risk nurses. Conclusion: Anxiety remains prevalent among nurses 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak, and resilience plays a protective role against anxiety. Programs that enhance resilience and social support should be designed and special attention should be paid to nurses from high-risk units.

Risk Perception and PTSD Symptoms of Medical Staff Combating Against COVID-19: A PLS Structural Equation Model.

Medical staff were battling against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) at the expense of their physical and mental health, particularly at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this case, intervening PTSD of medical staff and preparing them for future outbreaks are important. Previous studies showed that perceived stress was related to the development of PTSD. Hence, in this study, the association between risk perception of medical staff and PTSD symptoms in COVID-19 and the potential links were explored. Three hundred four medical staff's exposure to COVID-19 patients, risk perception for working during COVID-19, PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and sleep quality were measured. Mediation analysis tested the indirect effects of anxiety and sleep quality on the relationship between risk perceptions and PTSD symptoms; 27.6% of participants were deemed as having probable PTSD diagnosis. Mediation analysis showed a significant chain-mediating effect of anxiety and sleep quality on the relationships between risk perceptions and PTSD symptoms; higher risk perceptions were related to increased anxiety, worsened sleep quality, and severe PTSD symptoms. Conclusively, medical staff have a high prevalence of PTSD symptoms after 3 months of COVID-19. Their PTSD symptoms were associated with the perceived risk level through the potential links with anxiety and sleep quality. Therefore, risk perception could be critical for our medical staff's responses to public health emergencies. It could be plausible to intervene in the perceived stress to alleviate aroused anxiety and improve sleep quality and thereby deter the development of PTSD.

The influence of social anxiety on interpersonal information processing in a military-life environment: A cross-sectional study.

Although social anxiety as a ubiquitous emotion impacting people's social behaviors has aroused much researchers' interest in exploring its cognitive behavioral model, no previous study has focused on soldiers with different social anxiety within the context of the specific military environment.To explore the associations between social anxiety and interpersonal information processing concerted on interpretation and judgment, the study may provide an intervention point for soldiers to ameliorate social anxiety and accommodate to the military-life environment.A self-reported questionnaire and 2 behavioral tasks were conducted in the cross-section study to explore the associations.Seventy-four soldiers were randomly recruited from a naval base. The Interpersonal Anxiety Scale was used to assess social anxiety of soldiers. Two behavioral tasks were designed to test the characteristics of interpersonal information processing, one for interpretation bias and the other for judgment bias.This cross-sectional study showed social anxiety had a significant negative correlation with interpretation bias and abidance (as judgment bias), signaling that soldiers with higher levels of social anxiety had a stronger tendency to negative interpretation bias and showed lower abidance. The mediating effect analysis showed the interpretation bias could indirectly affect the soldier's abidance through social anxiety. Notably, none of the interaction effects of social anxiety and social information types were statistically significant; therefore, the level of social anxiety predetermined the abidance of soldiers.Soldiers' social anxiety has an influence on processing military-life interpersonal information, and it plays a certain intermediary role in the associations between low abidance and negative interpretation bias. The stronger negative interpretation bias than positive bias of soldiers, the higher social anxiety they could show with the less possibility to abide, which might result in behaviors against the military collective requirements. Social anxiety has the primary effect on the abidance of soldiers; hence, in the future, the interpretation bias modification could be a plausible cognitive-behavior therapy to help soldiers ameliorate social anxiety, thus contributing to enhancing their sense of belonging to the troops and accommodation to military life.

Posttraumatic stress symptoms of health care workers during the corona virus disease 2019.

Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has attracted worldwide attention. The COVID-19 outbreak is unique in its rapid transmission and results in heavy stress for the front-line health care workers (HCWs). The current study aimed to exam posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs) of HCWs fighting for the COVID-19 and to evaluate their sleep quality after 1-month stressful suffering. Three hundred seventy-seven HCWs working in different provinces of China participated in the survey between February 1 and 5. The demographic information was collected first. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were selected to measure PTSSs and sleep quality. Results showed that 1 month after the outbreak, the prevalence of PTSSs was 3.8% in HCWs. Female HCWs were more vulnerable to PTSSs with hazard ratio of 2.136 (95% CI = 1.388-3.286). HCWs with higher exposure level also significantly rated more hyperarousal symptoms (hazard ratio = 4.026, 95% CI = 1.233-13.140). There was a significant difference of sleep quality between participants with and without PTSSs (z value = 6.014, p < .001) and among different groups with various contact frequencies (chi-square = 7.307, p = .026). Path analysis showed that there was a significant indirect effect from exposure level to PTSSs through sleep quality (coefficient = 1.750, 95% CI of Boostroop test = 0.543-2.998). In summary, targeted interventions on sleep contribute to the mental recovery during the outbreak of COVID-19. Understanding the mental health response after a public health emergency might help HCWs and communities prepare for a population's response to disaster.

Risk factors for PTSD of Shidu parents who lost the only child in a rapid aging process: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The elderly population is rising globally, especially in China where a large population base causes the largest number of older adults in the world. Notably, Shidu people who are over the age of 60 and have lost their only child have drawn great public attentions as they become more elderly, medically unstable and worse mentally unhealthy. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most common consequences resulted from the loss of the only child. However, few previous studies have examined PTSD in Shidu older aldults, and the risk factors are a relatively understudied area. Our study aims to estimate the prevalence and potential risk factors of PTSD and improve the possibility of early identifying the high-risk Shidu parents with PTSD, and successively provide timely and effective interventions. METHOD: Based on the register of population statistic information provided by the health family planning commission, 149 participants were enrolled randomly. Data was collected by interviews and questionnaires. Socio-demographic and bereavement-related information and physical health outcomes were obtained. PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version was used to screen for bereavement-related PTSD. RESULT: The morbidity of PTSD reached 30.9%, while in the group of age over 60 the morbidity reached 31.6%. Stratified by potential demographic risk factors, SDPs have significant between-group differences of PTSD. Specially, being women, higher income, losing the single child at older age, more serious medical conditions and being Shidu for a shorter period indicated higher severity of PTSD in SDPs. The single child dying at a older age and from accidence were also significant indicators. Regression analysis showed the gender of SDPs, hospital visits, and the cause of child death significantly predicted the severity of PTSD. CONCLUSION: With the accelerate process of aging, especially in China, Shidu older adults become a group deserved more attentions. PTSD is clearly a possible reaction to the loss of the only child. The gender and hospital visits of the Shidu older adults and the causes of their child's death significantly related to the prevalence of PTSD, which could help to improve the possibility of early intervening.

Interpretation bias of high trait anxiety Chinese military servicemen in ambiguous military scenarios.

Converging evidence reveals the negative interpretation bias in anxiety. Given that anxiety is a severe psychological problem among Chinese military personnel, the present study examined whether high trait anxiety military personnel showed negative interpretation bias in real-world situations and whether their interpretations were influenced by self-relevance.The sample included 24 high trait anxiety (H-TA) and 22 low trait anxiety (L-TA) Chinese military servicemen. Participants completed 20 open-ended ambiguous scenarios by deciding how much they believed in the positive and negative ending of each sentence. The 20 scenarios were designed according to real life in military and half of them were self-relevant and the others were non-self-relevant.A 2(group) ×2(self-relevance) ANOVA of positive and negative endings revealed that compared to L-TA, H-TA believed more in negative continuations and less in positive continuations. Moderate correlations were found between samples' believes in positive and negative endings and their trait anxiety scores. Military personnel showed more positive interpretation biases in non-self-relevant scenarios than in self-relevant scenarios.These findings are the first to show interpretation bias in military situations, and interventional strategies to modify servicemen's interpretation bias could be designed according to military situations.

Neuroticism Predicts a Long-Term PTSD After Earthquake Trauma: The Moderating Effects of Personality.

Background: The heartache from the devastating 8.0 magnitude Wenchuan earthquake, which killed nearly 90,000 people in western China, is still felt despite the large-scale recovery and reconstruction of the affected areas. This study investigated the relationships of earthquake-trauma exposures and personality with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to identify the long-term consequences of the Wenchuan earthquake on the survivors and the risk factors related to chronic PTSD. We hope the findings can contribute to developing new health care prevention and interventions for the survivors. Methods: We collected a sample of 490 people over 3 years after the Wenchuan earthquake, using questionnaires about demographic information and the traumatic experience in earthquake, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaires (EPQ), to find the consequences of the Wenchuan earthquake on the survivors and the potential factors related to the long-term morbidity of PTSD. Result: Traumatic experiences, such as witnessing someone being seriously injured, having your house seriously damaged, and having close relatives severely injured, were associated with developing PTSD. Personality measured by EPQ was also closely related to PTSD. Regression analyses indicated that a potential linear model characterized the relationship between PTSD, neuroticism and psychoticism, yet extraversion/introversion were not significant factors. In the multivariate logistic regression, neuroticism (a continuous variable measured by EPQ) was of more significance in predicting the morbidity of long-term PTSD, compared with other variables [odds ratio (OR) = 1.113, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.081-1.146, Wald Value = 50.467, P < 0.001]. The final path diagram built a model indicated the moderating role of personality in the relationship between traumatic experiences and PTSD (CMIN/DF = 2.324, P < 0.001; CFI = 0.879 < 0.8; RMSEA = 0.05 < 0.08). Conclusion: This study demonstrated the role of personality traits and subjective exposure experiences regarding the vulnerability associated with PTSD after earthquake. Among all personality traits, neuroticism is considered a vulnerability factor of PTSD, and other personality traits also moderate the effects of traumatic experiences associated with PTSD. These findings might be useful for psychologists to develop intervention strategies for people suffered natural disasters, and to help individuals with PTSD to heal fully.

An investigation of physical and mental health consequences among Chinese parents who lost their only child.

BACKGROUND: The term "loss-of-only-child family" means that the only child in a family passed away or is disabled due to an accident or other events. The parents who cannot conceive or do not adopt another child, are known as Shidu parents in China. This study compares the physical and mental health of Shidu parents with those parents who have not experienced such loss. METHODS: The target group is comprised of parents being Shidu for more than 1 year (N = 95) and the control group is comprised of parents with a living child (N = 97) from the same area as the Shidu parents. Socio-demographic information and physical health outcomes were collected by the adapted questionnaires. PCL-C (PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version), CES-D (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale) and GHQ-12 (General Health Questionnaire) were applied to evaluate the parents' physical and mental status. RESULTS: Shidu parents have a higher risk of developing PTSD and depression, and suffer more severe psychiatric disorders compared to parents with a living child. The rate of PTSD in the Shidu group was up to 32.6% and the scores of PCL-C are much higher than the control group. The physical status of Shidu parents were much worse than that of the control group, characterized by higher morbidity of chronic diseases and more hospital visits. CONCLUSIONS: Shidu parents have more severe mental health problems and a higher rate of chronic diseases than parents who have a living child. Loss of the only child is the most traumatic event for the parents, which is a serious and unique problem in Chinese society that deserves attention. More studies and support are desired to improve the physical and mental health of Shidu parents.