Trauma Exposure and Mental Health Prevalence Among First Aiders.

Introduction: First aiders are commonly exposed to different forms of traumatic event (TE) during their duties, such as Chronic Indirect Vicarious Exposure which refers to an indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma (APA, 2013). If the psychopathological impact of TE is well documented, the mental health of first aiders remains neglected. Therefore, our main objectives are (i) to study the link between exposure to traumatic events and psychopathological outcomes and (ii) to quantify the rates of mental health disorders among first aiders. Method: Our sample comprised of 53 volunteer first aiders (21 females and 32 males) with an average age of 32.4 years (SD = 13.6 years). Traumatic event exposure and mental health were assessed through a set of validated questionnaires completed online. Results: Rates of mental health outcomes were higher than within the general population. Females showed higher scores of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than males. PTSD scores were significantly correlated with all mental issues scores, apart from tobacco use and eating disorders scores. There was a significant correlation between the number of traumatic events and the years of experience. Exposure to traumatic events only correlated with nicotine dependency. No other correlation reaches statistical significance. Discussion: The scores of all mental health outcomes were high; a surprising result, as volunteer first aiders are thought to be recruited for their strong dispositional cognitive and emotional abilities. The high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder and burnout, along with the prevalent anxiety and depression, highlight the need for greater psychosocial support. Resilience training and peer support would be useful interventions in this group.

Posttraumatic anger: a confirmatory factor analysis of the Dimensions of Anger Reactions Scale-5 (DAR-5) - French adaptation.

Background: Research has shown that posttraumatic anger is common after a traumatic experience, represents a risk factor for post-trauma psychopathology, and can be screened for using the Dimensions of Anger Reactions Scale-5 (DAR-5), a concise five-item measure. However, a French version of the DAR-5 is not yet available. Objective: We aimed to provide a French adaptation (DAR-5-F) and to replicate, in a French community sample, the psychometric properties of the original DAR-5. Method: After translation using transcultural psychometric principles, the DAR-5-F was presented to 822 fluent French speakers alongside validated scales of anger (State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2), anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), alcohol misuse (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption), and trauma exposure (Life Events Checklist-5). Results: Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed that DAR-5-F scores fit a single-factor model as described with the English version of the scale. The scale showed noteworthy internal consistency and robust convergent validity with trait anger. The screening DAR-5-F cut-off of ≥12 successfully differentiated high from low scores of STAXI-2, anxiety, depression, and traumatic exposure. Conclusions: The DAR-5 is a robust, psychometrically strong brief scale of anger useful for post-trauma screening, with the DAR-5-F now available for use in French-speaking populations. Future research that examines relationships between the DAR-5-F and variables such as trauma severity and posttraumatic stress symptoms will further improve our understanding of these phenomena.

Antecedentes: La investigación ha demostrado que la ira postraumática es común después de una experiencia traumática, representa un factor de riesgo para psicopatología post trauma, y puede ser tamizada usando las dimensiones de la Escala de Reacciones de Ira-5 (DAR-5 por sus siglas en inglés), una medida concisa de 5 items. Sin embargo, una versión francesa del DAR-5 no está aún disponible.Objetivo: Nuestro objetivo fue proveer una adaptación francesa (DAR-5-F) y replicar, en una muestra de la comunidad francesa, las propiedades psicométricas de la DAR-5 original.Método: Después de una traducción usando principios psicométricos transculturales, la DAR-5-F se presentó a 822 francoparlantes fluidos junto a escalas validadas de ira (Inventario de Expresión de Ira estado-rasgo, STAXI-2), ansiedad y depresión (Escala de Ansiedad y Depresión Hospitalaria, HAD), abuso de alcohol (Test de Identificación de Trastornos por consumo de alcohol, AUDIT- Consumo), y exposición a trauma (Lista de Chequeo de Eventos Vitales, LEC-5).Resultados: El análisis factorial confirmatorio confirmó que el puntaje de DAR-5 F calza con un modelo de factor único como se describió en la versión inglesa de la escala. La escala mostró una consistencia interna notable y una validez convergente robusta con la ira-rasgo. El punto de corte del tamizaje de DAR-5 F igual o mayor a 12 diferenció exitosamente los puntajes altos de los bajos de STAXI-2, ansiedad, depresión, y exposición traumática.Conclusiones: La DAR-5 es una escala de ira breve robusta, psicométricamente fuerte útil para el tamizaje post trauma, con la DAR-5 F ahora disponible para su uso en población francoparlante. Investigaciones futuras que examinen la relación entre la DAR-5 F y variables tales como severidad del trauma y síntomas de estrés postraumático mejorarán aún más nuestra comprensión de este fenómeno.

Trauma exposure interacts with impulsivity in predicting emotion regulation and depressive mood.

BACKGROUND: Traumatic exposure may modulate the expression of impulsive behavioral dispositions and change the implementation of emotion regulation strategies associated with depressive mood. Past studies resulted in only limited comprehension of these relationships, especially because they failed to consider impulsivity as a multifactorial construct. OBJECTIVE: Based on Whiteside and Lynam's multidimensional model that identifies four distinct dispositional facets of impulsive-like behaviors, namely urgency, (lack of) premeditation, (lack of) perseverance, and sensation seeking (UPPS), the current study used a sample of community volunteers to investigate whether an interaction exists between impulsivity facets and lifetime trauma exposure in predicting cognitive emotion regulation and depressive mood. METHODS: Ninety-three adults completed questionnaires measuring lifetime trauma exposure, impulsivity, cognitive emotion regulation, and depressive mood. RESULTS: Results showed that trauma-exposed participants with a strong disposition toward urgency (predisposition to act rashly in intense emotional contexts) tended to use fewer appropriate cognitive emotion regulation strategies than other individuals. Unexpectedly, participants lacking in perseverance (predisposition to have difficulties concentrating on demanding tasks) used more appropriate emotion regulation strategies if they had experienced traumatic events during their life than if they had not. Emotion regulation mediated the path between these two impulsivity facets and depressive mood. CONCLUSIONS: Together, these findings suggest that impulsivity has a differential impact on emotion regulation and depressive mood depending on lifetime exposure to environmental factors, especially traumatic events.

Assessing public speaking fear with the short form of the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker scale: confirmatory factor analyses among a French-speaking community sample.

BACKGROUND: The main aim of this study was to assess the reliability and structural validity of the French version of the 12-item version of the Personal Report of Confidence as Speaker (PRCS), one of the most promising measurements of public speaking fear. METHODS: A total of 611 French-speaking volunteers were administered the French versions of the short PRCS, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, as well as the Trait version of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory-II, which assess the level of anxious and depressive symptoms, respectively. RESULTS: Regarding its structural validity, confirmatory factor analyses indicated a single-factor solution, as implied by the original version. Good scale reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.86) was observed. The item discrimination analysis suggested that all the items contribute to the overall scale score reliability. The French version of the short PRCS showed significant correlations with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (r = 0.522), the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (r = 0.414), the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (r = 0.516), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (r = 0.361). CONCLUSION: The French version of the short PRCS is a reliable and valid measure for the evaluation of the fear of public speaking among a French-speaking sample. These findings have critical consequences for the measurement of psychological and pharmacological treatment effectiveness in public speaking fear among a French-speaking sample.

Relations between pure dietary and dietary-negative affect subtypes and impulsivity and reinforcement sensitivity in binge eating individuals.

To investigate potential predictors of the severity of binge eating disorder (BED), two subtypes of patients with the disorder, a pure dietary subtype and a dietary-negative affect subtype, were identified. This study investigated the relationships between the two subtypes and impulsivity and reinforcement sensitivity. Ninety-two women meeting threshold and subthreshold criteria for BED diagnosis filled out questionnaires to determine eating disorder severity, impulsivity and reinforcement sensitivity before and after participating in an online guided self-help program for BED. Cluster analyses revealed a pure dietary subtype (N=66, 71.7%) and a dietary-negative affect subtype (N=26, 28.3%). Compared to the pure dietary subtype, the dietary-negative affect subtype reported a higher frequency of objective binge episodes, more severe eating disorders, higher urgency scores (defined as a tendency to act rashly in the context of negative affect), a greater sensitivity to punishment, and a higher dropout rate during treatment. These findings suggest that BED patients in the dietary-negative affect subtype exhibit heightened anxiety and are highly impulsive, especially in contexts of negative affect. For these individuals, psychological interventions for BED should focus on inhibiting automatic responses to negative emotions.

Validation of a short French version of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale.

BACKGROUND: Impulsivity is a multifaceted construct that has a prominent role in psychiatry. Lynam et al (2006) have developed the UPPS-P, a 59-item scale measuring 5 impulsivity components: negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking. The aim of the present study was to validate a short, 20-item French version of the UPPS-P. METHODS: Six hundred fifty participants filled out the short French UPPS-P. A subgroup of participants (n = 145) took part in a follow-up study and completed the scale twice to determine test-retest stability; another subgroup (n = 105) was screened with other questionnaires also to establish external validity. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analyses supported a hierarchical model comprising 2 higher order factors of urgency (resulting from negative urgency and positive urgency) and lack of conscientiousness (resulting from lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance) as well as a separate factor of sensation seeking. The results indicated good internal consistency and test-retest stability. External validity was supported by relationships with psychopathological symptoms. CONCLUSION: The short French version of the UPPS-P therefore presents good psychometric properties and may be considered a promising instrument for both research and clinical practice.

Anatomy of the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI): a review of previous findings and a new approach.

The White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI; Wegner & Zanakos, 1994) was originally designed to assess people's inclination toward thought suppression. In this article, we provide a detailed review of previous findings on the structure of this instrument and present a study that took a new statistical approach. It involved an exploratory factor analysis of the French WBSI using the weighted least squares mean and variance estimator as well as parametric item response theory analyses. Results clearly supported a 2-factor structure with a "suppression" and an "intrusion" dimension. Follow-up regression analyses revealed that intrusion significantly predicted anxiety and depression scores, whereas suppression did not.

Depressive symptoms after trauma: is self-esteem a mediating factor?

Traumatic events have predicted depressive symptoms. Despite this consensus, it remains unclear as to whether the relationship between trauma and depression is consistently mediated by a negative cognitive schema, such as low self-esteem, or whether trauma influences mood independently of low self-esteem. This study tested these relationships while considering depressive symptom types. One hundred thirty-two students reported the number of traumatic events experienced and self-esteem and depression levels. Results indicated 2 depressive symptom types: "cognitive-affective" and "somatic." Structural Equation Modeling tested an unmediated path from trauma to depressive symptoms and a path mediated by self-esteem. Results supported the unmediated relationship between trauma and "cognitive-affective" depressive symptoms, and did not support mediation by self-esteem. Findings are discussed in view of a dimensional rather than categorical approach to depression, and in consideration of alternative symptom clusters resulting from trauma in addition to those captured by posttraumatic stress disorder.

Which dimensions of impulsivity are related to cigarette craving?

Cigarette smoking is a very important health problem and represents the largest preventable risk factor for premature death in developed countries. A considerable body of research indicates that impulsivity is a central etiological concept in many theoretical models of tobacco addiction. The aim of this study is to analyse which dimensions of impulsivity are related to cigarette craving. To this end, 40 undergraduate psychology students were screened using the revised Questionnaire on Smoking Urges (QSU-12) and the French adaptation of the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS). This scale identifies four distinct components associated with impulsive behaviour: urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking. The results showed that urgency is a significant predictor of tobacco cravings, while depression and anxiety are not.

Reality monitoring and motor memory in checking-prone individuals.

Studies concerning reality monitoring and motor memory abilities in checkers have provided mixed results. The aim of this study was to re-examine this question by asking 75 undergraduate students to perform, watch the experimenter perform, imagine themselves performing, imagine the experimenter performing, or verbally repeat different daily actions. Two groups were created (checking-prone and nonchecking-prone subjects) based on participants' checking subscores on the revised version of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory. First, results suggested that checking-prone subjects have a poorer motor memory than nonchecking-prone participants. Second, our data indicated that checking-prone participants confused actions they had performed with actions the experimenter had performed more often than nonchecking-prone participants. In other words, checking-prone participants remembered events from an observer's viewpoint. Finally, our findings suggest that dissociation could be a mediating variable between some of the reality monitoring abilities and checking.

Investigation of response inhibition in obsessive-compulsive disorder using the Hayling task.

This study investigates response inhibition deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by using the Hayling task. Sixteen OCD washers, 16 OCD checkers, 16 social phobic patients and 16 nonanxious controls were asked to complete sentences with either the expected word (section A: "initiation") or an unrelated word (section B: "inhibition"). The groups did not differ in terms of section B minus section A latencies. However, OCD washers and checkers made significantly more errors (sentence-related responses) in section B than social phobic patients and controls. In the OCD patients, the frequency of these errors correlates with the total OCD severity score and the compulsion subscore, but not with the depression and anxiety scores. These findings suggest that OCD patients might present a specific deficit affecting the inhibition of a prepotent response.

Controlled and automatic uses of memory in depressed patients: effect of retention interval lengths.

The present study examines controlled and automatic uses of memory in clinically depressed patients by applying the Process Dissociation Procedure developed by Jacoby (1991) to a stem completion memory task with short and long retention intervals. The results show that the contribution of controlled processes is lower in depressed patients than in controls, especially for the longest retention interval, whereas the contribution of automatic processes is equivalent in both groups and unaffected by the length of the retention interval. These findings are discussed in a cognitive control framework.

Further exploration memory bias in compulsive washers.

The aim of the present study was to replicate Radomsky and Rachman's findings on memory bias in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), using the same procedure but an increased sample size, more specific control groups, and a full analysis of contamination attribution data. Sixteen OCD-washers, 16 OCD-checkers, 16 social phobic patients and 16 non-anxious controls were presented with 50 'clean' or 'dirty' objects. After this incidental encoding phase, participants were asked to freely recall the objects, to rate their anxiety when almost touching each object, and, finally, to attribute each object to one of the two contamination conditions ('clean' or 'dirty'). Verbal episodic memory was also assessed with the California Verbal Learning Test. The results indicate that, contrary to Radomsky and Rachman's findings, OCD-washers did not differ from the other participants in their memory for 'clean' and 'dirty' objects. However, the OCD-washers recalled more accurately the 'dirty' source of contamination than the 'clean' source. This result was specific to the OCD-washers, and suggests a memory bias for contextually threatening information. The differences between our findings and those published by Radomsky and Rachman's are discussed.

Children's ability to control the facial expression of laughter and smiling: Knowledge and behaviour.

A total of 64 children, aged 7 and 10, watched a clown performing three sketches rated as very funny by the children. Two experimental conditions were created by asking half of the participants to suppress their laughter. Facial expressions were videotaped and analysed with FACS. For both ages, the results show a significant shorter duration (but not a lower frequency) of episodes of laughter and Duchenne smiles, and greater frequency of facial control movements in the suppression compared to the free expression group. The detailed results on individual facial action units used to control amusement expressions suggest hypotheses on the nature of the underlying processes. The participants' explicit knowledge of their control strategies was assessed through standardised interviews. Although behavioural control strategies were reported equally frequently by the two age groups, 10-year-olds verbalised more mental control strategies than 7-year-olds. This theoretically expected difference was not related to the actual ability to control facial expression. This result challenges the commonly held assumption that explicit knowledge of control strategies results in a greater ability to execute such control in ongoing social interactions.