Associations Between Religious/Spiritual Practices and Well-Being in Indian Elderly Rural Women.

Religion and spirituality (R/S) are embedded in all aspects of life in India, a predominantly rural economy. The aim of this mixed methods study was to assess the associations between a culturally tailored intervention and preexisting religious/spiritual (R/S) practices with indicators of well-being and factors which contribute to happiness among elderly rural women from Haryana state, India. The study consisted of three groups: field experimental group (FEG; n = 24); practitioners of preexisting R/S practices for at least 6 weeks Satsang (SG, n = 54), Brahma Kumaris (BKG, n = 54), and Radha Soami (RSG, n = 30), and non-practitioners of R/S practices (n = 64). All groups completed self-report measures of overall happiness and life satisfaction, global health, quality of life, and health status and physical health. Results revealed that FEG participants improved significantly on physical health, body balancing, and self-care; no changes were observed on the other well-being measures following the intervention. Practitioners of preexisting R/S practices were found significantly different from the non-practitioners on some indicators of health, quality of life, and well-being. Qualitative measures pointed to the importance of R/S and family and interpersonal relationships among elderly rural women.

Translation of the Diabetes Prevention Program for diabetes risk reduction in Chinese immigrants in New York City.

AIMS: To evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of implementing a linguistically and culturally tailored Diabetes Prevention Program among Chinese immigrants with prediabetes living in New York City. METHODS: A total of 60 Chinese immigrants with prediabetes were randomized into either a Diabetes Prevention Program lifestyle intervention (n = 30) consisting of 12 bi-weekly core sessions and six monthly post-core sessions or the control intervention (n = 30), consisting of quarterly mailing of diabetes prevention information. Each Diabetes Prevention Program intervention session lasted 1.5-2 h and covered topics such as healthy eating, physical activity, stress reduction and problem-solving skills. Outcomes such as percent change in weight, BMI, and HbA1c concentration were assessed at baseline, 6 and 12 months. A mixed-effects linear regression was applied to test the intervention effect at months 6 and 12. Data were collected in the period 2012-2013 and analysed in 2014. RESULTS: The participant attrition rate was < 5% (2 out of 60) at 12 months. There was a significantly greater percent weight loss in the intervention group (-3.5 vs. -0.1%; P = 0.0001) at 6 months, which was largely maintained at 12 months (-3.3 vs. 0.3%; P = 0.0003). CONCLUSIONS: Participants in a Diabetes Prevention Program-based intervention achieved greater weight loss and improvements in HbA1c concentration than control participants. Evaluation of the Chinese Diabetes Prevention Program curriculum in a larger trial is warranted.

The utility of the ASI factors in predicting response to voluntary hyperventilation among nonclinical participants.

Empirical research has demonstrated that the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) contains three separable factors and that ASI total scores are useful in predicting response to physiological challenge procedures. Little is known, however, of the predictive capability of the ASI factors. This study investigated the utility of the three factors of the ASI compared to ASI total scores and the STAI-T, a more general measure of trait anxiety, in predicting response to hyperventilation. As expected, the ASI total score was a significant predictor of response to hyperventilation, while the STAI-T was not. Using multiple regression, when the physical concerns factor was entered first, the social concerns and mental incapacitation factors of the ASI were not significant predictors of response to hyperventilation. Furthermore, when the physical concerns factor was entered into a regression equation followed by the remainder of the ASI items, only the physical concerns factor remained a significant predictor of response to hyperventilation. These results suggest that while response to physiological challenge procedures is predicted by ASI total scores, it may be best predicted by the physical concerns factor, and that the mental incapacitation and social concerns subscales do not play key roles in predicting response to physiological challenge procedures.

Biobehavioral responses to interpersonal conflict during anger expression among anger-in and anger-out men.

To examine whether typical modes of anger expression (ie., anger-in, anger-out) were related to cardiovascular, affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses to interpersonal conflict, 20 anger-in and 20 anger-out undergraduate men participated in 2 role plays, one in which they were instructed to exhibit their anger overtly and the other in which they inhibited their anger Results showed that anger-in individuals used significantly more repression self-statements than anger-out individuals across both role play interactions (p <.01). Anger-out persons showed exaggerated diastolic blood pressure response in contrast to anger-in participants, but only during the exhibited anger role play (p <.04). When the anger exhibition role play followed anger inhibition, diastolic bloodpressure responses were more intense (p <. 05), and heart rate recovery was significantly slower (p <.03) among anger-outparticipants in contrast to anger-in participants. These findings indicate that modes of anger expression (trait) and contextual demands of the interaction (state) interact in complex ways to influence biobehavioral reactions to anger provocation.

Cardiovascular and behavioral response to social confrontation: measuring real-life stress in the laboratory.

Laboratory investigations of cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress often ignore concomitant differences in cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses that are commonly observed among study participants. To provide a more systematic laboratory methodology to examine relations among cardiovascular, behavioral, and self-report measures of cognitive and affective responses to stress, we developed and tested a social confrontation procedure involving standardized interactions during two scenes. Results of three investigations are presented to illustrate the utility of the social confrontation procedure. In the first two studies, this multidimensional assessment strategy produced results which may foster research projects that bridge separate areas of psychological inquiry. In one application, persons with hypertensive parents, in contrast to persons with normotensive parents, exhibited characteristic negative behavioral responses during both interactions as well as the more commonly-observed exaggerated blood pressure reactions. In the other study, students from less functional families (regarding cohesion and adaptability) were shown to exhibit exaggerated blood pressure reactions in addition to their commonly-reported negative cognitive and behavioral coping styles. Finally, a third study examined how a simple instructional set regarding the expression or suppression of anger influenced participants' responses. Significant differences were observed across response domains, with anger expression resulting in a more intense response than anger suppression. In sum, the social confrontation procedure represents an important methodological development for exploring the relation between response domains, the relation between cardiovascular response to stress and psychosocial risk for cardiovascular disease, and the physiological and behavioral distinction between anger expression and anger suppression.

Infrequent panic: physiological and subjective reactions to hyperventilation.

Forty-eight females were evaluated to detect differences in panic-related symptomatology and physiological responses to 2 min of hyperventilation. Ss were divided into 3 groups: infrequent panickers; no panic/high trait anxiety; and no panic/low trait anxiety. The low trait anxiety group scored significantly lower on various self-report measures of anxiety-related symptomatology compared to Ss with infrequent panic and high trait anxiety. Hyperventilation produced no significant group differences in physiological reactivity or recovery. However, Ss with low trait anxiety reported significantly less severe sensations and a significantly lower incidence of panic during hyperventilation than the infrequent panickers and the high trait anxiety group. Ss who panicked during hyperventilation reported more intense sensations and negative cognitions than those who did not panic. Thus, Ss were distinguished by their subjective, but not their physiological responses.