The mediating role of internalized racism in the relationship between racist experiences and anxiety symptoms in a Black American sample.

OBJECTIVES: The current study explores the potential mediating role of internalized racism in the relationship between racist experiences and anxiety symptomology in a Black American sample. METHOD: One hundred and 73 Black American participants, between 18 and 62 years of age, completed a questionnaire packet containing measures of anxious arousal and stress symptoms, internalized racism, and experiences of racist events. RESULTS: Results indicated that internalized racism mediated the relationship between past-year frequency of racist events and anxious arousal as well as past-year frequency of racist events and stress symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Internalized racism may be 1 mechanism that underlies the relationship between racism and anxious symptomology for Black Americans. These preliminary findings suggest that internalized racism may be an avenue through which clinicians can target the anxiety elicited by racist experiences. The clinical implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social connectedness and intolerance of uncertainty as moderators between racial microaggressions and anxiety among Black individuals.

The current study investigated whether a cultural factor (i.e., social connectedness) and a dispositional characteristic (i.e., intolerance of uncertainty) would serve as risk factors or protective factors in the association between perceived racial microaggressions and anxiety symptoms in a sample of 126 Black American individuals. Results demonstrated that perceived racial microaggression was positively associated with anxiety symptoms in Black Americans. In addition, hierarchical regression analyses identified ethnic social connectedness and intolerance of uncertainty as moderators for anxiety symptoms. Specifically, social connectedness to one's ethnic community served as a buffer and intolerance of uncertainty acted as an exacerbating factor in the relationship between perceived racial microaggressions and anxiety symptoms. Future research directions and clinical implications are discussed.

Student perspectives on sexual health: implications for interprofessional education.

Interprofessional collaboration requires that health professionals think holistically about presenting concerns, particularly for multimodal problems like sexual dysfunction. However, health professions students appear to receive relatively little sexual health education, and generally none is offered on an interprofessional basis. To assess current degree of interprofessional thinking in sexual health care, 472 health professions students in Georgia, United States, were presented with a sexual dysfunction vignette and asked to rate the relevance of, and their familiarity with, interventions offered by several professionals. They also were asked to identify the most likely cause of the sexual dysfunction. Students rated relevance and familiarity with interventions as highest for physicians and lowest for dentists, with higher ratings of nurses by nursing students. More advanced students reported greater familiarity with mental health, physician, and physical therapy interventions. Finally, nursing students were less likely to attribute the dysfunction to a physical cause. These findings indicate that students may prioritize biomedical approaches in their initial assessment and may need additional supports to consider the spectrum of biopsychosocial factors contributing to sexual functioning. To encourage interprofessional critical thinking and prepare students for interprofessional care, sexual health curricula may be improved with the inclusion of interprofessional training. Specific recommendations for curriculum development are offered.

"Let me count the ways:" fostering reasons for living among low-income, suicidal, African American women.

Protective factors for fostering reasons for living were examined among low-income, suicidal, African American women. Bivariate logistic regressions revealed that higher levels of optimism, spiritual well-being, and family social support predicted reasons for living. Multivariate logistic regressions indicated that spiritual well-being showed unique predictive value for reasons for living. Further, the multivariate model accurately predicted reasons for living 72% of the time. Partial support was found for a cumulative protective model hypothesizing a linear relationship between the number of protective factors endorsed and increased reasons for living. Implications for community-based preventive and recovery-oriented intervention efforts and future research are discussed.

Relationships among perceived racial stress, intolerance of uncertainty, and worry in a black sample.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among chronic worry, perceived racial stress, and intolerance of uncertainty in a sample of adults who racially identify as Black. Intolerance of uncertainty has been associated with worry and generalized anxiety disorder in predominantly White samples. Given that racial stress is likely to increase worry, perhaps through the mechanism of intolerance of uncertainty, intolerance of uncertainty was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between perceived racial stress and chronic worry. A nonclinical sample of 77 Black undergraduate students at an urban university completed a series of questionnaires assessing the constructs of interest. Both perceived racial stress and intolerance of uncertainty were significantly correlated with chronic worry in this sample. Moreover, intolerance of uncertainty fully mediated the relationship between perceived racial stress and worry for these Black individuals. These findings are discussed in terms of directions for future research and implications for clinical interventions for Black individuals who are both exposed to racial stress and suffer from chronic worry.