Addressing depression, stress, and hopelessness through an economic and relationship-strengthening intervention: Findings from a pilot randomized controlled trial among people with HIV in Malawi.

Background: Depression disproportionately affects individuals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Economic hardship and family strain exacerbate challenges, particularly for women. This study evaluated effects of Mlambe, an intervention targeting economic empowerment and relationship strengthening, on mental health in couples with HIV and unhealthy alcohol use in Malawi.

Do purpose in life and self-directedness mediate the effects of child abuse on anxiety and depression symptoms 18 years later?

Background: Childhood maltreatment is a transdiagnostic risk factor that is robustly associated with the development of anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms in adulthood. This study thus aimed to investigate potential mediators between early childhood abuse and adult psychopathology severity using data from an 18-year longitudinal study among community-dwelling adults in the U.S.

Alcohol Use and Its Associations With Frailty, Fractures, and Falls Among Older Adults With HIV.

Purpose: More than half of people with HIV (PWH) in the United States are now over age 50. Although alcohol consumption declines with age among PWH, as it does in the general population, alcohol misuse and alcohol use disorder (AUD) pose substantial health risks. Aging leads to increased sensitivity to alcohol due to slower metabolism, central nervous system changes, less lean body mass, greater prevalence of co-occurring medical conditions, and polypharmacy (simultaneous use of multiple medicines).

The sleep-anxiety dysregulation model of alcohol use disorder risk: A nine-year longitudinal machine learning study.

Background: Sleep disturbances are a known risk factor for alcohol use, yet their long-term predictive value for alcohol use disorder (AUD)-especially in the context of co-occurring anxiety symptoms-remains understudied. The present study thus applied machine learning with internal validation to evaluate how sleep disturbances predict nine-year AUD symptoms in midlife adults. It also introduces the Sleep-Anxiety Dysregulation Model of AUD Risk, which posits that sleep and anxiety symptoms confer shared vulnerability via disrupted arousal regulation.

Sleep disturbances predict nine-year panic disorder chronicity: The sleep-panic nexus theory with machine learning insights.

Background: Panic disorder (PD) is a chronic and impairing anxiety disorder. Individuals with more sleep disturbances might be predisposed to nine-year PD chronicity. However, linearity assumptions, small predictor sets, and analytic and design limitations have hindered optimal identification of which sleep disturbance variables are distal risk factors for PD chronicity.

Are cannabis policy changes associated with alcohol use patterns? Evidence for age-group differences based on primary care screening data.

Background And Aims: In California, USA, adult cannabis legalization (ACL) was passed in 2016, with implementation of legal sales commencing in 2018. This study examined whether these policy changes were associated with changes in alcohol use patterns and explored age-group differences.

Design: We examined monthly rates of positive alcohol screens in primary care patients in California from 2015 to 2019.

Sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with use of depression treatment among people with HIV in the United States: An electronic health records-based cohort study.

Background: Depression is highly prevalent among people with HIV (PWH), and treatment is critical. We examined associations between sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, focusing on alcohol use and smoking, with use of depression treatment.

Methods: Electronic health record data from an integrated healthcare system in Northern California were used to identify PWH who had a primary care visit (index) between 1/1/2014-12/31/2020 and a depression diagnosis within 6 months of the index date.

Perceived uncontrollability as a potential mechanism of parental child abuse predicting executive dysfunction in adulthood 18 years later: Replication across two studies.

Although it is well-established that child abuse precedes and predicts poorer executive functioning (EF), the potential mechanisms are not well understood. We thus used counterfactual mediation analysis to test how perceived control (lower personal mastery or higher perceived uncontrollability) mediated maternal or paternal child abuse, predicting lower future EF scores. Community adults from two separate samples ( = 3,291 and 2,550 in Samples 1 and 2) completed a retrospective parental child abuse self-report at Time 1 (T1), a trait-level perceived control self-report at T2, and performance EF tests at T3.

Examining Cross-Cultural Invariance of Common Mental Disorder Symptom Measures in the United States and Singapore.

Background: Constructs of common mental disorder (CMD) symptoms, including anxiety, depression, obsessions, compulsions, and worry, are observed in a wide range of psychiatric conditions. Reliable and valid measurements of these CMD symptoms are essential for building a generalizable science of psychopathology and ensuring valid comparisons of scores across distinct groups. Accordingly, the current study determined the psychometric properties of four widely used CMD symptom measures in the United States (U.

A pilot study of twice-weekly group-based written exposure therapy for veterans in residential substance use treatment: effects on PTSD and depressive symptoms.

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly comorbid with substance use disorders (SUDs), resulting in high prevalence of PTSD among individuals in residential SUD care. However, there is limited research on integrating trauma treatment into residential SUD care settings. The aim of the present project was to conduct an initial evaluation of the effects of group-based Written Exposure Therapy (WET) on PTSD and depressive symptoms that was integrated into programming for individuals in residential SUD treatment.

Dispositional coping profiles moderate the links between racial discrimination and mental health in Black Americans.

Objectives: Racial discrimination is consistently linked to negative mental health outcomes. However, less is known about how unique patterns of coping in Black Americans experiencing high discrimination stress may moderate the association between discrimination and mental health. The present study uses person-centered methods to identify and describe latent profiles of coping in Black Americans, to understand how these coping profiles are linked to mental health, and to examine whether latent coping profiles moderate the links between discrimination and mental health.

Early-day psychosocial predictors of later-day simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use among college-attending young adults.

Objective: Simultaneous use of alcohol and cannabis is prevalent among young adults and associated with heightened risk for harms. Individuals who engage in simultaneous use report a variety of types of use occasions and risk factors driving use occasions are unique and dynamic in nature. Intervention content may thus need to adapt to address differences across occasions.

Do the effects of internet-delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy (i-CBT) last after a year and beyond? A meta-analysis of 154 randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Although the short-term efficacy of internet-delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy (i-CBT) is well-established, its long-term efficacy remains understudied. Robust variance estimation meta-analysis was thus conducted across guided and self-guided i-CBT, synthesizing data from 154 randomized controlled trials (N = 45,335) with ≥ 12-month follow-ups. For binary outcomes, guided (52.

Unhealthy Alcohol Use Among Adults With Depression or Anxiety: Changes During COVID-19 and Associations With Mental Health Treatment.

Objective: Individuals with unhealthy alcohol use and comorbid depression or anxiety may be vulnerable to alcohol use escalation in times of stress such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Among a cohort of individuals with pre-pandemic unhealthy drinking, we compared changes in alcohol use by whether people had a depression or anxiety diagnosis and examined whether mental health treatment was related to these changes.

Method: Using electronic health record data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California, we analyzed drinking changes during the pandemic (3/1/2020-6/30/2022) among adults identified in primary care with unhealthy alcohol use (exceeding daily/weekly recommended limits) pre-pandemic (1/1/2019-2/29/2020).

Daily stress reactivity and risk appraisal mediates childhood parental abuse predicting adulthood psychopathology severity: An 18-year longitudinal mediation analysis.

Identifying mechanisms of childhood abuse-adulthood psychopathology relations could facilitate preventive efforts, but most prior studies used cross-sectional or two-wave designs and did not test the effects of childhood maternal and paternal abuse separately. Our 18-year three-wave study thus determined if Wave 2 daily stress reactivity and risk appraisal severity mediated Wave 1 retrospectively-reported childhood maternal and paternal abuse on Wave 3 generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), major depressive disorder (MDD), panic disorder (PD), alcohol (AUD), and substance use disorder (SUD) self-rated symptom severity. Longitudinal structural equation modeling was employed, adjusting for Wave 1 psychopathology severity.

Virtual reality mindfulness training for veterans in residential substance use treatment: Pilot study of feasibility and acceptability.

Background: Mindfulness training is effective in recovery from substance use disorders; however, adoption can be difficult due to environmental and personal distractions. Virtual reality (VR) may help overcome these challenges by providing an immersive environment for practicing mindfulness, but there is currently limited knowledge regarding patient and provider perceptions of VR-based tools.

Objective: The present study investigated the feasibility and acceptability of VR mindfulness training for veterans in residential substance use treatment as well as potential benefits of VR mindfulness interventions in this population.

Associations between day-level affect profiles and same-day substance use among young adults.

Objective: Emotions play a critical role in health risk behaviors, including substance use. However, current research often focuses exclusively on average levels of positive and negative affect, neglecting the complexity of daily emotional patterns. By capturing multiple dimensions of affect, including arousal and discrete states, we can improve our understanding of proximal predictors of substance use.

It's About Hate: Approval of Donald Trump, Racism, Xenophobia and Support for Political Violence.

Is approval of Donald J. Trump associated with support for political violence? If so, what explains the link between Trump approval and political violence? Using an original, nationally representative survey of over 1,500 adults in the United States we produce two findings. First, individuals who express approval for Trump are also significantly more likely to endorse positive descriptors for the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.

COVID-19 pandemic effects on college student mental health: A cross-sectional cohort comparison study.

Objective: Evaluate COVID-19 pandemic impacts on college student mental health.

Participants: Three cohorts of college students (2018  = 466; 2019  = 459; 2020,  = 563;  1488) from three American universities. Participants were 71.

The Psychological Science Accelerator's COVID-19 rapid-response dataset.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments.

In COVID-19 Health Messaging, Loss Framing Increases Anxiety with Little-to-No Concomitant Benefits: Experimental Evidence from 84 Countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in terms of potential losses (e.g.

The naturalistic reinforcement of worry from positive and negative emotional contrasts: Results from a momentary assessment study within social interactions.

Background: The Contrast Avoidance Model (Newman & Llera, 2011) proposes that worry is reinforced by avoiding a negative contrast and increasing the likelihood of a positive contrast.

Objective: To determine if reinforcement of worry occurs naturalistically via contrasts in both negative and positive emotion.

Method: Using event-contingent momentary assessment we assessed social interactions, pre-interaction state worry and pre-post interaction positive and negative emotion.

Stress and Affect as Daily Risk Factors for Substance Use Patterns: an Application of Latent Class Analysis for Daily Diary Data.

At the population level, use of multiple substances (or "co-use") is prevalent in young adulthood and linked with increased risk for experiencing substance-related harms. Less understood is the heterogeneity of substance use behaviors within individuals and across days, as well as the proximal predictors of these daily use patterns. The present study applied latent class analysis to daily diary data to identify daily substance use patterns and compare day-level class membership based on day-level stress and positive and negative affect among a higher-risk sample of young adult substance users.