Category: Mental Health

New Plank Record

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A 62-Year-old former US Marine has set a world record for maintaining the plank.

On 15 February 2020, George Hood kept static for an incredible 8 hours 15 minutes and 15 seconds.

Hood, a former US Marine and retired Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory special agent, has broken the record for longest plank before, in 2011 when he held it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. But when he tried to set it again in 2016, he lost to Mao Weidong from China, who held a plank for 8 hours, 1 minute and 1 second.

A Guinness World Record official adjudicated at the event in Chicago, which raised money for an Illinois-based mental health counselling facility.

“With his experience in the military and law enforcement, Hood said he knew mental illness is often stigmatized. So he completed the challenge at 515 Fitness, a gym that helps address mental illness through exercise and professional help.” (Lee, 2020).

The ultra-endurance athlete trained for seven hours a day for 18 months, completing around 2,100 hours of plank time, 270,000 push-ups and nearly 674,000 sit-ups.

“”It’s 4-5 hours a day in the plank pose,” Hood told CNN. “Then I do 700 pushups a day, 2,000 situps a day in sets of a hundred, 500 leg squats a day. For upper body and the arms, I do approximately 300 arm curls a day.”” (Lee, 2020).

To celebrate the reclaiming of his world record title, Hood finished off the event with a quick 75 push-ups/press-ups.

Hood has set the plank record a total of six times over the past eight years.

Hood said this will likely be his last time breaking the world record for planking, but his next goal is to set the Guinness World Record for most pushups completed in one hour, which currently stands at 2,806.

The female record is currently held by Dana Glowacka from Canada, who held a plank for 4 hours, 19 minutes and 55 seconds last year, according to Guinness World Records.

References

Lee, A. (2020) 62-year-old former Marine sets Guinness World Record by holding plank for over 8 hours. Available from World Wide Web: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/23/us/new-planking-world-record-trnd/index.html. [Accessed: 06 April, 2020].

Soldier. (2020) On His Toes. Soldier: Magazine of the British Army. April 2020, pp.16.

Is there an Association between Firearm Ownership & Capability for Suicide in Post-Deployment National Guard Service Members?

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Research Paper Title

Firearm Ownership and Capability for Suicide in Post-Deployment National Guard Service Members.

Background

National Guard service members demonstrate increased suicide risk relative to the civilian population.

One potential mechanism for this increased risk may be familiarity with and access to firearms following deployment.

This study examined the association between firearm ownership, reasons for ownership, and firearm familiarity with a widely studied suicide risk factor-capability for suicide-among National Guard service members.

Methods

Data were drawn from a cross-sectional survey of National Guard service members conducted immediately post-deployment in 2010. Service members (n = 2,292) completed measures of firearm ownership, firearm familiarity, and capability for suicide.

Results

Firearm ownership and increased firearm familiarity were associated with capability for suicide (d = 0.47 and r = .25, for firearm ownership and familiarity, respectively).

When examined separately based on reason for ownership, owning a firearm for self-protection (d = 0.33) or owning a military weapon (d = 0.27) remained significantly associated with capability for suicide.

In contrast, owning a firearm for hobby purposes did not (d = -0.07).

Conclusions

Our findings support theories emphasising practical aspects of suicide (e.g., three-step theory) and suggest that owning firearms, in particular for self-protection, along with familiarity using firearms may be associated with greater capability for suicide.

Reference

Goldberg, S.B., Tucker, R.P., Abbas, M., Schultz, M.E., Hiserodt, M., Thomas, K.A., Anestis, M.D. & Wyman, M.F. (2019) Firearm Ownership and Capability for Suicide in Post-Deployment National Guard Service Members. Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior. 49(6), pp.1668-1679. doi: 10.1111/sltb.12551. Epub 2019 Apr 19.

What is Sickness Behaviour?

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Sickness Behaviour is a type of short-term depression:

“Remember the last time you had a stomach bug and just wanted to crawl into bed and pull up the covers? That is called “sickness behaviour” and it is a kind of short-term depression.

The bacteria infecting you aren’t just making you feel nauseous, they are controlling your mood too. It sounds absurd: they are in your gut and your feelings are generated in your brain.

In fact, this is just an inkling of the power that microbes have over our emotions. In recent years, such organisms in the gut have been implicated in a range of conditions that affect mood, especially depression and anxiety.

The good news is that bacteria don’t just make you feel low; the right ones can also improve your mood. That has an intriguing implication: one day we may be able to manipulate the microbes living within our gut to change our mood and feelings.” (Anderson, 2019, p.34).

Reference

Anderson, S. (2019) The Psychobiotic Revolution. New Scientist. 07 September 2019.

An Examination of Environmental Influences on Genomic Variations, Neurodevelopmental Trajectories & Vulnerability to Psychopathology, with a Focus on Externalising Disorders

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Research Paper Title

Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders and Addictions (cVEDA): A developmental cohort study protocol.

Background

Low and middle-income countries like India with a large youth population experience a different environment from that of high-income countries.

The Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalising Disorders and Addictions (cVEDA), based in India, aims to examine environmental influences on genomic variations, neurodevelopmental trajectories and vulnerability to psychopathology, with a focus on externalising disorders.

Methods

cVEDA is a longitudinal cohort study, with planned missingness design for yearly follow-up.

Participants have been recruited from multi-site tertiary care mental health settings, local communities, schools and colleges.

10,000 individuals between 6 and 23 years of age, of all genders, representing five geographically, ethnically, and socio-culturally distinct regions in India, and exposures to variations in early life adversity (psychosocial, nutritional, toxic exposures, slum-habitats, socio-political conflicts, urban/rural living, mental illness in the family) have been assessed using age-appropriate instruments to capture socio-demographic information, temperament, environmental exposures, parenting, psychiatric morbidity, and neuropsychological functioning.

Blood/saliva and urine samples have been collected for genetic, epigenetic and toxicological (heavy metals, volatile organic compounds) studies.

Structural (T1, T2, DTI) and functional (resting state fMRI) MRI brain scans have been performed on approximately 15% of the individuals.

All data and biological samples are maintained in a databank and biobank, respectively.

Discussion

The cVEDA has established the largest neurodevelopmental database in India, comparable to global datasets, with detailed environmental characterisation.

This should permit identification of environmental and genetic vulnerabilities to psychopathology within a developmental framework.

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological data from this study are already yielding insights on brain growth and maturation patterns.

Reference

Sharma, E., Vaidya, N., Iyengar, U., Zhang, Y., Holla, B., Purushottam, M., Chakrabarti, A., Fernandes, G.S., Heron, J., Hickman, M., Desrivieres, S., Kartik, K., Jacob, P., Rangaswamy, M., Bharath, R.D., Barker, G., Orfanos, D.P., Ahuja, C., Murthy, P., Jain, S., Varghese, M., Jayarajan, D., Kumar, K., Thennarasu, K., Basu, D., Subodh, B.N., Kuriyan, R., Kurpad, S.S., Kalyanram, K., Krishnaveni, G., Krishna, M., Singh, R.L., Singh, L.R., Kalyanram, K., Toledano, M., Schumann, G., Benegal, V. & cVEDA Consortium. (2020) Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders and Addictions (cVEDA): A developmental cohort study protocol. BMC Psychiatry. 20(1):2. doi: 10.1186/s12888-019-2373-3.

What is the Prevalence & Associated Factors of Depression among Patients with Schizophrenia?

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Research Paper Title

The prevalence and associated factors of depression among patients with schizophrenia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, cross-sectional study.

Background

Depression is common among people with schizophrenia and associated with severe positive and negative symptoms, higher rates of disability, treatment resistance and mortality related to suicide, physical and drug-related causes.

However, to the researchers knowledge, no study has been conducted to report the magnitude of depression among people with schizophrenia in Ethiopia.

Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of depression among people with schizophrenia.

Methods

A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 418 patients with schizophrenia selected by systematic sampling technique.

Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) was used to measure depression among the study participants.

To identify the potential contributing factors, we performed binary and multi-variable logistic regression analysis adjusting the model for the potential confounding factors.

Odds ratios (OR) with the corresponding 95% confidence interval (95%CI)) was determined to evaluate the strength of association.

Results

The prevalence estimate of depression among people with schizophrenia was found to be 18.0% [95% confidence interval: 14.50-22.30].

The multi-variable analysis revealed that current substance use (AOR 2.28, 95%CI (1.27, 4.09), suicide attempt (AOR 5.24, 95%CI (2.56, 10.72), duration of illness between 6 and 10 years (AOR 2.09, 95%CI (1.08, 4.04) and poor quality of life (AOR 3.13, 95%CI (1.79, 5.76) were found to be the factors associated with depression among people with schizophrenia.

Conclusions

The current study revealed that co-morbid depression was high among people with schizophrenia and associated with current substance use, suicide attempt, and long duration of the illness as well as poor quality of life.

Attention needs to be given to address co-morbid depression among people with schizophrenia.

Reference

Fanta, T., Bekel, D. & Ayano, G. (2020) The prevalence and associated factors of depression among patients with schizophrenia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, cross-sectional study. BMC Pyschiatry. 20(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s12888-019-2419-6.

10 Strategies for Evoking ‘Change Talk’

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1. Ask Evocative Questions

Ask evocative, open-ended questions, to which the answers are likely to be change talk:

  • “Why would you want to make this change?”
  • “What makes you willing to stop / start _____?”
  • “What are the three best reasons for you to do this?”
  • “Why is it important for you to make these changes?”
  • “So, what do you think that you will do from here?”

2. Explore the Decisional Balance

Help the person to explore the advantages and disadvantages of making changes:

  • “What are the good things about ________?”
  • “What are the not-so-good things about ________?”
  • “What are the benefits of stopping / changing ___?”

3. Ask for Elaboration

When a change talk theme emerges, ask for more detail:

  • “How has this impacted on your health/relationships/family?”
  • “In what ways?”
  • “Tell me more about …”

4. Ask for Examples

When a ‘change talk’ theme emerges, ask for specific examples:

  • “When was the last time that happened?”
  • “Can you give me an example?”
  • “What else?”

5. Look Back

Ask about a time before the current concern emerged:

  • “How were things different or better then?”

6. Look Forward

Ask:

  • “What might happen if things continue as they are?” or
  • “How would you like your life to be in five years’ time?”

Try the ‘Miracle Question’:

  • “If you were 100% successful in making the changes you want to make, what would be different?”

7. Query Extremes

  • Ask “What are the best things that might happen if you do make this change?” or
  • “What are the worst things that might happen if you do not make this change?”

8. Use Change Rulers

Ask

  • “On a scale of nought to ten, how important is it for you to make this change – where nought is not at all important and ten is extremely important?”

Follow up with:

  • “Why are you at _ and not at _ [lower number than they stated]? What might need to happen so that you could move from _ to _ [higher number]?”

Instead of:

  • “How important is …?” you could ask “How much do you want to …?” or
  • “How confident are you that you can …?” or
  • “How committed are you to …?”

Avoid asking:

  • “How ready are you to …?”

It can be confusing because it combines the competing components of:

  • Desire;
  • Ability;
  • Reason(s); and
  • Need.

9. Explore Goals and Values

Explore what a person’s guiding values are.

What do they want in life?

How does the person’s behaviour fit with their goals and values?

Does it help to achieve goals, interfere with them or is it irrelevant?

10. Come Alongside

Try explicitly siding with the negative (continuing and not changing) side of ambivalence:

  • “Perhaps smoking weed is so important to you that you will not give it up, no matter what the cost.”

11 Tips for Encouraging Motivation to Change

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  • Do I listen more than I talk? Or am I talking more than I am listening?
  • Do I keep myself sensitive and open to a person’s issues, whatever they may be? Or am I talking about what I think the problem is?
  • Do I invite a person to talk about and explore their own feelings for change? Or am I jumping to conclusions and possible solutions?
  • Do I encourage a person to talk about their reasons for not changing? Or am I forcing them to talk only about change?
  • Do I ask permission to give my feedback? Or am I presuming that my ideas are what they want to hear?
  • Do I reassure a person that ambivalence to change is normal? Or am I telling them to take action and push ahead for a solution?
  • Do I help a person identify successes and challenges from their past and relate them to present change effects? Or am I encouraging them to ignore or get stuck on old stories?
  • Do I seek to understand a person? Or am I spending a lot of time trying to convince them to understand me and my ideas?
  • Do I summarise for a person what I am hearing? Or am I just summarising what I think?
  • Do I value a person’s opinion more than my own? Or am I giving more value to my viewpoint?
  • Do I remind myself that a person is capable of making their own choices? Or am I assuming that they are not capable of making good choices?

Somatic Symptom Disorder & Social Stigma

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Research Paper Title

Social Stigma Towards People with Medically Unexplained Symptoms: the Somatic Symptom Disorder.

Background

The majority of previous studies on mental health stigma have focused on medically explained symptoms and the studies on medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) have only assessed the consequences of internalised stigma.

A new category in DSM 5, named as somatic symptom disorder (SSD), includes multiple somatic disorders with medically-explained or -unexplained somatic symptoms.

This study aimed to test the effects of social stigma on people with SSD with MUS depending on the attribution model.

Methods

In a class environment, 348 college students from different regions in Turkey were presented with a vignette on a person with SSD with MUS and asked to complete a survey including demographics and attitudes towards that person.

Results

Along the same lines with previous findings for other mental disorders, the path analysis using AMOS revealed that stigma-related cognitions (i.e., dependency, dangerousness and responsibility) shaped people’s affective (i.e., anger and pity) and behavioural responses (i.e., social distance) to these people.

The most important predictor of social distance was pity and the level of contact was not related to social distance.

Conclusions

In conclusion, anti-stigma interventions towards SSD with MUS should involve building empathy towards these patients and educating people about this disorder contrary to the recommended interventions for other mental health disorders stressing the importance of contact.

Reference

Eger Aydogmus, M. (2020) Social Stigma Towards People with Medically Unexplained Symptoms: the Somatic Symptom Disorder.

Emotional Indicators of Urban Green Space Behaviour

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Research Paper Title

Sitting or Walking? Analyzing the Neural Emotional Indicators of Urban Green Space Behavior with Mobile EEG.

Background

There is a close relationship between urban green space and the physical and mental health of individuals.

Most previous studies have discussed the impact of the structure of green space and its elements.

This study focused on the emotional changes caused by common behaviours in urban green space (walking and sitting).

Methods

The researchers recruited 40 college students and randomly assigned them to walking and sitting groups (20 students per group).

The two groups performed the same 8-min high-pressure learning task indoors and then performed 8-min recovery activities in a simulated urban green space (a bamboo-lawn space).

They used the Emotiv EPOC+ EEG headset to dynamically measure six neural emotional parameters:

  • ‘Engagement’;
  • ‘Valence’;
  • ‘Meditation’;
  • ‘Frustration’;
  • ‘Focus’; and
  • ‘Excitement’.

The researchers also conducted a pretest and post-test and used analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to analyse the post-test data (with the pretest data as covariates).

Results

The results of the comparison of the two behaviours showed that the ‘valence’ and ‘meditation’ values of the walking group were higher than those of the sitting group, which suggests that walking in urban green space is more favourable for stress reduction.

The sitting group had a higher “focus” value than did the walking group, which suggests that sitting in urban green space is better for attention restoration.

Conclusions

The results of this study can provide guidance for urban green space planning and design as well as health guidance for urban residents.

Reference

Lin, W., Chen, Q., Jiang, M., Tao, J., Liu, Z., Zhang, X., Wu, L., Xu, S., Kang, Y. & Zeng, Q. (2020) Sitting or Walking? Analyzing the Neural Emotional Indicators of Urban Green Space Behavior with Mobile EEG. Journal of Urban Health. doi: 10.1007/s11524-019-00407-8. [Epub ahead of print].

Is Anxiety in People with Rheumatoid Arthritis Associated with Increased Disease Activity & Worse Quality of Life?

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Research Paper Title

The association between anxiety and disease activity and quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background

In people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), mental health problems are common, but often not recognized or treated, contributing to increased morbidity and mortality.

Most studies examining the impact of mental health problems in RA have focused on depression.

The researchers aimed to determine the association between anxiety, and disease activity and quality of life (QoL) in people with RA.

Methods

A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed. A protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD2-17062580).

Databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Embase, Medline) were searched for studies examining the association between anxiety and disease activity and QoL, in adults with RA, from inception to February 2019.

Primary outcome measures were DAS28 and SF-36.

Eligibility screening and data extraction were completed by two reviewers.

Disagreements were resolved by discussion or a third reviewer.

Quality assessment was carried out using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.

Results

From 7712 unique citations, 60 articles were assessed for eligibility.

The final review included 20 studies involving 7452 people with RA (14 cross-sectional, 6 cohort).

Eleven examined disease activity, 6 reported QoL outcome measures and 3 included both.

Anxiety was associated with increased disease activity and worse QoL.

Meta-analysis showed anxiety to be correlated with increased DAS28 scores (r = 0.23, CI 0.14, 0.31) and reduced physical (r = - 0.39, CI - 0.57, - 0.20) and mental QoL (- 0.50, CI - 0.57, - 0.43).

Conclusions

Anxiety in people with RA is associated with increased disease activity and worse QoL.

Improved recognition and management of comorbid anxiety may help to improve outcomes for people with RA.

Key Points:

  • This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the relationship between anxiety and disease activity and QoL in people with RA.
  • Anxiety was associated with higher disease activity both cross-sectionally and at up to 12-month follow-up.
  • Anxiety may have a more significant impact on disease activity in early RA, highlighting the importance of early recognition and management of co-morbid anxiety.
  • People with anxiety had poorer self-reported physical and mental QoL, although there was some heterogeneity in study findings, particularly for physical QoL (I2 = 78.5%).

Reference

Machin, A.R., Babatunde, O., Haththotuwa, R., Scott, I. Blagojevic-Bucknall, M., Corp, N., Chew-Graham, C.A. & Hider, S.L. (2020) The association between anxiety and disease activity and quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Rheumatology. doi: 10.1007/s10067-019-04900-y. [Epub ahead of print].