Eating packaged foods like cereal and frozen meals has been associated with anxiety, depression and cognitive decline. Scientists are still piecing together why.
Discover How Ultraprocessed Foods Can Affect Your Mental Health! Read More »
Background
Depression during pregnancy and after the birth of a child is highly prevalent and an important public health problem. Psychological interventions are the first-line treatment and, although a considerable number of randomized trials have been conducted, no recent comprehensive meta-analysis has evaluated treatment effects.
Methods
We used an existing database of randomized controlled trials of psychotherapies for adult depression and included studies aimed at perinatal depression. Random effects models were used in all analyses. We examined the effects of the interventions in the short and long term, and also examined secondary outcomes.
Results
Forty-three studies with 49 comparisons and 6270 participants between an intervention and control group were included. The overall effect size was g = 0.67 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.45~0.89; numbers needed-to-be-treated = 4.39] with high heterogeneity (I2 = 80%; 95% CI 75~85). This effect size remained largely unchanged and significant in a series of sensitivity analyses, although some publication bias was found. The effects remained significant at 6–12 months follow-up. Significant effects were also found for social support, anxiety, functional limitations, parental stress and marital stress, although the number of studies for each outcome was low. All results should be considered with caution because of the high levels of heterogeneity in most analyses.
Conclusions
Psychological interventions are probably effective in the treatment of perinatal depression, with effects that last at least up to 6–12 months and probably also have effects on social support, anxiety, functional impairment, parental stress, and marital stress.
Meta-Analysis Shows Effective Psychological Treatment for Perinatal Depression Read More »
By Manuel AusloosON THE FRONTLINE IN DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (Reuters) – After months of living in trenches and bunkers near Ukraine’s southeastern…
How Ukraine’s Volunteers Are Beating Fear And Seeing War As Just Another Day at Work Read More »
Here in Ireland, we like to think we’re great at having a chat, the ‘gift of the gab’ as they say.
Brief bursts of brain activity during sleep known as sleep spindles could potentially help regulate anxiety in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers believe that the study’s findings may be useful for people with anxiety disorders and are looking at non-invasive ways to harness the benefits of this sleep stage to relieve symptoms. The study also suggests that sleep hygiene, electrical brain stimulation, or prescription sleep medications could promote the sleep spindles associated with non-rapid eye movement 2 (NREM2) sleep and potentially benefit patients with stress and anxiety disorders.
Did you know that boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls? Recent research also shows that while girls may be less likely to be diagnosed with autism, they may experience anxiety more frequently than boys alongside the disorder.
Study finds: Girls with autism more likely to experience anxiety than boys! Read More »
David Beckham disscusses living with OCD in the currently untitled documentary to be released later this year
By Denise Mann HealthDay ReporterWEDNESDAY, May 3, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls…
Among Kids With Autism, Girls Are More Prone to Anxiety Disorders Than Boys Read More »
A new study shows that sleep spindles, brief bursts of brain activity occurring during one phase of sleep and captured by EEG, may regulate anxiety in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Sleep phase can reduce anxiety in people with PTSD Read More »
IntroductionStress, depression, and anxiety symptoms have been reported during the pandemic, with important inter-individual differences. Past cross-sectional studies have found that sex and gender roles may contribute to the modulation of one’s vulnerability to develop such symptoms. This longitudinal study aimed to examine the interaction of sex and psychological gender roles on stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms in adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsFollowing the confinement measures in March 2020 in Montreal, stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms were assessed every 3 months (from June 2020 to March 2021) with the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale among 103 females and 50 males. Femininity and masculinity scores were assessed with the Bem Sex Role Inventory before the pandemic and were added as predictors along with time, sex, and the interactions between these variables using linear mixed models.ResultsWe observed similar levels of depressive symptoms between males and females, but higher levels of stress and anxious symptoms in females. No effects of sex and gender roles on depressive symptoms were found. For stress and anxiety, an interaction between time, femininity, and sex was found. At the beginning of the pandemic, females with high femininity had more stress symptoms than males with high femininity, whereas females with low femininity had more anxiety symptoms 1 year after the confinement measures compared to males with low femininity.DiscussionThese findings suggest that sex differences and psychological gender roles contribute to heterogeneous patterns of stress and anxiety symptoms over time in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
