Anxiety News

Talking about climate change and eco-anxiety in psychotherapy: A qualitative analysis of patients’ experiences.

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Psychotherapy, Vol 59(4), Dec 2022, 606-615; doi:10.1037/pst0000449 Citizens’ worries about climate change are often realistic and legitimate. Simultaneously, these worries can also become a source of distress so severe as to impair everyday functioning and prompt someone to seek psychotherapy. These emergent phenomena are often referred to as “climate anxiety” or “climate depression” by the […]

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Dementia-Related Behaviors Before, During, and After the Pandemic

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Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), including depression, anxiety, and psychosis, are ubiquitous among people living with dementia and agnostic to the etiology and stage of illness. Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia are associated with poor outcomes for people living with dementia, including reduced quality of life, increased health care use, and nursing home placement as well as worsened caregiver outcomes, including loss of income and employment, increased time providing care, and heightened risk for depression and stress.

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Older People with Anxiety Frequently Don’t Get Help. Here’s Why

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Source: CNN – Top Stories Anxiety is the most common psychological disorder affecting adults in the United States. In older people, it’s associated with considerable distress as well as ill health, diminished quality of life and elevated rates of disability. Yet when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, influential panel of experts, suggested

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An ADHD Diagnosis in Adulthood Comes with Challenges and Benefits

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Source: APA Monitor When Terry Matlen, a clinical social worker, was in her 40s, she was diagnosed with ADHD. “My entire life, there was something off,” Matlen said. This included significant anxiety as well as academic and behavioral issues, all of which started at a young age. Although Matlen was initially quite skeptical of her

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Effectiveness of cognitive analytic therapy for mixed anxiety and depression in the context of borderline traits: A quasi-experimental single case design evaluation.

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Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, Vol 33(1), Mar 2023, 34-46; doi:10.1037/int0000281 The evidence base for the use of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) as a short-term, integrative, and relational psychotherapy for anxiety and depression is building. This study contributes by intensively studying change in two types of quantitative outcomes (ideographic and nomothetic) over treatment time. The study

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The mental health of China and Pakistan, mental health laws and COVID-19 mental health policies: a comparative review

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Mental health is one of the major causes of disability worldwide, and mental health problems such as depression and anxiety are ranked among the top 25 leading causes of disease burden in the world. This burden is considerable over the lifetime of both men and women and in various settings and ages. This study aims to compare the mental health status of people in China and Pakistan and to highlight the mental health laws and policies during COVID-19 and afterwards. According to the literature on mental health, before the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems increased gradually, but during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, an abrupt surge occurred in mental health problems. To overcome mental health disorders, most (but not all) countries have mental health laws, but some countries ignore mental health disorders. China is one such country that has mental health laws and policies and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, China made beneficial and robust policies and laws, thereby succeeding in defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. The mortality rate and financial loss were also lower than in other countries. While Pakistan has mental health laws and general health policies, the law is only limited to paperwork and books. When it came to COVID-19, Pakistan did not make any specific laws to overcome the virus. Mental health problems are greater in Pakistan than in China, and China’s mental health laws and policies are more robust and more widely implemented than those in Pakistan. We conclude that there are fewer mental health issues in China than in Pakistan both before and since the COVID-19 pandemic. China has strong mental health laws and these are robustly implemented, while the mental health law in Pakistan is not applied in practice.

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Improved lifestyle is associated with improved depression, anxiety and well-being over time in UK healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from the CoPE-HCP cohort study

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Background
One potential modifiable factor to improve the mental health of healthcare professionals (HCPs) during the pandemic is lifestyle.

Aims
This study aimed to assess whether an improved lifestyle during the pandemic is associated with improved mental health symptoms and mental well-being in HCPs over time.

Methods
This was a cohort study involving an online survey distributed at two separate time points during the pandemic (baseline (July–September 2020) and follow-up (December 2020–March 2021)) to HCPs working in primary or secondary care in the UK. Both surveys assessed for major depressive disorder (MDD) (Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)), generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) (Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7)), mental well-being (Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Score (SWEMWBS)) and self-reported lifestyle change (compared with the start of the pandemic) on multiple domains. Cumulative scores were calculated to estimate overall lifestyle change compared with that before the pandemic (at both baseline and follow-up). At each time point, separate logistic regression models were constructed to relate the lifestyle change score with the presence of MDD, GAD and low mental well-being. Linear regression models were also developed relating the change in lifestyle scores from baseline to follow-up to changes in PHQ-9, GAD-7 and SWEMWBS scores.

Results
613 HCPs completed both baseline assessment and follow-up assessment. Consistent significant cross-sectional associations between increased lifestyle change scores and a reduced risk of MDD, GAD and low mental well-being were observed at both baseline and follow-up. Over the study period, a whole unit increase in the change in novel scores (ie, improved overall lifestyle) over 4 months was inversely associated with changes in PHQ-9 (adjusted coefficient: –0.51, 95% confidence interval (CI): –0.73 to –0.30, p

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Proactive psychological and psychiatric support of patients with chronic non-communicable diseases in a randomised trial: a Ukrainian experience

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Background
Presently, approaches for the early treatment of pathological anxiety in patients with chronic non-communicable diseases are lacking, thus delaying the initiation of symptom management at the early onset of the illness. Proactive psychological and psychiatric support, to alleviate subclinical symptoms of anxiety and to improve the quality of life in patients with chronic non-communicable diseases, is a promising candidate for the role of such therapy.

Aims
To investigate and determine the effectiveness of proactive psychological and psychiatric support for alleviating subclinical symptoms of anxiety and improving quality of life, in patients with chronic non-communicable diseases.

Methods
The study design was a monocentric randomised controlled trial with parallel groups. The study, involving 193 inpatients with chronic non-communicable diseases, complied with the ethical and deontological norms in accordance with the principles set out in the Declaration of Helsinki. Instruments used in the study included the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) to assess subclinical symptoms, the Scale of Somatic Symptoms and the Chaban Quality of Life Scale. Block randomisation was used to randomise patients to a 2-month-long study group with a proactive counselling psychiatry model care or a control group with standard regulated treatment for chronic non-communicable diseases. The allocation ratio was 1.15:1 owing to the expectancy of a higher percentage of dropout in the intervention group.

Results
After 60 days of treatment (T2), there was a statistically significant difference in all clinical parameters between the study and control groups. The median HAM-A value differed between the groups by 4.87 points, with statistically significant lower results in the study group. The comparison of the study group’s scale values on day 1 and day 60 demonstrated statistically significant changes in all three indicators.

Conclusions
Our results support existing evidence for the effectiveness of proactive psychological and psychiatric support to reduce subclinical anxiety and somatisation symptoms and to improve the quality of life for patients with common chronic non-communicable diseases. However, continued research on the effectiveness of proactive psychological and psychiatric support for patients with chronic non-communicable diseases is needed.

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