Relation between aggression exposure in adolescence and adult posttraumatic stress symptoms: Moderating role of the parasympathetic nervous system

Social interaction anxiety and sleep quality in youth: Individual difference in childhood adversity and cardiac vagal control

BACKGROUND

Social interaction anxiety and sleep problems are prevalent during adolescence. Social interaction anxiety undermines sleep quality, however, little is known whether the association between social interaction anxiety and sleep quality is moderated by environmental factors such as childhood adversity and individual factors such as cardiac vagal control. This study sought to investigate the moderating effects of childhood adversity and cardiac vagal control on the link between social interaction anxiety and sleep quality.

METHOD

The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire were administered to 274 adolescents, who received 3-min resting ECG recording to assess respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as an index of cardiac vagal control.

RESULTS

Social interaction anxiety was negatively associated with sleep quality, and this association was moderated by childhood adversity and cardiac vagal control. In specific, social interaction anxiety was negatively associated with sleep quality among adolescents with low childhood adversity regardless of cardiac vagal control. Sleep quality was generally disrupted when adolescents exposed to high childhood adversity, but the negative association between social interaction anxiety and sleep quality among adolescents with high childhood adversity could be amortized by high cardiac vagal control.

LIMITATIONS

Cross-sectional design precluded establishing causality among variables.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that high cardiac vagal control reflecting better self-regulation might buffer the negative effect of social interaction anxiety on sleep quality particularly among adolescents exposed to early life stress.

Autonomic nervous system correlates of posttraumatic stress symptoms in youth: Meta-analysis and qualitative review

Physiological dysregulation is a key diagnostic criterion for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While PTSD is defined by trauma exposure, symptom presentations are varied. Similarly, findings of autonomic nervous system (ANS), including parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS), function in youth exposed to trauma are mixed (e.g., hyporeactivity and hyperreactivity). The present meta-analysis quantitatively assesses the relation between ANS measures broadly, and PNS- and SNS-specific measures, and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in youth (ages 4.98 to 19.55 years) across 38 cross-sectional and longitudinal studies (N = 3488). Findings demonstrate that heightened ANS activity is related to increased PTSS during stress tasks (r = 0.07), while decreased SNS activity at rest corresponded to increased PTSS (r = -0.09). The correlation between PNS measures and PTSS was non-significant. The moderation effect of age on the relation between PNS activity measured during stress tasks and PTSS approached significance, such that younger children showed a stronger negative relation between symptoms and PNS activity compared to older youth. Qualitative review of included studies revealed significant variability across sample and stressor characteristics and study methodology. Findings indicate the importance of autonomic dysregulation in youth with PTSS. Additional considerations for future research are discussed.

VIVÊNCIAS DE VIOLÊNCIA NO PROCESSO DE FORMAÇÃO EM ENFERMAGEM: REPERCUSSÕES NA CORPOREIDADE DOS JOVENS

RESUMO Objetivo: conhecer as vivências de violência entre os jovens estudantes de enfermagem no decorrer da sua formação profissional e as repercussões desse fenômeno em sua corporeidade. Método: pesquisa exploratória, descritiva, com abordagem qualitativa, realizada entre junho e agosto de 2013 com 21 jovens estudantes de enfermagem em uma universidade pública de Santa Catarina. A produção das informações ocorreu com base no Método Criativo e Sensível, mediado pelas Dinâmicas de Criatividade e Sensibilidade. Para a análise das informações, foi utilizada a Hermenêutica com suporte do referencial teórico-filosófico de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Resultados: emergiram dois temas: situações de violência vivenciadas pelos jovens no processo de formação em enfermagem e repercussões da violência na corporeidade do jovem. Os resultados revelam a violência simbólica presente nas relações de autoridade entre docentes e discentes e nos conflitos entre profissionais dos serviços de saúde e acadêmicos. Os jovens entendem que a violência está naturalizada no seu viver e interfere em sua corporeidade perturbando o existir, provocando sentimentos de ausência, distanciamento e indiferença, os quais repercutem em sua saúde e nas suas práticas de cuidado. Conclusão: a violência presente no processo de formação em enfermagem interfere na corporeidade, no modo de ser e na construção do jovem como um ser de cuidado. A pesquisa revelou elementos importantes para refletir acerca da violência presente no contexto da formação em enfermagem e subsidiar ações dos docentes e profissionais de saúde e enfermagem que atuam nos cenários de práticas.

The relation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia to later shyness: Moderation by neighborhood quality

The purpose of the study was to predict young children's shyness from both internal/biological (i.e., resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) and external (i.e., neighborhood quality) factors. Participants were 180 children at 42 (Time 1; T1), 72 (T2), and 84 (T3) months of age. RSA data were obtained at T1 during a neutral film in the laboratory. Mothers reported perceived neighborhood quality at T2 and children's dispositional shyness at T1 and T3. Path analyses indicated that resting RSA interacted with neighborhood quality to predict T3 shyness, even after controlling for earlier family income and T1 shyness. Specifically, high levels of resting RSA predicted low levels of shyness in the context of high neighborhood quality. When neighborhood quality was low, resting RSA was positively related to later shyness. These findings indicate that children's shyness is predicted by more than biological processes and that consideration of the broader context is critical to understanding children's social behavior.