The meaning profiles of anxiety and depression: similarities and differences in two age groups

The Aspects of Active-Learning Science Courses That Exacerbate and Alleviate Depression in Undergraduates

College science courses continue to transition from traditional lecture to active learning, which has been shown to have both alleviating and exacerbating effects on undergraduate mental health. Notably, existing studies have primarily examined the relationship between active learning and anxiety, and no studies have specifically assessed the relationship between active learning and depression. To address this gap, we conducted hourlong exploratory interviews with 29 undergraduates from six institutions who identify as having depression and who had been enrolled in at least one active-learning college science course. We probed how undergraduates' depression affects their experiences in active learning, and in turn, what aspects of active-learning practices exacerbate or alleviate students' depressive symptoms. Students described that their depression negatively impacted their cognitive domains, which could make learning and social interactions challenging. Additionally, we found that the underlying aspects of active-learning practices that impact students' depression fall into four overarching categories: opportunities to compare oneself with others, socializing with others while learning, frequent formative evaluation, and engagement in learning. Each of these aspects of active learning could alleviate and/or exacerbate depressive symptoms. This work supports recommendations to create more inclusive active-learning courses for students with depression.

The Effect of Physical Activity on Body Constitution and Psychological Health in Older Adults: Evidence From an Analysis of a Biobank Research Database

This study aims to describe the relationship between physical activity, suboptimal health status based on traditional Chinese medicine, and psychological health in older people in Taiwan. A total of 4,497 older individuals were selected from the Taiwan Biobank Research Database. Suboptimal health status was assessed using a body constitution questionnaire to measure yang deficiency, yin deficiency, and stasis. The results showed that older adults involved in physical activity had a lower likelihood of yang/yin deficiency and stasis constitutions than physically inactive people. Participants with yang deficiency or stasis constitutions had a higher likelihood of poor psychological health, whereas those with yin deficiency had a greater likelihood of depression. People involved in physical activity had a lower likelihood of depression than physically inactive people. Compared with male older adults, females had a lower percentage of physical activity habits, poorer body constitutions, and poorer psychological health.

“Don’t praise the day before the sunset”: Paremiology in the study of depressiveness

Psychology and psychiatry are in a constant search for an adequate model of affective disorders. Psychology has classified depression as a mood disorder, but a growing literature links mental disorders with socioculturally relevant ways in which people experience and express distress. With this study, we link depression with proverbs as omnipresent narrative structures and mini-theories that help people interpret reality and categorize personal experience. Proverbs are omnipresent narrative structures that describe, explain, and prescribe human behavior. Hence, we offer a paremiological approach to better understand the minds of the depressed. Our tenet is that proverbs may also reflect people’s mental states and attitudes by conveying different levels of optimism versus pessimism. We evidence empirically that proverbs convey optimistic and pessimistic attitudes and, thus, have the capacity to capture peoples’ mental states. Moreover, we show that this capacity is limited for people with high depressiveness. Finally, we discuss how proverbial thinking links collective experience and wisdom imprinted in proverbs with an individual’s mental states, which has important research and practical implications.

Comparative efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese patent medicine for anxiety disorders in children or adolescence: A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Anxiety is the most common mental illness among adolescents and children, and its incidence is increasing year by year, which has a serious adverse effect on the academic and growth of adolescents and children. Conventional treatment methods such as oral administration of western medicine and psycho-behavioral therapy have obvious limitations. Chinese patent medicines play an irreplaceable role in the treatment of this disease. At present, there is no comparison of the safety and effectiveness of various Chinese patent medicines curing anxiety in adolescents. So we take advantage of the method of network meta-analysis to systematically compare the efficacy of various Chinese patent medicines curing this disease.

METHODS

We will systematically and comprehensively search the following databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, China BioMedical Literature (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Scientific Journals Database (VIP), and Wanfang database. We will include all RCT trials that meet the inclusion criteria, starting from the establishment of the database until August 2020. Two researchers will independently screen the literature based on inclusion criteria. While extracting data, we also assess the risk of bias in the included studies. All the data and evidence obtained will be evaluated by the method of Bayesian network meta-analysis. STATA and WinBUGS software will be used.

RESULTS

This study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of various TCPMs for anxiety disorders in children or adolescence.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study will provide valuable references for the clinical application of Traditional Chinese patent medicines, and assist clinicians in formulating more reasonable diagnosis and treatment strategies.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This study does not require ethical approval.

INPLASY REGISTRATION NUMBER

INPLASY202080048.

Anxiety and depression: toward overlapping and distinctive features

This Special Issue of Cognition and Emotion addresses one of the cardinal concerns of affective science, which is overlapping and distinctive features of anxiety and depression. A central finding in the study of anxiety and depression is that they are moderately highly correlated with each other. This leads us to the question: What is behind this co-occurrence? Possible explanations relate to poor discriminant validity of measures; both emotional states are associated with negative affect; stressful life events; impaired cognitive processes; they share a common biological/genetic diathesis. However, despite a set of common (nonspecific) features, anxiety and depression are clearly not identical emotional states. Differences between them might be best viewed, for example, through their heterogeneous and multi-layered nature, adaptive functions and relations with regulatory processes, positive affect, and motivation or complex cognitive processes. In this introduction we consider several approaches (e.g. functional approach; tripartite model and content-specificity hypothesis) to which most research in this Special Issue is relevant. In addition, we have asked contributors to this Special Issue to indicate how their own studies on comparisons between anxiety and depression and models on anxiety and depression move this area of research to more mature science with applicability.