How personality affects reaction. A mental health behavioral insight review during the Pandemic

The fear caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is changing our psychology and behavior. This ongoing negative event, imposing restrictions such as home isolation and social distancing, can result in heightened anxiety, depression and a sense of loneliness, with immediate effects on mental health. This study investigates adolescents’ reaction to the pandemic, by analyzing the behavioral mental health trends of depression, anxiety and sense of loneliness, in relation to personality traits. After controlling for demographics and family background, our results reveal strong relationships between several personality traits and psychological health indicators, during the pandemic in Greece. A total of 419 secondary school students (aged 12–18) were administered the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC), the Child Depression Inventory (CDI), the Big Five Inventory for measuring personality (BFI) and the Children’s Loneliness Questionnaire (CLS) during two time periods within pandemic. Overall, it appears that depression increased significantly in line with the escalation of the pandemic, while anxiety decreased, with the strongest predictors being the personality variables of extraversion, neuroticism and openness. Surprisingly, the study also revealed that the level of extraversion has a positive effect on changes in anxiety, while a negative one on changes in depression. On the other hand, neuroticism and openness seem to negatively correlate with anxiety changes and positively with depression changes. These findings highlight the importance of considering these variables in addressing individuals’ mental health behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic and elucidate the literature by offering a deeper understanding of the strong relationship between personality, depression and anxiety.

Heroin mismatch in the Motor City: addiction, segregation, and the geography of opportunity

In this article, the authors used data from economic and ethnographic interviews with heroin users from Detroit, Michigan, as well as other sources, to illustrate the relationship between heroin users' mobility patterns and urban and suburban environments, especially in terms of drug acquisition and the geography of opportunity. The authors found that although geographic location and social networks associated with segregation provided central city residents and African Americans with a strategic advantage over White suburbanites in locating and purchasing heroin easily and efficiently, this same segregation effectively focuses the negative externalities of heroin markets in central city neighborhoods. Finally, the authors consider how the heroin trade reflects and reproduces the segregated post-industrial landscape and discuss directions for future research about the relationship between ethnic and economic ghettos and regional drug markets.

Interrelations of psychiatric patient experiences of boredom and mental health

A review of literature related to psychiatric patients' interrelated experiences of boredom and mental health demonstrated that developing a better understanding of the relationship between boredom and health would provide important implications for development of the therapeutic environment of psychiatric units. The literature suggested that experiences of meaningful roles and relationships contribute substantially to experiences of control essential for mental health. Boredom is an indicator of a lack of experience of meaning. Many psychiatric patients experience boredom and lack opportunities to experience meaning, indicating a lack in the therapeutic potential of the hospital environment and a requisite for change and further research.

Indicators of empowerment and disempowerment in the subjective evaluation of the psychiatric treatment process by persons with severe and persistent mental illness: a qualitative and quantitative analysis

Empowerment and disempowerment is studied in terms of the way persons with long and persistent schizophrenia evaluate their psychiatric outpatient treatment. One hundred persons with the diagnosis of schizophrenia (ICD-10 F 20.0) were interviewed about their perceptions and evaluation of the treatment process by means of problem-focused interviews. Transcribed interviews were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Relationships among the categories of the qualitative content analysis were analyzed by means of a homogeneity analysis. The latent dimension extracted by the homogeneity analysis could be interpreted as a quantitative measure of an empowered or a disempowered perception of the treatment process. As a result of the qualitative content analysis it was found that a majority of participants tend to describe their treatment as reduced to drug treatment and that they tend to notice only positive medication effects rather than mixed medication effects or positive effects of conversation and that they feel helpless or indifferent rather than actively involved in the treatment process. The impact of socio-demographic, clinical, and treatment characteristics on the participants' location on a latent dimension called "empowerment" was examined by means of multiple regression analysis. General life satisfaction, negative symptoms and getting depot medication were positively associated with a more disempowered perception of the treatment process whereas positive symptoms, getting antidepressant medication and being treated in an outpatient clinic instead of a private practice were associated with a more empowered perception.