Stressful Life Events Are Related to More Negative Interpretations, but Not Under Acute Stress

Childhood maltreatment predicts poor sleep quality in Chinese adults: The influence of coping style tendencies

BACKGROUND

This longitudinal study assessed the prospective link between childhood maltreatment and sleep quality in adulthood, with a specific focus on examining whether different coping style tendencies influence these associations.

METHODS

The baseline sample included 1600 adult participants, with 1140 participants successfully followed up 5 years later. The key variables were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Generalized linear mixed models were employed to estimate unstandardized β estimates and 95 % confidence intervals (95%CIs). Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediation model.

RESULTS

Individuals reported childhood maltreatment at baseline were at an increased risk for sleep disturbances at follow-up. Childhood maltreatment negatively predicted the baseline coping style tendency (β = -0.29, P < 0.001), the baseline coping style tendencies negatively predicted the follow-up sleep quality (β = -0.10, P < 0.001), and childhood maltreatment positively predicted the follow-up sleep quality (β = 0.42, P < 0.01). The mediating effect of baseline coping style tendencies between childhood maltreatment and the follow-up sleep quality was significant, with an effect value of 0.03.

LIMITATIONS

First, the sample was from a single province (Shandong), which limits the generalizability of the findings. Second, recall bias was unavoidable in this adult sample study.

CONCLUSIONS

Developing positive coping strategies is an important way to reduce the risk of sleep problems in adults with a history of childhood maltreatment.

Association between depressive symptoms and prediabetes: NHANES 2007-2016 findings

INTRODUCTION

The association between diabetes and depressive symptoms is well recognized. However, the impact of depressive symptoms on prediabetes remains unclear. This study aims to explore the specific correlation between depressive symptoms and prediabetes.

METHODS

A total of 7467 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were included in this study, spanning five rounds of surveys conducted between 2007 and 2016. Weighted logistic regression was utilized to assess the relationship between depressive symptoms and prediabetes.

RESULTS

Compared with the normoglycemic population, individuals with prediabetes had a significantly higher probability of experiencing trouble sleeping (P = 0.020). After adjusting for non-glucose factors, there was no significant correlation between PHQ-9 and prediabetes; however, severe depressive symptoms were positively associated with abnormal fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels (OR = 1.093 [95 % CI 1.002, 1.192]). There was a positive correlation between trouble concentrating and FPG abnormalities (OR = 1.065 [95 % CI 1.004, 1.129]).

LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional design limits causal inference.

CONCLUSION

Individuals with depressive symptoms, especially severe cases, should be targeted for prediabetes prevention and management efforts. The diverse symptom presentations may have distinct impacts on glucose, necessitating personalized prevention and management strategies.

Negative Stressful Life Events and Social Support Are Associated With White Matter Integrity in Depressed Patients and Healthy Control Participants: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study

BACKGROUND

Negative stressful life events and deprivation of social support play critical roles in the development and maintenance of major depressive disorder (MDD). The present study aimed to investigate in a large sample of patients with MDD and healthy control participants (HCs) whether these effects are also reflected in white matter (WM) integrity.

METHODS

In this diffusion tensor imaging study, 793 patients with MDD and 793 age- and sex-matched HCs were drawn from the Marburg-Münster Affective Disorders Cohort Study (MACS) and completed the Life Events Questionnaire (LEQ) and Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ). Generalized linear models were performed to test voxelwise associations between fractional anisotropy (FA) and diagnosis (analysis 1), LEQ (analysis 2), and SSQ (analysis 3). We examined whether SSQ interacts with LEQ on FA or is independently associated with improved WM integrity (analysis 4).

RESULTS

Patients with MDD showed lower FA in several frontotemporal association fibers compared with HCs (pTFCE-FWE = .028). Across both groups, LEQ correlated negatively with FA in widely distributed WM tracts (pTFCE-FWE = .023), while SSQ correlated positively with FA in the corpus callosum (pTFCE-FWE = .043). Modeling the combined association of both variables on FA revealed significant-and antagonistic-main effects of LEQ (pTFCE-FWE = .031) and SSQ (pTFCE-FWE = .037), but no interaction of SSQ × LEQ.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate that negative stressful life events and social support are both related to WM integrity in opposing directions. The associations did not differ between patients with MDD and HCs, suggesting more general, rather than depression-specific, mechanisms. Furthermore, social support appears to contribute to improved WM integrity independent of stressful life events.

The relation between stress and impulsivity during the first year of college

OBJECTIVE

Previous research has established that short-term and persistent stress negatively impact mental health, with one proposed consequence being increased impulsivity. The present study tests the short-term and persistent associations between stress and three facets of global self-reports of impulsivity: negative urgency, lack of premeditation, and lack of perseverance, among young adults across 6 months of their first year of college.

METHOD

College freshmen (n = 362) completed self-report questionnaires assessing stress, negative urgency, lack of premeditation, and lack of perseverance three times over a 6-month period. Pre-registered analyses were conducted using multilevel growth curve models.

RESULTS

Confirmatory analyses suggested that persistent stress was associated with higher levels of negative urgency and trajectories of worsening lack of perseverance over time, while short-term stress was associated with higher negative urgency. Lack of premeditation was not robustly associated with stress.

CONCLUSIONS

While both persistent and short-term exposure to stress may be associated with some facets of global self-reports of impulsivity, the relations vary across facets of impulsivity. Overall, negative urgency was the most robustly associated with stress on both time scales, which suggests that this facet of impulsivity may be the most impacted in the context of stress in the first year of college.