Self-Criticism and Depressive Symptoms: Mediating Role of Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is gaining recognition as a resilience factor with implications for positive mental health. This study investigated the role of self-compassion in alleviating the effect of self-criticism on depressive symptoms. Participants were 147 urban, low-income African Americans with a recent suicide attempt. They were administered measures of self-criticism, depressive symptoms, and self-compassion. Results from this cross-sectional investigation showed that self-criticism was positively associated with depressive symptoms and negatively associated with self-compassion, and self-compassion was negatively associated with depressive symptoms. Bootstrapping analysis revealed that self-compassion mediated the self-criticism-depressive symptoms link, suggesting that self-compassion ameliorates the negative impact of self-criticism on depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that low-income African Americans with recent suicide attempt histories may benefit from interventions that focus on enhancing self-compassion. These results also highlight self-compassion as a positive trait with promise to improve people's quality of life and suggest that self-compassion-focused interventions are consistent with a positive psychology framework.

Childhood Maltreatment and PTSD: Spiritual Well-Being and Intimate Partner Violence as Mediators

Childhood maltreatment places individuals, including African American women who are undereducated and economically disadvantaged, at risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Participants were 192 African American women with a history in the prior year of both a suicide attempt and intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure. They were recruited from a public hospital that provides medical and mental health treatment to mostly low-income patients. A simple mediator model was used to examine if (1) existential well-being (sense of purpose) and/or religious well-being (relationship with God) mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms. Sequential multiple mediator models determined if physical and nonphysical IPV enhanced our understanding of the mediational association among the aforementioned variables. Findings suggest that existential well-being mediated the association between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms in a simple mediator model, and existential well-being and recent nonphysical IPV served as sequential multiple mediators of this link. However, religious well-being and physical IPV were not significant mediators. Findings underscore the importance of enhancing existential well-being in the treatment of suicidal African American women with a history of childhood maltreatment and IPV.

Predictor and Moderator Effects of Ego Resilience and Mindfulness on the Relationship Between Academic Stress and Psychological Well-Being in a Sample of Ghanaian College Students

This study examined the predictor and moderator effects of ego resilience and mindfulness on the relationship between academic stress and psychological well-being in a sample of Ghanaian college students ( N = 431). The results indicated that academic stress was positively associated with both anxiety and depression and that mindfulness and ego resilience were both negatively associated with anxiety and depression. Mindfulness buffered the positive relationship between academic stress and depression but not anxiety. In contrast, ego resilience buffered the positive relationship between academic stress and anxiety but not depression. Implications for the study’s findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are presented.

Development and Validation of the Prolonged Activation and Anticipatory Race-Related Stress Scale

This article describes two separate studies that were conducted to develop and validate a measure of the prolonged stress activation and anticipatory race-related stress response in African American adults (Prolonged Activation and Anticipatory Race-Related Stress Scale [PARS]). In Study 1, an exploratory factor analytic procedure ( N = 292) resulted in a17-item measure with four underlying factors: (a) Perseverative Cognition, (b) Secondary Appraisal, (c) Anticipatory Race-Related Stress Scale–Psychological, and (d) Anticipatory Race-Related Stress Scale–Physiological. In Study 2 ( N = 227), a confirmatory factor analytic procedure was conducted to evaluate and compare the underlying factor structure for several competing models of the PARS. This procedure supported a four-factor oblique solution as having the best fit to the data. Study 2 also provided evidence for the convergent validity of the PARS in that its factor scores correlated, in the anticipated direction, with scores on measures of related constructs.

Negative affect as a predisposing factor for cortisol release after an acute stress--the impact of unpleasant priming

Glucocorticoids have a key role in stress responses. There are, however, substantial differences in cortisol reactivity among individuals. We investigated if affective trait and mood induction influence the reactivity to psychological stress in a group of 63 young adults, male (n=27) and female (n=36), aged ca. 21 years. On the experimental day the participants viewed either a block of pleasant or unpleasant pictures for 5 min to induce positive or negative mood, respectively. Then, they had 5 min to prepare a speech to be delivered in front of a video-camera. Saliva samples were collected to measure cortisol, and questionnaire-based affective scales were used to estimate emotional states and traits. Compared to basal levels, a cortisol response to the acute speech stressor was only seen for those who had first viewed unpleasant pictures and scored above the average on the negative affect scale. There were no sex differences. In conclusion, high negative affect associated with exposure to an unpleasant context increased sensitivity to an acute stressor, and was critical to stimulation of cortisol release by the speech stressor.

Development of an efficient single-step freeze-drying cycle for protein formulations

PURPOSE

An efficient freeze-drying cycle for recombinant human interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (rhIL-1ra) formulations, which contained glycine and sucrose as excipients, was developed.

METHODS

Development was based on characterizing the frozen formulations by thermal analysis and by examining the effect of various lyophilization process parameters on the sublimation rate of ice.

RESULTS

Thermal analysis showed that the metastable glass of glycine in frozen formulation could be devitrified by slowly warming the frozen product to -15 degrees C. During drying, the sublimation rate of ice was increased as a linear function of the difference between the vapor pressure of ice at the product temperature (PO) and the chamber pressure (PC). Therefore, the product temperature (Tp) was maintained as high as possible at temperatures below Tg' of the formulation, in order to maximize the PO without allowing the collapse of cake. Although various combinations of shelf temperatures and chamber pressures could be used to obtain the same Tp, the combination of higher shelf temperature and lower chamber pressure was used to maximize sublimation rate.

CONCLUSIONS

A single-step drying cycle was developed to take advantage of these observations. The shelf temperature was set for the secondary drying and the product temperature during primary drying was maintained below Tg' by adjusting the chamber pressure. As the sublimation completed, the product temperature increased naturally to the shelf temperature for the secondary drying. This process resulted in successful drying of 1 ml of rhIL-1ra formulation to 0.4% moisture content within 6 hours.