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Bendau A, Plag J, Kunas S, Wyka S, Ströhle A, Petzold MB. Longitudinal changes in anxiety and psychological distress, and associated risk and protective factors during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Brain Behav 2021; 11:e01964. [PMID: 33230969 PMCID: PMC7744907 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.1964] [Citation(s) in RCA: 86] [Impact Index Per Article: 28.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2020] [Revised: 10/29/2020] [Accepted: 11/04/2020] [Indexed: 01/03/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic is related to multiple stressors and therefore may be associated with psychological distress. The aim of this study was to longitudinally assess symptoms of (un-)specific anxiety and depression along different stages of the pandemic to generate knowledge about the progress of psychological consequences of the pandemic and to test the role of potential risk and resilience factors that were derived from cross-sectional studies and official recommendations. METHODS The present study uses a longitudinal observational design with four waves of online data collection (from March 27 to June 15, 2020) in a convenience sample of the general population in Germany. A total of N = 2376 participants that completed at least two waves of the survey were included in the analyses. FINDINGS Specific COVID-19-related anxiety and the average daily amount of preoccupation with the pandemic decreased continuously over the four waves. Unspecific worrying and depressive symptoms decreased on average but not on median level. Self-efficacy, normalization, maintaining social contacts, and knowledge, where to get medical support, were associated with fewer symptoms relative to baseline. Suppression, unhealthy habits, and a longer average daily time of thinking about the pandemic were correlated with a relative increase of symptoms. INTERPRETATION Our findings provide insight into the longitudinal changes of symptoms of psychological distress along the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Furthermore, we were able to reaffirm the anticipated protective and risk factors that were extracted from previous studies and recommendations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonia Bendau
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health - Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (CCM), Berlin, Germany
| | - Jens Plag
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health - Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (CCM), Berlin, Germany
| | - Stefanie Kunas
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health - Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (CCM), Berlin, Germany
| | - Sarah Wyka
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health - Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (CCM), Berlin, Germany
| | - Andreas Ströhle
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health - Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (CCM), Berlin, Germany
| | - Moritz Bruno Petzold
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health - Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (CCM), Berlin, Germany
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Mehler DMA, Williams AN, Whittaker JR, Krause F, Lührs M, Kunas S, Wise RG, Shetty HGM, Turner DL, Linden DEJ. Graded fMRI Neurofeedback Training of Motor Imagery in Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke Patients: A Preregistered Proof-of-Concept Study. Front Hum Neurosci 2020; 14:226. [PMID: 32760259 PMCID: PMC7373077 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00226] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2020] [Accepted: 05/20/2020] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Ischemic stroke of the middle cerebral artery (MCA), a major brain vessel that supplies the primary motor and premotor cortex, is one of the most common causes for severe upper limb impairment. Currently available motor rehabilitation training largely lacks satisfying efficacy with over 70% of stroke survivors showing residual upper limb dysfunction. Motor imagery-based functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (fMRI-NF) has been suggested as a potential therapeutic technique to improve motor impairment in stroke survivors. In this preregistered proof-of-concept study (https://osf.io/y69jc/), we translated graded fMRI-NF training, a new paradigm that we have previously studied in healthy participants, to first-time MCA stroke survivors with residual mild to severe impairment of upper limb motor function. Neurofeedback was provided from the supplementary motor area (SMA) targeting two different neurofeedback target levels (low and high). We hypothesized that MCA stroke survivors will show (1) sustained SMA-region of interest (ROI) activation and (2) a difference in SMA-ROI activation between low and high neurofeedback conditions during graded fMRI-NF training. At the group level, we found only anecdotal evidence for these preregistered hypotheses. At the individual level, we found anecdotal to moderate evidence for the absence of the hypothesized graded effect for most subjects. These null findings are relevant for future attempts to employ fMRI-NF training in stroke survivors. The study introduces a Bayesian sequential sampling plan, which incorporates prior knowledge, yielding higher sensitivity. The sampling plan was preregistered together with a priori hypotheses and all planned analysis before data collection to address potential publication/researcher biases. Unforeseen difficulties in the translation of our paradigm to a clinical setting required some deviations from the preregistered protocol. We explicitly detail these changes, discuss the accompanied additional challenges that can arise in clinical neurofeedback studies, and formulate recommendations for how these can be addressed. Taken together, this work provides new insights about the feasibility of motor imagery-based graded fMRI-NF training in MCA stroke survivors and serves as a first example for comprehensive study preregistration of an (fMRI) neurofeedback experiment.
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Affiliation(s)
- David M. A. Mehler
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Angharad N. Williams
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Max Planck Adaptive Memory Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Joseph R. Whittaker
- School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Florian Krause
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Michael Lührs
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
- Research Department, Brain Innovation B.V., Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Stefanie Kunas
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Richard G. Wise
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies, D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, Chieti, Italy
| | | | - Duncan L. Turner
- School of Health, Sport and Bioscience, University of East London, London, United Kingdom
| | - David E. J. Linden
- School of Psychology, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff, United Kingdom
- Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
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