Illness severity and risk of mental morbidities among patients recovering from COVID-19: a cross-sectional study in the Icelandic population.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked DownloadObjective: To test if patients recovering from COVID-19 are at increased risk of mental morbidities and to what extent such risk is exacerbated by illness severity. Design: Population-based cross-sectional study. Setting: Iceland. Participants: A total of 22 861 individuals were recruited through invitations to existing nationwide cohorts and a social media campaign from 24 April to 22 July 2020, of which 373 were patients recovering from COVID-19. Main outcome measures: Symptoms of depression (Patient Health Questionnaire), anxiety (General Anxiety Disorder Scale) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; modified Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5) above screening thresholds. Adjusting for multiple covariates and comorbidities, multivariable Poisson regression was used to assess the association between COVID-19 severity and mental morbidities. Results: Compared with individuals without a diagnosis of COVID-19, patients recovering from COVID-19 had increased risk of depression (22.1% vs 16.2%; adjusted relative risk (aRR) 1.48, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.82) and PTSD (19.5% vs 15.6%; aRR 1.38, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.75) but not anxiety (13.1% vs 11.3%; aRR 1.24, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.64). Elevated relative risks were limited to patients recovering from COVID-19 that were 40 years or older and were particularly high among individuals with university education. Among patients recovering from COVID-19, symptoms of depression were particularly common among those in the highest, compared with the lowest tertile of influenza-like symptom burden (47.1% vs 5.8%; aRR 6.42, 95% CI 2.77 to 14.87), among patients confined to bed for 7 days or longer compared with those never confined to bed (33.3% vs 10.9%; aRR 3.67, 95% CI 1.97 to 6.86) and among patients hospitalised for COVID-19 compared with those never admitted to hospital (48.1% vs 19.9%; aRR 2.72, 95% CI 1.67 to 4.44). Conclusions: Severe disease course is associated with increased risk of depression and PTSD among patients recovering from COVID-19. Keywords: COVID-19; epidemiology; mental health; public health.Icelandic government NordFors

The association between women's masturbation, sexual subjectivity and sexual assertiveness

Many women struggle to achieve sexual subjectivity and sexual assertiveness, which are both key features in women's sexual health. The purpose of this study was to examine whether women’s levels of sexual subjectivity and sexual assertiveness were associated with masturbation frequency, and frequency of orgasm through masturbation. Additionally, this study explored how the elements of sexual subjectivity related to women’s sexual assertiveness, and how sexual assertiveness was associated with women's frequency of orgasm in partnered sex. The participant pool consisted of 1,312 Icelandic women, with a mean age of 30.23 years (Mdn = 28.00, SD = 9.00), who completed an online questionnaire. The results revealed that masturbation was associated with greater sexual subjectivity when masturbation consistently resulted in orgasm. However, women were more sexually assertive with increasing frequency of masturbation and orgasm. The results showed that four out of five elements of sexual subjectivity were associated with sexual assertiveness, where sexual self-efficacy was of greatest importance. Results further showed that women’s frequency of orgasm in partnered sex differed depending on their level of sexual assertiveness, indicating that more assertive women reached orgasm more frequently. Keywords: masturbation, sexual subjectivity, sexual assertiveness, women, sexual healthKynhuglægni og kynferðisleg ákveðni eru lykilatriði hvað varðar kynheilbrigði kvenna en margar konur eiga í erfiðleikum með að öðlast þessa eiginleika. Tilgangur rannsóknarinnar var að kanna hvort að konur væru frábrugðnar á mælingum kynhuglægni og kynferðislegrar ákveðni eftir því hversu oft þær stunduðu sjálfsfróun og hversu oft þær fengju fullnægingu með sjálfsfróun. Að auki voru tengsl á milli þátta kynhuglægni og kynferðislegrar ákveðni könnuð. Þá var athugað hvort kynferðisleg ákveðni hefði tengsl við tíðni fullnægingar í kynlífi. Þátttakendur voru 1312 konur að meðalaldri 30.23 ára (miðgildi = 28.00, sf = 9.00). Niðurstöður sýndu að sjálfsfróun hafði tengsl við aukna kynhuglægni, en bentu til þess að þessi áhrif mætti rekja til hversu stöðugt konurnar fengu fullnægingu með sjálfsfróun. Aftur á móti hafði bæði tíðni sjálfsfróunar og tíðni fullnægingar með sjálfsfróun tengsl við aukna kynferðislega ákveðni. Þá höfðu fjórir af fimm þáttum kynhuglægni tengsl við kynferðislega ákveðni, þar sem kynferðisleg sjálfstrú hafði mesta vægið. Að auki leiddu niðurstöður í ljós að tíðni fullnægingar í kynlífi var mismunandi eftir því hversu kynferðislega ákveðnar konurnar voru, en eftir því sem konurnar voru meira kynferðislega ákveðnar því oftar fengu þær fullnægingu. Lykilorð: sjálfsfróun, kynhuglægni, kynferðisleg ákveðni, konur, kynheilbrigð

Screening efficiency of the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) across age and gender in a clinical sample

Anxiety and depressive disorders are highly prevalent in youth and are associated with substantial morbidity and an increased risk of suicidal behavior. It is therefore vital that the rating scales used in clinical practice discriminate adequately between youth with a disorder from those without to identify those who require treatment. The objective of this study was to evaluate the screening efficiency of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) and the use of multiple informants for subgroups of children versus adolescents and boys versus girls. The sample included 139 treatment-seeking Icelandic youth (aged 6-18 years, Mage = 12.81, 54.0% girls) and their parents. Receiver operating characteristic analyses were conducted to examine how efficiently the RCADS predicted the presence of anxiety or depressive disorders. Sequential logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine whether adding information from parents’ reports to the youths’ reports, and vice versa, would increase the identification of youth with anxiety or depressive disorders. Findings showed that the depression scale adequately predicted depressive disorders in this sample (independently of age and gender) and that the anxiety scale predicted anxiety disorders with low/moderate accuracy. However, the youth report for the anxiety scale showed limited screening utility for children and could not predict anxiety in girls. Nevertheless, both youth and parents provided valuable information, contributing to a correct diagnosis of anxiety disorders for children and girls. These results suggest that the RCADS is useful for screening anxiety and depressive symptoms in clinical populations. However, information from both youth and parent is needed when screening for anxiety in children and girls