Relationships between maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and psychopathology in adolescents from Bangladesh

Introduction: Psychopathology&nbsp;&nbsp; of&nbsp;&nbsp; adolescents&nbsp;&nbsp; in&nbsp;&nbsp; developing&nbsp;&nbsp; countries&nbsp;&nbsp; such&nbsp;&nbsp; as&nbsp;&nbsp; Bangladesh&nbsp;&nbsp; is a&nbsp; neglected&nbsp; problem,&nbsp; which&nbsp; should&nbsp; get&nbsp; more&nbsp; attention,&nbsp; especially&nbsp; with&nbsp; a&nbsp; focus&nbsp; on finding&nbsp; targets for prevention&nbsp; and&nbsp; intervention.&nbsp; Aim&nbsp; of&nbsp; the&nbsp; study&nbsp; was&nbsp; to&nbsp; study&nbsp; relationships&nbsp; between&nbsp; cognitive&nbsp; emotion regulation strategies and psychopathology in Bengali adolescents. Methods: The sample consisted of 340 12-to-18-year old adolescents from Bangladesh. The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) was used to measure cognitive emotion regulation strategies. The&nbsp; SCL-90&nbsp; was&nbsp; used&nbsp; to&nbsp; measure&nbsp; symptoms&nbsp; of&nbsp; depression,&nbsp; anxiety&nbsp; and&nbsp; hostility.&nbsp; Relationships&nbsp; between CERQ and SCL-90 scales were studied by Multiple Regression Analysis. Results: With&nbsp;&nbsp; regard&nbsp;&nbsp; to&nbsp;&nbsp; relationships&nbsp;&nbsp; between&nbsp;&nbsp; CERQ&nbsp;&nbsp; strategies&nbsp;&nbsp; and&nbsp;&nbsp; psychopathology:&nbsp;&nbsp; Higher extents&nbsp; of&nbsp; ‘Worry-focused’&nbsp; cognitive&nbsp; styles&nbsp; appeared&nbsp; to&nbsp; be&nbsp; related&nbsp; to&nbsp; the&nbsp; reporting&nbsp; of&nbsp; more&nbsp; symptoms of&nbsp; psychopathology,&nbsp; while&nbsp; more&nbsp; ‘Reappraisal-focused’&nbsp; styles&nbsp; were&nbsp; associated&nbsp; with&nbsp; the&nbsp; reporting&nbsp; of&nbsp; less symptoms of psychopathology. Discussion: The&nbsp; results&nbsp; with&nbsp; regard&nbsp; to&nbsp; the&nbsp; relationships&nbsp; between&nbsp; cognitive&nbsp; emotion&nbsp; regulation strategies and psychopathology may provide possible targets for interventions to improve mental health in adolescents in developing countries.</p

Effects of a cognitive behavioral self-help program and a computerized structured writing intervention on depressed mood for HIV-infected people:A pilot randomized controlled trial

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine whether low-resource, cost-effective intervention programs can be effective in improving depressed mood in people with HIV. The efficacy of a cognitive-behavioral self-help program (CBS) and a computerized structured writing intervention (SWI) were tested in a pilot randomized controlled trial. Methods: Participants were members of a patient organization. They completed a pretest and posttest. The questionnaire included the HADS. Participants were randomly allocated to CBS (n=24), SWI (n=25) or a waiting list condition (WLC, n=24). To evaluate changes in the continuous outcome measure, a 3 × 2 (group × time) repeated measures ANCOVA was performed. Also, an ANCOVA was performed using change scores. Results: Respondents who followed the CBS improved significantly compared to the WLC. However, for people in the SWI condition no significant improvement on depression was found. Conclusion: This pilot study suggests that a low-resource, cost-effective CBS program seems to be effective in reducing depressed mood in people living with HIV. Practice implications: Because self-help programs can be delivered through regular mail or the internet, a high number of people could be reached while overcoming geographical and social barriers to treatment. © 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Evaluation of HIV and AIDS knowledge in rural Cameroon men with the use of a questionnaire

Introduction: HIV/AIDS, the most important health problem in Africa, is the leading cause of death on the continent. Ignorance on HIV/AIDS status will hamper treatment and prevention. To investigate the level of HIV/AIDS knowledge among men in a rural area, we performed a questionnaire study on HIV/AIDS knowledge in men living in Banga Bakundu, a rural village in Cameroon. Methods: Forty-eight men, aged 17-66 years, were interviewed. They were divided in 2 groups: ≤29 years, being those young enough to be able to have knowledge about HIV/AIDS at the time of their first sexual contact, and those > 29 years who weren't. A semi-structured clinical interview was performed to obtain information about socio-demographic characteristics, sexual activity, knowledge about HIV/AIDS and its prevention. Results: There is an overall good HIV/AIDS knowledge and what should be done about it. Men with a higher level of education and more HIV/AIDS knowledge seem to take less preventive measures. The differentiation per age group showed that age influenced the data on knowledge and behaviour. Conclusion: Our data are consistent with other studies. Remarkable is the difference in HIV/AIDS knowledge between the 2 age groups, and the relation between HIV/AIDS knowledge and sexual habits and prevention. Sufficient HIV/AIDS knowledge did not lead to significant changes in sexual behaviour. The questionnaire showed to provide sufficient information and was easy to use. Further research should be performed

MeSH Up: effective MeSH text classification for improved document retrieval

Motivation: Controlled vocabularies such as the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus and the Gene Ontology (GO) provide an efficient way of accessing and organizing biomedical information by reducing the ambiguity inherent to free-text data. Different methods of automating the assignment of MeSH concepts have been proposed to replace manual annotation, but they are either limited to a small subset of MeSH or have only been compared with a limited number of other systems

How do cancer patients manage unattainable personal goals and regulate their emotions?

Objectives. This article addressed the role of goal adjustment (i.e. disengagement from unattainable goals and reengagement in alternative goals) and cognitive emotion-regulation strategies (i.e. rumination, catastrophizing, positive refocusing) in cancer patients' psychological well-being. We expected that patients who are better able to disengage from unattainable goals, identify alternative goals, and regulate their emotions by positive refocusing and not engaging in rumination and catastrophizing would experience less negative and more positive affect. Design. In this cross-sectional study, data were collected using a self-report questionnaire. Methods. Cancer patients (N = 108) were recruited on a psychoeducational meeting aimed to inform them about the illness and its consequences. To examine the relationships between goal adjustment, cognitive emotion-regulation strategies, and affect, Pearson correlations were calculated and regression analyses were performed. Results. Regression analyses showed that reengaging in meaningful goals and focusing on pleasant issues were significantly associated with more positive affect. Focusing on pleasant issues was also significantly associated with less negative affect, whereas rumination and catastrophizing were significantly associated with more negative affect. Conclusions. Goal reengagement as well as cognitive emotion-regulation strategies seems to play an important role in cancer patients' psychological well-being. Health care professionals may assist patients in paying more attention to positive experiences in their daily life and in finding new meaningful goals. Techniques based on mindfulness may be used to assist cancer patients in decreasing the repetitive negative thinking about causes, meanings, and consequences of the illness and helping them to focus attention on the present moment