'All these negative thoughts come flooding in':how young people with depression describe their experience of rumination

AbstractRumination, or dwelling repeatedly on negative thoughts about the past, can prolong depression and make it worse. When treating clients with depression, it can be important to consider the behavioural, cognitive and emotional impact of rumination on their life. Previous research has examined adult experience of rumination, but the current study was the first to examine how young people with depression experience rumination. Seven young people with depression were interviewed about the cognitive content of their rumination episodes, the associated feelings, and any behavioural start and stop triggers. Interview transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Participants reported experiencing rumination as a disorientating cognitive battle, in which they felt under attack. The process elicited sadness predominantly, but also anger and anxiety, with mood and rumination often maintaining each other. Interpersonal interaction played a key role in starting and stopping rumination episodes. CBT-based interventions specifically targeting the ruminative process may be important for young people with depression, particularly interventions which consider the impact of family members or other systemic factors on rumination behaviour.</jats:p

Social anxiety symptoms and their relationship with suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms in adolescents: A prospective study

Background: Social anxiety disorder typically emerges in adolescence and its symptoms often co‐occur with depression and suicidal ideation. It is important to understand whether social anxiety symptoms precede depression and suicidal ideation in youth. This study aimed to investigate the temporal associations between baseline social anxiety and later suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms in a community youth sample. Methods: The Wellcome Trust NSPN (Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network) study recruited 2397 youth aged 14–24 in the United Kingdom to participate in a prospective observational study. Participants were assessed for symptoms of social anxiety, generalised anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation at baseline, 1‐year follow‐up, and 2‐year follow‐up. We conducted multiple linear regression analyses and mediation analyses to examine whether baseline social anxiety was associated with 2‐year suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms (excluding suicide‐related items), and whether these associations were mediated by 1‐year depressive symptoms. The study was preregistered on the Open Science Framework. Results: Results from multiple linear regression analyses indicated that baseline social anxiety symptoms were associated with 2‐year suicidal ideation (β = 0.07, p < 0.05, 95% CI [0.02, 0.12]) and 2‐year depressive symptoms (β = 0.08, p < 0.05, 95% CI [0.02, 0.13]), after controlling for baseline predicted variable. Furthermore, 1‐year depressive symptoms significantly mediated the relationship between baseline social anxiety symptoms and 2‐year suicidal ideation (β = 0.04, 95% CI [0.02, 0.05]), and the relationship between baseline social anxiety symptoms and 2‐year depressive symptoms (β = 0.06, 95% CI [0.03, 0.08]) after adjusting for age, sex, and other covariates. Conclusions: We found evidence that baseline social anxiety symptoms were associated with 2‐year suicidal ideation and 2‐year depressive symptoms via 1‐year depressive symptoms in non‐clinical adolescents. These results may have important implications for targeted psychological interventions

Exploring the association between social camouflaging and self- versus caregiver-report discrepancies in anxiety and depressive symptoms in autistic and non-autistic socially-anxious adolescents

Social camouflaging in autism involves hiding social differences and autistic traits to fit in with neurotypical settings and is associated with poorer mental health in both autistic adolescents and adults. This study explored the association between self-reported social camouflaging behaviours and adolescents’ self-report of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and depressive symptoms compared to caregiver reports. A clinical sample of 43 autistic and 39 non-autistic adolescents (14-19 years) without intellectual disability and matched on social anxiety, and their primary caregiver completed questionnaires reporting the young person’s autistic traits, GAD, and depression symptoms. Using Response Surface Analysis (RSA), congruence between adolescent and caregiver rated autistic traits, GAD, and depression symptoms were not associated with greater camouflaging scores. RSA parameters showed that camouflaging was greater when both adolescent and caregivers rated high levels of autistic traits and GAD symptoms, and when adolescents exceeded caregiver ratings on autistic traits, GAD, and depression symptoms. Adolescents who experience greater anxiety and autistic traits may engage in more (though less effective) social camouflaging behaviours, which in turn may contribute towards poorer mental health outcomes. Clinicians may benefit from collaboratively creating with adolescents a person-centred formulation that considers the associations between autistic traits, mental health outcomes

Social anxiety and suicidality in youth: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Suicide is a leading cause of death among young people every year. Identifying risk factors provides opportunities to intervene, and social anxiety may represent one such factor. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to review the evidence of associations between social anxiety and suicidality in youth (10–25 years). Embase, PsycInfo, and Medline were searched to identify relevant articles. Meta-analysis was conducted to examine the mean effect sizes of concurrent and prospective associations between social anxiety and three indices of suicidality in adolescents aged 10–25 years. Meta-analyses of 16 studies showed that social anxiety was associated cross-sectionally with suicide attempt (r = 0.10, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.15), suicidal ideation (r = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.02, 0.41), and suicide risk (r = 0.24, 95% CI: 0.05, 0.41), and prospectively at trend level with suicidal ideation (r = 0.62, 95% CI: -0.03, 0.90). An examination of the prospective associations with suicide attempt and risk was not possible due to a lack of studies. Several studies suggested that results could not be solely attributed to depressive symptoms. A high level of heterogeneity was observed in each meta-analysis. Moderation analysis was possible for gender and publication year only; neither was significant. Findings provide further evidence of a link between social anxiety and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in youth but are limited by the small number of studies of mixed quality. This review supports future research into social anxiety symptoms as potential risk factors and treatment targets for suicidal youth

Plate-Based High-Throughput Fluorescence Assay for Assessing Enveloped Virus Integrity

Viruses are a considerable threat to global health and place major burdens on economies worldwide. Manufactured viruses are also being widely used as delivery agents to treat (gene therapies) or prevent diseases (vaccines). Therefore, it is vital to study and fully understand the infectious state of viruses. Current techniques used to study viruses are often slow or nonexistent, making the development of new techniques of paramount importance. Here we present a high-throughput and robust, cell-free plate-based assay (FAIRY: Fluorescence Assay for vIRal IntegritY), capable of differentiating intact from nonintact enveloped viruses, i.e, infectious from noninfectious. Using a thiazole orange-terminated polymer, a 99% increase in fluorescence was observed between treated (heat or virucide) and nontreated. The FAIRY assay allowed for the rapid determination of the infectivity of a range of enveloped viruses, highlighting its potential as a valuable tool for the study of viruses and interventions against them.</p

Consumer response to wine made from smoke-affected grapes

When vineyards and grapes are exposed to smoke from wildfires or controlled burns, this can result in wines with smoky, burnt or ashy attributes that have been linked to the presence of elevated concentrations of volatile phenols and phenolic glycosides. These smoky flavours are considered undesirable by winemakers, but there is little information about how consumers respond to smoke-affected wines. To investigate whether consumers respond negatively to smoky attributes when wine is tasted blind, three studies assessing sets of Pinot noir rosé, Chardonnay and unoaked Shiraz wines with varied smoke flavour were conducted. Overall, wines rated high in smoke flavour were less liked compared to non-smoke-affected wines. Independent of wine type, there was a strong negative correlation between smoky flavour and overall consumer liking. Detailed data analysis revealed that consumers who are wine drinkers fell into one of three categories: highly responsive to smoke, moderately responsive, or a smaller group of non-responders. This consumer-based information is essential for guiding the assessment of risk from smoke exposure of grapes and potential for quality defects in wine, as well as identifying and benchmarking management options for wine producers, not only in Australia, but globally

Fact Sheet: Oral presentations: preparation and delivery

Presentations can be positive experiences. There are a few things you can do to ease the strain to ensure that your presentation runs smoothly. This resource has been prepared to assist you with the planning and delivery of your next paper presentation

Understanding consumers’ perceptions of smoke-affected wines

Smoke taint in grapes and wine is complicated. If a vineyard is exposed to smoke, there are a whole range of factors that determine whether or not the wine eventually made from those grapes will be smoke-affected and to what degree. While many of those factors are now quite well understood (Coulter, 2022; Parker et al., 2023), questions still remain about what consumers think. Do they notice smoke characters in wine? Do they like or dislike them? How strong do smoke characters need to be to cause a reaction in consumers? And are all consumers the same when it comes to smoky wines? Three recent consumer sensory studies at the AWRI aimed to learn more about the answers to these questions. This article presents a summary of the results and conclusions of this work. Full details were recently published by Bilogrevic et al. (2023) as an open access article in the peer-reviewed journal, OENO One (https://doi.org/10.20870/oeno-one.2023.57.2.7261)