2 research outputs found
How Much Support Is There for the Recommendations Made to the General Population during Confinement? A Study during the First Three Days of the COVID-19 Quarantine in Spain
Background: Recommendations on lifestyles during quarantine have been proposed by
researchers and institutions since the COVIDâ19 crisis emerged. However, most of these have never
been tested under real quarantine situations or derive from older investigations conducted mostly in
China and Canada in the face of infections other than COVIDâ19. The present study aimed at exploring
the relationship between a comprehensive set of recommended lifestyles, socioâdemographic,
and personality variables and mood during the first stages of quarantine. Methods: A virtual
snowâball recollection technique was used to disseminate the survey across the general population
in Spain starting the first day of mandatory quarantine (15 March 2020) until three days later (17
March). In total, 2683 Spanish adults (mean age = 34.86 years, SD = 13.74 years; 77.7% women)
from the general population completed measures on socioâdemographic, COVIDârelated, behavioral,
personality/cognitive, and mood characteristics. Results: In the present study, depression and
anger were higher than levels reported in a previous investigation before the COVIDâ19 crisis,
while vigor, friendliness, and fatigue were lower. Anxiety levels were comparable. The expected
direction of associations was confirmed for the majority of predictors. However, effect sizes were
generally small and only a subset of them correlated to most outcomes. Intolerance of unpleasant
emotions, neuroticism, and, to a lesser extent, agreeableness, sleep quality, young age, and time
spent Internet surfing were the most robust and strongest correlates of mood states. Conclusions:
Some recommended lifestyles (i.e., maintaining good quality of sleep and reducing Internet surfing)
might be more important than others during the first days of quarantine. Promoting tolerance
to unpleasant emotions (e.g., through online, selfâmanaged programs) might also be of upmost
importance. So far, recommendations have been made in general, but certain subgroups (e.g.,
certain personality profiles and young adults) might be especially vulnerable and should receive
more attention
Individual differences and health in chronic pain: are sex-differences relevant?
Background: Because psychological variables are known to intercorrelate, the goal of this investigation was to
compare the unique association between several well-established psychological constructs in pain research and
pain-related outcomes. Sex differences are considered because pain is experienced differently across sex groups.
Methods: Participants were 456 consecutive chronic pain patients attending a tertiary pain clinic (mean age = 58.4
years, SD = 14.8, 63.6% women). The study design was cross-sectional. Psychological constructs included personality
(NEO-Five Factor Inventory), irrational thinking (General Attitudes and Beliefs Scale), and coping (Social Problem
Solving Inventory). Outcomes were pain severity and interference (Brief Pain Inventory) and physical, general, and
mental health status (Short Form-36). To decide whether the bivariate analyses and the two-block, multivariate
linear regressions for each study outcome (block 1 = age, sex, and pain severity; block 2 = psychological variables)
should be conducted with the whole sample or split by sex, we first explored whether sex moderated the
relationship between psychological variables and outcomes. An alpha level of 0.001 was set to reduce the risk of
type I errors due to multiple comparisons.
Results: The moderation analyses indicated no sex differences in the association between psychological variables
and study outcomes (all interaction terms p > .05). Thus, further analyses were calculated with the whole sample.
Specifically, the bivariate analyses revealed that psychological constructs were intercorrelated in the expected
direction and mostly correlated with mental health and overall perceived health status. In the regressions, when
controlling for age, sex, and pain severity, psychological factors as a block significantly increased the explained
variance of physical functioning (ÎR2 = .037, p < .001), general health (ÎR2 = .138, p < .001), and mental health
(ÎR2 = .362, p < .001). However, unique associations were only obtained for mental health and neuroticism (β = â
0.30, p < .001) and a negative problem orientation (β = â 0.26, p < .001).
Conclusions: There is redundancy in the relationship between psychological variables and pain-related outcomes
and the strength of this association is highest for mental health status. The association between psychological
characteristics and health outcomes was comparable for men and women, which suggests that the same
therapeutic targets could be selected in psychological interventions of pain patients irrespective of sex