Mental health of Irish students: Self-criticism as a complete mediator in mental health attitudes and caregiver identity

Mental health is a concern in the Republic of Ireland, and in particular mental health of higher education students is challenging. Further, their poor mental health may be negatively impacted by their negative mental health attitudes and caregiver identity, which can yield high self-criticism and low self-reassurance. Accordingly, this study aimed to (i) elucidate the relationships among these five constructs, and (ii) assess the impact of self-criticism and self-reassurance in the relationship (a) between mental health attitudes and mental health, and (b) between caregiver identity and mental health. One-hundred twenty-nine Irish undergraduate students completed self-report measures regarding these constructs. Correlation and path analyses were conducted. Overall all variables were related to each other, in particular family-related shame subscales were strongly related to mental health problems. In path analysis, self-criticism completely mediated the relationship between mental health attitudes and mental health, while self-reassurance did not. Likewise, self-criticism also completely mediated the relationship between caregiver identity and mental health, while self-reassurance did not. The findings suggest the importance of self-criticism to their mental health. While current literature highlights the importance of mental health attitudes such as stigma and caregiver identity such as low self-awareness, our results indicated that it was their self-criticism that predicted poor mental health. Their mental health may be more effectively improved by targeting self-criticism. Compassion training, peer-support groups, and reframing were recommended to counter self-criticism. Our findings will help educators and researchers to identify an alternative and effective means to improve mental health in Irish students.N/

Self-compassion in Irish social work students: Relationships between resilience, engagement and motivation

Self-compassion recognises a meaning of life's suffering, aligning with existential positive psy-chology. Although this construct is known to protect our mental health, how to augment self-compassion remains to be evaluated. Social work students suffer from high rates of mental health problems, however research into self-compassion in this population remains to be devel-oped. This study aimed to evaluate i) relationships between self-compassion and more tradition-al positive constructs—resilience, engagement and motivation, and ii) differences of these con-structs between the levels of studies, to inform how self-compassion can be enhanced in social work students. One hundred twenty-nine Irish social work students completed self-report scales regarding self-compassion, resilience, engagement and motivation. Correlation, regression, and one-way MANOVA were conducted. Self-compassion was associated with gender, age, resili-ence, engagement and intrinsic motivation. Resilience and intrinsic motivation were significant predictors of self-compassion. There was no significant difference in the levels of these constructs between the levels of studies. Findings suggest that social work educators across different levels can strengthen students’ resilience and intrinsic motivation to cultivate the students' self-compassion. Moreover, the close relationships between self-compassion, resilience and in-trinsic motivation indicate that orienting students to a meaning of the studies helps their mental health.N/

Association analyses identify 31 new risk loci for colorectal cancer susceptibility

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and has a strong heritable basis. We report a genome-wide association analysis of 34,627 CRC cases and 71,379 controls of European ancestry that identifies SNPs at 31 new CRC risk loci. We also identify eight independent risk SNPs at the new and previously reported European CRC loci, and a further nine CRC SNPs at loci previously only identified in Asian populations. We use in situ promoter capture Hi-C (CHi-C), gene expression, and in silico annotation methods to identify likely target genes of CRC SNPs. Whilst these new SNP associations implicate target genes that are enriched for known CRC pathways such as Wnt and BMP, they also highlight novel pathways with no prior links to colorectal tumourigenesis. These findings provide further insight into CRC susceptibility and enhance the prospects of applying genetic risk scores to personalised screening and prevention.Peer reviewe