Who Looks Forward to Better Health? Personality Factors and Future Self-Rated Health in the Context of Chronic Illness

Background: Self-rated health (SRH) is an important predictor of objective health-related outcomes that, according to the Cognitive Process Model of SRH, is influenced by contextual factors (symptoms and personality). Although research indicates that personality contours SRH, less attention has been given to understanding the contributions of personality to future self-rated health (FSRH) or the contextual factors that play a role in shaping these effects. Purpose: The aim of the present study was to extend the theory and research on FSRH by exploring the contributions of personality, current SRH, and fatigue to FSRH in the context of chronic illness, and to test the potential mediating role of optimism for explaining these effects. Method: Two chronic illness samples (arthritis, N = 365, and inflammatory bowel disease, IBD; N = 290) completed identical surveys. A hierarchical regression model with age, education, and current health, and fatigue entered in the first two steps and traits entered in the last step, tested the effects of personality on FSRH. Mediation analyses controlling for contextual variables tested the explanatory role of optimism. Results: Fatigue was a significant contributor to FSRH accounting for 11 % of the variance in the arthritis sample and 17 % in the IBD sample over the demographic variables. Both Agreeableness and Neuroticism accounted for additional significant but modest variance in FSRH (4 %); Agreeableness was associated with higher FSRH, whereas Neuroticism was associated with lower FSRH. For both traits, optimism fully explained the associations with FSRH. Conclusion: After accounting for the influence of fatigue and other variables, the contributions of high Agreeableness and low Neuroticism to FSRH are modest in the context of chronic illness, and these associations may be explained by optimism

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

Cross-cultural invariance of the factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire across Spanish and American college students

The main goal of this study was to examine the cross-cultural invariance of the factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) (Raine, 1991) in two large samples of Spanish and American young adults. The final sample was made up of 2313 college students (508 men, 22%). Their mean age was 20.5 years (S.D.=3.2). The results indicated that the Stefanis et al. (2004) four-factor model yielded the best goodness-of-fit indices compared to alternative models. Moreover, the results support configural, metric, and partial measurement invariance of the covariances of the SPQ across the two samples. The finding of measurement equivalence across cultures provides essential evidence of construct validity for the schizotypy dimensions and of the cross-cultural validity of SPQ scores. The finding of comparable dimensional structures in cross-cultural samples lends further support to the continuum model of schizotypy and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Future studies should continue to examine the validity of scores on the SPQ and other schizotypy measures and their variation or consistency across cultures. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Aplicación de un programa de intervención temprana en Psicosis: Un nuevo desarrollo para las unidades de salud mental

Los recientes desarrollos clínicos para la intervención temprana en psicosis proponen desarrollar estrategias de detección y tratamiento de esta patología en sus primeros estadios. En este trabajo, se presenta la aplicación de un formato ter apéutico dirigido a estos fines desde una unidad de salud mental del sistema público de salud. A la luz de los primeros datos obtenidos, se sugiere que esta puede ser una nueva y efectiva manera de organizar tanto las intervenciones terapéuticas como la asistencia a la psicosis desde las unidades de salud mental

Neuroticism, education and self-assessed health in the general population of the United States: Can smoking behaviour explain the associations?

Contains fulltext : 55684.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)16 p