Impacto de la pandemia de COVID-19 en la salud mental

The purpose of the present monograph is to provide a compilation of studies that demonstrate how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental health of various groups of the population in Iberoamerican countries. The nine articles of this special issue analyse subjects such as isolation due to confinement, post-traumatic stress derived from exposure to the coronavirus, the differences in the level of well-being according to social class, the increase of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation, the effect of the infection on psychological disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, the increase of anxiety symptoms and the resulting greater demand for psychological care, the effects of healthcare pressure on burnout experienced by healthcare workers, and the role of self-forgiveness and compassion in relation to personal growth and life satisfaction during the pandemic. In sum, this special issue is a sample of the scientific evidence on how this unusual crisis is affecting citizens' psychological health.El propósito del monográfico es presentar un compendio de estudios que muestran cómo la pandemia por la COVID-19 ha impactado la salud mental de diversos sectores de la población de países iberoamericanos. Nueve artículos analizan la soledad a causa del confinamiento, el estrés postraumático derivado de la exposición al coronavirus y sus consecuencias, las diferencias en el nivel de bienestar en función de la clase social, el incremento de la sintomatología depresiva y la ideación suicida, el impacto de la infección en trastornos psicológicos como el obsesivo compulsivo, el incremento de los síntomas de ansiedad y el aumento consecuente de la demanda de atención psicológica, la relación entre el ejercicio físico, pasear al perro y el estado afectivo durante el confinamiento, los efectos de la presión asistencial sobre el desgaste profesional de los trabajadores sanitarios y, finalmente, el papel del perdón a uno mismo y la compasión en relación al crecimiento personal y la satisfacción con la vida durante la pandemia. En suma, este número especial constituye una muestra de la evidencia científica acerca de cómo está afectando a la salud psicológica de la ciudadanía esta inusitada crisis

Relación entre las variables asociadas al trauma (disociación, culpa, evitación experiencial y síntomas de estrés postraumático) y su influencia en la salud percibida.

Introducción: Una experiencia traumática se define como un evento que supera la capacidad de una persona para responder a él. El trauma se ha asociado con una variedad de problemas psicológicos, entre los que destacan los síntomas de estrés postraumático, problemas de salud y una falta de bienestar percibido. Además, varios estudios han demostrado que otras variables están asociadas con la exposición al trauma y pueden tener un papel importante para explicar el desarrollo y el mantenimiento de los síntomas postraumáticos. Estas son: disociación, culpa y evitación experiencial. Conjuntamente, se han establecido diferencias de género en cada una de ellas. Sin embargo, no existen estudios que hayan considerado todas estas variables simultáneamente. Objetivos: Examinar la relación entre disociación, culpa, evitación experiencial y síntomas de estrés postraumático en un grupo de personas con historia de trauma y su influencia sobre su salud percibida. Además, comprobar si tales relaciones se modifican a través del género. Método: Se incluyó a un total de 903 participantes. La edad media fue de 22.25 (DT= 5.17) para la muestra total, 21.9 (DT= 4.5) para la muestra de la mujer y de 23.50 (DT= 6.92) para la muestra de los hombres. Se empleó un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales para poner a prueba las relaciones postuladas en el modelo hipotético, y se analizó este a través de un análisis multi-grupo (hombres y mujeres). Resultados: Los resultados dieron apoyo empírico al modelo hipotético, mostrando relaciones significativas entre las variables en ambos sexos. Sólo en los hombres, la asociación entre evitación experiencial y los síntomas postraumáticos no es significativa, pero el modelo final es significativamente equivalente entre género. Conclusiones: En conjunto, estos hallazgos arrojan luz sobre los factores que deben ser considerados cuando se desarrollan estrategias tanto preventivas como de tratamiento de personas que han vivido algún tipo de trauma.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Pain Interference, Resilience, and Perceived Well-Being During COVID-19: Differences Between Women With and Without Trauma Exposure Prior to the Pandemic

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in women with non-malignant chronic pain, and to determine whether women exposed to traumatic situations prior to the outbreak would be at a higher risk of negative health impacts.Methods: A total of 365 women were divided into three subgroups according to whether or not they had experienced a traumatic event prior to COVID-19. They completed an online survey.Results: Significant differences were found between groups during lockdown: 1) more psychological abuse was experienced by the group of women who had experienced an interpersonal traumatic event prior to the pandemic than in the other subgroups; 2) physical activity levels were higher and scores on pain interference were lower in women in the non-traumatized subgroup than in the other subgroups; 3) pain interference was predicted by pain intensity, decreased social support, and resilience, whereas perceived well-being was predicted by pain interference.Conclusion: Women who had experienced a traumatic event prior to the pandemic suffered worse consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown, particularly greater pain interference, although resilience was shown to both mitigate pain interference and enhance perceived well-being

Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Systems, and Emotional Regulation in Individuals With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory postulates two distinct neurophysiological systems that underlie thoughts, emotions, and behavior: the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and the Behavioral Approach System (BAS). Preliminary research suggests that both systems may play relevant roles in the adjustment of individuals with chronic pain. However, there is a lack of research on the extent to which emotional regulation (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) mediates the associations between BIS and BAS activation and emotional responses in individuals with chronic pain. The aim of this study was to test a model of the associations between the BIS and BAS, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, and positive and negative affect in individuals with chronic musculoskeletal pain. In total, 516 participants were interviewed. Structural Equation Modeling was used to estimate the associations between variables. The empirical model showed a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 1.95; RMSEA = 0.04; GFI = 0.99; AGFI = 0.98; CFI = 0.99). The hypothesized model received partial support. The BIS was associated with cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression; cognitive reappraisal was associated with negative and positive affect; expressive suppression was positively associated with affect; and the BAS was not associated with the emotional regulation strategies assessed. However, the BIS and BAS were both directly associated with negative and positive affect. The results suggest that individuals with chronic pain with higher BIS activation appear to use greater expressive suppression. Cognitive reappraisal strongly mediated the BIS-negative affect association. The results also suggest that BAS activation may have a weak or inconsistent association with emotional regulation approaches in individuals with chronic pain. These data provide new and relevant information on the potential role of the BIS and BAS as predictors of psychological functioning in individuals with chronic pain. They suggest that the BIS-BAS model of chronic pain may need to be modified to take into account the potential negative effects of BAS activation. The findings suggest that treatments for emotional regulation could potentially reduce the negative impact of chronic pain via BIS

El papel de las emociones en el patrón de secuenciación de actividades: un estudio experimental

People with chronic pain often change the way they carry out their daily activities according to different patterns, among which are pacing strategies. Cross-sectional studies on the association between pacing and affect show contradictory results. The study aim was to experimentally test whether the induction of positive affect vs negative affect would influence the choice of the type of pacing (pacing to increase productivity or pacing to reduce pain) when the participants were exposed to pain, while controlling for the variables optimism and catastrophism. The study participants comprised a sample of 145 undergraduates. The results of multinomial logistic regression showed that there was no association between the variables. Pacing is an intervention strategy in all chronic pain intervention models, and thus it is relevant to continue investigating the role of affect in relation to pacing.Las personas con dolor crónico cambian la forma de realizar las actividades cotidianas, diferenciándose diversos patrones, entre ellos, la secuenciación de actividades (pacing). La bibliografía acerca de la relación entre pacing y afecto muestran resultados contradictorios. El objetivo de este estudio fue contrastar experimentalmente, en una muestra de 145 estudiantes, si la inducción de afecto positivo vs negativo influía en la elección del tipo de “pacing” (“pacing para aumentar la productividad” y “pacing para reducir el dolor”) cuando los participantes eran expuestos a dolor, controlando las variables optimismo y catastrofismo. Los resultados de la regresión logística multinomial no mostraron relación entre las variables. El pacing es una estrategia de intervención presente en todos los modelos de intervención en dolor crónico y, por tanto, es relevante seguir profundizando acerca del rol del afecto en relación al mismo

Ancient Plasmodium genomes shed light on the history of human malaria

Malaria-causing protozoa of the genus Plasmodium have exerted one of the strongest selective pressures on the human genome, and resistance alleles provide biomolecular footprints that outline the historical reach of these species1. Nevertheless, debate persists over when and how malaria parasites emerged as human pathogens and spread around the globe1,2. To address these questions, we generated high-coverage ancient mitochondrial and nuclear genome-wide data from P. falciparum, P. vivax and P. malariae from 16 countries spanning around 5,500 years of human history. We identified P. vivax and P. falciparum across geographically disparate regions of Eurasia from as early as the fourth and first millennia bce, respectively; for P. vivax, this evidence pre-dates textual references by several millennia3. Genomic analysis supports distinct disease histories for P. falciparum and P. vivax in the Americas: similarities between now-eliminated European and peri-contact South American strains indicate that European colonizers were the source of American P. vivax, whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade probably introduced P. falciparum into the Americas. Our data underscore the role of cross-cultural contacts in the dissemination of malaria, laying the biomolecular foundation for future palaeo-epidemiological research into the impact of Plasmodium parasites on human history. Finally, our unexpected discovery of P. falciparum in the high-altitude Himalayas provides a rare case study in which individual mobility can be inferred from infection status, adding to our knowledge of cross-cultural connectivity in the region nearly three millennia ago.This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, grants BCS-2141896 and BCS-1528698; the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, grants 851511-MICROSCOPE (to S. Schiffels), 771234-PALEoRIDER (to W.H.) and starting grant 805268-CoDisEASe (to K.I.B.); and the ERC starting grant Waves ERC758967 (supporting K. Nägele and S.C.). We thank the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean for supporting M. Michel, E. Skourtanioti, A.M., R.A.B., L.C.B., G.U.N., N.S., V.V.-M., M. McCormick, P.W.S., C.W. and J.K.; the Kone Foundation for supporting E.K.G. and A.S.; and the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki for grants to E.K.G. A.S. thanks the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation, the Sigrid Jusélius Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Academy of Finland, the Life and Health Medical Foundation and the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. M.C.B. acknowledges funding from: research project PID2020-116196GB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; the Spanish Ministry of Culture; the Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation; Fundación Palarq; the EU FP7 Marie Curie Zukunftskolleg Incoming Fellowship Programme, University of Konstanz (grant 291784); STAR2-Santander Universidades and Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports; and CEI 2015 project Cantabria Campus Internacional. M.E. received support from the Czech Academy of Sciences award Praemium Academiae and project RVO 67985912 of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. This work has been funded within project PID2020-115956GB-I00 ‘Origen y conformación del Bronce Valenciano’, granted by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain, and grants from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (MZI187236), Research Nova Scotia (RNS 2023-2565) and The Center for Health Research in Developing Countries. D.K. is the Canada research chair in translational vaccinology and inflammation. R.L.K. acknowledges support from a 2019 University of Otago research grant (Human health and adaptation along Silk Roads, a bioarchaeological investigation of a medieval Uzbek cemetery). P.O. thanks the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Academy of Finland. S. Peltola received support from the Emil Aaltonen Foundation and the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation. D.C.S.-G. thanks the Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2019/061). E.W.K. acknowledges support from the DEEPDEAD project, HERA-UP, CRP (15.055) and the Horizon 2020 programme (grant 649307). M. Spyrou thanks the Elite program for postdocs of the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung. Open access funding provided by Max Planck Society

The behavioural inhibition system, behavioural activation system and experiential avoidance as explanatory variables of comorbid chronic pain and posttraumatic stress symptoms.

Background: The variables that underlie comorbid chronic pain and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are not yet clearly established. Objective: The aim of the present study was to analyse the role of the behavioural inhibition system (BIS), behavioural approach system (BAS) and experiential avoidance (EA) in pain adjustment (i.e. pain intensity, daily functioning and pain-related impairment) in patients with chronic pain and PTSS. Methods: A battery of instruments was administered to 388 chronic pain patients. The sample was divided into those with PTSS (n = 194) and those without PTSS (n =194). Results: Significant differences were found between groups in the BIS, EA, impairment and daily functioning. No differences were found between groups in the BAS. Structural equation modelling showed that the BIS and EA were associated with worse adjustment in the 194 patients with both chronic pain and PTSS. The BAS was associated with a lower level of pain and greater daily functioning. Conclusion: The findings provide evidence that BIS and BAS activation and EA play a role in adjustment to chronic pain in patients with concurrent PTSS. These results may help guide the development of psychological treatments for patients with both conditions

La relación entre competencias de trabajo en grupo y satisfacción con el aprendizaje basado en proyectos en función del grado universitario.

Ha habido un auge en el uso del aprendizaje basado en proyectos (ABP) en la educación superior. El éxito de esta metodología está relacionado con el nivel de satisfacción de los estudiantes y dicha satisfacción está asociada con las competencias de trabajo en grupo que presente el alumnado. Dado que existen diferentes grados y perfiles de estudiantes, la relación entre las competencias de trabajo en grupo y la satisfacción con el ABP puede variar entre diferentes grados universitarios. Este estudio tiene como objetivo examinar el efecto de moderación del grado universitario en la relación entre las competencias de trabajo en grupo y la satisfacción con el ABP en una muestra de estudiantes de diferentes grados universitarios. Un total de 328 estudiantes universitarios (Turismo, Trabajo Social, y Relaciones Laborales y Recursos Humanos) de la Universidad de Málaga participaron en el estudio. Se realizó un análisis de moderación mediante la macro de PROCESS (Modelo 1) para comprobar si la relación entre cada una de las dimensiones del Cuestionario para el Análisis de la Cooperación en Educación Superior y la satisfacción con el ABP estaba influenciada por el grado que cursaban los estudiantes. Los resultados mostraron un mayor efecto de la planificación del trabajo de grupo por los profesores sobre la satisfacción con el ABP en el grado de Turismo; mientras que el efecto de los criterios para la organización de los grupos y las normas de grupo tuvo un mayor efecto sobre la satisfacción con el ABP en el grado de Trabajo Social. Estos resultados muestran diferencias en la relación entre la actitud hacia las competencias del trabajo en grupo en función del grado universitario. Las asignaturas universitarias que incorporen ABP deberían considerar la influencia de las competencias de trabajo en grupo en la satisfacción de los estudiantes con este tipo de metodología, planteando instaurar estas habilidades de manera diferencial entre los distintos grados universitarios.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

El papel de las emociones en el patrón de secuenciación de actividades: un estudio experimental.

People with chronic pain often change the way they carry out their daily activities according to different patterns, among which are pac-ing strategies. Cross-sectional studies on the association between pacing and affect show contradictory results. The study aim was to experimentally test whether the induction of positive affect vs negative affect would influ-ence the choice of the type of pacing (pacing to increase productivity or pacing to reduce pain) when the participants were exposed to pain, while controlling for the variables optimism and catastrophism. The study partic-ipants comprised a sample of 145 undergraduates. The results of multino-mial logistic regression showed that there was no association between the variables. Pacing is an intervention strategy in all chronic pain intervention models, and thus it is relevant to continue investigating the role of affect in relation to pacing.Las personas con dolor crónico cambian la forma de realizar las actividades cotidianas, diferenciándose diversos patrones, entre ellos, la se-cuenciación de actividades (pacing). La bibliografía acerca de la relación en-tre pacing y afecto muestran resultados contradictorios. El objetivo de este estudio fue contrastar experimentalmente, en una muestra de 145 estudian-tes, si la inducción de afecto positivo vs negativo influía en la elección del tipo de “pacing” (“pacing para aumentar la productividad” y “pacing para re-ducir el dolor”) cuando los participantes eran expuestos a dolor, controlan-do las variables optimismo y catastrofismo. Los resultados de la regresión logística multinomial no mostraron relación entre las variables. El pacing es una estrategia de intervención presente en todos los modelos de interven-ción en dolor crónico y, por tanto, es relevante seguir profundizando acer-ca del rol del afecto en relación al mismo

Chronic pain in the time of COVID-19: Stress aftermath and central sensitization.

The COVID-19 crisis is a significant stressor worldwide. The physical and emotional condition of individuals with pain sensitization syndromes who are experiencing the pandemic may worsen. This study investigated the contribution of life changes due to the coronavirus to emotional distress in individuals with a diagnosis of chronic central sensitization pain and tested whether the associations between level of pain and sensitization were independent of or mediated by emotional distress. Spanish individuals with chronic pain (N = 362) completed an online survey on direct or indirect exposure to the consequences of COVID-19, pain intensity, and emotional distress. They also completed central sensitization questionnaires. An association was found between changes in daily routines and pain intensity, emotional distress, and sensitization scores. Correlations were found between emotional distress, sensitization, and pain intensity. Significant predictors of emotional distress were age, difficulty in receiving medical care, changes in daily routines, and diminished social support. Emotional distress did not mediate the association between sensitization and pain intensity. Due to the COVID-19 situation, individuals with central sensitization pain syndromes may be at higher risk of developing psychological distress. Interdisciplinary interventions involving psychologists are urgently needed to provide this population with appropriate health care