Interrelationships among attachment style, personality traits, interpersonal competency, and Facebook use

Online social media has become a popular way to communicate and develop interpersonal relationships. Facebook use in particular has become an important topic for researchers and clinicians, as young adults are increasingly integrating this use into their daily lives and social behavior. As empirical work on the personality traits and interpersonal competency associated with use and the potential consequences of use on social behavior is still emerging, the present study sought to investigate the interrelationships among constructs relevant to the developmental tasks associated with emerging adulthood, including adult attachment style, Five Factor Model personality traits, interpersonal competency, and Facebook use. Using data collected from 617 emerging adults in college, we utilized structural equation modeling to develop a model explaining the interrelationships among the constructs under study in order to further the research in this area. Results yielded a well-fitting model that explained the interrelationships among these latent constructs in the data, which suggested that insecure attachment had direct and positive effects on neuroticism, direct and negative effects on extraversion, direct and negative effects on interpersonal competency, and indirect effects on Facebook use. In addition, only extraversion and not neuroticism was related to interpersonal competency and Facebook use, when first accounting for attachment style. Interestingly, interpersonal competency did not seem to play a prominent mediating role between these personality traits and Facebook use. These results highlight the role of attachment style, and its importance in both developing personality traits, interpersonal skills, and online social behavior, which aligns well with the attachment theory framework. Lastly, we discussed future directions for research, as well as theoretical and practice implications for psychologists

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase 1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age  6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score  652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc = 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N = 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in Asia and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701