This study investigates persistent physical and neuropsychiatric symptoms in Long COVID, focusing on their severity and assessing risk/resilience factors, including conscientiousness and neuroticism. The study utilizes a mediation model to explore the potential role of psychological distress in mediating its impact on cognitive decline.

In an online survey, 114 participants diagnosed with Long COVID completed assessments, including the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) for psychological distress, Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) questionnaire for cognitive decline, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) for sleep disorders, and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) with "BIG-5 inventory" subscales for risk/resilience factors.

Findings showed high rates of depressive disorders (45.6%), generalized anxiety disorders (21%), sleep disturbances (76.3%), and reported cognitive changes (94.7%). Conscientiousness negatively correlated with psychological distress (p < .001, r = - .48) and cognitive decline (p < .001, r = - .36), while neuroticism positively correlated (p < .001, r = .62 and p < .001, r = .41, respectively). Social support negatively correlated with psychological distress (p < .001, r = - .52) and cognitive decline (p < .001, r = - .41). Psychological distress fully mediated personality traits and cognitive decline correlations, with significant full mediation for neuroticism [95% CI = (0.22, 0.48)] and conscientiousness [95% CI = (-0.33, -0.07)], controlling for age, gender, other chronic morbidity and social support.

The study underscores the significance of incorporating psychological interventions into treatment plans to alleviate distress symptoms associated with cognitive decline in conditions like Long COVID.

This paper aims to evaluate the literature on the prevalence of psychological distress and its associated factors in patients with breast cancer.

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, the Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang were searched from inception to 11 June 2024.

Studies reported data on the prevalence and correlates of psychological distress were included. Review, letter, conference abstracts and articles not available in English and Chinese were excluded.

Two researchers independently conducted literature screening, data extraction and bias risk assessment. Meta-analysis was employed to estimate the prevalence and correlates of psychological distress in patients with breast cancer. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale were used for quality assessment. Meta-analysis was performed by using the R V.4.1.1 software.

In total, 34 studies representing 13 828 patients with breast cancer were included in the study. Most of the studies were cross-sectional study (n=25, 73.53%%). The pooled prevalence of psychological distress was 50% (95% CI 42% to 58%, I2=98%). Results showed that psychological distress was positively correlated with younger age (z=0.13, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.20), having children (z=0.39, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.61), poor financial situation (z=0.12, 95% CI -0.03 to 0.26), short time since diagnosis (z=0.19, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.36), previous treatment (z=0.15, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.27), distant metastasis (z=0.31, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.52), chemotherapy (z=0.22, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.38), prior emotional status (z=0.40, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.50), body image damaged (z=0.10, 95% CI -0.01 to 0.21), negative coping (z=0.12, 95% CI -0.11 to 0.34), communication avoidance (z=0.32, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.39) and negatively correlated with married (z=-0.25, 95% CI 0.45 to -0.02), high education level (z=-0.19, 95% CI -0.40 to 0.05), having insured (z=-0.04, 95% CI -0.15 to 0.08), full employment (z=-0.40, 95% CI -0.61 to -0.14), time of completion of treatment (z=-0.12, 95% CI -0.30 to -0.06), surgery (z=-0.05, 95% CI -0.53 to 0.45), social support (z=-0.18, 95% CI -0.29 to -0.06), post-traumatic growth (z=-0.19, 95% CI -0.34 to -0.03), good physical conditions (z=-0.17, 95% CI -0.29 to -0.04), positive coping (z=-0.22, 95% CI -0.53 to 0.15).

Our findings indicated that the prevalence of psychological distress in patients with breast cancers was 50% and 21 correlates of psychological distress. Screening and evidence-based interventions are urgent and essential to address this public concern and promote the health of patients with breast cancer.

CRD42023397109.

Covid-19 has disrupted the lives of many and resulted in high prevalence rates of mental disorders. Despite a vast amount of research into the social determinants of mental health during Covid-19, little is known about whether the results are consistent with the social gradient in mental health. Here we report a systematic review of studies that investigated how socioeconomic condition (SEC)-a multifaceted construct that measures a person's socioeconomic standing in society, using indicators such as education and income, predicts emotional health (depression and anxiety) risk during the pandemic. Furthermore, we examined which classes of SEC indicators would best predict symptoms of emotional disorders.

Following PRISMA guidelines, we conducted search over six databases, including Scopus, PubMed, etc., between November 4, 2021 and November 11, 2021 for studies that investigated how SEC indicators predict emotional health risks during Covid-19, after obtaining approval from PROSPERO (ID: CRD42021288508). Using Covidence as the platform, 362 articles (324 cross-sectional/repeated cross-sectional and 38 longitudinal) were included in this review according to the eligibility criteria. We categorized SEC indicators into 'actual versus perceived' and 'static versus fluid' classes to explore their differential effects on emotional health.

Out of the 1479 SEC indicators used in these 362 studies, our results showed that 43.68% of the SEC indicators showed 'expected' results (i.e., higher SEC predicting better emotional health outcomes); 51.86% reported non-significant results and 4.46% reported the reverse. Economic concerns (67.16% expected results) and financial strains (64.16%) emerged as the best predictors while education (26.85%) and living conditions (30.14%) were the worst.

This review summarizes how different SEC indicators influenced emotional health risks across 98 countries, with a total of 5,677,007 participants, ranging from high to low-income countries. Our findings showed that not all SEC indicators were strongly predictive of emotional health risks. In fact, over half of the SEC indicators studied showed a null effect. We found that perceived and fluid SEC indicators, particularly economic concerns and financial strain could best predict depressive and anxiety symptoms. These findings have implications for policymakers to further understand how different SEC classes affect mental health during a pandemic in order to tackle associated social issues effectively.

The objectives were (1) to describe and compare headache-related clinical features between teleworkers with migraine and those with tension-type headache (TTH) and (2) to determine the association between coping strategies and headache frequency, and intensity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 284 teleworkers (127 with migraine and 157 with TTH). Sociodemographic data, information related to work factors, headache clinical features, coping strategies used during the COVID-19 pandemic, and headache-related clinical features were compared between headache profiles. Bivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine the association between coping strategies and headache frequency, and intensity.

Results showed that teleworkers with migraine had longer and more painful headache episodes than teleworkers with TTH (ps < 0.001). Higher migraine frequency was associated with the use of the denial coping strategy (p = 0.006) while lower migraine intensity was associated with planning (p = 0.046) and the use of positive reframing (p = 0.025). Higher TTH frequency was associated with the use of venting, self-blame, and behavioral disengagement (ps < 0.007) while higher TTH intensity was associated with substance use and behavioral disengagement (ps < 0.030). All associations remained significant after adjusting for BMI as a covariate.

Teleworkers with migraine had more intense and longer headache episodes than teleworkers with TTH. This could be explained by the fact that a greater proportion of individuals suffering from migraine experienced headaches prior to the beginning of the pandemic compared with teleworkers suffering from TTH. Regarding coping strategies, both primary headache profiles were associated with different types of coping strategies. Most of the coping strategies associated with headache frequency or intensity were maladaptive except for planning and positive reframing that were found to be inversely associated with migraine intensity.

Research suggests that changes in social support and loneliness have affected mental disorder symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are a lack of studies comparing the robustness of these associations.

The aims were to estimate the strength of the associations of loneliness and social support with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) in the general population.

The method entailed a systematic review and random-effects meta-analysis of quantitative studies.

Seventy-three studies were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled correlations of the effect size of the association of loneliness with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress were 0.49, 0.40, and 0.38, respectively. The corresponding figures for social support were 0.29, 0.19, and 0.18, respectively. Subgroup analyses revealed that the strength of some associations could be influenced by the sociodemographic characteristics of the study samples, such as age, gender, region, and COVID-19 stringency index, and by methodological moderators, such as sample size, collection date, methodological quality, and the measurement scales.

Social support had a weak association with mental disorder symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic while the association with loneliness was moderate. Strategies to address loneliness could be highly effective in reducing the impact of the pandemic on social relationships and mental health.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a major threat to the health and well-being of people around the world that has impacted freedom of movement, social interaction and the economy. The aim of the present work was twofold: first, to study the presence of mental distress, positive and negative experiences and affect balance in women and men in Spain in two different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initial "first state of alarm" phase, characterized by maximum restrictions, and in the "new normal" phase with minimal restrictions, and second, to study the protective role of age, educational level, self-esteem, marital status and social support against mental distress, and as factors that increase the affect balance of women and men in the above mentioned phases of the first wave of the COVID- 19 pandemic in Spain. The study sample consisted of 652 women and 652 men from the general population, aged between 18 and 88 years, who were evaluated through self-reports. Results show greater mental distress in women than men but, strikingly, the magnitude of such differences were greater in the "new normal" phase than in the maximum restriction phase. In addition, in this last phase, women also experienced more negative feelings and less affect balance than men. High self-esteem and social support were also found to be protective factors for mental health, both in women and men, during the two phases of the pandemic studied. In conclusion, our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has especially impacted the well-being of women.

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between attachment style, social support, and psychological distress (i.e., depression and anxiety) during the COVID-19 lockdown of the third wave in Israel. Specifically, we examined whether social support mediates the well-documented relationship between attachment style and psychological distress. Methods: An online survey was administered from 3 January to 6 February, 2021, while a strict lockdown was in place. The sample included 288 Israelis ranging between the ages of 18−78, recruited by snowball sampling. Psychological distress was evaluated by Patients Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder questionnaire (GAD-7); attachment style by the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-36), and social support by the Multi-dimensional Perceived Social Support (MSPSS). A mediation model was applied with social support mediating the association between attachment style and depression and anxiety. Results: Significant correlations were found between attachment style and psychological distress, and between social support and psychological distress. Social support partially mediated the associations between attachment style and psychological distress (Depression: p < 0.001, confidence interval [CI] = 0.4018, 1.7468; Anxiety: p < 0.001, confidence interval [CI] = 0.0493, 0.9822). These results remained the same while controlling for age. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the secure attachment style serves as a protective factor against psychological distress and vice versa; insecure attachment style serves as a risk factor for developing psychological distress during a peak period of COVID-19. Nevertheless, social support played a central role in the association between attachment style and psychological distress, thus, individuals with an insecure attachment may thus be helped by offering them social support during a crisis, which in turn may increase their well-being.

Research on the long-term mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across mental disorders is limited, and information on the impact of public health policy measures with varying strictness is missing. This study therefore aimed at investigating psychological distress among residents of Tyrol (Austria) and South Tyrol (Italy) at the early stages of the pandemic and 5 months thereafter and examined how sociodemographic, protective, and risk factors relate to change over time. One hundred and fifteen people with severe mental illness (SMI; schizophrenia spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder with psychotic features) or major depressive disorder without psychotic features (MDD) and 481 community controls without mental disorders participated in an online survey. Next to the collection of sociodemographic and COVID-19 related variables, the Brief Symptom Checklist, the Resilience Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the Three-Item Loneliness Scale, and the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale-Short Form were used to assess psychological distress, resilience, perceived social support, loneliness, and boredom. Levels of psychological symptoms and the prevalence of psychological distress were significantly higher in individuals with MDD compared to the other two groups, and Italian participants were more prone to anxiety than those from Austria. Psychological distress was predicted by a lower degree of both resilience and perceived social support as well as loneliness and boredom. Notably, the prevalence of clinically relevant psychological symptoms remained unchanged among each group over time. These results underscore the relevance of tailored prevention and mitigation strategies to meet the specific needs of people both with and without mental disorders.