scholarly journals Network study of responses to unusualness and psychological stress during the COVID-19 outbreak in Korea

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0246894
Author(s):  
Seunghyong Ryu ◽  
In-Hoo Park ◽  
Mina Kim ◽  
Yu-Ri Lee ◽  
Jonghun Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Stress ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
Local Network ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Correlation Networks ◽  
Negative Edge ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Psychosocial Responses ◽  
Global And Local

The dramatic changes in people’s daily lives caused by the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have had a huge impact on their emotions and behaviors. This study aimed to examine psychosocial responses to COVID-19 using network analysis. A total of 1,500 urban residents of South Korea, selected from an online public panel, were surveyed using self-rating questionnaires addressing daily life changes, fear of infection, and distress related to COVID-19. Participants also completed a 10-item Perceived Stress Scale survey. We constructed regularized partial correlation networks, estimated global and local network metrics, tested network accuracy and stability, and compared the estimated networks between men and women. The network of the psychosocial responses consisted of 24 nodes that were classified into five groups: ‘fear of infection’, ‘difficulty with outside activities’, ‘economic loss’, ‘altered eating and sleeping’, and ‘adaptive stress’. The node centralities indicated that ‘distress in obtaining daily necessities’ and ‘concern about harming others’ were the most important issues in people’s responses to COVID-19. These nodes were connected by a negative edge, reflecting individual- and community-level issues, respectively. The overall level of perceived stress was linked to the network by the connection node ‘anger toward others or society’, which was associated with economic problems in men, but with distress from changes in daily activities in women. The results suggest that two contrasting feelings—personal insecurity regarding basic needs and a collectivistic orientation—play roles in the response to unusual experiences and distress due to COVID-19. This study also showed that public anger could arise from the psychological stress under the conditions imposed by COVID-19.

scholarly journals COVID-19 Barometer: Social Opinion – What Do the Portuguese Think in This Time of COVID-19?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Ana Rita Pedro ◽  
Ana Gama ◽  
Patrícia Soares ◽  
Marta Moniz ◽  
Pedro A. Laires ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Services ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The People ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Continue Monitoring

The COVID-19 pandemic brought new challenges to the global community, reinforcing the role of public health in society. The main measures to combat it had (and still have) a huge impact on the daily lives of citizens. This investigation aimed to identify and monitor the population’s perceptions about how it faced this period and the impact on health, well-being, and daily life. In this study, we describe the main trends observed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of mental health status, confidence in the capacity of the health services to respond to the pandemic, and the use of health services by participants. The online survey collected responses from 171,947 individuals ≥16 years of age in Portugal, over a period of 15 weeks that started on 21 March 2020. Participants could fill the questionnaire once or weekly, which enabled us to analyse trends and variations in responses. Overall, 81% of the respondents reported having felt agitated, anxious, or sad during the COVID-19 pandemic; 19% did not experience these feelings. During the confinement period, the proportion of participants feeling agitated, anxious, or sad every day/almost every day ranged between 20 and 30%, but since the deconfinement this proportion decreased. Around 30% reported having more difficulty getting to sleep or to sleep all night; 28.4% felt more agitated; 25.5% felt sadder, discouraged, or cried more easily; and 24.7% felt unable to do everything they had to do, women more frequently than men. Overall, 65.8% of the participants reported feeling confident or very confident in the health services’ capacity to respond to the challenges associated with the pandemic, and this confidence increased over time. Concerning the people who needed a consultation, 35.6% had one in person and 20.8% had one remotely, but almost 44% did not have one due to cancellation by the service (27.2%) or their own decision not to go (16.3%). At this unusual time in which we find ourselves and based on our findings, it is essential to continue monitoring how the population is facing the different phases of the pandemic until it officially ends. Analysing the effects of the pandemic from the point of view of citizens allows for anticipating critical trends and can contribute to preventative action.

Is Turkey ready for the Post COVID-19 World Order?

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Summer 2021) ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
Bora Bayraktar
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Region ◽  
World Order ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 outbreak has had a huge impact on the global economy and politics. Closures and lockdowns stopped international trade resulting in an economic slowdown. It has changed the daily lives of people and the way business takes place. Politics has also been affected by the pandemic. Discussions about the changing world order have gained a new dimension and momentum. In this article, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in international relations is analyzed. Has COVID-19 triggered a change in the world order? If it has, what are the nature, scope, and content of this change? As a rising regional power in the Eastern Mediterranean region, how has Turkey been affected by this, and how did it respond to the changing situation? Signs of deteriorating world order, declining U.S. leadership, escalating geopolitical competition amongst global powers were in the air before the pandemic. Turkey’s adaptation to this new world order pre-dates the pandemic, when it changed its political system, and invested in its security and cohesion.

scholarly journals Propensity-score-matched Evaluation of Psychological Stress and Hair Cortisol among People Living with HIV in China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Chen ◽  
Cheng-Bo Zeng ◽  
Shuai-Feng Liu ◽  
Xiao-Ming Li ◽  
Shan Qiao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Propensity Score ◽  
Psychological Stress ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Cortisol Level ◽  
Stress Level ◽  
People Living With Hiv ◽  
Hair Cortisol ◽  
Mental Resilience ◽  
Living With Hiv

Abstract To compare the psychological stress level and hair cortisol level of people living with HIV (PLWH) with those without HIV. A total of 220 subjects were initially enrolled in the study, including 20 subjects living without HIV and 200 PLWH. Psychological stress level, including quality of life, anxiety, perceived stress and mental resilience, was self-reported in both groups with related scales. The cortisol in hair were extracted and assessed by LC-APCI-MS/MS method. Propensity score matching analysis was performed to balance the baseline covariates of the two groups, whereas the difference in psychological stress level and hair cortisol level between the two groups were compared. Furthermore, the associations between psychological stress level and cortisol level were examined. Two comparison groups were matched by 1:3 propensity score matching, which yield 20 subjects living without HIV and 60 PLWH. Ultimately, in regarding to the psychological stress, the levels of the anxiety, perceived stress and mental resilience were higher among PLWH than those living without HIV, but the people without HIV showed higher quality of life. The hair cortisol level in PLWH was higher than those living without HIV. However, there were no significant associations between psychological stress level and cortisol level. The PLWH showed higher level of psychological stress and cortisol than those without HIV. No relationship was seen between psychological stress level and cortisol level in PLWH.

scholarly journals Carrying the Burden Into the Pandemic – Effects of Social Disparities on Elementary Students’ Parents’ Perception of Supporting Abilities and Emotional Stress During the COVID-19 Lockdown

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Vogelbacher ◽  
Manja Attig
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Stress ◽  
Emotional Stress ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Home Schooling ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
School Closure ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Process Characteristics

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges, especially for families. Both the public and the scientific community are currently discussing the extent to which school closings have worsened existing social differences, especially with regard to children’s academic and socio-emotional development. At the same time, parents have had to manage childcare and home schooling alongside their jobs and personal burdens posed by the pandemic. Parents’ possibilities for meeting these cognitive and emotional challenges might also depend on the different conditions in families. For this reason, the present paper investigates the structural and process characteristics of the family as well as children’s and parents’ psychological characteristics that predict how parents assess their ability to support their child’s learning during homeschooling as well as parents’ perceived emotional stress caused by school closure. The study analyses data of the Newborn Cohort Study of the German National Educational Panel Study. The two dependent variables (self-assessment of abilities, perceived stress) were measured during the COVID-19 pandemic after the first school closure in Germany, at a time when the children of this cohort were attending second grade. Besides a number of control variables (including the child’s struggle with home schooling), families’ structural characteristics [socioeconomic status (SES), education], process characteristics (home learning environment, HLE), parents’ psychological characteristics (preceding psychological stress), and the child’s psychological characteristics (self-regulation, school-related independence) from earlier waves were included as predictors. The results of structural equation models show that perceived stress was associated with structural factors and the preceding psychological stress of parents. Parents with higher preceding stress reported higher perceived stress. Interestingly, higher-educated parents also reported more stress than lower educated parents during the pandemic. The effect was the other way around for SES – parents with lower SES reported more stress than parents with higher SES. The self-reported abilities to support the learning of the child seemed to be mainly predicted by the parent’s education as well as preceding psychological stress. To sum up, the results identify important aspects that determine how parents handle the challenges of the school closures. Especially, socially disadvantaged families carry their burden into the pandemic.

scholarly journals Effects of psychological stress on skin and hair pigmentation in Polish adolescents

2012 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneta Sitek ◽  
Elżbieta Żądzińska ◽  
Iwona Rosset
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Stress ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Skin Pigmentation ◽  
Hormonal Contraceptives ◽  
Hair Pigmentation ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Reported Study ◽  
Polish Adaptation ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Skin Tanning

Abstract The effects of psychological stress, gender and age on hair and skin pigmentation levels were evaluated in the reported study. The material included Polish high-school and university students aged 18-22 (in the age range 17.50-22.49). All subjects who had sunbathed or used tanning beds or lamps, skin tanning agents, tanning extenders and/or medical agents affecting skin pigmentation during the 60 days preceding the beginning of the study were excluded. The use of hormonal contraceptives within a month prior to the study was also an excluding factor. Stress levels were evaluated by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) in the Polish adaptation, while hair and skin pigmentation levels were assessed with a dermaspectrometer (Cortex Technology®, Denmark, 2007). The study was carried out with the exclusion of the summer period. Skin pigmentation was evaluated in 395 subjects (264 women and 131 men). Hair pigmentation was analyzed in a smaller group of 351 subjects (223 women and 128 men), as some had had their hair dyed within 12 months prior to the study while in some others the hair was too short to be correctly measured. Regardless of their age, the studied women felt much more stress related to their life situation and were characterized by stronger skin pigmentation than the examined men. No sex differences were identified with regard to hair pigmentation. In the studied period of ontogenesis (18-22 years of age), hair pigmentation levels increased with age, while skin melanization remained stable. Disregarding the effects of age and sex, the level of perceived stress was negatively correlated with skin pigmentation levels; no such relationship was found for hair melanization.

The Effect of Tai Chi on Biomarkers of Psychological Stress, Perceived Stress, and Coping Styles

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 408-409
Author(s):  
Ming Chyu ◽  
Jacalyn J. Robert-McComb ◽  
Caelyn C. Del Rosario ◽  
Reid Norman ◽  
Anna Tacon
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Stress ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Tai Chi ◽  
Coping Styles ◽  
Stress And Coping ◽  
And Coping

scholarly journals Using blockchain technology to ensure information security

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. P. Kostyuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Security ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Financial Services Industry ◽  
Maritime Industry ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Traditional Industry

Blockchain technology is becoming one of the main drivers of innovation in the global economy. Its implementation will have a huge impact on how businesses and governments operate and on how people organize their daily lives. The financial services industry is currently under the greatest impact of the blockchain revolution, and financial institutions are among the earliest users of the technology. At the same time, the maritime industry, as a fairly traditional industry, does not yet have many examples of blockchain applications, but this technology can significantly change this industry.

scholarly journals Dentine sensitivity risk factors: A case–control study

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (01) ◽  
pp. 001-006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina Mafla ◽  
Luis Fernando Lopez-Moncayo
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Psychological Stress ◽  
Perceived Stress ◽  
Oral Hygiene ◽  
Case Control Study ◽  
Case Control ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Psychological Risk Factors ◽  
Psychological Risk ◽  
Control Study

ABSTRACT Objective: To identify the clinical and psychological risk factors associated with dentine hypersensitivity (DH) in order to provide an early diagnosis and preventive therapy. Materials and Methods: A nested case–control study was design between 2011 and 2012. A total of 61 DH cases and 122 controls participated in this investigation. Cases and controls were matched for sex, group of age and socioeconomic status in a ratio of 1:2. DH to different stimuli such as cold, heat, acid, and sweet was asked in patient interviews, and dental examinations were used to detect DH. Clinical and psychological risk factors such as dental hygiene, periodontal disease, acid diet, alcohol consumption, psychological stress, and psychopathological symptoms were inquired. Psychological stress was measured through the PSS-10 and psychopathological symptoms were evaluated by SCL-90-R in Spanish. Descriptive and univariate binary logistic regression analysis were performed to estimate the association between clinical and psychological risk factors and the presence of DH. Results: Toothpaste abrasivity (odds ratio [OR] 1.881, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.010–3.502, P = 0.045), gingival recession (OR 2.196, 95% CI 1.020–4.728, P = 0.041), and periodontal therapy (OR 5.357, 95% CI 2.051–13.993, P < 0.001) were associated with DH. Subjects with perceived stress (OR 1.211, 95%, CI 0.518–2.833, P = 0.658), obsessive-compulsive (OR 1.266, 95%, CI 0.494–3.240, P = 0.623) and hostility (OR 1.235, 95%, CI 0.507–3.007, P = 0.642) symptoms had a clinical greater odd of DH. Conclusion: Oral hygiene products and periodontal conditions are important risk factors for DH. Individuals with perceived stress, obsessive-compulsive, and hostility symptoms may increase a clinical risk for this entity. Targeting to dental counseling focused on oral hygiene products, periodontal therapy and a psychological evaluation may be promising in DH prevention.

Monitoring Depression Trend on Twitter during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Observational Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yipeng Zhang ◽  
Hanjia Lyu ◽  
Yubao Liu ◽  
Xiyang Zhang ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
The United States ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Fusion Model ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Depression Level ◽  
Sleep Talking ◽  
Big Events

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected people’s daily lives and caused tremendous economic loss worldwide. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the pandemic has increased the depression level among the population. However, systematic studies of depression detection and monitoring during the depression are lacking. OBJECTIVE This study aims (1) to develop a method to accurately identify people with depression by analyzing their tweets and (2) to monitor the population-wise depression level on Twitter. METHODS To study this subject, we design an effective regular expression-based search method and create by far the largest English Twitter depression dataset containing 2,575 distinct identified depression users (N=2,575) with their past tweets. To examine the effect of depression on people’s Twitter language, we train three transformer-based depression classification models on the dataset, evaluate their performance with progressively increased training sizes, and compare the model’s “tweet chunk”-level and user-level performances. Furthermore, inspired by psychological studies, we create a fusion classifier that combines deep learning model scores with psychological text features and users’ demographic information and investigate these features’ relations to depression signals. Finally, we demonstrate our model’s capability of monitoring both group-level and population-level depression trends by presenting two of its applications during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS Our fusion model demonstrates an accuracy of 78.9% on a test set containing 446 people (N=446), half of which are identified as suffering from depression. Conscientiousness, neuroticism, appearance of first-person pronouns, talking about biological processes such as eat and sleep, talking about power, and exhibiting sadness are shown to be important features in depression classification. Further, when used for monitoring the depression trend, our model shows that depressive users, in general, respond to the pandemic later than the control group based on their tweets. It is also shown that three states of the United States - New York (NY), California (CA), and Florida (FL) - share a similar depression trend as the whole US population. When compared to NY and CA, people in FL demonstrate a significantly lower level of depression. CONCLUSIONS This study proposes an efficient method that can be used to analyze the depression level of different groups of people on Twitter. We hope this study can raise awareness among researchers and the general public of COVID-19’s impact on people’s mental health. The non-invasive monitoring system can also be rapidly adapted to other big events besides COVID-19 and might be useful during future outbreaks.

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