When Support Seeking Backfires: Co-Rumination, Excessive Reassurance Seeking, and Depressed Mood in the Daily Lives of Young Adults

Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer must negotiate the transition between childhood and adulthood while dealing with a life-threatening illness. AYA involvement in decision making varies depending on the type of decision and when decisions occur during treatment, and evidence suggests that AYAs want to be involved in decision making. Objective: To explore involvement of AYAs with cancer in day-to-day decisions affected by their cancer and treatment. Methods: This qualitative study used interpretive focused ethnography within the sociologic tradition, informed by symbolic interactionism. Semi-structured interviews and informal participant observation took place at two quaternary pediatric oncology programs. Results: Thirty-one interviews were conducted with 16 AYAs ages 15 to 20 years. Major day to day decision-making categories identified included: (1) mental mindset, (2) self-care practices, (3) self-advocacy, and (4) negotiating relationships. Participants described how they came to grips with their illness early on and decided to fight their cancer. They described decisions they made to protect their health, how they advocated for themselves and decisions they made about relationships with family and friends. Conclusions: Through day-to-day decisions, participants managed the impact of cancer and its treatment on their daily lives. Research should focus on developing and implementing interventions to empower AYAs to participate in day-to-day decisions that will affect how they manage their cancer, its treatment and ultimately their outcomes. Implications for Practice: Healthcare providers can facilitate AYA's participation in day-to-day decision making through encouraging autonomy and self-efficacy by providing support and through effective communication.

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Sleep Patterns and Affect Dynamics Among College Students during COVID-19 Pandemic (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.33964 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zahra Mousavi ◽

Jocelyn Lai ◽

Katharine Simon ◽

Alexander P. Rivera ◽

Asal Yunusova ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Young Adults ◽

Longitudinal Design ◽

Sleep Onset ◽

Sleep Time ◽

Sleep Onset Latency ◽

Sleep Patterns ◽

Daily Lives ◽

Affect Dynamics

BACKGROUND Sleep disturbance is a transdiagnostic risk factor so prevalent among young adults it is considered a public health epidemic, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sleep may contribute to mental health via affect dynamics. Prior literature on contribution of sleep to affect is largely based on correlational studies or experiments that do not generalize to the daily lives of young adults. Furthermore, the literature examining the associations between sleep variability and affect dynamics remains scant. OBJECTIVE In an ecologically valid context, using an intensive longitudinal design, we aimed to assess the daily and long-term associations between sleep patterns and affect dynamics among young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS College student participants (N=20, 65% female) wore an Oura ring continuously for 3-months to measure sleep patterns, such as average and variability in total sleep time (TST), wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep efficiency (SE), and sleep onset latency (SOL), resulting in 1173 unique observations. We administered a daily ecological momentary assessment (EMA) using a mobile health app to evaluate positive (PA) and negative affect (NA), and COVID-worry once per day. RESULTS Participants with higher SOL and TST on the prior day had lower PA the next day. Further, higher average TST across the 3-month period predicted lower average PA. TST variability predicted higher affect variability across all affect domains. CONCLUSIONS Fluctuating sleep patterns are associated with affect dynamics at daily and long-term scales. Low PA and affect variability may be potential pathways through which sleep has implications for mental health.

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An Experimental Investigation of Factors Involved in Excessive Reassurance Seeking: The Effects of Perceived Threat, Responsibility and Ambiguity on Compulsive Urges and Anxiety

Journal of Experimental Psychopathology ◽

10.5127/jep.011110 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 44-62 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Chris L. Parrish ◽

Adam S. Radomsky

Keyword(s):

Experimental Investigation ◽

Perceived Threat ◽

Reassurance Seeking ◽

Excessive Reassurance Seeking

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An integrative model of excessive reassurance seeking and negative feedback seeking in the development and maintenance of depression

Clinical Psychology Review ◽

10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.014 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 31 (8) ◽

pp. 1291-1303 ◽

Cited By ~ 41

Author(s):

Lyndsay E. Evraire ◽

David J.A. Dozois

Keyword(s):

Negative Feedback ◽

Integrative Model ◽

Feedback Seeking ◽

Reassurance Seeking ◽

Excessive Reassurance Seeking

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Bilingualism and cognition: A focus on mechanisms

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728914000698 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 47-50 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

VIRGINIA VALIAN

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Executive Function ◽

Executive Functions ◽

List Type ◽

Type Number ◽

Old People ◽

Daily Lives ◽

Different Types ◽

Children And Young Adults ◽

Underlying Mechanisms

The goal of my keynote article, “Bilingualism and Cognition” (Valian, 2014), was to resolve the inconsistencies in effects of bilingualism on executive functions, whether the individuals were children, young adults, or old people. To summarize (and sharpen) my argument: 1.Especially in children and young adults, benefits of bilingualism for executive functions are not reliable. In old people, there are benefits for executive functions but contradictory results on delay of cognitive impairment, depending on whether studies are retrospective or prospective.2.All experiences that have benefits for executive functions and aging – and there are many – yield inconsistent effects. Bilingualism is not alone.3.Three reasons for inconsistencies in bilingualism and other experiences are: a.Executive function and cognitive reserve are broad cover terms for a variety of mechanisms, most of which are ill-understood. Because we mean different things by ‘executive function’ from one experiment to the next, we can both think we don't have an effect when we do and think we have an effect when we don’t.b.Tasks are impure: apparently similar tasks measure different aspects of executive function and measure other aspects of cognition as well. Because we lack a good analysis of tasks, we too often do not know what we are measuring. I encourage readers to examine the demos in the supplementary materials of the keynote article to see for themselves what the tasks are like.c.Individuals engage in many different activities that may be on a par with bilingualism in their benefits.4.Different types of bilingual experience are unlikely to explain the variability of findings, given the inconsistencies in extant data on varieties of bilingualism.5.There is a benefit of bilingualism, but bilingualism competes with other sources of benefits. Especially for children and young adults, whose daily lives are full of cognitively enriching and challenging experiences, we should expect variability in effects of being bilingual.6.The way forward is to focus on underlying mechanisms.

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