scholarly journals The psychological impact of COVID-19 on people suffering from dysfunctional eating behaviours: a linguistic analysis of the contents shared in an online community during the lockdown

Author(s):  
Gaia Albano ◽  
Rubinia Celeste Bonfanti ◽  
Salvatore Gullo ◽  
Laura Salerno ◽  
Gianluca Lo Coco

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread several months ago from China and it is now a global pandemic. The experience of lockdown has been an undesirable condition for people with mental health problems, including eating disorders. The present study has the aim of understanding the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with selfreported disordered eating behaviours. A linguistic analysis was carried out with regard to the online posts and comments published by 1971 individuals (86% women) in a Facebook online community focusing on EDs during the lockdown. A total of 244 posts and 3603 comments were collected during the 56 days of lockdown (from the 10th of March until the 4th of May 2020) in Italy and were analysed by Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. The results showed that words related to peer support decreased in posts over time, and that anxiety and anger increased in the published comments. Moreover, greater feelings of negativity and anxiety were found in posts and comments throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as lesser use of words related to positive emotions. Thematic qualitative analysis revealed eight themes that described the main subjective components of ED symptomatology and distress during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The current findings can help in delivering tailored treatments to people with eating disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 ◽  
pp. 135910452098077
Author(s):  
Melissa Hart ◽  
Kirrilly Pursey ◽  
Carmel Smart

Dietary intake requires attention in the treatment of both eating disorders and type 1 diabetes (T1D) to achieve optimal outcomes. Nutritional management of both conditions involves encouraging a wide variety of healthful foods in the context of usual cultural and family traditions. In recent times, low carbohydrate diets have seen a rise in popularity, both in T1D and in the general population. Low carbohydrate diets involve dietary restriction, although the extent depends on the level of carbohydrate prescription. Although dietary restriction is a known risk factor for eating disorders, there is limited literature on the impact of following a low carbohydrate diet on the development and maintenance of eating disorders in T1D. The aim of this review is to discuss the impact of dietary restriction on the development and treatment of eating disorders and propose considerations to enable optimum health outcomes in individuals with T1D, an at risk group. In order to achieve this, clarity regarding strategies that allow both flexibility in dietary intake and facilitate healthy eating behaviours, whilst achieving glycaemic targets, are required.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Petrocchi ◽  
Annalisa Levante ◽  
Federica Bianco ◽  
Ilaria Castelli ◽  
Flavia Lecciso

The present study focused on the psychological impact that the lockdown due to coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) had on families in Italy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government imposed a strict lockdown for all citizens. People were forced to stay at home, and the length of the lockdown was uncertain. Previous studies analyzed the impact of social distance measures on individuals' mental health, whereas few studies have examined the interplay between the adults' functioning, as parents, during this period and the association with the child's adjustment. The present study tested if maternal distress/coping predicts children's behaviors during the COVID-19 lockdown, hypothesizing a mediation effect via children's emotional experience. Participants were 144 mothers (Mage = 39.3, 25–52, SD = 5.6) with children aged 5–10 years (Mage = 7.54, SD = 1.6, 82 boys); mothers answered to an online survey. Results indicated that mothers with higher exposure to COVID-19 showed higher levels of distress and higher display of coping attitudes, even if in the structural equation modeling model, the COVID-19 exposure was not a predictor of mothers' distress. Compared with mothers with good coping skills, mothers with higher stress levels were more likely to attribute negative emotions to their children at the expense of their positive emotions. Moreover, children's emotions acted as mediators between maternal distress/coping and children's adaptive/maladaptive behaviors. In conclusion, it is important to support parents during pandemic emergence, by providing them with adequate information to manage the relationship with their children, to reduce their level of distress and to enhance their coping abilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Oliveira ◽  
Aíssa Baldé ◽  
Marta Madeira ◽  
Teresa Ribeiro ◽  
Patrícia Arriaga

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has quickly swept the globe leaving a devastating trail of lost human lives and leading to a public health and economic crisis. With this in mind, prosociality has been heralded as a potential important factor to overcome the negative effects of the pandemic. As such, in this study, we examined the effectiveness of a brief reflexive writing exercise about recent experiences of gratitude on individuals’ intentions to engage in prosocial behaviors using a sample of 253 participants living in Portugal and 280 participants living in Brazil. Participants were randomly assigned to either a condition in which they were asked to write about recent experiences of gratitude or a control group in which they were asked to write about daily tasks. We predicted that the gratitude intervention would increase state gratitude and, consequently, increase positive affect and empathic concern, and decrease negative affect, leading to increased intentions to engage in prosocial behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. A moderated serial–parallel mediation analysis, in which we controlled for gender, age, and level of religiosity, indicated that our manipulation led to increases in state gratitude, which in turn increased positive emotions and empathic concern, leading to increased prosocial intentions in both countries. A content analysis of participants’ responses in the gratitude group revealed that relationships with others and health and well-being were the central themes of their gratitude experiences during the COVID-19 global pandemic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 640-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Gandino ◽  
Giulia Di Fini ◽  
Antonella Bernaudo ◽  
Marcello Paltrinieri ◽  
Marco Castiglioni ◽  
...  

Perinatal loss has a strong emotional impact on health professionals working in maternity units. We aimed to study the impact of this experience on health professionals’ language. We analyzed the answers of 162 health professionals (physicians and non-medical staff) who described their reactions to perinatal loss. A linguistic analysis was performed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. Associations between language and burnout were studied. Words typical of a psychological shock reaction were used more by non-medical staff than by physicians. Participants who used pronouns, optimistic words, future tense verbs, and cognitive words registered lower levels of burnout. Clinical implications of the results are discussed.


Author(s):  
Farzana Kausar ◽  
Dr. Wajid Zulqarnain

After the 9/11 incident in the United States, a hatred gap arose between the Americans and Americans Muslims. Many Muslim stand-up comedians started their efforts to decrease this tension through humorous performances and comic screenplays. Also, Muslim comedians are neutralizing negative social discrimination between Muslims and another world to reduce the impact of Islamophobia in the world. The purpose of the study is to examine the part of Muslim comedians and the sentiments of the listeners about their stand-up humor videos. This study is the qualitative content analysis of comments on videos of two American Muslim comedians Negin Farsad and Obeidallah Dean. For data analysis, Linguistic Inquiry & Word Count (LIWC) used to analyses the positive emotions, negative emotions, and emotional tone. Findings exhibit that Muslim comedians are playing a critical part to assist the Muslim community handle with the effect of Islamophobia. The study also investigated that Muslim stand-up comedians are contributing to lessen the stereotyping discernments and disliked comments about Muslim identity globally. It is concluded that comedy has also helped in comforting the audiences that Arab and Muslims are not unpatriotic and adversarial to the United States or to another world.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salma S. Al Sharhan ◽  
Mohammed H. Al Bar ◽  
Abdulmalik S. AlSaied ◽  
Abdulaziz S. ALEnazi ◽  
Hussain J. Aljubran ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: As a consequence of the COVID-19 global pandemic, otolaryngology residents are at high risk due to the nature of the specialty and long work hours. Moreover, COVID-19 could have a severe impact on residents from different frontline specialties, particularly otolaryngology. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first nationwide survey providing insights into the impact of COVID-19 on otolaryngology residents.Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted among all otolaryngology training centers of Saudi Arabia to investigate the extent of the impact of COVID-19 on otolaryngology residents and the learning process.Results: A total of 152 residents were contacted to participate in the study, and 101 participants were included after successfully completing the questionnaire. The mean age of the participants was 28.12 years (S.D. = 1.89, max = 36, min = 25). There has been a significant impact on outpatient clinics, elective operations, consultations, and working hours. Also, we evaluated the impact on academic training activities, the frequency of training activities per week, and the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on otolaryngology residents as well.Conclusion: COVID-19 has had a serious impact on residents both physically and mentally; otolaryngology residents have been hit especially hard by this emergency pandemic period. Trainees suffered from excessive worries regarding clinical training, specifically academic concerns for different training levels. Further studies need to be done here in Saudi Arabia to evaluate this impact in greater detail and to protect the residents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Titiek Berniyanti ◽  
Marhazlinda Marhazlinda ◽  
Retno Palupi ◽  
Dini Setyowati ◽  
Aulia Ramadhani ◽  
...  

Background: COVID-19 is a global pandemic health problem that is getting a lot of attention around the world today. It is a serious illness that can significantly affect the daily lives of patients and their families in terms of mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and insomnia, as well as negatively impacting the quality of patients. Purpose: This study aims to determine the impact of long haulers on the quality of life of COVID-19 survivors in East Java, Indonesia. Methods: Researchers conduct detailed the solution to overcome the problem by using educational videos and sports or routine gymnastics to change the attitude of COVID-19 survivors towards long haul healing is done through the distribution of the two facilities via the google drive link. The drafting team has 2 program plans as a solution to the problems carried out. Results: The prevalence of COVID-19 survivors with long haulers was slightly higher than that of non-long haulers. The results of the knowledge and attitude scores on the pre-test and post-test after viewing the media booklet and educational video showed a significant difference and improvement of quality of life in the result. Conclusion: The level of knowledge, attitudes, and quality of life including the physical health of long haul COVID-19 survivors in East Java experienced a significant increase after being given counseling through online booklets andeducational videos.


Author(s):  
Valérie Benoit ◽  
Piera Gabola

Over the last 20 years, the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions for the development of the well-being of children and adolescents and the moderation of high levels of anxiety and depression in this population has been largely demonstrated. Emphasis has been placed on the promotion of well-being and prevention of mental health problems in the school context in order to foster, through positive psychology, the cognitive and socio-emotional development of primary and secondary students, e.g., by strengthening positive relationships, positive emotions, character strengths, optimism, and hope. However, little is known about the impact of these interventions on young children. This systematic review aims at examining the effects of positive psychology interventions on the well-being of early childhood children (<6 years old), both in the preschool education context with educators or teachers and also in the family context with parents. Several electronic databases were searched, and the findings systematically reviewed and reported by the PRISMA guidelines. Very few studies met the inclusion criteria (n = 3), highlighting the need for further research in this area. Indeed, all of the selected studies demonstrated the importance of positive psychology interventions with young children to promote positive aspects of development, such as gratitude, positive emotions, life satisfaction, accomplishment, positive relationship, or self-esteem. Limitations in the field are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Hussain Patrawala ◽  
Ruchi Singh

Novel Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has been in the news since the beginning of the year 2020 and within a couple of months of its origination, it was declared as ‘global pandemic’ by WHO. The pandemic has a substantial economic impact and has attracted wide attention from various scholars and policymakers across the globe. Though a lot has been mentioned about the economic implications of the pandemic, very few attempts have been made to address the impact of the pandemic on psycho-social and mental well being. Moreover, numerous attempts have been made to understand and analyse the impact on unskilled and low paid workers, less work has been initiated in a direction to understand the impact on skilled professionals who as well are not untouched by the impact of the pandemic. With this given background, the study tries to fill this void. The main objective of the study is to comprehend the socio-psychological impact of COVID-19 on the high-skilled labourers, including women workers in the Indian context. The study puts forth high-skilled migrants’ perspective on various sociological amd psychological aspects. An exhaustive literature review has been done to disentangle existing thoughts. To substantiate the findings from the literature and to meet the objectives primary survey was conducted targetting 30 odd skilled workers across various occupations. The study also offers suggestions and policy recommendations for government and policymakers for framing inclusive policies across migrant segments.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Vos

Objective: This meta-analysis examines the psychological impact of COVID-19, SARS and MERS pandemics on health-care workers, patients and the general population, in line with PRISMA, MOOSE, MARS and CASP guidelines. Methods: Searches were conducted on 28-29 March 2020 in Pubmed, Medline, PsycInfo, APA articles, Web-of-Knowledge and scholar.google.com. Hedges’ g was calculated with random-effects models. Results: The final selection included 75 publications from 15,984 papers. Twenty-six studies described the impact of COVID-19 in 104,361 participants, showing that 59% (95%CI: 37%-85%) of health-care workers experienced acute/post-traumatic stress, and 37% (95%CI: 30%-54%) experienced depression, general distress, insomnia and/or anxiety. Of all COVID-19 patients, 32% (95% CI: 22%-42%) experienced acute/post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, insomnia and/or distress. In the general population, 25% (95%CI: 15%-35%) experienced any of these psychological symptoms. COVID-19 had a larger impact than SARS/MERS in 28,499 participants in 44 studies. During SARS/MERS pandemics, 33% (95%CI: 25%-41%) of health-care workers, 31% (95%CI: 18%-45%) of SARS/MERS-patients and 15% (95%CI: 7%-23%) of the general population experienced any of these psychological symptoms. The psychological impact was predicted (R&lt;.20-.40&gt;) by the individual’s physical health, restrictions to leisure and social activities, and quarantine. Frontline health-care workers experienced a larger psychological impact than the general population, particularly if they worked with infected patients and reported unfavourable work circumstances. Conclusions: This study can be used to predict the prevalence of mental health problems during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and to predict which individuals are most at risk of developing mental health problems. Health care workers and vulnerable individuals should be psychologically screened and offered mental health-care. Quarantine should be as short as possible, to prevent mental health problems. Public health significance statementThis meta-analysis indicates that between one-third of the general population and half of all health care workers experience a moderate to severe mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This impact is larger than during SARS and MERS pandemics. The psychological impact on health care workers is mainly predicted by their work circumstances, and the impact on the general population by their pre-existing physical and mental well-being and the psychological effects of quarantine.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document