Nurses Burnout, Resilience, and Its Association With Socio-Demographic Factors During COVID-19 Pandemic

BackgroundIn the recent pandemic, nurses have faced workload and being exposed to burnout. Resilience helps address work-related psychological problems such as stressful events and burnout. According to the roles of nurses in the healthcare system, we investigated the relationship between resiliency and burnout in nurses.Material and MethodsIn this descriptive analytical cross-sectional study, 364 nurses participated from April to June 2021. Census sampling was used to recruit participants. Maslach burnout inventory (MBI), Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale (CDRISC), and a demographic check-list were utilized to collect data. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 22. Shapiro-Wilk, Kruskal–Wallis test, Mann–Whitney U-test, correlation analysis, and generalized linear model were applied accordingly.ResultsOverall, the findings showed that nurses had severe symptoms of burnout and a moderate level of resilience. The two domains of burnout, emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment had a significantly negative correlation with resilience (r = −0.442, p < 0.001 and r = −0.351, p = 0.03, respectively). Linear regression showed that demographic characteristics (Hospital type, ward type, gender, and overtime) were the major predictors of the 3 sub-categories of burnout. A significant negative correlation was observed between burnout and resilience highlighting the role of resilience in reducing burnout (P < 0.05).ConclusionIn order to help nurses to tackle and endure burnout in pandemic times, there is a need to implement national and local policies to help them accordingly.

Family Conflict Associated With Intrinsic Hippocampal-OFC Connectivity in Adolescent Depressive Disorder

BackgroundFamily environment and life events have long been suggested to be associated with adolescent depression. The hippocampus plays a crucial role in the neural mechanism of major depressive disorder (MDD) through memory during stressful events. However, few studies have explored the exact neural mechanisms underlying these associations. Thus, the current study aimed to explore alterations in hippocampal functional connectivity (FC) in adolescent MDD based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and further investigate the relationship between hippocampal FC, environmental factors, and clinical symptom severity.MethodsHippocampal FC was calculated using the seed-based approach with the bilateral hippocampus as the seed for 111 adolescents with and without MDD; comparisons were made between participants with MDD and controls. We applied the Chinese version of the Family Environment Scale (FES-CV) and Adolescents Self-Rating Life Events Checklist (ASLEC) to evaluate family environment and life stress. Their relationship with hippocampal FC alterations was also investigated.ResultsWe found that compared to controls, adolescents with MDD showed decreased connectivity between the left hippocampus and bilateral orbital frontal cortex (OFC) and right inferior temporal gyrus. In addition, the hippocampal-OFC connectivity was negatively correlated with conflict scores of the FES-CV in the MDD group and mediated the association between family conflict and depressive and anxiety symptoms.ConclusionOur findings are novel in the field and demonstrate how family conflict contributes to MDD symptomatology through hippocampal-OFC connectivity; these findings may provide potential targets for personalized treatment strategies.

Prenatal stress programs behavioral pattern separation in adult mice

Stress is an unavoidable condition in human life. Stressful events experienced during development, including in utero, have been suggested as one major pathophysiological mechanism for developing vulnerability towards neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders in adulthood. One cardinal feature of such disorders is impaired cognitive ability, which may in part rely on abnormal structure and function of the hippocampus. In the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus is a site of continuous neurogenesis, a process that has been recently implicated in spatial pattern separation, a cognitive phenomenon that serves to reduce the degree of overlap in the incoming information to facilitate its storage with minimal interference. We previously reported that adult neurogenesis is altered by prenatal stress allowing us to hypothesize that prenatal stress may possibly lead to impairment in pattern separation. To test this hypothesis, both control (C) and prenatally stressed (PS) adult mice were tested for metric and contextual discrimination abilities. We report for the first time that prenatal stress impairs pattern separation process, a deficit that may underlie their cognitive alterations and that may result in defective behaviors reminiscent of psychiatric illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

The differences between the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale and the Brief Resilience Scale When Assessing Resilience: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Predictive Effects

The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) are two widely used scales to measure resilience. Although both scales seek to assess an individual’s ability to recover from and adapt to disruptions or stressful events, they may capture different aspects of resilience. While the CD-RISC focuses on resources that can help individuals recover from and adapt to disruptions or stressful events, the BRS directly measures one’s ability to bounce back or be resilient. The aim of this study is to empirically examine the differences between the CD-RISC and the BRS. Two samples (n = 202, 246) consisting of undergraduate students from Taiwan were used. The results of confirmatory factor analysis show that the CD-RISC and the BRS are highly correlated but still distinct. The results of regression analyses show that the CD-RISC and the BRS have unique predictive effects on depression and life satisfaction. The research findings suggest that the CD-RISC and the BRS capture different aspects of resilience. For future research on resilience, researchers should pay attention to the differences between these scales and choose the one that most closely fits their research purpose.

Heat shock protein (HSP) release mechanism under heat stress pressure in Goats: a review

Among the various climate variables, heat stress has been reported to be the most detrimental factor to the economy of the livestock industry. Heat stress is one of the most stressful events in the life of livestock with harmful consequences for animal health, productivity and product quality. Heat shock proteins (HSPs), also known as molecular chaperons, are prominent stress markers. Heat shock proteins consist of highly conserved protein expressed at the time of stress, and play an important role in adaptation to the environmental stress. This review discusses the scientific evidence regarding the effects of heat stress and role of HSP during heat stress on Goats.

Improvement of the Adaptive Properties of the National Financial Market to Respond the Globalization Risks

In the era of globalization the issues of ensuring economic and national security are still relevant for discussion. Financial markets, being one of the driving forces for the global economic development, are sensitive to changes in the socio-economic and political situations. In the rapidly changing world, the security of the national financial market can be ensured by increasing its adaptability, which is, in the general case, the market ability to adapt to stressful events, while working in adverse conditions. The article discusses the features of the national financial market in the context of financial globalization. Using the complex adaptive theory, the main ways of the national financial market development to enhance its adaptability are presented. Keywords. Globalization, financial market, financial security, financial market adaptability, institutional environment.

Alcoholism Among the Priests of the Đakovo-Osijek Archdiocese

In many countries today, alcoholism is becoming an increasingly common problem, the number of alcoholics is increasing, and the disease occurs in all professions and occupations. Therefore, it is important to talk about the increasing presence of alcoholism not only among lay believers but also among the clergy of the Catholic Church. The aim of this paper is to point out the causes of alcohol addiction and the consequences of alcoholism on the life and work of priests from the area of the Đakovo-Osijek Archdiocese. Based on the results of qualitative-quantitative research conducted using a survey questionnaire (9 priests), sampled using the »snowball« technique, this paper will, for the first time, talk about a problem that has not been discussed in the Croatian scientific community. The conducted research points to stressful events, loneliness, and mis-understanding of superiors and the environment as the main causes of alcoholism among priests.

Nurses and Stigma at the Time of COVID-19: A Phenomenological Study

The COVID-19 pandemic is putting strain on every country in the world and their health systems. Healthcare professionals struggle on the frontline and they can experience stigma, which can create difficulties in controlling epidemic diseases, influencing the mental health of healthcare professionals, caregivers, families, communities, and the provided quality of care. The aim of this study is to explore the lived experience of Italian nurses about perceived stigma during COVID-19 pandemic with the phenomenological Cohen method. The principal themes that emerged from data analysis were “stigma in the working environment” and “stigma in everyday life”. Each of these themes had subthemes: “looks like gun sights”, “avoiding closeness to others”, “nobody wants to touch you”, and “the fault of being your family members”. Public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are stressful events for individuals and communities. Stigma can be more dangerous than the disease, and a major obstacle to appropriate medical and mental health interventions. Understanding how healthcare professionals experience stigma is essential to design and implement specific educational, psychological, and organisational programmes.