Emotional support received moderates academic stress and mental well-being in a sample of Afghan university students amid COVID-19

Background: Academic stress experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered high levels of anxiety and depression and other severe mental health issues among university students around the globe. In Afghanistan, there is a paucity of research on the academic and mental health issues of Afghan university students and none pertaining to their academic stress and mental well-being amid the pandemic. Aim: This research examines the potential stress-buffering role of emotional support received between academic stress and mental well-being in a sample of Afghan university students during the COVID-19 outbreak. Method: The study sample comprised 508 Afghan university students. An online survey was developed for data collection. Model 1 of the PROCESS macro was used to conduct the moderation analysis. Results: These indicate that moderate and high levels of emotional support received may protect against the negative effects of higher levels of academic stress on mental well-being. Conclusion: This research makes an important contribution to the literature on social support. It may be inferred from the results that Afghan university students who experience academic stress, but have strong emotional support are able to attain greater mental well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak as compared to those with weak emotional support. Results may encourage mental health practitioners, university counselors, education administrators, and faculty to jointly formulate strategies for offering emotional support to Afghan university students.

Stress-Buffering Factors of Social Integration on Depressive Symptoms Over Time in Late-Life

The negative impacts of stress on older adults’ well-being are well documented, and social integration is posited as protective against such detrimental effects. Previous research illustrates the stress-buffering effect of social relationships on both physical and mental health, such as depressive symptoms, in older adults. The purpose of this study was to expand on prior findings by investigating the longitudinal stress-buffering effect of various dimensions of social integration on depressive symptoms among an older sample. Four waves of data were drawn from the Social Integration and Aging Study, including 416 older adults (ages 60-100). Subscales of the Social Integration in Later Life Scale measuring frequency and satisfaction with social ties and community interaction were used to assess distinct dimensions of social integration. Multilevel modeling demonstrated that two facets of social integration—satisfaction with social ties and frequency of community interaction—moderated the relationship between perceived stress and trajectories of depressive symptoms over time. Participants who reported high levels of stress reported fewer depressive symptoms if they had high satisfaction with social ties and high frequency of community involvement. Interestingly, frequency of contact with social ties and satisfaction with community interaction did not similarly buffer negative effects for depressive symptoms. These findings indicate the value of remaining actively engaged in the community and maintaining meaningful relationships as older adults age. Future research should investigate programs to foster relationships and engagement between older adults and their communities, with particular consideration of populations at a greater risk for isolation.

Roles of Social Isolation and Rurality on Functional Limitations in Older Adults Living in the US

Social isolation is a growing problem among adults aged ≥65. Using 2019 data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) (n=4,603), we examined the associations of social isolation and rurality with functional limitations in US older adults. We hypothesized that rural older adults would report social isolation more than non-rural adults, and social isolation and rurality would have an interaction effect on difficulty in performing activities of daily living (ADLs). Stress buffering theory guided this research suggesting individuals who have greater social connections also have greater coping skills to buffer against health-related stress. We assessed rural and non-rural older adults’ social isolation (measured by a composite score of engagement in community activities and social connections) and difficulty in completing ADLs (e.g., difficulty in dressing, bathing, and eating in the past month). Our results supported one of the hypotheses that there were differing levels of social isolation among both rural and non-rural older adults. In both rural and non-rural groups, oldest-old (85+), non-White adults, those with poor health or had multiple comorbidities were significantly isolated or experienced severe isolation. These results support (1) the premise that specific demographic characteristics are associated with social isolation as well as (2) a growing body of research showing rural adults have unique characteristics that are protective against social isolation. Our findings are related to demographic predictors which could help target interventions toward specific at-risk groups. Policymakers and healthcare practitioners should be aware of risks for social isolation and prepare to discuss these issues.

Examining the Relationship Between Hair Cortisol With Stress-Related and Transdiagnostic Subclinical Measures

Background: Hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) provide a retrospective examination of long-term cortisol production as a measure of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning, one of the major neural systems implicated in mediating the effects of stress on mental illness. However, evidence about the relationship between HCC with stressors and symptoms is scattered. In the present study, we aimed to examine the association between HCC and a wide range of stress-related and transdiagnostic subclinical measures in a sample of non-clinical young adults with a wide distribution of schizotypy.Methods: A total sample of 132 non-clinical young adults recruited at college and technical schools oversampled for schizotypy scores were assessed on distal and proximal stressful experiences, appraisals of stress, traits and symptoms of the affective, psychosis and dissociation spectrums, as well as stress-buffering measures, and provided 3 cm-hair samples.Results: No significant associations were found between HCC and any of the stress-related and subclinical measures. Only suspiciousness and disorganization showed a trend for a positive association with HCC but the magnitude was small.Conclusions: The present findings support previous studies indicating an overall lack of concordance between a broad range of stress-related and (sub)clinical phenotypic measures with hair cortisol. This study examined for the first time the relationship of HCC with the non-clinical expression of the psychosis spectrum, that is, schizotypy, which complements previous studies on clinical high risk and established psychosis and offers a promising strategy for studying possible HPA dysfunctions characterizing the subclinical psychosis continuum without the confounds associated to clinical psychosis.

Family Hardiness and Parent and Family Functioning in Households with Children Experiencing Adverse Life Conditions: a Meta-Analysis

Objective: The purposes of the meta-analysis were to evaluate the relationship between family hardiness and different dimensions of parent and family functioning in households experiencing adverse child or family life events and circumstances and determine if family hardiness had either or both stress-buffering and health-enhancing effects on parent and family functioning. Method: Studies were included if the correlations between family hardiness and different dimensions of parental or family functioning were reported. The synthesis included 53 studies (N = 4418 participants) conducted in nine countries between 1992 and 2017. Results: showed that family hardiness was related to less parental stress, anxiety/depression, and parenting burden/demands and positively related to parental global health, well-being, and parenting practices. Results also showed that family hardiness was negatively related to family stress and positively related to family life satisfaction, adaptation, and cohesion. The effects sizes between family hardiness and positive parent and family functioning indicators were larger than those for stress-buffering indicators. Child and family life events and child age moderated the relationship between family hardiness and family but not parental functioning. Conclusion: The results are consistent with the hypothesis that family hardiness is an internal resource that simultaneously has stress-buffering and health-enhancing effects on parent and family functioning.

Spousal emotional support and relationship quality buffers pupillary response to horror movies

Being satisfied in marriage provides protective stress buffering benefits to various health complications but the causal mechanisms and speed at which this is accomplished is less well understood. Much of the research on health and marriage has conceptualized marital quality in a unidimensional way, with high levels of either positivity or negativity. This conceptualization may not fully capture the nuanced benefits of marital relationships. Pupillometry is an innovative method which captures the effects of marital stress buffering on the body’s autonomic nervous system in real time; pupil dilation occurs within 200ms to stress exposure. Additionally, this method records hundreds of readings per second, providing precision and sensitivity. This preregistered experiment aimed to conceptually replicate previous pupillometry stress buffering results and extend the previous findings by including a generalizable, real-life stressor—viewing a horror movie—and multidimensional relationship quality effects. Eighty-three couples (166 participants) were quasi-grouped, based on a self-reported multidimensional relationship quality scale, to either supportive or ambivalent marital relationship conditions. They were then randomly assigned to either a spousal support (i.e., handholding) or non-support (spousal absence) condition and watched clips from both horror and nature movies while pupil dilation was measured. Tonic pupillary response results revealed that the horror video clips elicited a stress response and there were significant differences between the support and non-support conditions, as well as marital relationship quality conditions. These results frame the precision, speed, and sensitivity of pupillometry as a potentially fruitful method to investigate the causal mechanisms linking stress buffering and supportive marital relationships.