COPING ENHANCEMENT PROGAM FOR THE MOTHERS OF SPECIAL CHILDREN- A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Background: Caring for a family member with a special challenging problem is a signicant chronic stressor in humans.In fact, caregiver stress is currently seen as a human model of chronic stress in the stress literature. As a need based interventions with mothers can help them reduce their stress and increase their coping levels, this study was conducted on the effectiveness of coping enhancement program for the mothers of special children. Objective:The overall objective of this study was to establish whether the Coping enhancement program could be utilized when the population of interest is caregivers of special children with psychiatric, behavioral or emotional disorders. Study design:A survey cum quasi experimental, one group pretest post test design was used for this study. Materials and methods:The present study was conducted in three phases- Assessment of stress, coping level and coping factors of mothers of special children, development of a coping enhancement programme and administering the coping enhancement programme to mothers. The effectiveness of the program was judged by the difference between the pretest and post test score. The population selected for the study were the mothers of the special children admitted in special schools of Puducherry Union Territory. Results: The coping enhancement programme was found to be signicantly effective among mothers handling special children in coping with their stress and thus it may result in enhancing the quality of life of the special children.

Measuring the biological embedding of racial trauma among Black Americans utilizing the RDoC approach

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative aims to understand the mechanisms influencing psychopathology through a dimensional approach. Limited research thus far has considered potential racial/ethnic differences in RDoC constructs that are influenced by developmental and contextual processes. A growing body of research has demonstrated that racial trauma is a pervasive chronic stressor that impacts the health of Black Americans across the life course. In this review article, we examine the ways that an RDOC framework could allow us to better understand the biological embedding of racial trauma among Black Americans. We also specifically examine the Negative Valence System domain of RDoC to explore how racial trauma is informed by and can help expand our understanding of this domain. We end the review by providing some additional research considerations and future research directives in the area of racial trauma that build on the RDoC initiative.

The Presence of House Dust Mites in Residences and Classrooms of Students with Allergic Rhinitis

Allergy is still a health problem in Indonesia. One of the manifestations of allergies is allergic rhinitis. Many factors can trigger the recurrence of rhinitis, including exposure to house dust mites. This study aims to identify the population of house dust mites in the classrooms and student residences. This study was participated by 74 FK UNRI students with allergic rhinitis. The samples included dust collected from residences and classrooms consisting of four large classrooms, three small classrooms, four laboratories, two examination rooms, 12 skills lab rooms, and 15 tutorial rooms. Detection of dust was performed using the direct method. The results showed that no classroom (0%) was found with house dust mites. However, there were 37.8% of residences were positive. Based on the result, it can be concluded that the high population of house dust mites in the students’ residences becomes an essential factor as a chronic stressor for allergic rhinitis.

Compulsive buying gradually increased during the first six months of the Covid-19 outbreak

Background and Aims: The current Covid-19 situation offers a natural experiment to explore the effect of a chronic stressor on compulsive buying tendencies over an extended period of time. Design: Survey method of sampling every three days a new cohort during the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic (March-October 2020) in the United States. Participants: Total (clean) sample of N = 1430 (39.3% female, mean age = 36.4 years). Measurements: Online and offline compulsive buying separately, distress, SES, income and age were assessed. Findings: Both online and offline compulsive buying increased during the data collection period (𝜏 = 0.24, 𝜏 = 0.22, respectively, both p < 0.001). High-SES individuals reported the highest tendency for compulsive buying throughout the entire time frame, although the increase in compulsive buying tendencies over time was the highest among the socioeconomically less privileged. Online compulsive buying increased as a result of the CARES Act (first stimulus package) by an effect size of d = 0.33. When entered into a regression model, SES had the strongest effect on compulsive buying after accounting for the effect of distress, income and age (online: ßPSS = 1.3***, ßSES = 5.13***, ßincome = 2.6***, ßage = -0.20*, F(4, 709) = 53.01, R2 = 0.23, RSE = 29.5; offline: ßPSS = 1.45***, ßSES = 4.86***, ßincome = 2.16***, ßage = -0.08 p > 0.4; F(4, 695) = 49.54, R2 = 0.22, RSE = 30.41). The high-income group reported the strongest correlation between distress and compulsive buying (r = 0.67, p < 0.001, 95% CI: 0.57–0.76). Conclusions: Compulsive buying tendency gradually increased during the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic especially as a result of the CARES Act.

Beyond Virtual Classrooms: Exploring Feelings in the Social World

In this column, I continue to focus on creating supportive relationships in the virtual classroom amid the pandemic and growing social unrest. As many schools continue to shift between hybrid and remote learning, I ask, how do we address our own and students’ emotional well-being to promote active learning during the pandemic? How can we as teachers help students cope with this chronic stressor, be it the COVID-19 pandemic or the racial inequality? I share my own personal experiences and argue that affect/feelings/emotions are embodied thoughts imbricated with social values and often involved in the preservation of social expectations and power relations. I suggest that educators recognize affect/feelings/emotions as a critical part of students’ embodied experiences, encourage students to attend to their surrounding world and live their life with heightened consciousness and reflectiveness. I end this column with a few curriculum ideas for readers to consider.

Chronic Stress and Risks for Myocardial Infarction in U.S. Adults

Long-term exposure to stress has been linked to multiple behavioral and biological responses that are detrimental to cardiovascular health, but the association between chronic stress and risks for acute myocardial infarction (MI) remains unknown. We examined the association between exposure to chronic stress and MI incidence from 2006 to 2016 using data from a nationally-representative prospective cohort study of adults aged 45 and older (n=15,109). Chronic stressors included ongoing issues related to personal health, social relationships, financial strain, housing, and caregiving responsibilities. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the association between the number of chronic stressors and MI while adjusting for confounding risk factors. More than half of the respondents reported ≥2 chronic stressors at baseline. Risks for MI increased incrementally from 1 chronic stressor (HR=1.28; 95% CI, 1.20-1.37) to ≥4 chronic stressors (HR = 2.71; 95% CI, 2.08-3.53) compared with those who reported no stressors. These risks were partly attenuated after adjustments for socioeconomic, psychosocial, behavioral, and clinical risk factors. The impact of chronic stressors was especially pronounced among adults with a history of MI (P value for interaction=.032). In adults with a prior MI, risks for a recurrent MI increased substantially from 1 chronic stressor (HR=1.31; 95% CI, 1.10-1.55) to ≥4 chronic stressors (HR = 2.92; 95% CI, 1.47-5.82) compared to those with no stressors. Chronic stress is a significant risk factor for acute coronary events in U.S. adults. More research is required to further understand the psychosocial, behavioral, and biological mechanisms underlying this association.

Acoustic Characteristics of Small Research Vessels

Vessel noise is an acute and chronic stressor of a wide variety of marine fauna. Understanding, modelling and mitigating the impacts of this pollutant requires quantification of acoustic signatures for various vessel classes for input into propagation models and at present there is a paucity of such data for small vessels (<25 m). Our study provides this information for three small vessels (<6 m length and 30, 90 and 180 hp engines). The closest point of approach was recorded at various ranges across a flat, ≈10 m deep sandy lagoon, for multiple passes at multiple speeds (≈5, 10, 20, 30 km h−1) by each vessel at Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Radiated noise levels (RNLs) and environment-affected source levels (ASLs) determined by linear regression were estimated for each vessel and speed. From the slowest to fastest speeds, median RNLs ranged between 153.4 and 166.1 dB re 1 µPa m, whereas ASLs ranged from 146.7 to 160.0 dB re 1 µPa m. One-third octave band-level RNLs are provided for each vessel–speed scenario, together with their interpolated received levels with range. Our study provides data on source spectra of small vessels to assist in understanding and modelling of acoustic exposure experienced by marine fauna.

The Political is Personal: Daily Politics as a Chronic Stressor

Politics and its controversies have permeated everyday life, but the daily impact of politics is largely unknown. Here, we conceptualize politics as a chronic stressor with important consequences for people’s daily lives. We used longitudinal, daily-diary methods to track U.S. participants as they experienced daily political events across two weeks (Study 1: N=198, observations=2,167) and, separately, across three weeks (Study 2: N=811, observations=12,790) to explore how daily political events permeate people’s lives and how they cope with this influence of politics. In both studies, daily political events consistently evoked negative emotions, which corresponded to worse psychological and physical well-being, but also increased motivation to take political action (e.g., volunteer, protest) aimed at changing the political system that evoked these emotions in the first place. Understandably, people frequently tried to regulate their politics-induced emotions; and successfully regulating these emotions using cognitive strategies (reappraisal and distraction) predicted greater well-being, but also weaker motivation to take action. Although people can protect themselves from the emotional impact of politics, frequently-used regulation strategies appear to come with a trade-off between well being and action. To examine whether an alternative approach to one’s emotions could avoid this trade-off, we measured emotional acceptance in Study 2 (i.e., accepting one’s emotions without trying to change them) and found that successful acceptance predicted greater daily well-being but no impairment to political action. Overall, this research highlights how politics can be a chronic stressor in people’s daily lives, underscoring the far-reaching influence politicians have beyond the formal powers endowed unto them.

Reaction of the reproductive system of hens to the chronic stressor

During the panic, hens of white egg crosses, which are generally characterized by excessive timidity, immediately resort to escape and hysterically fight against the partitions and other elements that enclose the territory of their stay. It leads to numerous injuries, bleeding in the liver and ovaries, peritonitis, mass physiological anovulations and other disorders of the ovulatory cycles, and thus -at overcrowding, ie at 26 and 28 hens/m2, respe to reduction or stop of egg production and even death. Therefore, it is the level of egg production that determines and evaluates the reaction of the body of hens to acute stress in the first place, also for the immediate elimination of its stimulus. With regard to chronic stress, its diagnosis is complicated by the subtle current effects on the body of laying hens. However, with prolonged and cumulative action of the stimulus, it also causes significant material losses. The lack of a significant number of eggs under uncomfortable conditions of keeping hens during the year is probably a consequence of their being in a state of chronic stress. However, the possibility and effectiveness of its detection by the level of laying hens, especially at the beginning of the stimulus, has not been studied yet. This is especially true of situations that arise when the density of laying hens in cages. The urgency of detecting chronic stressors by the egg laying capacity of hens is also connected with the lack of objective data on the amount of material losses during their operation. Due to it and the attempt to obtain as many food eggs as possible from 1 m2 of available technological areas, some of their powerful producers resort to keeping the laying hens in the cages of multitiered batteries and even at higher densities, ie not at the densities recommended by the developer of the cross, but at higher ones established by the domestic standards. Therefore, the aim of the experiment was to determine the response of the reproductive system of hens to the intensity of chronic stressors formed by keeping them in cages of 12-tier batteries at a slightly higher density. To do it, on the conditions of a modern complex of the alimentary egg production 3 groups of laying hens of industrial herd of the cross «Hy-Line W-36» were formed, each was kept in a separate poultry house-analogue (area 2463.3 m2) with 12-tier cages batteries «Salmet», consisting of 30912 cages with the area of 0.392 m2. Hens of the 1st (control) group were kept at a density of 23 hens/m2 in accordance with domestic standards, and the 2nd and 3rd groups – at overcrowding, ie at 26 and 28 hens/m2, respectively. The effect of chronic stress on hens was determined by standard zootechnic and morphological methods of measuring their egg production, preservation, live weight and weight of eggs, strength and thickness of the shell, intensity of yolk color, etc. It was found that in accordance with the domestic requirements the normative density of keeping (23 hens/m2) of the hens of the cross «Hy-Line W-36» does not provide their inherent productivity, which should be at least 262.2 eggs per initial laying hen within 62 weeks of life (and at the density of keeping in the range of 13–20 hens/m2). In particular, in hens of group 1 it was (231.4 eggs/hen), ie it was 11.7% lower. Preservation of hens of group 1 (91.3%) also did not reach the normative level (96.4%). The increase in the intensity of chronic stressors, namely the increase in the density of hens of groups 2 and 3 to 26–28 hens/m2, led to a corresponding reaction of their body, in particular, to a decrease in egg productivity (up to 220.8–227.2 pcs/hen.) and preservation (up to 88.4–91.1%). This increase in the density of laying hens in the cages of 12-tier batteries to 26–28 hens/m2 (by 4–27% relative to domestic standards) provides for obtaining of 1.6–5.2 thousand more eggs from 1 m2 of poultry area, but under conditions of reduction of the level of the European coefficient of efficiency of their production. Thus, it was found that overcrowding of hens of the industrial flock of egg cross «Hy-Line W-36» is a chronic stressor, which causes a decrease not only in egg production due to ovulatory cycles, but also their viability and efficiency of egg production in general.