Longitudinal Associations between Parental Support and Parental Knowledge on Behavioral and Emotional Problems in Adolescents

When testing longitudinal effects of parenting practices on adolescent adjustment, an integrated consideration of externalizing and internalizing behaviors is a gap in research. This study analyzed how parental support and parental knowledge directly and indirectly influence both antisocial behavior and emotional problems. The sample had 642 adolescents aged 12-15 (mean age = 12.49; 45.4% females) from Spain, who participated in a three-year long study. The results showed longitudinal bidirectional associations between parental support and parental knowledge. Only parental knowledge, however, directly predicted antisocial behavior and emotional problems. Parental support had an indirect effect on outcomes through the mediating effect of parental knowledge. This study has practical implications by indicating that increasing parental knowledge should be the target of educational-prevention programs.

Bidirectional Associations Between Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms and Loneliness During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Dynamic Panel Models With Fixed Effects

Background: Understanding the direction and magnitude of mental health-loneliness associations across time is important to understand how best to prevent and treat mental health and loneliness. This study used weekly data collected over 8 weeks throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to expand previous findings and using dynamic panel models with fixed effects which account for all time-invariant confounding and reverse causation.Methods: Prospective data on a convenience and snowball sample from all 50 US states and the District of Colombia (n = 2,361 with ≥2 responses, 63.8% female; 76% retention rate) were collected weekly via online survey at nine consecutive timepoints (April 3–June 3, 2020). Anxiety and depressive symptoms and loneliness were assessed at each timepoint and participants reported the COVID-19 containment strategies they were following. Dynamic panel models with fixed effects examined bidirectional associations between anxiety and depressive symptoms and loneliness, and associations of COVID-19 containment strategies with these outcomes.Results: Depressive symptoms were associated with small increases in both anxiety symptoms (β = 0.065, 95% CI = 0.022–0.109; p = 0.004) and loneliness (β = 0.019, 0.008–0.030; p = 0.001) at the subsequent timepoint. Anxiety symptoms were associated with a small subsequent increase in loneliness (β = 0.014, 0.003–0.025; p = 0.015) but not depressive symptoms (β = 0.025, −0.020–0.070; p = 0.281). Loneliness was strongly associated with subsequent increases in both depressive (β = 0.309, 0.159–0.459; p < 0.001) and anxiety (β = 0.301, 0.165–0.436; p < 0.001) symptoms. Compared to social distancing, adhering to stay-at-home orders or quarantining were not associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms or loneliness (both p ≥ 0.095).Conclusions: High loneliness may be a key risk factor for the development of future anxiety or depressive symptoms, underscoring the need to combat or prevent loneliness both throughout and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 containment strategies were not associated with mental health, indicating that other factors may explain previous reports of mental health deterioration throughout the pandemic.

Cross-Lagged Analysis of COVID-19-Related Worry and Media Consumption in a Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Sample of Community Adults

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in an array of mental health problems. Previous research has shown that media exposure to stressful situations is often related to anxiety and stress. However, given that most existing work has used cross-sectional designs, less is known about the interplay of media exposure and worry as they unfold during sustained exposure to a collective stressor. The current study examined bidirectional associations between COVID-related worry and media consumption over a three-month period. Participants were 87 community adults, the majority of whom were recruited from communities heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For three consecutive months, participants asked to indicate how much time they spent worrying and consuming news about the COVID-19 pandemic on a scale from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“most of the day”). Cross-lagged analyses revealed that Pandemic Worry at Month 1 predicted increases in Pandemic Media Consumption at Month 2, which in turn predicted increases in Pandemic Worry at Month 3. Findings suggest that media consumption may be a maladaptive coping strategy that has the iatrogenic effect of increasing worry. Clarifying the causal associations between anxiety-perpetuating processes and media consumption may have important clinical implications for understanding and treating mental health during health pandemics.

Longitudinal Analyses Indicate Bidirectional Associations Between Loneliness and Self-Rated Health in Adulthood

Loneliness is a potent stressor that increases in prevalence with age in late life and has been linked with numerous adverse physical health outcomes and lower scores on measures of self-rated health (SRH). The association between loneliness and SRH is likely bidirectional—for example, experiencing loneliness may result in physiological changes that alter how individuals perceive their health, and worsening perceptions of one’s own health or mobility may act in an increasingly restrictive manner with respect to social interaction. Despite this, limited longitudinal work has examined temporal dynamics between loneliness and SRH. Recently completed harmonization of 9 loneliness items across three longitudinal twin studies of aging in Sweden resulted in sample of 1939 participants aged 40 to 98 at intake (mean age = 74.64) with up to 25 years of follow-up (mean = 7.63) across up to 8 waves (mean = 3.29). Univariate analysis indicated that SRH decreased with age up to age 82 and then leveled off, whereas loneliness continued to increase across the age span. Bivariate dual change score models were used to examine lead-lag relationships across time: which variable contributes to subsequent changes in the other variable. Results indicated a bi-directional relationship: loneliness does not increase after age 82 when SRH is included in the model, and SRH does not level off after age 70 when loneliness is included in the model. Thus, declining SRH may lead to reduced participation in social activities and also feelings of loneliness may intensify perceptions of poor health.

Will I Feel This in my Dreams? Examining Temporal Associations between Daytime and Dream Affect

Despite the theory that dreams function to process emotions, few studies have examined how emotional experiences during daytime (“daytime affect”) are associated with the emotional tone of dreams (“dream affect”) that night, and vice versa. This study examined bidirectional associations between dream affect and daytime positive and negative affect. Participants were 84 nurses who completed two weeks of ecological momentary assessments. If participants remembered the previous night’s dreams (nparticipants=68; ndays=391), they reported the dream’s emotional tone upon waking (‘0’=very negative to ‘100’=very positive). Participants also responded to the Positive and Negative Affect Scale three times/day. Multilevel modeling simultaneously tested two temporal directions (daytime affect→dream affect, dream affect→daytime affect) at the within- and between-person levels. After adjusting for socio-demographic and work characteristics, at the within-person level, dream affect was more positive than usual on nights following more positive daytime affect (B=0.25, p=.003). In the other temporal direction, dream affect was not associated with the following day’s positive affect. At the between-person level, nurses who reported more positive dream affect also reported more positive daytime affect (B=0.24, p=.025). No associations emerged with negative affect. Findings suggest that daytime affect is associated with the emotional tone of that night’s dreams, but only in the context of positive affect. Importantly, negative affect was relatively low in this sample, so different patterns may emerge for people more prone to negative affect. Overall, these novel findings support the theory that dreams serve to process emotions, providing insight into the mystery of the function of dreams.

Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Difficulties Predict Cognitive Decline in Older Puerto Rican Adults

Given the hypothesized bidirectional association between functional and cognitive decline, further characterization of the temporal association between the two is needed, especially in Latinx samples as they are the most rapidly growing demographic in the United States and at greater risk for Alzheimer’s disease. This study assessed bidirectional associations between instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) difficulty and cognition in older Puerto Rican adults. Participants included 2,840 community-dwelling adults (60+ years) without cognitive impairment who completed baseline and a four-year follow-up in the Puerto Rican Elderly: Health Conditions (PREHCO) project. At each wave, cognition (using the Mini-Mental Cabán) and self-reported IADL difficulty (a sum score of 10 everyday tasks) were measured. Covariates included age, gender, education, comorbidities, and depressive symptoms. Bidirectional associations were tested using a path model with concurrent and cross-lagged paths between cognition and IADL difficulty adjusting for covariates. Lower baseline cognition related to more baseline IADL difficulty (B=-0.08, SE=0.02, p<.001). Cognitive decline at follow-up related to greater IADL difficulty at follow-up (B=-0.06, SE=0.02, p=.012). Looking at cross-lagged associations, greater baseline IADL difficulty associated with more cognitive decline at follow-up (B=-0.10, SE=0.04, p=.012). However, baseline cognition was not significantly associated with change in IADL difficulty at follow-up (B=-0.003, SE=0.02, p=.869). Findings support the growing body of literature that IADL difficulties can predict future cognitive decline in samples of community-dwelling older adults. More research into both functional and cognitive decline in Latinx samples will provide a more generalizable view of aging.

Older Adult Health and Remission of Risky Drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder: A Lifespan-Developmental Study

Older-adult drinking is a growing public-health concern. As part of a larger project investigating older adulthood by contrasting this with other adult developmental periods, this study used longitudinal U.S.-representative data to test bidirectional associations between drinking and health, emphasizing aging-related health concerns as potential mechanisms of remission from risky/problem drinking. In multiple-group cross-lag models, we found that effects of poor self-reported health on drinking reductions increased with age, reached significance around midlife, and were strongest in older adulthood. However, a caveat revealed by additional Markov transition models was that these effects did not extend to relatively severe older-adult drinkers (indexed by DSM-5 AUD). In some instances, poor health even predicted less older-adult AUD remission. Altogether, findings support the notion of aging-related health concerns as important mechanisms of older-adult drinking reduction; but highlight a need to understand barriers to these mechanisms among severe older-adult drinkers, in part toward guiding lifespan-developmentally-informed interventions.