Digital Commons Network^™

Small Individual Loans And Mental Health: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among South African Adults, Lia C. H. Fernald, Rita Hamad, Dean Karlan, Emily J. Ozer, Jonathan Zinman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: In the developing world, access to small, individual loans has been variously hailed as a poverty-alleviation tool – in the context of "microcredit" – but has also been criticized as "usury" and harmful to vulnerable borrowers. Prior studies have assessed effects of access to credit on traditional economic outcomes for poor borrowers, but effects on mental health have been largely ignored.

Methods: Applicants who had previously been rejected (n = 257) for a loan (200% annual percentage rate – APR) from a lender in South Africa were randomly assigned to a "second-look" that encouraged loan officers to approve their …

Anxiety And Depression As Comorbid Factors In Drinking Behaviors Of Undergraduate Students In An Urban Private University, Charles Vohs, Robert Gable, Cynthia Ward, Joseph Barresi, Ronald Martel, Dameian Slocumb

NERA Conference Proceedings 2008

This study examined differences among four drinking behavior groups (non-drinkers, low-risk drinkers, high-risk drinkers, and frequent high-risk drinkers) with respect to anxiety and depression in undergraduate males (n = 457) and females (n = 485). Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Results indicated significant differences among the groups only with respect to anxiety (F = 6.49, p < .001), and in levels of anxiety (p < .01) between high-risk females and males. Findings imply needed changes in prevention approaches to reduce high-risk drinking.

Factors Associated With Self-Reported Depression In Arab, Chaldean, And African Americans, Hikmet Jamil, Mary Grzybowski, Julie Hakim-Larson, Monty Fakhouri, Jessica Sahutoglu, Radwan Khoury, Haifa Fakhouri

Psychology Publications

Although depression is a chronic illness with high morbidity and personal and economic losses, little is known about depression in immigrants with an Arab or Chaldean ethnic background.

Our primary objective was to determine the overall and ethnicity-specific prevalence of self-reported depression in Arab Americans, Chaldean Americans, and African Americans in the Midwest. The secondary objective was to evaluate the associations between potential risk and protective factors and the presence of self-reported depression.

A total of 3543 adults were recruited from the Arab and Chaldean communities in Metropolitan Detroit. The sample in this study was restricted to those of Arab, …

Enduring Mental Health Morbidity And Social Function Impairment In World Trade Center Rescue, Recovery, And Cleanup Workers: The Psychological Dimension Of An Environmental Health Disaster, Jeanne Mager Stellman, Rebecca P. Smith, Craig L. Katz, Vansh Sharma, Dennis S. Charney, Robin Herbert, Jacqueline Moline, Benjamin J. Luft, Steven Markowitz, Iris Udasin, Denise Harrison, Sherry Baron, Philip J. Landrigan, Stephen M. Levin, Steven Southwick

Publications and Research

Background The World Trade Center (WTC) attacks exposed thousands of workers to hazardous environmental conditions and psychological trauma. In 2002, to assess the health of these workers, Congress directed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to establish the WTC Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program. This program has established a large cohort of WTC rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers. We previously documented extensive pulmonary dysfunction in this cohort related to toxic environmental exposures. Objectives Our objective in this study was to describe mental health outcomes, social function impairment, and psychiatric comorbidity in the WTC worker cohort, as well as …

An Experimental Test Of The Maintenance And Vulnerability Hypothesis Of Depression In Consideration Of The Cognitive Hierarchy., Patrick Pössel, Kerstin Knopf

Faculty Scholarship

According to Beck's cognitive model of depression the activation of dysfunctional beliefs triggers negative automatic thoughts, which can be interpreted as the proximal “cause” for emotional, somatic, and motivational symptoms of depression. This top-down processes of beliefs causing thoughts and furthermore of thoughts causing symptoms can be called “cognitive hierarchy.” Besides these processes there are bottom-up influences as well with dysfunctional beliefs being activated by external and internal events. A differentiation between top-down processes and bottom-up influences can be drawn with the first being seen as causing thoughts and emotions while the latter only activate existing beliefs. To test Beck's …

Pegylated Interferon 2a And 2b In Combination With Ribavirin For The Treatment Of Chronic Hepatitis C In Hiv Infected Patients., Ravinder Dhillon, Simona Rossi, Steven K Herrine

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Coinfection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV is an increasingly recognized clinical dilemma, particularly since the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy. Several studies of this population have demonstrated both more rapid progression of liver disease and poorer overall prognosis compared to HCV monoinfected patients. Consensus guidelines, based primarily on the results of 4 major randomized trials, recommend treatment with peginterferon and ribavirin for 48 weeks in coinfected patients. However, this current standard of care is associated with lower response rates to therapy than those seen in monoinfected patients. Important predictors of response include HCV genotype, pretreatment HCV RNA …

Prenatal Alcohol: Effect On Depression And Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (Bdnf) Levels, Mary Laughlin, Andrea Allan

Undergraduate Medical Student Research

Fetal alcohol exposure poses a significant social problem. Conservative rates of Fetal alcohol syndrome and Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorders (ARND) together have been estimated at 9.1/1000 live births (Sampson 1997). Prenatal ethanol exposure can produce subtle learning disabilities in children, which may not become apparent until a child is school-aged and can occur in the absence of other physical evidence of alcohol-related birth defects. Along with cognitive deficits, ARND has been associated with an increased risk of psychiatric disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) has been linked to polymorphisms in the Brian Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) …

Mood Symptoms As Comorbidity In Schizophrenia, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

No abstract provided.

Dopamine Receptor Gene Expression In Human Amygdaloid Nuclei: Elevated D4 Receptor Mrna In Major Depression, Lianbin Xiang, Katalin Szebeni, Attila Szebeni, Violetta Klimek, Craig A. Stockmeier, Beata Karolewicz, John Kalbfleisch, Gregory A. Ordway

ETSU Faculty Works

Previous findings from this laboratory demonstrating changes in dopamine (DA) transporter and D2 receptors in the amygdaloid complex of subjects with major depression indicate that disruption of dopamine neurotransmission to the amygdala may contribute to behavioral symptoms associated with depression. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR was used to investigate the regional distribution of gene expression of DA receptors in the human amygdala. In addition, relative levels of mRNA of DA receptors in the basal amygdaloid nucleus were measured postmortem in subjects with major depression and normal control subjects. All five subtypes of DA receptor mRNA were detected in all amygdaloid subnuclei, although …

Resting And Reactive Frontal Brain Electrical Activity (Eeg) Among A Non-Clinical Sample Of Socially Anxious Adults: Does Concurrent Depressive Mood Matter?, Elliott A. Beaton, Louis A. Schmidt, A R. Ashbaugh, D L. Santesso, M M. Antony, R E. Mccabe

Psychology Faculty Publications

A number of studies have noted that the pattern of resting frontal brain electrical activity (EEG) is related to individual differences in affective style in healthy infants, children, and adults and some clinical populations when symptoms are reduced or in remission. We measured self-reported trait shyness and sociability, concurrent depressive mood, and frontal brain electrical activity (EEG) at rest and in anticipation of a speech task in a non-clinical sample of healthy young adults selected for high and low social anxiety. Although the patterns of resting and reactive frontal EEG asymmetry did not distinguish among individual differences in social anxiety, …

Depression In Parkinson's Disease: Health Risks, Etiology, And Treatment Options, Pasquale G. Frisina, Joan C. Borod, Nancy S. Foldi, Harriet R. Tenenbaum

Publications and Research

Depression is found in about 30%-40% of all patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), but only a small percentage (about 20%) receive treatment. As a consequence, many PD patients suffer with reduced health-related quality of life. To address quality of life in depressed PD patients, we reviewed the literature on the health correlates of depression in PD (eg, cognitive function), etiology of depression in PD, and treatment options (ie, antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychotherapy). The current review is unique in its focus on psychosocial aspects, as well as neuropathological factors, of depression in PD. Overall, we conclude that neurochemical (eg, serotonin) …

Selective Attention To Threat Versus Reward: Meta-Analysis And Neural-Network Modeling Of The Dot-Probe Task., Paul A Frewen, David J A Dozois, Marc F Joanisse, Richard W J Neufeld

Psychology Publications

Two decades of research conducted to date has examined selective visual attention to threat and reward stimuli as a function of individual differences in anxiety using the dot-probe task. The present study tests a connectionist neural-network model of meta-analytic and key individual-study results derived from this literature. Attentional bias for threatening and reward-related stimuli is accounted for by connectionist model implementation of the following clinical psychology and affective neuroscience principles: 1) affective learning and temperament, 2) state and trait anxiety, 3) intensity appraisal, 4) affective chronometry, 5) attentional control, and 6) selective attention training. Theoretical implications for the study of …

Diverse Antidepressants Increase Cdp-Diacylglycerol Production And Phosphatidylinositide Resynthesis In Depression-Relevant Regions Of The Rat Brain, Kimberly R. Tyeryar, Ashiwel S. Undieh, Habiba Ou Vongtau

Publications and Research

Background: Major depression is a serious mood disorder affecting millions of adults and children worldwide. While the etiopathology of depression remains obscure, antidepressant medications increase synaptic levels of monoamine neurotransmitters in brain regions associated with the disease. Monoamine transmitters activate multiple signaling cascades some of which have been investigated as potential mediators of depression or antidepressant drug action. However, the diacylglycerol arm of phosphoinositide signaling cascades has not been systematically investigated, even though downstream targets of this cascade have been implicated in depression. With the ultimate goal of uncovering the primary postsynaptic actions that may initiate cellular antidepressive signaling, we …

Food Insecurity And Maternal Depression In Rural, Low-Income Families: A Longitudinal Investigation, Catherine Huddleston-Casas, Richard Charnigo, Leigh Ann Simmons

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between household food insecurity and maternal depression in a rural sample to determine whether food insecurity predicted mothers’ depression over time or vice versa.

Design: The study employed a prospective design using three waves of data from ‘Rural Families Speak’, a multi-state study of low-income rural families in the USA. Food insecurity was measured using the Core Food Security Module and depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale. A structural equation model was fit to the data using the AMOS software package.

Setting: Sixteen states …

Depression-Related Differences In Learning And Forgetting Responses To Unrelated Cues, Paula T. Hertel, A. Mahan

Psychology Faculty Research

Using the think/no-think paradigm, we examined the effect of a meaningful connection between emotionally neutral cues and targets on initial learning and later recall by students in dysphoric or nondysphoric mood states. Compared to meaningfully connected cue-target pairs, unrelated pairs were less easily learned and more easily forgotten, even when initial learning was controlled. Depressive deficits were obtained in initial learning (only marginally) and final recall. When examined separately within each cuing condition, the recall deficit associated with depressed mood was restricted to the unrelated condition, but when initial learning differences were controlled this deficit was only marginally significant. Results …

Peer Victimization, Depression, And Suicidality In Adolescents, Anat Brunstein Klomek, Frank Marrocco, Marjorie Kleinman, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Madelyn S. Gould

Publications and Research

The association between specific types of peer victimization with depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts among adolescents was examined. A self-report survey was completed by 2,342 high-school students. Regression analyses indicated that frequent exposure to all types of peer victimization was related to high risk of depression, ideation, and attempts compared to students not victimized. Infrequent victimization was also related to increased risk, particularly among females. The more types of victimization the higher the risk for depression and suicidality among both genders. Specific types of peer victimization are a potential risk factor for adolescent depression and suicidality. It is important …

A Longitudinal Study Of The Relation Between Depression And Parenting, Paula A. Errazuriz Arellano

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Depression in mothers is an important risk factor for behavioral and emotional problems in their children (Elgar, McGrath, Waschbusch, Stewart, & Curtis 2004), and disrupted parenting is thought to mediate the influences of maternal depression on children. This 4-year longitudinal study examined whether mothers’ depression predicted parenting of children with behavioral problems across the preschool years. This study attempted to tease apart the correlates of enduring, chronic maternal depressive symptoms from those of transient depressive symptoms on parenting during the preschool years. In particular, it sought to predict both changes in parenting across the preschool years as well as to …

Are Age-Related Changes In Sleep Magnified In Individuals With Depressive Symptoms?, Anna M. Akerstedt

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

No abstract provided.

A Review Of The Tripartite Model For Understanding The Link Between Anxiety And Depression In Youth, Emily R. Anderson, Debra A. Hope

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Although research from numerous investigations indicates that there is substantial overlap in anxiety and depressive symptoms and comorbid diagnoses in youth, these constructs can be adequately differentiated. Clark and Watson [Clark, L. A. & Watson, D., (1991). Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: Psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100: 316-336] proposed a tripartite model to account for the symptom overlap and diagnostic comorbidity between anxiety and depression. This tripartite model posits that anxiety and depression share a common component of negative affect, but can be differentiated by low positive affect associated with depression and high …

Is There Something Unique About Marriage? The Relative Impact Of Marital Status, Relationship Quality, And Network Social Support On Ambulatory Blood Pressure And Mental Health, Wendy C. Birmingham, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Brandon Q. Jones

Faculty Publications

Background Having close social relationships and being married specifically have been reliably associated with health benefits including lower morbidity and mortality. Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of marital status, relationship quality, and network support on measures of psychological and cardiovascular health. Method We examined ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) among 204 married and 99 single males and females (N=303). Results We found that both marital status and marital quality were important. Married individuals had greater satisfaction with life (SWL) and blood pressure dipping than single individuals. High marital quality was associated with lower ABP, lower …

The Prevalence Of Delinquency In Depressed And Substance Abusing Adolescent Girls, Susan C. Hunt

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Research conducted on the role of depression in delinquency among adolescent girls has found that depression can predict delinquency. It has been indicated that research should be conducted on how substance use and abuse play a role in depression and delinquency. Several studies have been conducted on adolescent girls in juvenile delinquent centres and institutions. Few studies have sampled subjects from community-based resources, i.e., street youth clinics, youth programs, or alternative schools. The central goal of the study was to explore delinquency in a group of depressed and substance-abusing adolescent girls in community-based settings including street clinics, youth programs, and …