Family support and depression

High levels of support from one's family are associated with a more rapid recovery from depression while low levels are linked to people being ill for longer. However, there have been few long-term studies into this issue. Researchers from Stanford University studied 373 depressed people over a 23-year period. They found that higher family support was associated with less severe depression at the start of the study and a quicker recovery over the 23-year period. Women with supportive families reported the most rapid recovery from depression.

Kamen, Charles - Family Support and Depressive Symptoms: A 23-Year Follow-Up Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 67(3), 215-223 (2011)

New survey shows recession's toll on youngsters' mental health

Nearly a million 16-24 year-olds in the U.K. are unemployed and a new survey by the Prince's Trust charity shows the toll that this is taking on youngsters' mental health. The survey of 2,170 people aged between 16 and 25 found that young people were twice as likely to self-harm or suffer from panic attacks if they had been jobless for more than a year. Almost half of the sample had problems such as self-harm or insomnia. About one in six respondents to the survey said being out of work was as stressful as a family breakdown, and one in eight said unemployment gave them nightmares. Half of young people seeking work said visits to a job centre made them feel ashamed, and more than half said that job-searching had left them feeling disillusioned or desperate.

Life is very short when you're lonely

Researchers from the universities of Utah and North Carolina have been reviewing the research into the effects of loneliness on people's health and have found that it can be as dangerous as smoking and alcohol and probably a lot less fun. The researchers analysed data from 148 studies carried out over three decades and involving more than 300,000 people. They found that people who have no social life are 50% more likely to die early than those who are well connected and those who socialise regularly with family and friends live an average of 3.7 years longer. People with little social support have a mortality rate as high as alcoholics while the impact of making friends is comparable to the effect of giving up smoking.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

What's the best way to tackle loneliness?

Loneliness is a known risk factor for heart disease and has also been linked to high blood pressure, poor quality sleep, dementia and other health problems. But what is the best way of helping people to overcome it? Researchers from the University of Chicago reviewed 20 studies into the effectiveness of different interventions aimed at tackling people's loneliness. Some worked on means, improving people's ability to make friends and socialise while others worked on opportunity, providing participants with chances to meet new people. However, it was the interventions that worked on motive - people's thoughts about their own likeability and other people's friendliness - that were the most successful. The researchers also found that studies which used techniques of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) were particularly effective.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Life is very long when you're lonely

Loneliness is linked to a number of physical and mental-health problems including anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, poor sleep, a weaker immune system and cardiovascular disease. During adolescence loneliness is thought to peak early on and decline through middle and late adolescence but there has been little long-term research into this. Studies of twins have shown that there is a significant genetic effect on loneliness but no-one knows which genes are involved. Researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands looked into both these issues in a study of 306adolescents. Loneliness was indeed found to reach a peak in early adolescence and decline thereafter. But, people with a certain variation in the 5-HTTLPR gene, which is responsible for transporting serotonin within the brain, were more likely to remain lonely throughout adolescence. For those children with the variation in the 5-HTTLPR gene receiving little support from mothers also increased the risk of loneliness.

van Roekel, Eeske ... [et al] - Loneliness in adolescence: gene x environment interactions involving the serotonin transporter gene Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry July 2010, 51(7), 747-754

Social support and senior centres

Despite the negative aspects of old age - declining health and loss of loved ones - research has shown that forming and maintaining a good network of friends can have a positive effect on people's physical and emotional health. S.A. Fulbright from the University of Arkansas studied 257 older adults who used senior centres in the area to see what effect they had on improving people's lives. The study found that 88% said that they attended the centres for friends and social support. 94% of them had made close friends at the centres and 94% said that their lives had improved since they started going there. 86% said that they had made friends they felt they could rely on when needed and these people were much less likely to be depressed.

Fulbright, S.A. - Rates of depression and participation in senior centre activities in community-dwelling older persons Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing June 2010, 17(5), 385-391

Loneliness, misery and the web

In the context of human history the Internet is still a relatively recent development and no-one is quite sure of its psychological consequences. Irena Stepanikova from the University of South Carolina studied over 13,000 people asking them about their Internet use, loneliness and life satisfaction. Some took part in 2004, others took part in 2005 and 754 people participated in both years. The study found participants who reported spending more time browsing the web also tended to report being lonelier and less satisfied with life. Time spent instant messaging, in chat rooms and newsgroups, and in emailing was also linked with more loneliness. Among the people who took part in 2004 and 2005 increased web browsing was associated with increased loneliness and decreased life satisfaction. But it is unclear whether web use increases loneliness and unhappiness, loneliness and unhappiness lead to increased web use or whether there is a third factor that lies behind all three.

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/03/large-longitudinal-study-finds.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Measuring the effects of respite care

Carers of people with mental illness often suffer from an increased burden, distress, health problems and lower life satisfaction. Respite care involves relieving carers of their duties by employing professional carers and volunteers for a short time. Researchers from Queensland University in Australia studied 20 carers, 10 of whom used respite care and 10 of whom did not. Over the course of the 3-month study the group receiving respite care showed a decrease in burden but an increase in stress while the other group did not change over time.

Jardim, Claudia and Pakenham, Kenneth I. - Pilot investigation of the effectiveness of respite care for carers of an adult with mental illness Clinical Psychologist November 2009, 13(3), 87-93

Social support and PTSD in children

Children are often exposed to traumatic events such as illness or car accidents. It is thought that 40% of children exposed to trauma go on to develop acute stress disorder which can be a precursor to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Current theories about PTSD in adults emphasise the importance of negative appraisals of events in causing the development of the condition, with people who feel themselves to be vulnerable or the world to be unsafe being more at risk of developing PTSD. Social support from friends and family is thought to protect against the development of PTSD as friends and family can challenge negative beliefs, help to find solutions and encourage constructive behaviour. Researchers from Flinders University looked to see whether these theories were true in children in a study of 97 people aged between 7 and 17 who had been admitted to A&E departments. The study found that negative beliefs about the accident were strongly linked to both acute stress and depression symptoms. Social support helped to reduce negative beliefs and to prevent depression but did not stop the children from developing acute stress.

Ellis, Alicia A., Nixon, Reginald D.V. and Williamson, Paul - The effects of social support and negative appraisals on acute stress symptoms and depression in children and adolescents British Journal of Clinical Psychology November 2009, 48(4), 347-361

Social competence and troubled children

It is estimated that one in ten children in the U.S. suffers from serious emotional disturbances that disrupt their functioning in homes, schools and communities. Around 8% of these children need to be admitted to residential treatment because their behaviour is seriously threatening their own, or other people's, safety. These children have often been described as immature and primitive in their relationships and social competence but little formal research has been done in this area. Jodi Morstein Groot from Utah University looked into this issue in a sample of 113 young people. She found that 71% of the sample met clinical behavioural problem levels and that their social competence was at a level of people four years younger.

Groot, Jodi Morstein - Assessing behavior and social competence of severely emotionally disturbed youth admitted to psychiatric residential treatment Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing August 2009, 22(3), 143-149

Going straight - more help needed for people with mental-health problems

U.K. charity the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health says that prisoners with mental-health problems are not being given the help they need to find work when they are released. The charity's policy paper - Securing Employment for Offenders with Mental-Health Problems - states that too many prison-based work-preparation schemes exclude mentally-ill people because they are not thought to be ready for work, even though having a job is the single biggest factor in cutting the reoffending rate. The charity said that prison schemes placed too much emphasis on learning skills and not enough on cultivating links with employers. It called for a wider adoption of policies based on individual placement and support - involving helping people to secure paid jobs and providing in-work support to both employer and employee as long as they need it.

You can download a copy of the Sainsbury Centre report at

http://www.scmh.org.uk/pdfs/securing_employment_for_offenders.pdf

U.K. Government boosts mental-health support for workers

The U.K. Government has announced that people with mental-health problems will get extra support to manage their condition so they can stay in the workplace. After successful pilot schemes - which were 90% successful in helping people to retain their jobs - the Government is now looking to extend the scheme with an expectation that it will be rolled out nationally. The Government will publish its National Strategy for Mental Health and Employment in the autumn setting out how employers, healthcare professionals and organisations can improve wellbeing in the workforce. The Government will also introduce a network of dedicated mental-health experts across job centres who will work with healthcare professionals to coordinate support for people with mental-health conditions and is to increase the Access to Work fund from £69m to £138m over the next five years.

You can find out more about these Government initiatives at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8216873.stm

Socio-economic status and response to treatment

People's socio-economic status was once a major area of interest for scientists researching the effectiveness of drugs and psychotherapy but little work has been done on this in the last 25 years as race and ethnicity have taken centre stage. Yet people with lower socio-economic status tend to have more stress in their lives and less resources to cope with it than better-off people. Lydia Falconnier from the University of Illinois in Chicago looked at how socio-economic status affected the effectiveness of cognitive-behaviour therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy and drug therapy using data from the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program (TDCRP) run by the National Institute of Mental Health. They found that socio-economic status was associated with worse outcomes for all three treatments although it was not associated with attrition (dropping out of treatment).

Falconnier, Lydia - Socioeconomic status in the treatment of depression American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 79(2), 148-158

Social support, terrorism and depression

Teenagers who live in areas affected by terrorism can often become depressed. Researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel studied teenagers who had been indirectly affected by a suicide bombing. None of them had directly witnessed the bombing but some had heard it, others knew people who had suffered physical or emotional damage, or had seen media reports of the attack. Before the bombing the teenagers had already completed a questionnaire as part of another study and the researchers were able to use this data to see which factors existing before the bombing helped to prevent depression after it. The researchers found that the more socially happy the adolescents were before the bombing the less depressed they became afterwards.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720134554.htm

Social capital and children's mental health

Social capital has been defined as 'the social cohesion of a community, and the sense of belonging and the level of involvement in community affairs.' Recently researchers have become increasingly interested in the links between social capital and health, in particular mental illness. Evidence from the U.S. suggests that social capital is strongly linked to children's well being but it is not clear if this is the case in the U.K. Researchers from Birmingham University studied 90 parents who had children between the ages of 4 and 18 with either an emotional or a behavioural disorder. They gave them questionnaires about their children's behaviour and asked them about social capital. Overall, the researchers found no significant link between the parents' social-capital scores and their children's diagnosis, and the severity of their problems. However, two aspects of social capital did have an effect on the children's mental health. 'Perceptions of the local area,' was significantly associated with the severity of the children's problems i.e. the worse people thought an area was the worse their children's problems were. Parents of children with emotional disorders were found to have significantly poorer social networks than parents of children with behavioural disorders.

Pearson, Laura Jane and Oyebode, Femi - Social capital and childhood psychiatric disorders: a cross-sectional study Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry April 2009, 14(2), 183-194

Loneliness, old age and ill health

There has been a lot of research recently into the links between people's levels of social support and their physical and mental health. A study of nearly 3,000 adults, aged between 57 and 85 by researchers at Cornell University in the U.S. has found that people's perceptions of their social support may be just as important as their actual ties with friends and family. The study found that people's actual social connections were linked to their physical health but that their perceptions of social isolation were related to both their physical and their mental health. Feelings of loneliness and isolation can cause stress, low self-esteem and contribute towards depression all of which can affect people's health either by leading them into unhealthy habits or by directly affecting the body.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE52O5CY20090325?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true

Mental health of mothers on welfare

In the 1990s welfare-reform legislation in the U.S. imposed limits on the financial support given to low-income families with young children who were limited to five years' worth of support over the course of their lifetimes. More and more single mothers and their children are reaching the end of this period now and there are concerns about untreated mental-health needs and substance abuse problems among these people. Researchers from the University of Chicago surveyed 333 women who were in the final two years of their eligibility for welfare and found the following information

a)Over their lifetime
b)In the last twelve months

Mental-Health Problems
a)53.2%
b)44.1%
Substance-Abuse Problems
a)29.1%
b)9.0%
Mental-Health Problems and Substance-Abuse Problems
a)21.3%
b)6.3%

Only 21.7% of the sample who had had mental-health problems in the last year had received treatment and only 41.4% of the sample who had had substance-abuse problems in the last year had received help.

Cook, Judith A. ... [et al] - Prevalence of psychiatric and substance use disorders among single mothers nearing lifetime welfare eligibility limits Archives of General Psychiatry March 2009, 66(3), 249-258

Unravelling the neuroscience of loneliness

Researchers are increasingly using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to see which areas of the brain are associated with certain activities, thought processes and characteristics. Researchers at the University of Chicago used MRI scans to look at the links between brain activity and 'perceived social isolation,' i.e. loneliness. They tested 23 female undergraduates to find out how lonely they were. They then put the participants through an MRI scanner while showing them pictures. The lonely participants showed much less activity in a part of the brain called the ventral striatum (which is associated with rewards) when they looked at pictures of people in pleasant settings and much less activity in a region called the tempoparietal junction (which is associated with empathy) when they saw pictures of people in unpleasant settings. But it is unclear whether it is loneliness that affects brain structure or brain structure that makes it more likely that some people will be lonelier than others.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090215151800.htm

The power of a good cuddle

Emotional and social support is very important for people's emotional and physical health and now researchers at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City have found that the odd cuddle can be good for you as well. In their study the researchers divided 36 couples into two groups. One group received training in 'listening touch' (increasing awareness of a partner's mood by touching their neck, shoulders and hands) and neck and shoulder massage which they were told to practice together for 30 minutes, three times a week for four weeks. The other group were told to record any physical contact with their partner. By the end of the study the participants in the 'touch' group had higher levels of oxytocin, which is associated with love and emotional closeness, and lower levels of salivary amylase which is associated with stress. The men, but not the women, had reduced blood pressure but there were no differences in the level of the hormone cortisol, which is also associated with stress.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

The Happiness Bug

Happiness can be contagious, according to a study carried out by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego. The researchers used data from the Framingham Heart Study, a famous ongoing study into cardiovascular risk with participants in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. Their study focused on 4,739 participants in the Framingham Heart Study who completed a range of information about their levels of happiness and their social networks. The researchers found that when someone became happy a friend, living within a mile, experienced a 25% increased chance of becoming happy themselves. Their spouse had an 8% increased chance, siblings living within a mile 14% and next-door-neighbours 34%. However, not only did that person's friends become happier, their friends' friends had a 10% chance of increase happiness and their friends' friends' friends had a 5.6% chance of increased happiness. The effects were limited by geographical distance from the original person and time, lasting about a year. People who were at the centre of social networks were happier than those at the fringes. Having a $5,000 boost to one's income, however, was only associated with a 2% increase in happiness. Sadness was not found to 'flow' through networks in the same way that happiness did.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the link in the title of this post.