The genetic background of the associations between sense of coherence and mental health, self-esteem and personality

Sense of coherence, its components and depressive and anxiety symptoms in expecting women and their partners - A FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study

OBJECTIVE

Expecting mothers with high sense of coherence (SOC) exhibit improved physical, emotional, and childbearing health. However, the dimensions of SOC and the factor structure of the SOC-13 scale during prenatal period is slightly known. Especially the differences in experiencing SOC and its components (comprehensibility, manageability, meaningfulness) among both expecting parents (mothers and fathers) is poorly understood. The association between SOC and mood disorder symptoms (depression and anxiety) during pregnancy is scarcely studied.

METHODS

The structure of the SOC-13 scale, differences in SOC experiences, and the associations between SOC and depressive and anxiety symptoms were studied in a sample of 2784 pregnant women (mothers) and 1661 men/partners (fathers) belonging to the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. Self-reports (SOC-13, EPDS, SCL-90: ANX) from gestational week 24 were used. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and invariance testing was carried out to investigate the factorial structure of SOC-13 among both groups (mothers and fathers). Group comparisons were used to study differences in the level of SOC among mothers vs. fathers, low vs. high depression and anxiety subgroups, and multiparous vs. nulliparous mothers.

RESULTS

A two-factor model for SOC-13 consisting of comprehensibility-manageability and meaningfulness fitted the data best. Mothers reported higher levels of meaningfulness, whereas fathers reported higher levels of comprehensibility-manageability. SOC was significantly higher among fathers vs. mothers, but mothers with depressive symptoms reported higher SOC than fathers with depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

During pregnancy, SOC can be viewed as a two-dimensional (vs. one- or three-dimensional) concept, and mothers and fathers have differences in the components of SOC. Importantly, mothers vs. fathers with depressive symptoms express higher overall SOC indicating that pregnancy may relate to higher than usual SOC especially among women with psychological distress. Understanding how expecting mothers and fathers experience SOC during pregnancy, particularly in relation to depressive symptoms, helps midwives and maternity care providers to focus health promoting support more precisely.

The relationship between sense of coherence and mental health problems from childhood to young adulthood: A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Sense of coherence (SOC) as the key component of the salutogenesis framework is negatively correlated with mental health problems in adults but also in children and adolescents. Since SOC is conceptualized to develop and stabilize from childhood to young adulthood, these life phases are of critical importance for the salutogenesis concept. Individual studies examining SOC's link with mental health at younger ages yielded heterogeneous effect size estimates. Thus, the present meta-analysis is the first to quantify the current state of evidence on the association between SOC and mental health problems.

METHODS

The random-effects multi-level meta-analysis followed PRISMA guidelines and was based on 57 studies (70 samples) comprising 41,013 participants. Weighted mean age of participants was 15.46 years and 50.4 % were female.

RESULTS

The mean correlation (r) between SOC and overall mental health problems was M(r) = -0.46, 95 % CI [-0.53, -0.39]. However, there was substantial heterogeneity between studies, while differences between symptom types were smaller. Subsequent moderator analyses showed that higher sample age was associated with more negative relationships and higher internal consistencies of SOC measures. Moreover, internalizing symptoms, depressive symptoms, and feelings of loneliness showed a stronger negative association with SOC than psychosomatic symptoms.

LIMITATIONS

Our findings on age-related differences were based on (repeated) cross-sectional data and require replication in longitudinal studies.

CONCLUSIONS

Results yielded a negative association between SOC and mental health problems with increasing magnitude from childhood to young adulthood. Thus, SOC-fostering interventions may help to buffer negative effects of stress and improve resilience starting from early ages.

Genetic Variants Associated With Resilience in Human and Animal Studies

Resilience is broadly defined as the ability to maintain or regain functioning in the face of adversity and is influenced by both environmental and genetic factors. The identification of specific genetic factors and their biological pathways underpinning resilient functioning can help in the identification of common key factors, but heterogeneities in the operationalisation of resilience have hampered advances. We conducted a systematic review of genetic variants associated with resilience to enable the identification of general resilience mechanisms. We adopted broad inclusion criteria for the definition of resilience to capture both human and animal model studies, which use a wide range of resilience definitions and measure very different outcomes. Analyzing 158 studies, we found 71 candidate genes associated with resilience. OPRM1 (Opioid receptor mu 1), NPY (neuropeptide Y), CACNA1C (calcium voltage-gated channel subunit alpha1 C), DCC (deleted in colorectal carcinoma), and FKBP5 (FKBP prolyl isomerase 5) had both animal and human variants associated with resilience, supporting the idea of shared biological pathways. Further, for OPRM1, OXTR (oxytocin receptor), CRHR1 (corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1), COMT (catechol-O-methyltransferase), BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), APOE (apolipoprotein E), and SLC6A4 (solute carrier family 6 member 4), the same allele was associated with resilience across divergent resilience definitions, which suggests these genes may therefore provide a starting point for further research examining commonality in resilience pathways.