Current Unemployment, Unemployment History, and Mental Health: A Fixed-Effects Model Approach

Long-term exposure to dust in fine particulate matter and post-stroke functional impairment-Findings from the China National Stroke Screening Surveys

The dust component of particulate matter (PM) warrants more attention in the era of climate change and increased frequency of dust event, yet rarely are studies focused exclusively on the long-term health effects of dust PM2.5. This study aims to assess the relative toxicity of dust and non-dust PM2.5 on the long-term functional impairment after stroke. We utilized data from a multicenter, national survey in China from 2013 to 2019 and selected participants with repeated assessments of the functional impairment outcomes, the modified Rankin scale (mRS) score, to form a longitudinal dataset. The dust PM2.5 exposure data were constructed by combining multiple sources and of high spatial resolution. Fixed effect models were used to estimate the association between dust PM2.5 exposure and changes in mRS scores. A two-dimensional spline model was used to model the joint effect of dust and non-dust PM2.5 exposure. We included 28,081 participants (65,883 visits). Per interquartile range increase of the dust PM2.5 was associated with 0.048 (95 % confidence interval [CI]: 0.003-0.092) increase in mRS score. Results of co-exposure to dust and non-dust PM2.5 showed that the greater the proportion of dust PM2.5 was, the stronger the combined effect. This study revealed that long-term exposure to dust PM2.5 was associated with post-stroke functional impairment. More studies on the long-term effects of dust and dust-sourced PM2.5 on neurological outcomes are warranted in the future.

Emotional Intelligence, Mental Health, and Well-Being Outcomes in the Unemployed: The Moderating Role of Age

The main goal of this study was to examine the moderating role of age in the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and mental health indicators among unemployed individuals. A sample of 401 unemployed participants were evaluated per EI, depressive symptoms, and happiness. Moderation analyses showed that age moderated the relationship between EI and depressive symptoms after controlling for gender and length of unemployment, showing a stronger association among the younger participants with lower EI scores. However, this pattern was not found for happiness. These findings address knowledge gaps regarding age-EI interactions within mental health contexts and age's moderating effect on unemployment. Also, the importance of developing targeted EI training interventions to mitigate the negative mental health effects of unemployment is highlighted, especially among vulnerable demographic groups like the young unemployed.

Unemployment and mental health: a global study of unemployment's influence on diverse mental disorders

Introduction

Globally, one in five individuals faces unemployment, which substantially increases their risk of developing mental disorders. Understanding the relationship between unemployment and specific mental health outcomes is crucial for formulating effective policy interventions.

Methods

This study examines the relationship between unemployment and mental disorders across 201 countries from 1970 to 2020. Using a fixed-effects model, we analyze the impact of unemployment on various mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, drug use, and eating disorders, with a focus on demographic variations.

Results

The analysis reveals a significant positive association between unemployment and mental disorders, particularly anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Moreover, distinct patterns emerge, linking unemployment to higher rates of drug use and eating disorders in specific demographics.

Discussion

These findings underscore the critical interplay between socio-economic factors and mental health, highlighting the need for proactive strategies to address the dual burden of unemployment and mental health disorders. Targeted interventions, such as employment support programs and accessible mental health services, are essential to improve global mental health outcomes. These initiatives can also alleviate the economic burden of unemployment by boosting workforce participation and productivity. Long-term economic gains may offset the increased healthcare expenditures associated with mental health support.

Exposome Determinants of Quality of Life in Adults Over 50: Personality Traits, Childhood Conditions, and Long-Term Unemployment in SHARELIFE Retrospective Panel

Introduction

The present research applies the exposome approach for understanding Quality of life of +50 Europeans based on retrospective panel data. Our paper explores the cumulative influences of personality traits, childhood adversities, such as poor health in infancy, culturally deprived environments, poor mathematical performance, or reduced language skills, and undesired employment status along the life course on Quality of Life of +50 Europeans.

Methods

The study utilizes data from the SHARE (Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe), belonging to SHARELIFE (wave 3 and 7) and from the Working Life Histories retrospective panel (N = 5884). Correlational analyses and stepwise regression analyses were applied with SPSS 29.0 version.

Results

Among the sociodemographic control variables, perceived financial adequacy significantly influenced QoL (Beta=0.372; p = 0.001). The exposome internal domain variables, three personality traits (Conscientiousness (Beta=0.241; p = 0.001), Extraversion (Beta=0.202; p = 0.001), and Openness (Beta=0.049; p = 0.038) significantly and positively influenced QoL, while Neuroticism's influence showing the strongest predictive power (Beta=-.466; p = 0.001). In the exposome external specific domain variable, poor childhood health status negatively influences QoL (Beta=-.085; p = 0.001), as expected. Among the exposome external specific domain variables, only poor Language skills significantly predicted QoL (Beta=-.049; p = 0.001). Finally, the exposome external general domain variable, Duration of undesired unemployment (Beta=-.036; p = 0.006), negatively influences QoL. The paper highlights the cumulative impact of personality, childhood adversities and unemployment on Quality-of-life outcomes and identifies potential avenues for future research.

Discussion

The findings underscore the need for developing effective interventions that can help individuals overcome these barriers and achieve better health, financial and social status when aged.

Is it the Past or the Present? Employment Quality, Unemployment History, Psychological Distress and Mental Wellbeing in the United Kingdom

Low employment quality and precarious employment have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, yet the extent to which this association may be explained by the experience of unemployment "scarring" has not yet been explored. From a life course perspective, understanding this possible confounding is necessary. Drawing on the United Kingdom's Understanding Society dataset and using latent class analysis, we derived a typology of employment quality across six dimensions and assessed the links between individuals' employment quality, unemployment history, and mental well-being and psychological distress. Our results show that precarious types of employment as well as a higher quality "protected part-time" were linked to low mental well-being, though important gender differences were noted. Accounting for past unemployment did not fully explain these associations. No such adverse associations were observed for increased psychological distress. Our results help further the understanding of employment quality as a social determinant of health and highlight the need for both life course and gender-sensitive research in this area.

Association Between Economic Activity and Depressive Symptoms Among Women With Parenting Children

BACKGROUND

Balancing parenting and work life poses challenges for women with children, potentially making them vulnerable to depression owing to their dual responsibilities. Investigating working mothers' mental health status is important on both the individual and societal levels. This study aimed to explore the relationship between economic activity participation and depressive symptoms among working mothers.

METHODS

This study was a cross-sectional study and used data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. The participants in the study were women aged 19 to 50 who were residing with their children. In the total, 3,151 participants were used in the analysis. The independent variable was economic activity, categorized into two groups: 1) economically active and 2) economically inactive. The dependent variable was the depressive symptoms, categorized as present for a Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score of ≥ 10 and absent for a score < 10. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the association between economic activity and depressive symptoms, and sensitivity analyses were performed based on the severity of depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Among women with children, economically active women had reduced odds ratio of depressive symptoms compared with economically inactive women (odds ratio [OR], 0.54; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.36-0.80). In additional analysis, women working as wage earners had the lowest odds of depressive symptoms (OR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.28-0.66). Women working an average of 40 hours or less per week were least likely to have depressive symptoms (OR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.25-0.69).

CONCLUSION

Economic activity is significantly associated with depressive symptoms among women with children. Environmental support and policy approaches are needed to ensure that women remain economically active after childbirth.

Unveiling the patterns: exploring social and clinical characteristics of frequent mental health visits to the emergency department-a comprehensive systematic review

BACKGROUND

Frequent presenters (FPs) are a group of individuals who visit the hospital emergency department (ED) frequently for urgent care. Many among the group present with the main diagnosis of mental health conditions. This group of individual tend to use ED resources disproportionally and significantly affects overall healthcare outcomes. No previous reviews have examined the profiles of FPs with mental health conditions.

AIMS

This study aims to identify the key socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of patients who frequently present to ED with a mental health primary diagnosis by performing a comprehensive systematic review of the existing literature.

METHOD

PRISMA guideline was used. PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) were searched in May 2023. A manual search on the reference list of included articles was conducted at the same time. Covidence was used to perform extraction and screening, which were completed independently by two authors. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined.

RESULTS

The abstracts of 3341 non-duplicate articles were screened, with 40 full texts assessed for eligibility. 20 studies were included from 2004 to 2022 conducted in 6 countries with a total patient number of 25,688 (52% male, 48% female, mean age 40.7 years old). 27% were unemployed, 20% married, 41% homeless, and 17% had tertiary or above education. 44% had a history of substance abuse or alcohol dependence. The top 3 diagnoses are found to be anxiety disorders (44%), depressive disorders (39%) schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders (33%).

CONCLUSION

On average, FPs are middle-aged and equally prevalent in both genders. Current data lacks representation for gender-diverse groups. They are significantly associated with high rates of unemployment, homelessness, lower than average education level, and being single. Anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, and schizophrenia spectrum disorders are the most common clinical diagnoses associated with the group.

Overindebtedness, unemployment, and poor mental health - and the role of sense of control: a population-based Swiss study

Background

Both overindebtedness and unemployment are critical life events that can result in or lead to poor mental health. What is less known is that the two partly interrelated events frequently go along with a feeling of loss or lack of control in life, which could be the main reason why they are associated with poor mental health. This has not been examined in previous research, particularly not in this combination.

Methods

This study used and merged two cross-sectional data sets. Data collected in 2019 on 219 overindebted clients of the four official debt advisory centers in the Canton of Zurich were linked with a comparable subsample of 1,997 respondents from the Swiss Health Survey of 2017. The entire study population covered 2,216 adult individuals living in the Canton of Zurich.

Results

The prevalence of no or low sense of control, medium to high psychological distress, and moderate to major depression was much higher among the 44 solely unemployed (36/30/12%), the 189 solely overindebted (73/83/53%), and particularly among the 30 unemployed and overindebted (93/97/60%) than among all 1,953 other survey participants (21/13/7%). Unemployment, overindebtedness, and a (resulting) lack or loss of control were all found to be strong risk factors for the two mental health outcomes under study. Associations, or rather negative health effects, were partly but not fully mediated by the sense of control. Overindebtedness much more strongly predicted psychological distress (ß = -0.37) and depression (ß = 0.17) than unemployment (ß = -0.05/0.01). The sense of control turned out to be an independent explanatory factor for poor mental health and even the strongest of all (ß = 0.49/-0.59).

Conclusion

Improving a person's control beliefs could be a promising measure for preventing mental health disorders in general and in people who are unemployed and/or overindebted in particular.

Perceived stress of mental demands at work, objective stress and resilience - an analysis of the LIFE-Adult-study

BACKGROUND

So far, previous research suggests positive effects of mental demands at the workplace. However, it may depend on how stressfull these demands are perceived on an individual level.

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to build on previous research by investigating how mental demands are related to stress, overload, and work discontent and whether this relationship is mediated by individuals resources, such as resilience.

METHOD

A sub-sample of the LIFE Adult Cohort (n = 480) was asked to answer questions on sociodemographic characteristics, objective stress (using the Trier Inventory of Chronic Stress (TICS)), and perceptions of stress with regard to verbal and executive mental demands at work.

RESULTS

According to generalized linear regression models, higher verbal as well as executive mental demands were associated with higher levels of chronic stress, work overload and discontent. Higher levels of resilience were associated with lower levels of these outcomes. Analyses regarding interaction effects revealed that the interaction between resilience and perceived stress of verbal mental demands was significant only in terms of work overload.

CONCLUSION

Higher perceived stressfulness of mental demands was associated with higher chronic stress, work overload and work discontent. Therefore, mental demands should be targeted by occupational interventions that aim to improve job conditions and employees' overall well-being. Besides resilience, other potential influencers or personal resources should be focused on in future studies to develop interventions.

Psychiatric Morbidity, Utilization and Quality of Mental Health Care in Long-Term Unemployed People

Research has shown complex interactions between unemployment and mental health. However, the prevalence of specific mental disorders, utilization of mental health care services and influences on help-seeking behavior have been investigated surprisingly little in the past. In this study, we investigated a sample of long-term unemployed people in a cooperation program of the local unemployment agency and a psychiatric university hospital in a larger city in Germany. Mental disorders, treatment history, accordance of treatment to national treatment guidelines and factors influencing previous treatment were assessed. Participants (n = 879; male 56%, female 44%, mean age 43.9 years) showed a high psychiatric morbidity, mostly with diagnoses from the ICD-10 categories F1 (22%), F3 (61%) and F4 (68%). Currently, 18% were in psychiatric treatment, 6% were in psychotherapeutic treatment, and 28% received psychopharmacological treatment. Mostly young men underutilized the psychiatric-psychotherapeutic system, with middle-aged men and women being most frequently in psychopharmacological treatment. Of those treated, only about 10% of the subjects currently received a treatment according to national guidelines. The utilization of psychotherapeutic treatment was strikingly poor. This study identified high psychiatric morbidity and severe treatment gaps in unemployed people. These results can help to target subjects with specific needs for interventions and to modify counseling programs.

The relationship between anthropometric indicators and health-related quality of life in a community-based adult population: A cross-sectional study in Southern China

Background

This study was designed to analyze the relationship of waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), relative fat mass (RFM), lipid accumulation product (LAP) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the community-dwelling population of southern China and to explore the independent contribution of socio-demographic characteristics, number of chronic diseases and anthropometric indicators to HRQoL in that population.

Methods

This community-based cross-sectional survey studied 2,663 adults aged 18 years and older. HRQoL was assessed by the 3-level EuroQol 5-dimensional scale (EQ-5D-3L), and HRQoL were calculated using the Chinese EQ-5D-3L value set. The outcome variable was the EQ-5D-3L score (HRQoL). Cluster regression was used to analyse the independent contribution of each obesity indicator to HRQoL.

Results

A total of 2,663 people participated in this study, and their mean EQ-5D-3L score was 0.938 ± 0.072. In this study, according to the results of the one-way ANOVA, HRQoL was significantly different between the groups of WHtR, WHR, RFM and LAP, respectively. The independent contributions of socio-demographic factors, number of chronic diseases and anthropometric measures to HRQoL in the whole population accounted for 76.2, 7.9, and 15.9% of the total effect, respectively.

Conclusion

RFM and LAP were found to have a previously unreported negative impact on HRQoL in a community-dwelling population. In future studies, RFM and LAP could be used as new indicators of obesity to predict quality of life in humans.