Temporal pathways from attachment insecurity to paranoia in a heterogeneous clinical sample: An experience sampling study

INTRODUCTION

There has been growing interest in the role of attachment mechanisms in the onset and maintenance of paranoia. The latest systematic reviews of mixed samples of healthy individuals and psychiatric patients have revealed that increased trait attachment anxiety and avoidance are associated with experiencing paranoia, with trait attachment anxiety showing a stronger association. Few studies have examined attachment and paranoia in naturalistic conditions via the Experience Sampling Method.

OBJECTIVES

The present study examined whether experiences of attachment anxiety and avoidance fluctuate in the flow of daily life, and whether a within-person change in both attachment states precedes the experience of momentary paranoia, and negative and positive emotions.

METHODS

Thirty-seven clinical participants and twenty-six healthy controls were studied over six consecutive days using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). An experience-in-close-relationships questionnaire (ECR-R 16 SF) was used to capture trait attachment dimensions. Several ESM items were used to capture momentary negative and positive affect, paranoia and attachment insecurity states.

RESULTS

The findings revealed that fluctuations in both attachment insecurity states were significantly higher in the clinical group. A prior elevated attachment anxiety and avoidance was followed by an increase in negative affect in the next moment and elevated attachment avoidance was additionally followed by a decrease in positive affect and an increase in paranoia.

CONCLUSION

Our findings reveal the specific temporal associations between momentary attachment insecurity states as predictors of change in emotions/affects and paranoia, along with evidence that state attachment avoidance has a superior impact on momentary affect and paranoia compared to state attachment anxiety. These results contrast with those of recent cross-sectional studies.

Connections between and within extended psychosis and autistic phenotypes and social relationships in the general population

OBJECTIVES

Non - clinical individuals with higher levels of autistic traits and psychotic experiences also have problems in social relationships. Therefore, this study aimed to model complex associations between autistic and psychotic phenotypes and indicators of social relationships in the general population using a network approach.

METHODS

The sample consisted of 649 participants with a mean age of M = 40.23 and SD = 13.09 sampled from the general population. The sample was representative for the 18-65 years old general population in the Slovak Republic. The following scales were administered: Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences, The Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory, and NIH Toolbox Adult Social Relationship Scales. Associations between variables and the presence of communities were identified using Exploratory Graph Analysis.

RESULTS

Results revealed four highly stable and densely connected communities within the network: social relationships, autistic traits, positive symptoms, and the last one consisting of all negative symptoms, problems in social interactions, and depression. The most important variables in the network were difficulties in social interaction, perceived rejection, bizarre ideas, depression, and social withdrawal.

CONCLUSIONS

The psychotic and autistic phenotypes in the general population showed a network of connections with characteristics of social relationships. Community detection revealed that autistic traits and psychotic-like experiences formed relatively independent communities. Further, there was substantial overlap between negative symptoms (e.g., social withdrawal), and core features of the autistic phenotype, especially social interaction difficulties.

Depression and anxiety among College Students in Slovakia - Comparison of the Year 2018 and during COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVES

The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of depression and anxiety among university students during the peak of COVID‑19 pandemic in the Slovak Republic in December 2020. The secondary goal was to compare results with a study from 2018 at the same university.

METHODS

A web-based cross-sectional study was administered at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The final sample consisted of 1,786 participants (approx. 80 % females) with the mean age and standard deviation of M=21.15 and SD=3.53. An online battery of self-report measures of depression, anxiety, perceived stress, loneliness, and resilience was administered.

RESULTS

The prevalence rates of moderately severe to‑severe depression and anxiety were 34.3 % and 20.1 %, respectively. Depression and anxiety were associated with younger age, higher perception of stress, higher loneliness, and lower resilience. In comparison with 2018, we found a two-fold increase in depression and anxiety. The increase was present across most of the depression and anxiety symptoms.

CONCLUSION

The result of the study revealed elevated rates of depression and anxiety during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia. Various demographic and psychological factors were associated with more severe depression and anxiety among university students. Some subgroups of students are at the higher risk of mental health problems (Tab. 4, Ref. 26).

Slovak version of the Trail Making Test: Normative data

The Trail Making Test (TMT) is a popular measure of cognitive functioning, especially processing speed and cognitive flexibility. This study aims to provide normative data for the Slovak adult population. The secondary aim is to test the convergent validity by examining relationships of direct and derived indices to other neuropsychological measures. A sample of 487 healthy adults undertook neuropsychological testing. The relationships of TMT scores to demographic variables and other neuropsychological measures were tested. Age was positively correlated with TMT-A (r = 0.444, p < .01), TMT-B (r = 0.426, p < .01), and the B-A index (r = 0.317, p < .01). Years of education were negatively correlated with TMT-B (r = -0.183, p < .01), B-A difference (r = -0.188, p < .01) and B/A ratio (r = -0.119, p < .01). There were no statistically significant differences in performance based on gender. The test scores were correlated with other measures of processing speed and executive functions. Presented normative data are stratified into 7 age categories. For more accurate interpretation, regression equations were calculated to take years of education into account. TMT-A and B performance, as well as B-A difference score, must be interpreted in relation to age, while education can provide additional information. The B/A ratio is independent from age but should be also corrected for educational level.

An Analysis of Eye-Tracking Features and Modelling Methods for Free-Viewed Standard Stimulus: Application for Schizophrenia Detection

Currently psychiatry is a medical field lacking an automated diagnostic process. The presence of a mental disorder is established by observing its typical symptoms. Eye-movement specifics have already been established as an "endophenotype" for schizophrenia, but an automated diagnostic process of eye-movement analysis is still lacking. This article presents several novel approaches for the automatic detection of a schizophrenic disorder based on a free-view image test using a Rorschach inkblot and an eye tracker. Several features that enabled us to analyse the eye-tracker signal as a whole as well as its specific parts were tested. The variety of features spans global (heat maps, gaze plots), sequences of features (means, variances, and spectra), static (x and y signals as 2D images), dynamic (velocities), and model-based (limiting probabilities and transition matrices) categories. For each set of features, a proper modelling and classification method was designed (convolutional, recurrent, fully connected and combined neural networks; Hidden Markov models). By doing so, it was possible to find the importance of each feature and its physical representation using k-fold cross validation and a paired t-test. The dataset was sampled on 22 people with schizophrenia and 22 healthy individuals. The most successful approach was based on heat maps using all data and convolutional networks, reaching a 78.8% accuracy, which is a 10.5% improvement over the reference method. From all tested methods, there are two in an 85% accuracy range and over fifteen others in a 75% accuracy range at a 10% significance level.

Normative data for the Slovak version of the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB)

The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a well-established screening measure of frontal lobe pathology. The aim of this study is the development of normative data for healthy Slovak adults. The final sample consisted of 487 healthy adults (54% of them female). The mean age in our sample was M = 55.29 (SD = 19.96). For the whole sample, the mean score on the FAB was 16.46 and the SD was 1.64. The mean score on the MMSE for the whole sample was 28.39 and the SD was 1.43. All participants underwent a complex neuropsychological examination spanning the relevant cognitive domains. FAB scores were found to be negatively associated with age (rs = -0.464, p < 0.001) and positively associated with years of education (rs = 0.199, p < 0.001). FAB scores positively correlated with the performance in MMSE (rs = 0.266, p < 0.001). Statistically significant and theoretically meaningful associations to other neuropsychological tests used in this study suggested the adequate convergent validity of the Slovak version of the FAB. The present study provided accurate normative FAB data, which can be used for clinical and research purposes.

Prevalence and correlations of depression and anxiety among Slovak college students

OBJECTIVES

The objective of the study was to evaluate prevalence of depression and anxiety among college students studying at Comenius University in Bratislava. The secondary aim was to evaluate the impact of depression and anxiety on various domains of social functioning.

METHODS

The data were collected through a cross-sectional online survey. The sample consisted of 1,331 students. We administered scales measuring the depression, anxiety, satisfaction with life, and social functioning as part of a larger survey.

RESULTS

When using a customary cut‑off score for PHQ-9 and GAD-7, a proportion of 35.5 % and 25.5 % of students were above the threshold for depression and anxiety, respectively. When using more stringent criteria, the prevalence rates for depression and anxiety were 16.4 % and 9.3 %, respectively. Both conditions co‑occur in 6.8 % of students. Symptom domains were related to satisfaction with life and social functioning.

CONCLUSION

Depression and anxiety are prevalent among college students. We found that symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders were associated with lower satisfaction with life and lower level of functioning at school as well as in social and family lives. The implications for mental health policies at universities are discussed (Tab. 2, Ref. 27).

[Use of behavioral scales in the diagnosis of dementia in the aged]

The authors present their own experience with the use of the behavioural scale elaborated by Blessed, Tomlinson and Roth usually called Blessed Dementia Scale-BS. They examined 76 patients (59 dementia, 17 with major depression, aged 57 - 87 years (mean age 70.3 +/- 7.2 years). The results obtained by BS were compared with WAIS-R, Wechsler's memory scale (WMS) and the MSE cognitive scale (Knopman et al., 1985). They found that BS differentiates satisfactorily patients with dementia and major depression (dementia X = 8.16 +/- 5.4, depression X = 4.41 +/- 2.41, t = 4.07, p < 0,001). The results of examinations by means of BS correlate significantly inversely with the results of examinations of cognitive functions. The closest correlation is between the total BS score and MSE (r = -0.705, p < 0,001). It was confirmed that BS can be used in the diagnosis of dementia for the differential diagnosis of dementia and depressions. Evaluation of partial BS scores (associated with instrumental ADL, basic ADL and personality changes, drives and interests) provides information important for evaluation of the functional capacity of the patient and for the procedure after termination of in-patient treatment. It is important that the total BS score and the partial BS score is not influenced by the patients' age.

[Affective symptomatology in patients with nonspecific inflammatory bowel diseases]

The authors analyze the results of research focused affective symptomatology in 297 patients with non-specific inflammatory intestinal diseases--ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. The results confirmed that 50% of the patients suffer from intense or very intense neurotic symptoms and 20% from a depressive symptomatology of similar intensity. Item analysis suggests predominance of symptoms of vegetative lability, neurasthenia and cognitive depressive symptoms. The extent of affective symptomatology is only to a small degree sex-dependent. Negative factors include a lower level of education and living in a permanent partnership.

[The theoretical basis of "process-oriented psychotherapy"]

Process-oriented psychotherapy /POP/ is an eclectic trend. It is based on Jungian psychology but is inspired also by some dynamic schools and oriental philosophy, in particular Taoism. The essence of the psychotherapeutic method is work with signals in the communication channels. By their reinforcement the personality attains contact with the secondary process behind the borderline of identity. In addition to psychopathological indications it uses somatic symptoms and diseases which are considered a purposeful message of the dream body.

[Use of the MSE scale in geriatric psychiatry]

In preliminary research the authors tested the congruent validity of MSE by comparison with results of the MMSE scale which previously proved useful. In 155 probands of senior age they used MSE, WAIS-R. They found a close correlation of the MSE score and the results. of psychomotor examination of the intellect and memory. As regards different factors of the intellect the MSE performance correlated most closely with the social intelligence and practical instructive solution of problems. The scale has a satisfactory sensitivity but low specificity. The score is influenced by the promorbid intelligence, education and age. MSE differentiates clinically demented and not demented patients and patients with endogenous depression from dementia. The differences between groups of dementia with a different aetiology--multiinfarction and dementia of Alzheimer's type--were not statistically significant.