Too little,too much or just right: Injury/illness sensitivity and intentions to drink as a basis for alcohol consumer segmentation

Background: Although alcohol is the most socially accepted drug, little is known about the classification of alcohol consumers into clusters influencing drinking outcomes. Past research has demonstrated that injury/illness sensitivity predicts health protecting behaviors. Objectives: The present study explored whether alcohol consumers can be classified based on injury/illness sensitivity and intentions to reduce drinking, and whether the identified clusters exhibited meaningful differences in negative affect and drinking levels. Methods: Four-hundred and eighty-six participants (54.3% male; mean [SD] age?=?26.5 [7.2] years) completed online questionnaires between July and October of 2017. Questions were asked pertaining to injury/illness sensitivity, intentions to reduce drinking, negative affect, and heavy drinking behavior. A k-means cluster analysis was performed on illness/injury sensitivity and intentions to reduce drinking scores. We then examined whether clusters varied according to negative affect or drinking variables. Results: The k-means cluster analysis identified four clusters: Insensitive non-internalizers, Insensitive internalizers, Sensitive non-internalizers, and Sensitive internalizers. Sensitive internalizers reported the highest, whereas Insensitive non-internalizers reported the lowest, negative affect. Sensitive internalizers also had the lowest percentage of heavy drinkers. Conclusion/importance: Current findings add to the alcohol literature by indicating that high sensitivity to illnesses/injuries and the internalization of sensitivities via behavior change intentions may provide the best protection against high alcohol consumption levels.     

Correlates of insight with symptomatology and executive function in patients with first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorder: A longitudinal perspective

The present study aimed to examine the relationships of insight with symptomatology and executive function, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally in patients with first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Ninety-two medication-naïve patients were recruited and 71 completed the assessments. Insight, symptoms and executive function were assessed at baseline, 6 months and 1 year. Insight was measured with the abridged version of Scale of Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD). Symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Executive function was measured with the Modified Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (MCST). The most significant improvement of insight and symptomatology was found over the first 6 months, whereas the perseverative errors of MCST were significantly improved between 6 and 12 months. Differential correlations of perseverative errors of the MCST and PANSS scores with SUMD were found at different time points. This suggests the involvement of different mechanisms in insight deficit at different stages of the illness. The baseline MCST perseverative errors were correlated significantly with the SUMD total score at 6 months and the change of SUMD scores over the first 6 months. Although the variance explained was small, it suggests better set-shifting capacity facilitates the improvement of insight at an early stage of the illness.     

Prenatal fear of childbirth and anxiety sensitivity

Objective. Fear of childbirth (FOC) or what is historically referred to as tokophobia (a phobic state where a woman avoids childbirth despite desperately wanting a baby), is known to complicate the delivery process. In this study, the relationship of Anxiety Sensitivity (AS) to FOC was examined given that AS is a risk factor for other fears. Specifically, the contribution of three AS dimensions (physical, psychological or social concerns) relative to other factors (e.g., parity of the mother, trait anxiety) in accounting for FOC was explored.

Methods. Women in their final 4 months of pregnancy (n = 110) completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Scale and the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire.

Results. Most demographic variables were non-significant in predicting FOC with the exception of participants' parity. Multiple regression analysis revealed that AS-physical concerns significantly predicted elevated FOC even after controlling for parity and trait anxiety; higher levels of AS-physical concerns, higher trait anxiety, and expecting a first child all independently predicted greater FOC.

Conclusion. Variance in FOC is explained, in part, by AS-physical concerns. Further, AS-physical concerns are distinct from trait anxiety in predicting FOC. Similar to other fears, the results support the possibility that AS may be a risk factor for elevated FOC.