Anxiety, Stress Coping Styles and Hope for Success among Graduate Students and High School Graduates during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Moderating Role of Remote Learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly influenced the area of education, in terms of both teaching and learning effectiveness. The aim of the study was to compare groups of high school graduates and graduate students. The Coping Inventory in Stressful Situations (CISS), State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Hope for Success Questionnaire (KNS), and our own questionnaire were used in the study. The results of the research show that the group of high school graduates, compared to the graduate students, was characterized by a higher level of anxiety, a style focused on emotions and a lower level of hope for success. People who passed the exam in the online form were characterized by a higher level of anxiety compared to the respondents who passed the exam in the stationary form. According to the results of this study, it can be concluded that the styles of coping and the level of hope for success may be both protective and risk factors related to the level of anxiety during distance learning.

White Matter Integrity of the Corpus Callosum and Psychopathological Dimensions in Deficit and Non-Deficit Schizophrenia Patients.

Deficit syndrome (DS) is a subtype of schizophrenia characterized by primary persistent negative symptoms. The corpus callosum (CC) appears to be related to psychopathology in schizophrenia. This study assessed white matter integrity in the CC using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in deficit and non-deficit schizophrenia (NDS) patients. We also investigated the psychopathological dimensions of schizophrenia and their relationship to CC integrity. Fifteen DS patients, 40 NDS patients, and 30 healthy controls (HC) underwent psychiatric evaluation and neuroimaging. We divided the CC into five regions and assessed their fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). Psychopathology was assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. DS patients had lower FA than NDS patients and HC, and higher MD in Region 5 of the CC than did HC. NDS patients had higher MD in Region 4 of the CC. The patient groups differed in terms of negative symptoms. After differentiating clinical groups and HC, no significant correlations were observed between DTI measures and psychopathological symptoms. Our results suggest that DS and NDS are characterized by minor impairments of the posterior CC. We confirmed that DS patients have greater negative psychopathology than NDS patients. Our results are preliminary, and further studies are needed.