Mental health of Brazilian students during the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of gratitude, optimism, and hope in reducing anxiety

Abstract Objective To investigate the role of optimism, hope, and gratitude as psychosocial factors for healthy development, especially with regard to anxiety in college students in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods This is a quantitative, descriptive cross-sectional study. A sociodemographic questionnaire, the Brazilian Gratitude Scale (Escala Brasileira de Gratidão [B-GRAT]), and the Brazilian versions of an anxiety subscale, the Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R), Hope Index Scale, and BIG-FIVE were administered. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman correlations, and hierarchical linear regression. Results A total of 297 students were assessed. The relationship between gratitude and anxiety became positive in the hierarchical linear analysis, contradicting the initial negative association between these variables according to the Spearman coefficients. This contradiction may be a result of the suppression effect. When gratitude was added to the model, these three variables together accounted for 38% of the variance in anxiety. This indicates that optimism, hope, and gratitude together are significant predictors, although optimism alone accounts for the greater part of the variance in decreased anxiety. Conclusion The data confirm that family and religiosity are protective factors against mental illness, specifically non-adaptive anxiety. Furthermore, developing optimism as a protective factor makes it possible to experience less anxiety while hope has the potential to provide the individual with multiple pathways to healthy development. This study highlights that gratitude plays a dual role in these relationships as it has the potential to be associated with anxious feelings with likely negative outcomes while at the same time it can drive positive psychosocial factors of optimism and hope, decreasing anxiety.

The shared and dissociable aspects of burnout, depression, anxiety, and irritability in health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic: A latent and network analysis.

Burnout syndrome (BS) has been classified as an independent 'work-related phenomenon', however, there is still an important discussion on whether BS is a unique clinical construct due to the overlapping symptoms with other domains of negative affect such as symptoms of depression, anxiety, and irritability. Thus, we investigated the common and dissociable aspects between BS and domains of negative affect such as depression, anxiety, and irritability through a cross-sectional study with 3428 essential service professionals from a national project during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were assessed with Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) and the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) scales to assess the severity of depression, anxiety, and irritability. The discriminability between the constructs was investigated using correlation tests, Bifactor Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling Bifactor (ESEM), and network analyzes. The mean correlation among the four subscales of BAT-12 was stronger with each other than with depression, anxiety, and irritability. Both ESEM and network analysis, despite showing shared characteristics, clearly delineated that Burnout domains were dissociable from other domains of negative affect. Our findings corroborate the ICD-11 strategy to include BS as a separate entity that cannot be fully explained by variance accounted for by other domains.

Relationships Between CSA Characteristics, Waiting Time, and Psychotherapy Treatment Response.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) can cause negative outcomes on cognitive, emotional, physical, and social development of the victims. A significant amount of symptoms related to CSA can be minimized or even treated with professional interventions. Thereby, it is important to examine factors related to treatment response. This article aimed to identify the relationships between CSA characteristics (abuse form, age, relationship with the offender, context, and frequency), waiting time for psychotherapy, and treatment response. Zero-order correlation analysis and network analysis were performed. The analyses called the attention to two important aspects: victims' perception of guilt and waiting time for treatment. In conclusion, these results show that it is crucial to prioritize the development of guilt-related interventions on the treatment of CSA victims. Additionally, it also demonstrates that the immediate psychological care after the disclosure of the abuse can contribute for impact minimization of this experience on children and adolescents.

Perceived Opportunities to Craft Scale: adaptation and evidence of the construct validity of the Brazilian version.

Employees' perceived opportunities to craft (POCs) influence actual job crafting behavior, which may have consequences for their well-being and work performance. This study aimed to validate the perceived opportunities to craft scale (POCS) in the Brazilian context. We collected data from Brazilian employees (N = 1451) in two separate samples. The factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity of the POCS were tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA), and external variables. The results indicated that the POCS-Brazilian version (with seven-point and five-point Likert scale) replicated the unidimensional structure of the original instrument. POCs showed significant positive and moderate correlations with occupational self-efficacy, work engagement and job crafting, and negative associations with workaholism. Both POCS-Brazilian versions were reliable according to three types of reliability indexes and also showed discriminant and convergent validity evidence.