Mindfulness-based psychosocial interventions and psychological wellbeing in cancer survivorship: a meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: Among cancer survivors, mindfulness-based interventions appear promising in decreasing distress for cancer patients, but little attention has been paid to the ultimate mindfulness goal of increasing psychological wellbeing. This meta-analysis aims to summarise and synthesise available evidence concerning the effectiveness of MBIs on positive psychological outcomes reflecting key aspects of psychological wellbeing in heterogeneous cancer patients. METHODS: A literature search of mindfulness-based randomised clinical trials in cancer survivors was conducted across six electronic databases. Two reviewers independently screened studies and extracted data. Meta-analyses were conducted using R; standardised mean difference (SMD) was used to determine intervention effect. Moderators examined included therapeutic orientation, control group type, treatment modality, treatment target, heterogeneous vs. homogeneous cancer type, and facet of wellbeing. RESULTS: Thirty-one studies were included (N = 2651). Those who received mindfulness-based interventions reported significantly higher eudaimonic, hedonic, and social wellbeing than respondents in control groups (SMD = 0.599). Interventions were equally effective across therapeutic orientation, control group type, treatment modality and treatment target. There were trend level differences favouring homogeneous cancer diagnosis groups over heterogeneous diagnosis groups. CONCLUSION: MBIs provide an effective treatment for increasing psychological wellbeing in cancer survivors. This finding has important implications for clinical practice.

Examining the factor structure of the Big Five Inventory-2 personality domains with an adolescent sample.

We examined the within-domain structure of the five domains of personality measured by the Big Five Inventory-2 with data collected from an adolescent sample (N = 838). Three possible factor models were tested: a single factor, correlated facets, and a single factor with correlated residuals. We examined each model controlling for acquiescence, a response bias in which respondents tend to agree/disagree regardless of item content, using two approaches: acquiescence factor and within-person centering of item-level responses. Across each domain, results indicated both the correlated facets and correlated residuals models demonstrated acceptable fit. Accounting for acquiescent responding was generally associated with improved model fit. However, consistent with past struggles in measuring open-mindedness in adolescents, the correlated residuals model with acquiescence as a factor for open-mindedness failed to converge. Regularized structural equation modeling was conducted on this model for open-mindedness and suggested certain residual covariances that contributed to estimation difficulties should be constrained to zero. Advantages of models are discussed with implications for studying the Big Five personality domains in adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Mood during pregnancy: Trends, structure, and invariance by gestational day.

Mood dynamics during pregnancy are important in understanding a critical period of human development, and also as a model for biopsychosocial stress processes. Here, in four large samples of smartphone app respondents (differentiated by time period and number of responses), we modeled mood for each gestational day during the pregnancy period. We aimed to delineate patterns of changes in mood across pregnancy, as well as potential changes in measurement properties across the period. Results indicated that three prominent mood factors - positivity, distress, and irritability - could account for responses in this period, and that changes in measurement properties of mood items across pregnancy were small in magnitude. Mean irritability increased, and positivity decreased, in the first trimester before reversing in direction; there was also some evidence for previously reported U-shaped trends in mood, where negative mood is greatest early in pregnancy, decreases, and then increases again. Results help characterize mood processes at a detailed level during a critical period, and point to directions for future research to explicate causes and effects of mood changes during this time.