Higher education students' achievement emotions and their antecedents in e-learning amid COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country survey.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a wide range of negative consequences for higher education students. We explored the generalizability of the control-value theory of achievement emotions for e-learning, focusing on their antecedents. We involved 17019 higher education students from 13 countries, who completed an online survey during the first wave of the pandemic. A structural equation model revealed that proximal antecedents (e-learning self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy) mediated the relation between environmental antecedents (cognitive and motivational quality of the task) and positive and negative achievement emotions, with some exceptions. The model was invariant across country, area of study, and gender. The rates of achievement emotions varied according to these same factors. Beyond their theoretical relevance, these findings could be the basis for policy recommendations to support stakeholders in coping with the challenges of e-learning and the current and future sequelae of the pandemic.

The effectiveness of a school-based, universal mental health programme in six European countries.

As children and young people today face ever increasing social, emotional and mental health challenges, schools, as one of the primary systems in children's lives, are called to broaden their agenda and help to address these challenges. This paper discusses the evaluation of a school-based, universal mental health promotion programme developed recently for the European context. The programme provides a universal curriculum from early years to high school, aiming to promote social and emotional learning and resilience and prevent social, emotional, and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. A total of 7,789 students (and their teachers and parents) from kindergarten to high school across 6 countries in Europe were recruited from 434 classrooms in 124 schools, making use of cluster sampling. A quasi-experimental longitudinal design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme on students' outcomes by comparing the groups' outcomes within times (pre-test vs. post-test) and between groups (experimental vs. control group). A total of 779 classroom teachers completed pre-and-post scales measuring students' social and emotional learning, mental health and academic achievement. Results indicate that the experimental group had significantly larger increase in social and emotional competence and prosocial behaviour, and a decrease in mental health issues (externalising and internalising problems). No significant impact was found for academic outcomes. The findings are discussed in view of the limitations of the study and areas for further research.

Antipsychotic side-effect - potential risk of patients rejecting their treatments.

Antipsychotics side-effects pose an enormous problem in psychiatric treatment. The choice of antipsychotics is a crucial issue in the treatment as both patients' cooperation and compliance often depend upon it. Severe side-effects might sometimes cause the treatment interruption, to which each patient is entitled. Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) features include social and interpersonal deficits, discomfort with close relationships, as well as cognitive and perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behaviour. Dominant symptoms often determine psycho pharmacotherapy and therefore antipsychotic treatment is possible. A 23 year-old man was treated for 4 months due to disturbances typical for SPD. Since the patient did not respond well to haloperidol, zuclopenthixol was advised. The latter medication produced severe, life-threatening side-effects which caused urgent hospitalisation. Althouth zuclopenthixol was instantly retracted from the therapy, the patient and his family rejected any further psychiatric treatment. In spite the fact that hetero-data obtained from his mother a few months later, revealed disturbances which greatly affected the patient's live, the patient showed resistance to further psychiatric treatment because of his negative experience with this medication.

Side-effects of generic.

New trends in medicine which are much more oriented towards pharmacoeconomy, are ever so common these days. There's an aim within the focus of the health system which is cutting down treatment expenses, and that relates to psychiatry practice too. Prescription drugs issued by specialist doctors are allowed to be switched with cheaper ones of the same group of drugs by GP doctors, with an aim of cost reduction. "Instead of the medicament prescribed, a GP doctor is allowed to prescribe an alternative medicament of the same efficacy in the dosage of an adequate strength" (taken from the specialist medical report form). A 74 years old man is treated for psychotic depression. Exogenic environmental factors caused the symptoms manifestation due to which hospitalization in a psychiatric ward occurred in two incidences. At the risperidone introduction soon after the second hospitalization event, a long term remission was obtained which lasted for several years. Despite a stable dose of psychopharmacs, new episode of the illness occurred. Researching the potential factors which lead towards the aggravation of the course of the illness disclosed that instead of the original risperidone, the pharmacist issued a generic in an equivalent dose.

Biological correlates of P300 and extraversion relationship.

Because of the great sensitivity of P300 determined in prior research, the aim of this study was to investigate the mediate impact of some biological determinants of P300 on its relationship with extraversion. The sample consisted of 54 female psychology students, right-handers, in the age range of 19-23 years. The P300 was measured by visual oddball paradigm in two trials using EMG/EP device Medelec/TECA Sapphire(II), 4E. Results showed that those subjects who had glasses, drink coffee, do not take any medications and do not smoke showed significant negative correlation between P300-latency and extraversion. Only those subjects who had glasses showed significant negative correlation between P300-amplitude and extraversion. Also, there were differences between those group subjects in P300-amplitude regarding measuring trial. So, it was concluded that findings have confirmed expected great sensitivity and variability in P300 that mediate its relationship with extraversion and should be controlled in future studies.

The relationship between personality traits and anxiety/depression levels in different drug abusers' groups.

Aim. Since psychosocial characteristics of drug abuse involve mainly specific personality and emotional changes, it is very important to investigate characteristics of addictive personality in relationship with emotional state of the individual. Considering that, the objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between personality structure and emotional state of two different groups: heroin addicts and recreate drug abusers. Methods. The total of 288 (219 males and 69 females; 191 heroin addicts and 97 recreate drug users) clients of Centre for the prevention and treatment of drug abuse in Rijeka completed Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ R/A), Beck's Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI). Their average age was 22. Results. In the group of heroin addicts, higher levels of anxiety and depression were significantly correlated with higher levels of psychoticism, neuroticism, criminality and addiction. In the group of recreate drug users, higher extraversion and social conformity were determined. Furthermore, in the first group was found even higher depression. However when the anxiety level was compared between these two groups, there was no significant difference. Conclusion. Overall, the findings implied that the used measurement instruments could serve as the useful diagnostic tools that could ensure advantageous treatment directions.

Internal and external factors in professional burnout of substance abuse counsellors in Croatia.

AIM: In this study, burnout and its internal and external factors were investigated among substance abuse counsellors (no. = 68) who worked in Centres for Prevention and Substance Abuse Treatment (no. = 18) in Croatia. METHODS: Maslach Burnout Inventory was used which measured three burnout dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment; and questionnaire of internal and external burnout factors. RESULTS: The higher levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and the higher level of personal accomplishment were determined. Factors such as work conditions, emotions about us and work, work organization and certain personality traits showed significant relationship with three burnout dimensions. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, findings implicated a certain specificity of professional burnout in substance abuse counsellors, and the need for specific design of mental health care for them.

Proposal for a new detection method of substance abuse risk in Croatian adolescents.

One of the most important factors of successful substance abuse treatment is the early start of the same treatment. Recent selection method for identification of Croatian adolescents in the substance abuse risk that has been using drug tests from urine samples, has been simple and exact on the one hand, but on the other, has been very rare and usually guided by the pressure of parents or the court. Besides, such method presented the source of legal and ethical questions. So, the proposal of application of standardized psychological tests during systematic medical exams of Croatian adolescents at the age range of 15-22 years could help with the early detection of those adolescents who were in the substance abuse risk or already had the developed addiction problem.