Optimism and Sleep in Aging Women: Bidirectional Relationships.

OBJECTIVE: Sleep quality and duration are important for biological restoration and promotion of psychological well-being. Optimism may facilitate or result from sufficient sleep, but questions remain as to directionality. The present study tested how optimism is associated with levels of and variability in sleep quantity and quality in a longitudinal burst design. METHODS: Midlife and older women ( N = 199) reported their sleep quantity and quality in online diaries for a 7-day period, every 3 months for 2 years. Optimism was measured at baseline and end-of-study. Multilevel models tested the effects of optimism on sleep. Linear regression models tested the effect of sleep on optimism. RESULTS: Baseline optimism was associated with higher sleep quality ( γ = 2.13 [1.16 to 3.11], p < .0001) and lower intraindividual variability (IIV; night-to-night and wave-to-wave) in sleep quantity (night-to-night: γ = -0.07 [-0.13 to -0.005], p = .03; wave-to-wave: b = -0.07 [-0.12 to -0.02], p = .003). In turn, higher average sleep quality (but not quantity) was associated with higher optimism at end-of-study ( b = 0.02 [0.007 to 0.03], p = .002). Variability in sleep was unrelated to optimism. CONCLUSIONS: Optimism may play an important role in maintaining sleep quality and consistency in sleep quantity, perhaps by buffering stress. Similarly, sleep quality may play an important role in maintaining optimism. The cycle whereby optimism and sleep enhance one another could improve physical health and psychological well-being among aging adults.

Pain, Goal Engagement, and Eudemonic Well-Being: Moderation by Autonomous Motivation.

OBJECTIVES: Pain may decrease well-being in older adults by limiting social and leisure activities. However, some activities can exacerbate pain. We hypothesized that autonomously motivated goal engagement could ameliorate negative effects of pain on goal engagement and amplify positive effects of goal engagement on eudemonic well-being (EWB). METHODS: Midlife and older women (N = 200) were oversampled for chronic pain. Daily diaries (n = 10,697) including goal lists and ratings, pain, and EWB were completed for 7 days every 3 months for 2 years. RESULTS: Pain was not a correlate of goal engagement. More engagement was associated with higher EWB when motivation was autonomous. However, more goal engagement correlated with lower EWB the next day and, when not autonomously motivated, higher pain. DISCUSSION: Goal engagement can benefit people with or without physical pain, but the motivation behind goal engagement is equally if not more important. Goals motivated by autonomous sources increase EWB and may protect against maladaptive patterns of activity associated with pain.

The effectiveness of telepsychology with veterans: A meta-analysis of services delivered by videoconference and phone.

Veterans face a variety of stressors due to their military service and are more likely to develop psychological problems as a result. Research suggests that as many as half of veterans with mental health conditions go untreated due to barriers including lack of accessibility to services and stigma. The present study builds on previous research by using meta-analytic techniques to determine the effectiveness of telepsychology-delivered therapy with veterans. Empirical studies were included if they reported veteran-related outcome data on a psychological intervention used to treat a mental health condition remotely using either videoconferencing or telephone. Twenty-seven studies including 2,648 total participants (1,667 in treatment conditions and 981 in control conditions) met our inclusion criteria and were incorporated into our analysis. Twenty-five studies provided pre-post data to evaluate various therapy outcomes, and 18 studies used a randomized clinical trials (RCTs) design that allowed a comparison between telehealth and traditional in-person therapy. Publication bias was evaluated using correlations between sample and effect sizes for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression for pretest-posttest and RCT designs; risk was determined to be minimal. Weighted average pre-post effect sizes were moderate-to-strong for depression and trauma, and videoconferencing was more effective than telephone for depression (d = 0.86 and 0.46, respectively) and trauma (d = 1.00 and 0.51, respectively). Weighted average effect sizes computed from RCT studies suggest telepsychology is similarly effective as services provided face-to-face. More research is needed for telepsychology-delivered treatments for other mental health conditions faced by veterans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).