Structural Inequities in Self-compassion and Parental Burnout.

Objectives: When parenting-related stressors and coping resources are chronically imbalanced, there is risk of parental burnout, and consequent negative impact on parent and child wellbeing. The objective of this study was to determine the relations between structural and social determinants of health inequities, self-compassion (a theoretically indicated coping practice), and parental burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Participants were parents (n = 2324) with at least one child aged 4-17 in the household recruited from NORC's AmeriSpeak Panel (a probability-based panel providing coverage of 97% of the US household population). Parents completed an online or telephone questionnaire in English or Spanish in December 2020. Structural equation modeling was used to test a system of relations between income, race and ethnicity, parental burnout, and parent and child mental health. Indirect effects and moderation by self-compassion were also tested. Results: On average, parents experienced symptoms of burnout several days per week. Symptoms were the most frequent among parents with the least income, as well as female-identified and Asian parents. More self-compassion was associated with less parental burnout, and fewer parent and child mental health difficulties. Black and Hispanic parents were more self-compassionate compared to white parents, helping to explain similar levels of parental burnout and relatively better mental health outcomes, despite comparatively more stressors. Conclusions: Self-compassion is a potentially promising target for interventions aiming to address parental burnout; however, such efforts must not detract from critical structural changes to reduce parenting stressors, particularly those impacting parents experiencing systemic racism and other forms of socioeconomic disadvantage. Preregistration: This study is not preregistered. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12671-023-02104-9.

Stress, self-compassion, and well-being during the transition to college.

RATIONALE: The transition to college presents a period of vulnerability to mental illness, and opportunity for positive psychosocial development. OBJECTIVE: The present study sought to build an explanatory person-centered and contextualized model of student wellbeing in the transition to college. METHOD: Participants were entering first year undergraduate students at a large public university in the United States (n = 5509). Online survey data were collected at three time points across the academic year, with outcomes of depression and anxiety, thriving, and grade point average, and predictors including resilient coping, self-compassion, social support, school connections and the acute and chronic stressors experienced during the transition to college. Latent growth curves were used to examine trajectories of change in depression and anxiety, and a cross-lagged panel model was used to describe a system of how all measured variables influenced each other over time. RESULTS: There were four main findings. On average, students experienced moderate increases in depression and anxiety from the summer before college through the spring, with wide variability across students and no clear patterning by demographic groups. Second, self-compassion was the strongest and most consistent predictor of successful transitions. Third, chronic stressors were strongly predictive of more negative outcomes, and self-compassion and coping skills did not buffer their effects. Finally, people most likely to experience chronic stressors over the school year included women, people who identify as sexual minorities and first-generation students. CONCLUSIONS: Programming to support entering college students should seek to foster self-compassion, while also limiting chronic stressors and reducing their inequitable distribution across the student population.

Passively-sensed Behavioral Correlates of Discrimination Events in College Students.

A deep understanding of how discrimination impacts psychological health and well-being of students could allow us to better protect individuals at risk and support those who encounter discrimination. While the link between discrimination and diminished psychological and physical well-being is well established, existing research largely focuses on chronic discrimination and long-term outcomes. A better understanding of the short-term behavioral correlates of discrimination events could help us to concretely quantify such experiences, which in turn could support policy and intervention design. In this paper we specifically examine, for the first time, what behaviors change and in what ways in relation to discrimination. We use actively-reported and passively-measured markers of health and well-being in a sample of 209 first-year college students over the course of two academic quarters. We examine changes in indicators of psychological state in relation to reports of unfair treatment in terms of five categories of behaviors: physical activity, phone usage, social interaction, mobility, and sleep. We find that students who encounter unfair treatment become more physically active, interact more with their phone in the morning, make more calls in the evening, and spend more time in bed on the day of the event. Some of these patterns continue the next day. Our results further our understanding of the impact of discrimination and can inform intervention work.

Does perioperative documentation transfer reliably?

In the complex and multiphasic perioperative process, there are many opportunities to transfer information between providers and settings. Previous studies have shown that information transfer and communication are vital to minimize risks in the perioperative setting. The aim of this study was to explore the incidence of failure to communicate vital information as the patient progressed through the six phases of the perioperative process. The systematic sample included ambulatory surgery patient records from one quarter. A failure to communicate rate was calculated as 10.2% for the 5586 entries. In the absence of a comprehensive electronic health record, a consistent method for information transfer must be used to minimize risks.