Practicing Social Isolation During a Pandemic in Brazil: A Description of Psychosocial Characteristics and Traits of Personality During COVID-19 Lockout.

The experience of the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus and the consequent disease triggered by it (COVID-19) brought to light fragilities that have been long overlooked by the scientific community and by various political and social institutions. The pandemic also brought to the fore certain social practices resulting from individual behaviors, such as wearing a mask and practicing social isolation. It demonstrated the need for social commitment and pro-social behaviors if societies are to respond successfully. The purpose of this article is to evaluate psychological and sociodemographic characteristics associated with compliance or noncompliance of individuals with these practices in two different phases of the pandemic experience in Brazil: in the first month and after three months. Participants for the first phase of the study were recruited through advertisements in the media and social networks. 1,914 individuals aged between 14 and 81 years agreed to participate, 78.2% of these were women, from 25 Federative Units in Brazil. In the second phase, 761 individuals who participated in the first phase, were reassessed. The authors used the following instruments for data collection: a standardized questionnaire collecting information of sociodemographic characteristics and dynamics of social isolation; the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale; the Life Satisfaction Scale; the Positive and Negative Affections Scale; and the Reduced Personality Markers and Stress Mindset Scale. All instruments used presented evidence of validity and adequate reliability indexes. The comparison of categorical exploratory variables with motives for following social isolation protocols was performed using Pearson's Chi-square, and the comparison of continuous exploratory variables was performed using the Mann-Whitney test. Covariance Analysis was performed using as covariates those that showed significance/effect on isolation in previous analyses. The results showed that respondents practicing social isolation to comply with governmental recommendations had lower scores on the scales of neuroticism and conscientiousness. They reported also less stress, anxiety, and depression, and less general distress. Overall, these respondents also displayed more positive affect, and tended to reframe stress in a more positive way than others. These preliminary results describe the psychological characteristics of individuals and their associations with social behaviors in a period of collective stress and high social risk.

Maternal depression, family functioning and children's longitudinal development.

Analysis of data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth reveals that 6% of children are born to mothers who experienced symptoms of depression during their first 2 years of life. The prevalence rises steadily until children are 10 years of age when it reaches 9%, and thereafter remains relatively stable. Children of depressed mothers are at increased risk of having low receptive vocabulary and displaying inattention or physical aggression at ages 4 to 5 years, only partially attributable to family demographic factors, family functioning and parenting qualities. Maternal depression occurring when the child was 2 to 3 years of age, was a risk factor for anxiety in 10 and 11 year olds. Timing or duration of maternal depression had no effect on math achievement. The risk of poor child outcome was greatest for mothers who experienced depression continuously or when their child was 2 to 3 years or older. Nurses need to assess and intervene to reduce the impact of depression on mothers and their children's development, well beyond the postpartum period.

Free-viewing laterality tasks: a multilevel meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Chimeric free-viewing laterality tasks have been used extensively as measures of right-hemisphere functioning, with many variations in stimuli and samples typically showing an LVF bias. However, the questions remain concerning whether the LVF bias is significantly different from zero, and what factors might moderate this bias. METHOD: The present meta-analysis answered these questions by retrieving a presumably exhaustive sample of studies published in English that involved free viewing of stimuli. The final analysis was based on 329 effect sizes drawn from 112 published studies. A hierarchical linear model (or multilevel) approach to meta-analysis was used to deal with the violation of the independence of effect-sizes assumption and to reflect better the hierarchical structure of the data. RESULTS: A large and significant left visual-field (LVF) bias (estimated mean d = 1.024) was demonstrated across the entire set of retrieved effect sizes. It was also demonstrated that such tasks are a useful tool for discriminating between various clinical populations. Finally, the moderator analysis identified that emotion faces (estimated mean d = 1.052) and timed conditions (estimated mean d = 1.319) appear to promote large effects. CONCLUSIONS: The present meta-analysis validated free-viewing laterality tasks as tools for neuropsychological assessment and for empirical research.

The family antecedents and the subsequent outcomes of early puberty.

The purpose of this study was to examine both the family antecedents and the outcomes of early puberty, with a particular focus on factors related to family socioeconomic status (SES). The study employed a comprehensive measurement of pubertal development and longitudinal data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. The sample (N = 8,440; 49% girls) included four cohorts of children who were followed biennially for 10 years, starting from age 4-11 to 14-21 years. Data were drawn at different years of age from these cohorts of children. Girls whose fathers were unemployed were more likely to experience early puberty than those whose fathers were employed. For boys, those living with fathers who had not finished secondary school were more likely to experience early puberty. Early maturing girls tended to engage in smoking and drinking at an earlier age compared with their peers. These findings provide support for psychosocial acceleration theory and suggest that different aspects of low family SES may act as a psychosocial stress for early pubertal maturation in boys versus girls, which may lead to engagement in drinking and smoking at a younger age, at least for girls.

The prevalence of anxiety among middle and secondary school students in Canada.

OBJECTIVES: Adolescents' anxiety is associated with individual and contextual characteristics. The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalence of anxiety among adolescent youth in grades 6 to 12 and determine whether it is related to socio-economic status and perceptions of learning skills and challenges. METHODS: Nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Tell Them From Me survey--Fall 2008 assessment--were used for this study. Item response theory estimates and a cut-off point for anxiety were developed from six Likert items pertaining to anxiety. Csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow was applied to create four different combinations of learning processes and students' skills. RESULTS: Females had a higher prevalence of anxiety than males in both middle and secondary schools. The prevalence of anxiety did not vary substantially among schools for either middle or secondary schools. Less than one half of Canadian students can be considered "in flow", that is, feeling confident in their skills and challengedin their classes. Students who lacked confidence in their skills were nearly twice as likely to experience anxiety. CONCLUSION: The relation between students' skills, the challenges presented to them at school and anxiety problems deserves attention by parents and school staff. Further research could examine the relationship between direct assessments of students' skills and measures of teaching practices and school policies.