A longitudinal study of the negative impact of falls on health, well-being, and survival in later life: the protective role of perceived control.

Objectives: Falls can have detrimental effects on older adults' psychological well-being, physical health, and survival rates. However, certain psychosocial mediators may lessen the negative impact of suffering a fall on health and well-being. Perceived control is a psychosocial factor that was examined as a mediator of the falls - health and well-being relationship in the current study.Method: Participants were 232 community-dwelling older adults, age 68 or older who took part in a longitudinal study in 2008 and 2010 and completed measures of perceived control, self-rated health, health-care utilization, number of falls, depressive symptomology, and perceived stress. Survival was also tracked for seven years from 2008 through 2015.Results: Older adults who suffered a fall had poorer health and well-being two years later compared to those who did not suffer a fall. Perceived control mediated the negative impact of falls on subsequent health and well-being outcomes two years later. Among older adults who experienced a fall, higher levels of perceived control predicted better subsequent health and well-being. Suffering one or more falls also predicted less likelihood of survival seven years later, beyond the effects of age, gender, marital status, and education.Conclusion: Findings highlight the importance of assessing risk of falling and levels of perceived control in later life.

The role of fear and disgust in predicting the effectiveness of television advertisements that graphically depict the health harms of smoking.

INTRODUCTION: Antismoking television advertisements that depict the graphic health harms of smoking are increasingly considered best practices, as exemplified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's current national campaign. Evaluation of responses to these widely used advertisements is important to determine advertisements that are most effective and their mechanisms of action. Our study tested the hypothesis that advertisements rated highest in fear- and disgust-eliciting imagery would be rated as the most effective. METHODS: Our laboratory study included 144 women and men aged 18 to 33; 84% were current nonsmokers. All participants viewed 6 antismoking television advertisements that depicted the health harms of smoking; they rated their responses of fear and disgust and the effectiveness of the advertisements. We used multilevel modeling to test the effects of the following in predicting effectiveness: fear, disgust, the fear-disgust interaction, the advertisement, and the participant's sex and smoking status. Follow-up analyses examined differences in ratings of fear, disgust, and effectiveness. RESULTS: Advertisement, fear, disgust, and the fear-disgust interaction were each significant predictors of effectiveness. Smoking status and sex were not significant predictors. The 3 advertisements that elicited the highest ratings of fear and disgust were rated the most effective. CONCLUSION: Our findings support the hypothesis that antismoking advertisements of health harms that elicit the greatest responses of fear or disgust are the most effective. When advertisements elicit high ratings of both fear and disgust, advertisements with graphic imagery are effective, whereas advertisements without graphic imagery are not.

Illness severity and risk of mental morbidities among patients recovering from COVID-19: a cross-sectional study in the Icelandic population.

OBJECTIVE: To test if patients recovering from COVID-19 are at increased risk of mental morbidities and to what extent such risk is exacerbated by illness severity. DESIGN: Population-based cross-sectional study. SETTING: Iceland. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 22 861 individuals were recruited through invitations to existing nationwide cohorts and a social media campaign from 24 April to 22 July 2020, of which 373 were patients recovering from COVID-19. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Symptoms of depression (Patient Health Questionnaire), anxiety (General Anxiety Disorder Scale) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; modified Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5) above screening thresholds. Adjusting for multiple covariates and comorbidities, multivariable Poisson regression was used to assess the association between COVID-19 severity and mental morbidities. RESULTS: Compared with individuals without a diagnosis of COVID-19, patients recovering from COVID-19 had increased risk of depression (22.1% vs 16.2%; adjusted relative risk (aRR) 1.48, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.82) and PTSD (19.5% vs 15.6%; aRR 1.38, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.75) but not anxiety (13.1% vs 11.3%; aRR 1.24, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.64). Elevated relative risks were limited to patients recovering from COVID-19 that were 40 years or older and were particularly high among individuals with university education. Among patients recovering from COVID-19, symptoms of depression were particularly common among those in the highest, compared with the lowest tertile of influenza-like symptom burden (47.1% vs 5.8%; aRR 6.42, 95% CI 2.77 to 14.87), among patients confined to bed for 7 days or longer compared with those never confined to bed (33.3% vs 10.9%; aRR 3.67, 95% CI 1.97 to 6.86) and among patients hospitalised for COVID-19 compared with those never admitted to hospital (48.1% vs 19.9%; aRR 2.72, 95% CI 1.67 to 4.44). CONCLUSIONS: Severe disease course is associated with increased risk of depression and PTSD among patients recovering from COVID-19.