Yanjie Yang

Impairment in processing visual information at the pre-attentive stage in patients with a major depressive disorder: A visual mismatch negativity study

We compared the pre-attentive processing in patients with a major depressive disorder (MDD) and matched healthy controls as indexed by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) elicited by exposure duration of visual stimuli randomly presented on both peripheral visual fields. To obtain the memory-comparison-based visual MMN, the role of standard and deviant stimuli was reversed in separate blocks. Compared with healthy participants, MDD patients exhibited decreased MMN amplitudes of long duration deviant only and this deficit was not correlated with the depression severity. These data suggests functional impairment of pre-attentive basic visual information processing in MDD patients.

The Mediating Role of Coping Style in the Relationship between Psychological Capital and Burnout among Chinese Nurses.

Background Burnout is recognized as an occupational hazard, and nursing has a high risk of burnout. This study aims to explore the relationship between psychological capital (PsyCap) and burnout among Chinese nurses and the mediating role of coping style in this relationship. Methods A total of 1,496 nurses (effective response rate: 80.11%) from two large general hospitals in Daqing City of China were selected as participants. Data were collected via the Chinese Maslach Burnout Inventory (CMBI), the psychological capital questionnaire (PCQ-24), the Chinese Trait Coping Style Questionnaire (TCSQ) and demographic and caregiver-patient relationship. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to explore the mediating role of positive coping and negative coping, and we used the Bootstrap method to confirm the mediating effect. Results Self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism of nurses were all negatively related with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment among Chinese nurses. Positive coping partially mediated the relationship between hope/optimism and emotional exhaustion and between self-efficacy/optimism and reduced personal accomplishment. Negative coping fully mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and emotional exhaustion, and in the regression model self-efficacy was positively correlated with emotional exhaustion. And negative coping also partially mediated the relationship between hope/optimism and emotional exhaustion and between optimism and depersonalization. Conclusion PsyCap had effects on burnout and coping style was a mediator in this relationship among Chinese nurses. Nurses who had a strong sense of self-efficacy adopted more negative coping style, which in turn would lead to higher levels of emotional exhaustion. These findings shed light on the influence of negative coping on burnout, and positive coping was a positive resource for fighting against nurses’ burnout. Hence, in order to avoid negative coping style, improve skill of coping and enhance PsyCap of nurses, active interventions should be developed in the future.

Cognitive emotion regulation: characteristics and effect on quality of life in women with breast cancer

BackgroundIn recent decades, researchers and clinicians have sought to determine how to improve the quality of life (QOL) of women with breast cancer. Previous research has shown that many women have particular behavioral coping styles, which are important determinants of QOL. As behavior is closely associated with cognition, these patients may also have particular cognitive coping styles. However, the cognitive coping characteristics and their effects on QOL in women with breast cancer remain unclear. Thus, this study aimed to characterize cognitive coping styles among women with breast cancer and explore the effects of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on QOL.MethodsThe Chinese version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire was used to assess cognitive coping strategies in 665 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer and 662 healthy women. QOL of patients was assessed using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy for Breast Cancer Scale. Independent-samples t-tests were performed to investigate group differences in reporting of cognitive coping strategies. Multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the effects of cognitive coping strategies on QOL in patients after controlling for sociodemographic and medical variables.ResultsCompared with control subjects, patients reported less frequent use of self-blame, rumination, positive refocusing, refocusing on planning, positive reappraisal, and blaming others, and more frequent use of acceptance and catastrophizing (all p < 0.01). The three strongest predictors of group membership were catastrophizing (B = −0.35), acceptance (B = −0.29), and positive reappraisal (B = 0.23). All nine coping strategies were significantly correlated with QOL in patients (all p < 0.05). After controlling for sociodemographic and medical variables, self-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing negatively affected QOL (all p < 0.05), whereas acceptance and positive reappraisal had positive effects (all p < 0.01).ConclusionsCompared with healthy women, women newly diagnosed with breast cancer use catastrophizing and acceptance more frequently, and positive reappraisal, self-blame, rumination, positive refocusing, refocusing on planning, and blaming others less frequently. Catastrophizing, rumination, and self-blame may be not conducive to QOL of women with breast cancer and acceptance and positive reappraisal may be useful.

Impaired pre-attentive change detection in major depressive disorder patients revealed by auditory mismatch negativity

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show deficits in cognitive functions. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the pre-attentive information processing in MDD patients are poorly understood. The present study investigated whether MDD patients have impairments in pre-attentive information processing indexed by auditory mismatch negativity (MMN). The deviant-standard reverse oddball paradigm was used to obtain the memory-comparison-based duration auditory MMN in 24 MDD patients and 24 healthy control subjects. Over the frontal-central area, MDD patients exhibited decreased MMN amplitudes only for the increment condition (150-ms MMN), whereas the temporal MMN did not differ between MDD patients and healthy subjects, regardless of the increment or decrement (50-ms MMN) condition. The MMN amplitudes were not correlated with depression symptoms. In addition, the peak latency of MMN amplitudes was longer in the MDD patients than the control subjects. These data indicate that pre-attentive information processing is impaired in MDD patients. This dysfunction may represent a trait of MDD patients rather than a state-dependent phenomenon.

What factors are predictive of benefit finding in women treated for non-metastatic breast cancer? A prospective study.

Patients with breast cancer are able to gain psychological benefits from cancer diagnosis and treatment, such as a greater purpose of life and closer relationships, termed as ‘benefit finding’ (BF). The objective of this study was to determine the effects of sociodemographic, pathological, and psychological variables on BF in women with non‐metastatic breast cancer.

Relationship between Anxiety and Burnout among Chinese Physicians: A Moderated Mediation Model

Objective The main goal of this research was to investigate the complex relationships among coping styles, personality, burnout, and anxiety using a moderated mediation analysis. Methods A random cluster sampling procedure was used to select a total of 1274 physicians from two tertiary grade A hospitals in Heilongjiang Province, which is located in northeast China. The Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Chinese Maslach Burnout Inventory (CMBI), Chinese version of the EPQ-revised Short Scale, and the Trait Coping Style Questionnaire (TCSQ) were used to gather data. Moderated mediation analysis was used in this study; it was executed using the PROCESS macro so that the mediators and moderator could function together in the same model. Results The prevalence of anxiety symptoms among the physicians was 31%, and there were no differences between the sexes. The results showed that positive and negative coping styles partially mediated the association between burnout and anxiety symptoms in physicians. The mediated effect of positive coping styles was moderated by Eysenck’s Psychoticism traits. Conclusions Personality traits moderate the strength of the relationships between burnout and anxiety mediated by positive coping styles; however, personality traits do not moderate the strength of the relationships between burnout and anxiety mediated by negative coping styles.

Correlation between family environment and suicidal ideation in university students in China

Background: This study investigated the association between suicidal ideation and family environment. The sample included 5183 Chinese university students. A number of studies on suicidal ideation have focused on individuals rather than families. This paper reviews the general principles of suicidal ideation and the consequences resulting from the family environment. Methods: This study used six different colleges as the dataset, which included 2645 males and 2538 females. Students were questioned with respect to social demographics and suicidal ideation factors. The data were analyzed with factor and logistic analyses to determine the association between suicidal ideation and poor family environment. Results: The prevalence of suicidal ideation was 9.2% (476/5183). Most participants with suicidal ideation had significant similarities: they had poor family structures and relationships, their parents had unstable work, and their parents used improper parenting styles. Female students were more likely to have suicidal thoughts than male students. Conclusions: This study shows that suicidal ideation is a public health issue among Chinese university students and demonstrates the importance of considering the family environment when examining university students’ suicidal ideation. Understanding family-related suicidal ideation risk factors can help to predict and prevent suicides among university students.

BDNF Val66Met polymorphism, life stress and depression: A meta-analysis of gene-environment interaction

BACKGROUND Depression is thought to be multifactorial in etiology, including genetic and environmental components. While a number of gene-environment interaction studies have been carried out, meta-analyses are scarce. The present meta-analysis aimed to quantify evidence on the interaction between brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met polymorphism and stress in depression. METHODS Included were 31 peer-reviewed with a pooled total of 21060 participants published before October 2016 and literature searches were conducted using PubMed, Wolters Kluwer, Web of Science, EBSCO, Elsevier Science Direct and Baidu Scholar databases. RESULTS The results indicated that the Met allele of BDNF Val66Met polymorphism significantly moderated the relationship between stress and depression (Z=2.666, p = 0.003). The results of subgroup analysis concluded that stressful life events and childhood adversity separately interacted with the Met allele of BDNF Val66Met polymorphism in depression (Z = 2.552, p = 0.005; Z = 1.775, p = 0.03). LIMITATIONS The results could be affected by errors or bias in primary studies which had small sample sizes with relatively lower statistic power. We could not estimate how strong the interaction effect between gene and environment was. CONCLUSIONS We found evidence that supported the hypothesis that BDNF Val66Met polymorphism moderated the relationship between stress and depression, despite the fact that many included individual studies did not show this effect.

Interaction of tryptophan hydroxylase 2 gene and life events in susceptibility to major depression in a Chinese Han population.

BACKGROUND Major depression (MD) results from a complex synergy between genetic and environmental factors. The aim of this study is to analyze the interaction of tryptophan hydroxylase 2 gene (TPH2) variation and negative life events in the pathogenesis of MD. Three TPH2 polymorphisms, -703G/T (rs4570625), -473T/A (rs11178997), and 1463G/A (rs120074175), were selected based on previous findings of associations with MD. METHODS In this study, 289 patients with MD and 289 age- and sex-matched control subjects were genotyped. The frequency and severity of negative life events were assessed by the Life Events Scale (LES). Gene-environment interactions (G×E) were assessed using the generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR) method. RESULTS Differences in rs11178997 and rs120074175 allele frequencies and genotype distributions were observed between MD patients and controls. Significant G×E interactions between negative life events and allelic variation of rs4570625, rs11178997, and rs120074175 were also observed. Individuals carrying the T(-) genotype of rs4570625 (GG), T(-) genotype of rs11178997 (AA), or A(-) genotype of rs120074175 (GG) were susceptible to MD only when exposed to high-negative life events. However, individuals with the T(+) genotypes of rs11178997 (TA, TT) and A(+) genotypes of rs120074175 (AG, AA) were susceptible to MD when exposed to low-negative life events. LIMITATION Assessment of negative life events was influenced by subjective interpretation. CONCLUSIONS Interactions between multiple TPH2 gene alleles and negative life events were revealed by GMDR analysis. Chinese Han individuals with at least one rs11178997 T allele or rs120074175 A allele are susceptible to MD even in the relative absence of high-negative life events.

Self-Esteem and Problematic Drinking in China: A Mediated Model.

Background Although self-esteem is related to problematic drinking, the mechanisms by which it affects drinking remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine whether coping mechanisms mediate the relationship between self-esteem and problematic drinking among Chinese men and women with alcohol use disorders and to recommend appropriate interventions for drinking problems. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China. A sample of 5,689 community residents was screened, and 517 male and 172 female problematic drinkers were chosen to participate in this study. A self-esteem scale, a coping questionnaire and an alcohol use disorder identification test were completed in order to assess participants’ self-esteem, coping mechanisms and alcohol use disorders, respectively. Participants’ socio-demographic data were also gathered at this stage. The resulting data were examined via descriptive statistics, correlations and bootstrap analyses. Results Lower self-esteem levels were related to problematic drinking, and there were no gender differences in the relationship between self-esteem and problematic drinking. A relationship between low self-esteem and negative coping was observed only in men. Negative coping thus mediated the relationship between self-esteem and problematic drinking among men, but this was not the case for women. Positive coping did not mediate the relationship between self-esteem and problematic drinking among the participants, regardless of gender. Conclusions Self-esteem and coping strategies are correlated among problematic drinkers. In addition, there are gender differences in the manners in which negative coping mediates the relationship between self-esteem and problematic drinking. Problematic drinking interventions directed at males should simultaneously address low self-esteem and negative coping.