BACKGROUND: There is significant evidence supporting a link between excessive digital media use and adverse mental health outcomes. Since the average American teenager spends approximately 7 hours a day using digital media, this relationship has become of considerable interest in the field of public health. Studies have shown that anxiety and depression may both be associated with increased screen time as well as with Problematic Internet Use (PIU). PIU refers to a set of symptoms related to an individual’s inability to control their use of the Internet and appears to have characteristics of both substance use disorders and impulse control disorders. However, research on PIU has many limitations, including the lack of formal diagnostic criteria, unequal gender representation in study samples, and the relative dearth of studies conducted in adolescents, especially those with pre-existing mental health issues due to their status as a protected population. This study aims to address these limitations in existing literature through use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA), a research method that samples participants in their own environment repeatedly using one of various data collection methods (e.g. paper and pencil diary, text message surveys, app-based surveys). The specific aims of this study were: 1) to explore the feasibility and acceptability of a six-week daily EMA protocol in a clinical population of adolescents and young adults using a smartphone application, 2) to describe the relationship between PIU and depression/anxiety in a clinical sample of adolescents and young adults ages 12-23, and 3) to identify possible relationships on which to focus future studies of problematic digital media use and psychiatric symptomatology in this vulnerable population. METHODS: The study enrolled 25 adolescents and young adults ages 12-22 years who owned a smartphone and received mental health services at a community hospital in the greater Boston area. Participants were surveyed once a day for six weeks using a smartphone application, mindLAMP, to record self-report data. The daily survey included validated depression, anxiety, and PIU scales (the PHQ-8, GAD-7, and PIU-SF-6, respectively) as well as two sub-surveys inquiring about risky online behaviors and screen time use, and were collected via mindLAMP surveys. Participants also completed a short exit survey once their study period concluded. Feasibility was assessed by evaluating the sample-wide mean rate of response on daily surveys for the six-week protocol, rates of daily survey initiation and completion, and study completion rate. Acceptability was determined based on whether this data collection method provided more data than the current standard of care, which typically involves one meeting per week for psychotherapy. RESULTS: 96% of participants completed the study, and results demonstrated a 39.8% mean response rate, 43.2% mean survey initiation rate, and 38.5% mean survey completion rate. Type of phone use (overall rate p=0.029, initiation rate p=0.023, completion rate p=0.037), presence of an anxiety disorder (overall rate p=0.006, initiation rate p=0.038, completion rate p=0.004), and presence of co-morbid diagnoses (overall rate p=0.042, completion rate p=0.047) were significantly related to response rate, whereas age, gender, symptom severity, presence of an affective disorder, gender dysphoria, or ADHD were not. Regarding specific aim two, significant associations were detected between symptom scale scores and PIU and risky online behavior assessment (QUAL) scores such that: PIU-SF-6 and GAD-7 scores were positively correlated (p=0.032), PIU-SF-6 and PHQ-8 scores were positively correlated (p=0.050), GAD-7 and QUAL scores were positively correlated (p=0.004), and PHQ-8 and QUAL scores were positively correlated (p=0.0002). These results replicate findings in the literature of a significant relationship between anxiety and depression and both PIU and risky online behaviors. The lack of observed significant relationship between PIU and QUAL contradicts findings within the literature, and is possibly due to our small sample size. Significant associations were not detected between between categorical diagnoses of ADHD, Anxiety Disorders, Affective Disorders, or Gender Dysphoria and PIU-SF-6 scores. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that this EMA protocol is feasible and acceptable in this population, suggesting that this methodology may represent a new avenue to conduct research in adolescents and young adults with mental health concerns and, in the future, deliver treatment to these individuals. Limitations of this study include small sample size and participant bias in self-report data. Recommendations for future research include replication of this EMA protocol with a larger number of participants, incorporating methodologies that address the self-report bias. / 2022-06-07T00:00:00Z

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Social dysfunction is a hallmark of schizophrenia and leads to significant disability and distress. Decreased positive and increased negative affect predict poorer social functioning in those with schizophrenia. Social functioning and affect have traditionally been measured in the laboratory; yet, these methods are limited. Experience sampling methods (ESM) offer more immediate, ecologically valid assessments of these constructs. The purpose of this study was to examine social functioning and affect in schizophrenia using a novel form of ESM that passively collects audio data. The two primary hypotheses were: 1) clinical status (schizophrenia versus control) will predict social functioning, level of positive affect, and level of negative affect; and 2) the relationship between clinical status and affect will be moderated by context (social versus non-social). Additional exploratory aims tested the convergent validity between traditional, laboratory-based assessments of social functioning and this novel ESM. Data was collected from 38 people with schizophrenia and 36 control participants; Results partially supported the hypotheses. As expected, laboratory measures of social functioning revealed that those with schizophrenia performed worse than controls. ESM measures of social functioning found that the schizophrenia group interacted with others at the same rate as the control group but did not exhibit as much social engagement. ESM measures of affect revealed the schizophrenia group reported more negative affect than controls, but no differences in positive affect were found. Social context did not moderate the relationship between clinical status and affect. Lastly, correlations between laboratory measures and ESM measures of social functioning were significant for the schizophrenia group but not the control group. Results further our understanding of social functioning and affect in those with schizophrenia and yield important implications for future work.

No description available.

Insufficient sleep duration is associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes, and many Americans report that they are not meeting sleep duration recommendations. Many individuals choose to restrict their own sleep, yet little is known about the source of this sleep deficit. Recent research efforts have used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to predict sleep health behavior. However, this research is limited in that it fails to measure volitional sleep behavior and focuses exclusively on between-person differences. This study addressed these limitations by using an intensive longitudinal design to test how constructs of the TPB relate to nightly sleep opportunity. Healthy college students (N=79) completed a week long study in which they completed 4 ecological momentary assessment signals per day that measured their attitudes, perceived norms, perceived behavioral control (PBC), and intentions relating to their nocturnal sleep opportunity. Participants wore an actiwatch each night of the study to measure their sleep opportunity. Analyses revealed between- and within-day variability of attitudes, perceived norms, PBC, and intentions. Further, there were significant between- and within-day trajectories of these constructs. Mixed linear models demonstrated that both intentions and PBC were significant predictors of subsequent sleep opportunity, and that PBC was the strongest predictor of future intentions. The between-and within-day patterns of these constructs highlight important considerations for their measurement, and provide insight into the potential refinement of sleep promotion efforts. Results also demonstrate that within-person changes in PBC and intentions predict subsequent sleep opportunity, demonstrating the need for a daily framework when using the TPB to predict sleep health behavior.

Yes / Seabed consolidation state is one of important factors for evaluating the foundation stability of the marine structures. Most previous studies focused on the seabed consolidation around breakwaters standing on the seabed surface. In this study, a numerical model, based on Biot’s poro-elasticity theory, is developed to investigate the unsaturated seabed consolidation around a nearshore pile foundation, in which the pile inserted depth leads to a different stress distribution. Seabed instabilities of shear failure by the pile self-weight and the potential liquefaction under the dynamic wave loading are also examined. Results indicate that (1) the presence of the inserted pile foundation increases the effective stresses below the foundation, while increases and decreases the effective stresses around the pile foundation for small (de/R<=3.3) and large (de/R>3.3) inserted depths, respectively, after seabed consolidation, (2) the aforementioned effects are relatively more significant for small inserted depth, large external loading, and small Young’s modulus, (3) the shear failure mainly occurs around the inserted pile foundation, rather than below the foundation as previously found for the located marine structures, and (4) wave-induced momentary liquefaction near the inserted pile foundation significantly increases with the increase of inserted depth, due to the change of seabed consolidation state. / National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (51425901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51209082, 51209083), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20161509), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2015B15514), Jiangsu Graduate Research and Innovation Plan Grant (#CXLX11_0450) and the 111 project (B12032).

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Rumination is a well-established vulnerability factor for major depressive disorder (MDD) that may exert deleterious effects both independently and in interaction with life stress, and may contribute to the negative memory biases associated with MDD. Chapter 1 examines the role of both momentary ruminative self-focus (MRS) and stress-reactive rumination (SRR) as predictors of increases in depressive symptoms utilizing a smartphone ecological momentary assessment (EMA) design. SRR, but not MRS, independently predicted increases in depressive symptoms. Interactions emerged between negative life events (NLEs) and both MRS and SRR, such that experiencing higher levels of NLEs and rumination at an observation predicted greater increases in depressive symptoms. The results suggest that rumination levels in response to stress vary within individuals and can have an important effect on depressed mood. Chapter 2 tests the hypotheses that 1) engaging in greater SRR relative to an individual’s mean would lead to deeper encoding and improved retrieval of stressors, and 2) this biased memory for negative autobiographical information would predict increases in depressive symptoms over time. NLEs followed by increased SRR relative to individuals’ means were significantly more likely to be recalled two weeks later. In addition, a significant interaction emerged between the number of NLEs experienced and proportional recall of those events, such that individuals who endorsed and recalled greater numbers of stressors during the EMA week displayed increased depressive symptoms at follow-up. These findings support the role of rumination and memory biases as vulnerability factors for depression, and suggest potential clinical benefits of modifying ruminative response styles to daily stressors. / Psychology

To date, few studies have sought to investigate whether the sequence in which individuals engage in coping strategies could impact the effectiveness of those strategies. The present study utilizes an EMA data collection approach to obtain a sample of N = 93 student participants to investigate this potential impact. I analyzed the data with a type of multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) called a cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), where the individual served as the higher level and surveys collected at various time points (three per day for five consecutive days) served as the lower level nested within those individuals. Autoregressive, cross-lagged, and moderation paths were tested to see which constructs at time point T-1 were significantly related to positive affect and negative affect at time point T. Findings indicated more significant relationships for positive affect at time point T than negative affect at time point T. Among these were moderation effects of coping strategy on the relationship between the presence of an interpersonal stressor and positive affect, such that emotion-focused coping buffers that effect and problem-focused coping amplifies it. / Doctor of Philosophy / The history of stress and coping research lends itself well to the consideration of coping with stress as a dynamic process that has effects at later times. Different coping strategies (problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidant) may be differentially effective for coping with different types of stressors. This study consists of measuring stressor type, coping strategy, positive affect, and negative affect at 15 different time points, specifically to track the impact of the presence of a stressor, the use of certain coping strategies, and positive and negative affect at any given time point on positive and negative affect at a subsequent time point. Specifically, I hypothesize that stressors decrease positive affect and increase negative affect, and that coping strategies can either buffer or intensify these effects. Support is found for the idea that emotion-focused coping buffers an interpersonal stressor's tendency to decrease positive affect. Support is also found for the idea that problem-focused coping intensifies this same tendency.