Negative life events, distress, and coping among adolescents in Botswana (original) (raw)
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Negative life events, distress, and coping among adolescents in Botswana 1
2013
This study examined the potential mediating and moderating effects of different ways of coping on the impact of negative life events (NLE) on psychological health among adolescents, 63 boys and 66 girls, in Botswana. Distraction as a way of coping and seeking social support were found to reduce the impact of NLE on psychological health concerns. Rumination was associated with increased distress and less satisfaction with life. Future studies could focus on the use of distraction and seeking social support as coping strategies to reduce the effects of NLEs on psychological distress.
Negative Life Events and Mental Health Problem: The Importance of Coping Strategy
Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities , 2019
Exposure to negative life events can be extremely stressful for adolescents from divorced families and effective coping strategy can help to alleviate their stress. The current study examined the relationship between negative life events, coping strategy, and mental health problem among adolescents from divorced families. This study also explored the moderating role of coping strategy in the relationship. The sample of this study was 480 adolescents from divorced families, which were identified through multistage cluster sampling. The Malay Version of 12-Items General Health Questionnaire was implemented to measure mental health problem among the adolescents. The Brief Adolescent Life Event Scale was implemented to measure negative life events among adolescents. Brief Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences (COPE) was implemented to measure coping strategy. The current study revealed that mental health problem was significantly correlated with negative life events (r = 0.498, p < 0.001), maladaptive coping (r = 0.537, p < 0.001), and adaptive coping (r = -0.417, p < 0.001). The results found that both maladaptive (interaction effect = 0.158, p < 0.01) and adaptive coping (interaction effect = -0.150, p < 0.001) as significant moderators in the relationship between negative life events and mental health problem among adolescents. Specifically, the impact of negative life events is less severe when adolescents reported frequent application of adaptive coping. In contrast, negative life events are most detrimental when adolescents reported high reliance on maladaptive coping. The current study demonstrated that the magnitude of the relationship between negative life events and mental health problem i
The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 2010
This study examined the moderating effects of dispositional rumination and mindfulness on the relationship between recent life hassles and adolescent mental health (operationalized as symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress). Data collected from a sample of 317 Australian high school students comprised an inventory of recent life hassles, measures of dispositional rumination and dispositional mindfulness and an assessment of current symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. An increased incidence of recent life hassles was reliably associated with increased depressive symptoms, anxiety and stress. However, moderation analyses revealed that dispositional rumination exacerbated the relationship between life hassles and symptoms of depression and anxiety, whereas dispositional mindfulness attenuated the relationship between life hassles and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. Interventions to increase dispositional mindfulness in childhood are proposed as a method of prote...
Life Style and Health Research Progress, 2008
This study assessed the extent and efficacy of three regulatory modalities of the emotions elicited by negative life events: rumination, distraction and social sharing. Despite the wide literature existing on this subject, to my knowledge this is the first study comparing these regulatory modalities, from adolescence to old age, in order to estimate their use and their effectiveness in function of the significance of the negative event and of the participants’ gender and age. Eight hundred persons (400 female, 400 male) participated in this study: 200 adolescents (13-19); 200 young people (20-29); 200 adults (30-59); 200 old people (60- 89). They were randomly assigned to two research conditions: very significant vs. not very significant negative life events. Participants were asked to describe a very important negative life event or a not very important one and assess on 7-point scales when the event occurred, its appraisal, perceived importance and impact upon their beliefs, emotional intensity, the extent of rumination, distraction and social sharing, along with their relative frequency and duration, and their effectiveness to re-establish cognitive equilibrium and modulate the negative emotional burden; finally, the recovery from the event was assessed. Qualitative data were treated through log-linear analyses. Quantitative data were first reduced by performing principal component analyses and then submitted to mediation regression analyses to evaluate the incidence of event significance on the three regulatory This study assessed the extent and efficacy of three regulatory modalities of the emotions elicited by negative life events: rumination, distraction and social sharing. Despite the wide literature existing on this subject, to my knowledge this is the first study comparing these regulatory modalities, from adolescence to old age, in order to estimate their use and their effectiveness in function of the significance of the negative event and of the participants’ gender and age. Eight hundred persons (400 female, 400 male) participated in this study: 200 adolescents (13-19); 200 young people (20-29); 200 adults (30-59); 200 old people (60- 89). They were randomly assigned to two research conditions: very significant vs. not very significant negative life events. Participants were asked to describe a very important negative life event or a not very important one and assess on 7-point scales when the event occurred, its appraisal, perceived importance and impact upon their beliefs, emotional intensity, the extent of rumination, distraction and social sharing, along with their relative frequency and duration, and their effectiveness to re-establish cognitive equilibrium and modulate the negative emotional burden; finally, the recovery from the event was assessed. Qualitative data were treated through log-linear analyses. Quantitative data were first reduced by performing principal component analyses and then submitted to mediation regression analyses to evaluate the incidence of event significance on the three regulatory
Stress and Health (in press)
The current study tested whether emotion regulation and rumination moderated and/or mediated the relationship between accumulated adverse life experience and psychological distress in adolescence. In class, Australian high school students (n = 2637, 12 – 18 years, 68% female) from 41 schools completed well validated measures of adverse life experience, emotion regulation, rumination, and psychological distress and were followed up one year later (n = 1973, 75% retention rate). Adjusting for age, gender, and baseline psychological distress, adverse life experience predicted psychological distress one year later. Expressive suppression and rumination were positively associated with psychological distress. Cognitive reappraisal was negatively associated with psychological distress and moderated the relationship between adverse life experience and psychological distress. This relationship was also partially mediated by cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, and rumination. Promoting cognitive reappraisal and minimising expressive suppression and rumination may be useful strategies to improve mental health for adolescents who have experienced adverse life events. Future research should examine whether adolescents who have experienced adverse life events can be trained in effective emotion regulation strategies, and whether this training can prevent development of psychological maladjustment.
South African Journal of Psychology, 2017
Depression is common among university students and often impacts their career development and health. Stressful life events might be associated with depression but remain to be studied among young adults, especially in non-Western settings. Depression and stressful life events were assessed in 304 students at a university in Botswana ( M = 21.56, standard deviation = 1.86) using the 21-item Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) and the 26-Item Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Regression models were fitted to study the associations between stressful life events and depression while a one-way between-subjects analysis of variance was performed to compare subjects with minimal, mild, moderate, and severe depression on reporting stressful life events. Depression was present in 22 % of the participants (severe in 8.2% and moderate in 13.8%). More than half of the participants reported 10 or more stressful life events. Stressful life events significantly predicted depression (β = .37, 0.13–0...
Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 2010
This study investigated, by way of a predictive model, the simultaneous influence of perceived negative life events, rumination, resilience and social support on emotional distress, and the mediating effects of emotional distress on suicide risk behaviors among Thai adolescents. Cognitive Theory and Response Style Theory of Depression served as the conceptual framework. A multi-stage, random sampling technique was used to select 1,417 adolescents attending 12 high schools in Bangkok, Thailand. Data were collected by a set of self-report questionnaires including the: Personal Profile; Thoughts, Feelings and Experiences Questionnaire; Rumination Response Scale; State-Trait Resilience Inventory; Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support; and, Negative Events Scale. The results of LISREL structural equation modeling revealed the model fit the data well (Chi-Square = 225.48; df = 194; p = 0.0602; GFI = 0.982; AGFI = 0.967; RMSEA = 0.013). The variance accounted for 41.9 % of the adolescents' suicide risk behaviors. This model showed that negative life events and rumination had significant indirect effects on suicide risk behaviors through emotional distress. Importantly, resilience and social support could reduce the influencing effects of all variables, because they mediated the effects of rumination and negative life events on emotional distress, which could lead to a decrease in suicide risk behaviors. The findings illustrate the knowledge and understanding of means that could be manipulated by nursing interventions, in order to decrease suicide risk behaviors among adolescents, as well as promote optimal mental health in this vulnerable population.
Coping Mechanisms as Determinants of Psychological Well Being of Adolescents
2021
Background: Psychological well being is an important personality related phenomenon for which individuals strive. It makes life meaningful and purposeful. Researchers have been curious about factors which are responsible to individuals’ psychological well-being. Objective: The aim of the present research endeavor was to explore the impact of various coping mechanisms on the psychological well being of adolescents. Method: For this purpose, a sample of N=150 female students was selected from colleges of Jamshedpur District. In the present study Psychological Well-Being Scale developed by Carol Ryff (1989) was used to measure students psychological well being and to assess various coping mechanisms used by students in problematic situation Cope orientation for problem experiences, an abbreviated version of A-COPE inventory developed by Patterson & McCubbin (1986) was used. In the present study co-relational design was used. The obtained data were analyzed by applying multiple regressi...
Negative life events, cognitive emotion regulation and emotional problems
A new questionnaire, named the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, has been constructed, measuring nine cognitive coping strategies people tend to use after having experienced negative life events. A test±retest design was used to study the psychometric properties and relationships with measures of depression and anxiety among 547 high school youngsters. Principal component analyses supported the allocation of items to subscales, while alphas of most subscales exceeded 0.80. Cognitive coping strategies were found to play an important role in the relationship between the experience of negative life events and the reporting of symptoms of depression and anxiety. The results suggest that cognitive coping strategies may be a valuable context of prevention and intervention #
Ruminative self-focus, negative life events, and negative affect
Behaviour research and therapy, 2008
Ruminative thinking is believed to exacerbate the psychological distress that follows stressful life events. An experience-sampling study was conducted in which participants recorded negative life events, ruminative self-focus, and negative affect eight times daily over one week. Occasions when participants reported a negative event were marked by higher levels of negative affect. Additionally, negative events were prospectively associated with higher levels of negative affect at the next sampling occasion, and this relationship was partially mediated by momentary ruminative self-focus. Depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative events, but not with increased reactivity to negative events. Trait rumination was associated with reports of more severe negative events and increased reactivity to negative events. These results suggest that the extent to which a person engages in ruminative self-focus after everyday stressors is an important determinant of the degree of distress experienced after such events. Further, dispositional measures of rumination predict mood reactivity to everyday stressors in a non-clinical sample.