Browsing by discipline "Psykologia"

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are developmental disorders that include abnormalities in social reciprocity and communication, with restricted and repetitive behavior and/or limited interests. Presence of the symptoms in the early childhood is essential for diagnosing the autism spectrum disorder, but recognizing those symptoms is often challenging. This is because of the heterogeneity of the symptoms in each individual, and the strong development that takes place in the first years of life, which may contain significant individual differences. The aim of this study is to investigate which are the factors that most strongly predict later diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders, and by which age those factors can be detected for the first time. Despite the many challenges considering the recognition of ASD, detecting it as early as possible would be important for interventions, because the intervention is more effective when applied as early as possible. One reason for this is the strong neural development that takes place in the early childhood. Also, because the symptoms of ASD are not separate from each other, difficulties in one domain may complicate the development of other areas, leading to accumulation effect. According to the latest research, there are many signs that may point to autism spectrum disorder in the early childhood even in the first year of life. Some examples of those signs include abnormalities in the handling of objects or the amount of the repetitive behavior. There may also be differences in the social interaction in the first year of life. In addition to diagnostic symptoms, there may be, for example, some self-regulatory problems, which together with other signs may be important for the recognition of ASD. Because there may be huge individual variation in the early signs of autism spectrum disorder, a single symptom could not reveal the disorder by itself. When trying to recognize ASD it is essential to pay attention to many different signs and whether or not those signs appear together. For example, the repetitive behavior together with the difficulties of social interaction may be alarming. The co-occurrence of multiple signs may give a reason to monitor the individual’s development more closely.

Tavoitteet. Behavioraalinen inhibitio (BI) on yksi keskeisimmistä lapsuuden ahdistuneisuushäiriöiden riskitekijöistä. Leikki-ikäisenä ilmenevän BI:n on todettu ennustavan voimakkaasti myöhempiä ahdistuneisuushäiriöitä sekä olevan yhteydessä laajempiin tunne-elämän ja sopeutumisen ongelmiin. BI on temperamenttitaipumus, jota kuvaa pelokkuus, epävarmuus ja vetäytyminen uusia asioita, tilanteita ja ihmisiä kohdatessa. BI:n ja ahdistuksen välistä yhteyttä sääteleviksi tekijöiksi on tunnistettu esimerkiksi vanhemman ylisuojelevaisuus sekä lapsen heikot sosiaaliset taidot ja huonot kokemukset vertaissuhteissa. Ahdistuneisuushäiriöiden ehkäisyssä intervention kohderyhmäksi voidaan valikoida BI:n takia erityisen suuressa riskissä olevia lapsia, ja samalla ohjata heitä laajemmin positiiviselle sosioemotionaaliselle kehityspolulle. Tässä katsauksessa tarkastellaan behavioraalisesti inhiboituneille leikki-ikäisille lapsille kehitettyjä interventioita sekä niiden tehokkuutta BI:n ja ahdistuneisuushäiriöiden vähentämisessä. Menetelmät. Katsauksessa käsitellyt interventiotutkimukset haettiin Scopus- ja PsycInfo -tietokannoista hakusanoilla behavioraalinen inhibitio, ujous tai sosiaalinen vetäytyminen, preventio tai interventio ja lapset. Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Behavioraalisesti inhiboituneille lapsille kehitetyissä interventioissa pyritään vaikuttamaan ensisijaisesti ahdistusriskiä sääteleviin tekijöihin: vanhemman ylisuojelevaisuuteen, lapsen sosiaalisiin taitoihin tai molempiin. Interventioiden vaikutus BI:oon oli vaihtelevaa. BI väheni selvästi vain interventiossa, joka yhdisti sekä vanhempiin että lapsiin kohdistettuja toimia. Interventiot vähensivät kuitenkin johdonmukaisesti lasten ahdistusoireilua, ahdistuneisuushäiriöitä ja internalisoivia ongelmia, ja myös tämä muutos näkyi selkeimmin yhdistetyssä interventiossa. Behavioraalisesti inhiboituneille lapsille suunnatut interventiot vaikuttavat lupaavalta suunnalta lasten ahdistuneisuushäiriöiden sekä myöhempien tunne-elämän ja sopeutumisen ongelmien ehkäisyssä. Interventioista tarvitaan kuitenkin lisää monipuolista tutkimusta, jotta niitä voidaan soveltaa laajasti käytäntöön.

Introduction: Sleep related problems affect wellbeing extensively. Sleep problems share many common background factors with personality, such as individual way of processing cognitions and emotions. By understanding the interactions between personality and sleep, it is possible to develop better and more individual-friendly ways to treat sleep related problems. In this review, personality is approached from the framework of the Big Five personality traits, which are: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness. The purpose of this review is to sum up the current results of the research conducted in the field of personality traits and sleep, to direct the future research on the field and to discuss the limitations of the current research. Results: There are interactions between personality traits and sleep. Neuroticism affects the quality and the amount of sleep negatively. However, the causality might go the other way around: sleep deprivation and problems falling asleep might cause later neuroticism. Extraversion has a relationship with better quality of sleep, diminished amount of sleep and fluctuating circadian rhythm between weekdays and weekends. Conscientiousness affects the quality of sleep, the regularity of the circadian rhythm and the morningness of the circadian rhythm. Individuals who have high openness have diminished need for sleep and they have coping-mechanisms that protect them against the negative effects of stress. Agreeableness has a relationship with better sleep in terms of quality and quantity, and with constant circadian rhythm between weekdays and weekends. The personality traits’ interactions include conscientiousness’ protective effect against neuroticism when considering sleep quality. Also, the differences in sleep quantity are statistically best explained with two traits: openness and neuroticism. Discussion: The interaction between personality traits and sleep has been investigated mainly from the point of view of personality traits. When the interactions are studied from the point of view of sleep it is possible to merge the effects of the personality traits and derive preliminary personality trait profiles for different aspects of sleep. The profile for good quality of sleep seems to be high extraversion, high consciousness, high openness, high agreeableness, and low neuroticism. The profile for poor sleep quality is almost reverse: high neuroticism, low extraversion, low consciousness, and low openness. Apart from the quality, it’s also possible to derive subjective sleep deprivation profile: high neuroticism and low extraversion or interestingly high extraversion if only the amount of sleep is being studied. Limitations of the current research in the field include a tendency to use university student samples, self-assessment inventories as the sole information source and the over-simplifying approach of merely studying one personality trait instead of the whole personality profile. Examining the personality trait profiles could lead to more statistically significant results and thus it might increase the practical implications in the field of personality and sleep.

Depersonalization/derealization-symptoms are a subclass of dissociation symptoms. These symptoms are characterized by numbness of emotions, a feeling of being separated from one’s body, and a feeling of unreality of the outside world. The source of these symptoms is unclear at the moment. However, studies have shown that depersonalization/derealization symptoms can be caused by traumatic stress experiences. This raises the question of how depersonalization/derealization symptoms could be connected to daily, minor stress. Could daily stress also be an influencing factor on depersonalization/derealization symptoms? On the other hand, it could be that depersonalization/depersonalization experiences would cause a person to be more vulnerable to experiencing stress. In this review I take a closer look at the relationship between daily stress and depersonalization/derealization symptoms. It seems that a positive connection exists between depersonalization/derealization symptoms and daily stress. However, the direction of the connection remains unclear. There is some evidence depersonalization/derealization symptoms and daily stress often appear simultaneously. In addition, it seems that people who experience high amounts of depersonalization/derealization symptoms experience stress more intensely than the average person. Daily stress has also been shown to be a predictor of depersonalization/derealization symptoms when the effect of other psychopathology symptoms has been taken into account. The amount of other psychopathology seems to be an important moderator of the connection. All in all, the relationship between daily stress and depersonalization/derealization symptoms seems to be very complicated and more research is needed on this area.

This review will address how individual symptomology may be used to model a person’s psychological disorder. The discussed disorders are depression, generalised anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder, which will be discussed separately and as simultaneous compositions of symptoms. Traditionally mental health disorders have been elucidated by dividing them into separate categories. In 2010s network analysis has risen as an alternative method, where the relationship between symptoms is examined in time and visualised as a network. The network analysis viewpoint suggests that psychological symptoms cause each other and that activation spreads through the network via the interactions between those symptoms. Two disorders that occur simultaneously are thought to constitute separate clusters of symptoms, which are united by bridge symptoms that mediate activation from one cluster to another. This review will focus particularly on idiographic, personalised networks. These personalised models aspire to take into consideration all the variation in a person’s symptomology. These models are formulated from occurring symptoms in several points in time, so it is possible to speculate, although not prove, the direction of an interaction between symptoms. The symptoms that affect several other symptoms strongly spread activation all around them when activated, whereas those symptoms that receive several effects from other symptoms particularly often associate with other symptoms. The application of network models to clinical practice is based on this idea. To demonstrate idiographic modelling, two different cases will be considered. In both examples the person is afflicted with both depression and an anxiety disorder, and for each person an idiographic network model is formed. The observation can be made from these cases that the symptoms described as most central in categorical models are not equal to the symptoms in these networks that most maintain its activation. The idiographic networks of the example cases also do not indicate bridge symptoms, but rather the symptoms form a single cluster and maintain each other across disorder category boundaries. The conclusions made from personalised network analyses cannot be generalised to the population or even the same person in other points in time. In addition, conclusions cannot be made about the validity of DSM categories or the concept of comorbidity. Nevertheless, they open windows to the individual variation and complexity of symptomology, which categorical diagnostic classifications cannot consider. From these observations different study questions and designs can be formulated and novel clinical interventions developed.

Aims Previous studies have shown that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) and schizophrenia resemble dissociative identity disorder (DID). Although symptoms in these disorders are similar, their treatment is not, which makes it important to reach for a correct diagnosis. The aim of this review is to clarify differential diagnosis in DID in relation to PTSD, BPD and schizophrenia and find features that are present exclusively in DID. Methods and Results The review included 17 scientific articles. DID-groups had more and more severe symptoms, especially concerning dissociation. Also, the ability to function in everyday life was better in DID-patients. Overall, they had more unusual perceptional experiences, positive and borderline symptoms than PTSD-groups, more amnesia, other psychiatric diagnoses and different kind of usage of defences than within BPD-patients, and more positive symptoms than schizophrenics, differing particularly in the quality of auditory hallucinations. On the other hand, BPD-groups had more borderline personality features whereas schizophrenics were more delusional than DID-patients. Discussion The review was not able to identify any factors that would account exclusively for DID, but the amount of dissociation and severity of symptoms were found as concurrent factors that help to differentiate DID from PTSD, BPD and schizophrenia. However, there are also many subtle differences between specific examined disorders and DID, which have to be taken into consideration. Useful methods in differential diagnosis are structured clinical interviews based on DSM-5, measures of dissociation and observations by significant others. Problems relating to the research of DID will be discussed.

Depression is the most prevalent psychiatric disorder amongst seniors in Finland, with about 5% experiencing major depression at any one time. As the population of Finland is slowly growing older, a large proportion of the nation are in late adulthood or retirement and more effort should be put towards the widespread issues which come with old age. Most cases of geriatric depression are treated with either psychosocial interventions or antidepressant treatments, neither of which guarantee definitive success in eliminating symptoms altogether. Antidepressants especially often come with unwanted side-effects, conflict with other medications and are expensive in long-term treatment. Listening to music could be administered as a standalone treatment or within music therapy as a cost-effective, non-invasive and non-pharmacological treatment for elderly depression. Music acts as a powerful stimulant by altering neural activation in many functional brain areas associated with audition, emotions, memory, and movement. Listening to music has been found to alleviate symptoms of depression by encouraging emotional expression, processing of feelings and by altering negative mental states. The purpose of this review was to explore previous research in order to conclusively draw together findings in the effects of music listening on late-life depression. Google Scholar and PubMed -databases were thoroughly enquired to find the latest meta-analyses, systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials and other information relevant to the subject. Altogether three of the most recent meta-analyses were included, as well as an additional three systematic reviews and three RCTs published outside of these. Drawing together findings from various sources, it is evident that music listening has complex beneficial effects and is an effective method in reducing depressive symptoms in older adults. Music listening can be implemented as a therapeutic tool in stand-alone treatment, as part of an intervention or within a music therapy framework.

Objective. Transdiagnostic models of psychopathology assume that the commonalities across disorders may outweigh their differences. While these models acknowledge that disorder-specific symptoms and features undoubtedly exist, the same underlying factors are perceived to cause and maintain various disorders. In recent years, this approach has received growing attention and several new forms of therapy have been developed based on it. These may be well-suited for the treatment of mixed-diagnosis groups or individuals with comorbid disorders, and as such, they hold the promise of being very cost-effective. One of the most established transdiagnostic treatments is the Unified Protocol (UP), designed to help patients suffering from depression and the full range of anxiety disorders. The purpose of the present study is to review the evidence regarding the efficacy and effectiveness of the UP for the transdiagnostic treatment of adult anxiety and depression. Methods. For this review, systematic literature searches were performed using the PsychInfo and PubMed online databases in October 2018. The search term used was “Unified Protocol”. The search yielded 114 results in PsychInfo and 138 in PubMed. Ten of these matched the following study selection criteria and were included in the current review: a) the study measured either the efficacy or effectiveness of the cognitive-behavioral UP therapy developed by Barlow (2011), b) treatment was delivered face-to-face in either individual or group setting, c) treatment followed the UP therapist guide without major modifications, d) participants suffered from an anxiety disorder or depression, e) participants were over 18 years of age, d) the study was published in 2015 or later, and f) the study was published in English in a peer-reviewed journal. Results and conclusions. The UP appeared both efficacious and efficient in reducing the severity of adult anxiety and depression as well as the number of comorbid diagnoses; however, there were some conflicting findings regarding recovery rates and effect sizes. The results achieved were comparable to those achieved using diagnosis-specific cognitive-behavioral therapy. The UP treatment had a positive impact on the patients’ functioning and quality of life and the amount of positive and negative affect they experienced. Treatment retention was generally high, particularly when treatment was delivered individually, and the UP received high ratings from those who participated in the studies. All in all, the current empiric evidence regarding the UP appears fairly promising. However, these results must be interpreted with caution, as the research concerning the UP is still in its infancy and a large part of it has been conducted by researchers affiliated with the treatment.

First impressions are quickly formed observations of a new acquaintance. The basis of these observations is to find out what are the intentions of the other person. Therefore, the question behind is to find out whether they are a friend or an enemy. This happens automatically and as studies have found within mere fraction of seconds. It has been found that longer observations of others lead to more precise conclusions and after five seconds people are able to judge each other’s extroversion above chance level. Furthermore, studies point out that first impressions are vulnerable to error as for example positive features like physical attractiveness and success are linked together. In addition, studies show that features signaling threat are seen faster than positive features. According to evolutionary psychology this behavior is valuable for staying alive. Studies also show that to some extent people can impact on their first impression and in photographs people have been successfully able to act extraversion and openness. The purpose of this overview is to consider first impressions and the questions of how they are formed and if they are truthful. In addition, this overview analyzes whether people are aware of the first impressions made of them and whether they can have an impact on them.

Borderline personality disorder is a difficult disease which lowers the patients general functioning drastically. It is characterized by increased mortality rate and high treatment costs. Symptoms of borderline personality disorder are very complex and its aetiology is far from simple. The goals of this literature review were to review the genetic background of the disorder and possible overlapping genetic factors between borderline personality disorder and other psychiatric disorders. Large-scale twin studies show that the heritability of borderline personality disorder varies between 0,35-0,67. It can be said that the incidence of borderline personality disorder is strongly influenced by genetic factors. However, genome-wide association studies are scarce so the specific genetic mechanisms are largely unknown. Studies show that many other psychiatric disorders have common factors and genetic overlap with borderline personality disorder. These disorders include for example attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression and substance use disorders. This review suggests that better understanding of the genetic factors of borderline personality disorder could improve diagnostics and treatment methods.