Theravive Home

A new study in the works published in the BMJ Open is looking at community-engaged mental health promotion intervention with Bhutanese people resettled in Western Massachusetts. The current research project will be among the first to adapt and pilot test the feasibility and acceptability of a family-based, community-led, culturally tailored, integrated preventative behavior intervention to reduce immigrant stress. The study will lay the basis for a clinical trial with a large, adequately powered sample. If effective, this community-engaged intervention may be applied more widely to other immigrants and the general population. [More]

A new study published in Current Psychiatry Reports looked at substance use among youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The study investigates the question of whether or not substance use has increased or decreased in the youth population during the pandemic,” study author Hannah M. Layman told us. “There are many reasons why both are possible (for example: increasing due to coping strategies or decreasing due to increased time with family). Our study aimed to analyze existing literature to best answer this question. I personally was unsure of what we might find.” [More]

If you’re at your happiest when gardening, you’re not alone. Researchers from the University of Florida have found that working with plants could have a mental health benefit, even among those who have never tried gardening before. [More]

A new study published in PLOS ONE looked at whether dogs can reduce stress levels in school children. “Our research is the first to demonstrate the mediating effects of dog-assisted interventions on stress levels in school children over the school term and in both, children with and without special educational needs,” study author Kerstin Meints told us. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Human Development looked at the evidence for protective effects of peer play during the early years. “We were hoping to find out whether early play experiences with other children are important for later mental health and wellbeing,” study author Jenny Louise Gibson told us. “We think that play with others protects against future mental health challenges because it is a natural way for children to develop the cognitive and emotional maturity they need to build up a strong social network.” [More]

A new study published in Frontiers of Psychiatry looked at whether conspiratorial beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic post a mental health risk and the relationship between conspiracy thinking and symptoms of anxiety and depression among Polish adults. “My research looks at the relationship between the severity of belief in false information about COVID-19 and the severity of symptoms of anxiety and depression,” study author Pawel Debski told us. [More]

A new study out of Oregon State University looked at the risk of psychiatric diagnoses in the months after a COVID-19 infection. “Previous work during earlier parts of the pandemic reported a high risk of new mental health conditions occurring following COVID infection,” study author Lauren Chan told us. “This study was intended to determine if that risk still exists for patients in the US including patient data until Fall of 2021.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Human Development looked at the association between time spent playing and child mental health. “In January 2021, we published a paper explaining why we thought adventurous play might help to prevent anxiety in children,” study author Helen F. Dodd told us. “We explained how, when children play adventurously, they have opportunities to learn about uncertainty, coping and physiological arousal (heart beating fast, butterflies in your tummy etc.). These learning opportunities should target some of the risk factors that we know exist for child anxiety.” [More]

More than 20% of adults who were exposed to chronic levels of parental domestic violence in childhood develop major depressive disorder at some stage. Researchers from the University of Toronto found that 22.5% of adults who witnessed domestic violence between parents later developed major depressive disorder, compared with 9.1% of those who hadn’t witnessed parental domestic violence as children. [More]

Those who have had COVID-19 are at increased risk of mental health problems. A study published in The BMJ found that people who survived COVID-19 had a higher chance of developing problems like anxiety, suicide ideation, depression, opioid use disorder, sleep difficulties and substance abuse. [More]