Search Results (378)

Violent crime is a widely recognized public health concern. According to emotion regulation theory, aggressive behavior in violent offenders is linked to maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. However, few studies have explored interventions targeting emotional factors to reduce aggression in this population. Expressive arts therapy (EAT), which facilitates emotional expression and release, has shown therapeutic potential, but its effectiveness for violent offenders remains understudied. This randomized controlled trial examined the effects of an 8-week EAT program on emotion regulation and aggressive behavior in male violent offenders from a prison in China. Participants were assigned to either the intervention group (n = 31) or the control group (n = 34). Outcomes were assessed using cognitive reappraisal tasks, the Implicit Association Test, visual analogue mood scales, and the Emotion Regulation Strategies for Artistic Creative Activities Scale. Key findings revealed that, after 4 weeks of intervention, the experimental group demonstrated significantly improved cognitive reappraisal abilities and weakened “violence-positive” implicit associations, suggesting that enhanced cognitive reappraisal may be one key mechanism through which EAT operates. These results suggest that EAT effectively fosters positive psychological resources (i.e., cognitive reappraisal) and promotes non-violent implicit attitudes among violent offenders. This study provides initial quantitative evidence for EAT as a promising intervention for reducing aggression-related cognitive and implicit processes. Future research should further investigate its long-term effects and underlying mechanisms. Full article

Soil health practices are increasingly promoted through sustainable agricultural programs to improve environmental outcomes, yet little is known about how these practices impact the occupational health of farmers and ranchers who implement them. This qualitative study examined perceived occupational benefits and hazards of soil health practices among Colorado farmers and ranchers. Semi-structured interviews with 15 Colorado farmers and ranchers were conducted between October 2024 and January 2025 and then analyzed using thematic analysis. Six themes were identified: perceived physical benefits, psychosocial benefits, physical hazards, psychosocial hazards, and health and safety practices, and One Health perspectives of the impacts of soil health. Participants described reduced chemical exposure, increased physical activity, and improved mental health, creativity, connection to nature, and community as perceived benefits. Perceived physical hazards included heat stress, respiratory exposure to mold from organic mulching materials, and musculoskeletal strain. Perceived psychosocial hazards included social isolation, financial uncertainty, and a sense of insufficient collective action. Health and safety practices used were largely informal, and personal protective equipment use was limited. Participants described their health as intertwined with the health of the land and living systems around them, reflecting a One Health orientation. Findings suggest that soil health practices may alter occupational health risk in ways that warrant further investigation and tailored safety guidance and programmatic support. Full article

Serious games are increasingly used as supportive tools in interventions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, many existing game-based interventions are not clearly grounded in established educational or therapeutic models, which may limit their consistency and overall effectiveness, as behavioural science posits that intervention efficacy is closely tied to alignment with evidence-based principles of behavioural shaping and contingent reinforcement. In response, this study introduces the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model into serious game design and proposes a more structured digital intervention approach that connects game mechanics with intervention theory, a design logic that aligns with behavioural science tenets of scaffolded skill building and incremental goal setting to foster sustainable behavioural change in neurodiverse children. In September 2024, 48 children with mild-to-moderate ASD were recruited from local special education schools. Based on their behavioural characteristics, a series of customised serious games was developed using CPS as the guiding framework. To examine the impact of this model, a 12-week intervention experiment was carried out between March and June 2025. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental group or a control group. The findings showed that children in the experimental group improved more than those in the control group in four areas: language communication, social interaction, sensory processing, and health-related behaviours. Improvements in language and social performance were especially noticeable. Observational data also suggested that children in the experimental group became more willing to cooperate and participate as the intervention progressed, while non-engaged behaviours decreased considerably during the later stages. Overall, the results indicate that incorporating structured educational models such as CPS into serious game design may help enhance the stability and effectiveness of digital interventions for children with ASD. This study also provides practical evidence for developing more targeted serious games for this population. Full article

Background/Objectives: The relationship between experiential avoidance (EA) and anxiety and depression symptoms is well established, yet the adaptive psychological resources involved in these associations remain insufficiently clarified. This cross-sectional study tested a theoretically informed serial mediation model examining whether EA is associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms in a youth sample through lower spontaneity and subjective well-being. Creative adaptability was examined as an exploratory outcome of spontaneity. Methods: The sample comprised 444 participants aged 16–24 years (M = 18.87, SD = 2.04; 72.3% female), who completed self-report measures for EA, spontaneity, creative adaptability, subjective well-being, depressive and anxiety symptoms. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics and Amos to estimate the observed-variable path model. Results: The model showed acceptable fit (CFI = 0.989, RMSEA = 0.074) and explained 54.1% of the variance in anxiety symptoms and 51.1% of the variance in depressive symptoms. EA was positively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms (β = 0.531 and 0.448, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with spontaneity and subjective well-being (β = −0.441 and −0.250, p < 0.001). Spontaneity was positively associated with subjective well-being (β = 0.545) and creative adaptability (β = 0.384). The serial indirect effect from EA to symptoms through spontaneity and well-being was significant for both depression and anxiety (β = 0.089 and β = 0.088, p < 0.001). Conclusions: EA was associated with higher anxiety and depressive symptoms, and these associations were partly reflected in lower spontaneity and subjective well-being. In addition, spontaneity was associated with creative adaptability, although creative adaptability was not associated with symptom outcomes. Full article

With the advancement of healthy city development, optimizing the spatial allocation of urban parks has become a key issue in territorial spatial planning. However, existing studies mainly focus on accessibility and spatial equity, with limited attention to multidimensional suitability assessment and coordinated optimization based on public health needs. Taking Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, China, as a case study, this study used ArcGIS 10.8-based spatial analysis and multi-source geospatial data to classify urban park scenarios into eight categories based on public health needs: child-friendly, elderly wellness, rehabilitation and therapeutic, camping and leisure, cultural and creative, science education, scenic check-in, and outdoor sports. A four-dimensional framework integrating ecological, population vitality, accessibility, and health service function suitability was established to evaluate the suitability between park scenarios and public health needs. The results show that park scenarios exhibit significant spatial clustering with marked north–south and urban–rural disparities. Overall suitability is low, although high-density areas show better population–park matching, while health service facilities remain unevenly distributed. Based on multidimensional coordinated analysis, the 330 scenarios across 81 parks were classified into coordinated advantage, improvement, and potential zones, supporting differentiated spatial optimization and zonal governance. The proposed framework provides theoretical and practical support for health-oriented urban park planning and territorial spatial optimization. Full article

Background: While the consumer experience of psychosis has received significant attention in Western research, a substantial gap exists regarding the experiences of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In this context, religious, cultural, familial, and gender-specific factors uniquely shape the experience of psychosis, help-seeking behaviors, and recovery. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of Saudi women with psychosis across three phases: first-episode onset, hospitalization or follow-up, and community living after discharge. Methods: This hermeneutic phenomenological study, guided by van Manen’s methodology, employed all six lifeworld existentials: lived space, lived body, lived time, lived self-other, lived thing, and lived cyborg. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 women diagnosed with psychosis at two hospitals in Riyadh, KSA. Data collection included 13 audio-recorded interviews and eight documented via field notes, supplemented by creative methods such as drawings, poems, and written texts analyzed using van Manen’s vocative method. All Arabic data were professionally translated and verified for accuracy. Results: Three overarching themes emerged. First, women’s lived experiences of first-episode psychosis highlighted the process of understanding causes and developing insight during onset. Second, experiences during admission and follow-up revealed the impact of clinical encounters, nursing care, and the critical need for therapeutic healing spaces. Third, living with psychosis in the community emphasized the complexities of medication adherence, family dynamics, and the pursuit of recovery through education, employment, and religious practice. Conclusions: The participants articulated user-based recovery perspectives, including empowerment, shared decision-making, and hope, which contrasted sharply with the service-based approaches they received. Culturally specific stressors and pervasive stigma shaped every phase of their journey. To the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has examined this population using a hermeneutic phenomenological framework; these findings provide a women-focused, culturally situated evidence base for developing gender-specific recovery models and enhanced discharge planning within the KSA mental health system. Full article

LGBTQ+ individuals experience disproportionately high rates of mental health challenges, driven largely by exposure to stigma, discrimination, and minority stress. In response, there is growing interest in creative, community-based interventions that support wellbeing. This study evaluates “LGBTQteehee!”, a 10-week stand-up comedy programme designed to promote mental wellbeing and resilience among LGBTQ+ individuals. N = 6 participants took part in post-intervention qualitative data collection via focus group and semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Two overarching themes were identified: “Standing up Together: A Queer Ensemble” and “Comedy as Catharsis”, each comprising two subthemes. The first theme captured the importance of community, highlighting “Where Comedy Meets Community” and “Where Safety Takes Centre Stage”, emphasising the role of belonging, diversity, and psychological safety. The second theme reflected the transformative potential of comedy, with “Performing (Queer) Resilience” and “Taking the Mic and Owning the Moment” illustrating how participants reframed lived experience into empowering narratives and reported increased confidence and self-expression. Findings suggest that the benefits of the intervention extend beyond humour alone, instead reflecting the interplay between social connection and identity-affirming narrative expression. Participants described how having a space to talk openly about their mental health and receive support from others contributed to their perceptions of both individual and collective resilience. These findings suggest that community-based comedy interventions may offer accessible and identity-affirming spaces through which LGBTQ+ individuals can explore wellbeing, belonging, and resilience. Whilst further evaluation is required, the findings contribute to growing discussions regarding the role of arts-based approaches in supporting LGBTQ+ mental health and wellbeing. Full article

Mindful pedagogy integrates a mindful approach in the classroom to support learning, creativity, and wellbeing using formal meditative practice or informal subject-related mindful practice or both. Since 2019, Mindful Kitchen Health and Wellbeing for Chefs, a globally unique module, has been delivered within year 1 of an undergraduate culinary arts programme. It uses a mindful pedagogical approach in a teaching kitchen setting promoting student self-care, mindfulness with food and positive kitchen culture. This qualitative single-case study explores its impact on the wellbeing of chefs in a real-world context and the process that creates that impact. The case study database includes interviews with graduates (n = 11), students (n = 7), module artefacts, co-creation workshops, and researcher reflection on class observations. Four themes emerged: stepping into wellbeing using the breath builds self-awareness, a mindful classroom builds creative confidence, calm minds empower the self for the workplace and informal mindful pedagogy creates “spacious applied learning” in Higher Education (HE). These unique insights can inform wellbeing-focused pedagogical practice in HE settings. Students’ experiences are easily transferable into other disciplines; however, further research should investigate nuances in transferability. Recommendations on integrating this approach into educators’ practice to strengthen wellbeing-focused teaching are presented. Full article

Air quality forecasting and environmental health research at urban and regional scales depend on the combination of measurements from heterogeneous sensor networks, yet the construction of integrated multi-source datasets is rarely described or released as a self-contained deliverable. This paper presents an open dataset that combines four sensor-derived sources covering the whole of Spain over the period from 2022 to 2024: hourly air quality observations from the 588 stations of the national network operated by the Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO), daily meteorological records from the Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET), daily mobility indicators derived from anonymised mobile telephony events published by the Ministerio de Transportes y Movilidad Sostenible (MITMA) at the municipality level, and a calendar of national and Autonomous Community public holidays. The processing pipeline harmonises sources that differ in temporal resolution, spatial codification and quality regime into a tidy hourly table indexed by station and timestamp, with a fixed feature schema of 56 variables per record. Air quality stations are paired with their nearest AEMET station through a three-tier distance rule, and the daily exogenous features are aligned to the air quality time axis through a two-variant temporal-alignment scheme (lag-and-expand to the hourly grid for the hourly release, same-calendar-day join for the daily release). A complementary daily resolution variant of the dataset is also released, with 72 columns and the same feature schema except for the air quality block, which is aggregated to daily mean, minimum and maximum. The integrated dataset contains approximately 15 million hourly records across the 588 stations and is released on Zenodo (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20196221) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. It is intended as a substrate for research on air quality forecasting, environmental epidemiology and multi-source data fusion at the nationwide scale. Full article

This article examines the representation of mental illness, emergency treatment, and recovery, in Ned Vizzini’s 2006 Young Adult novel, It’s kind of a funny story. Existing criticism has predominantly pursued what we term “diagnostic realist” approaches, which evaluate fictional representations against clinical criteria. We both affirm what this work achieves and make the case for extending it. Drawing on work on disability representation in Young Adult Literature and perspectives from Mad Studies, we propose that a social model lens, which locates mental difference within social and structural contexts rather than within individual pathology, opens out further possibilities for understanding what this and related novels do. We then demonstrate how close attention to Vizzini’s artistry—including to his use of romance conventions, figurative language, intertextuality, and first-person focalisation—reveals a text that does not simply mirror mental illness realistically, but which actively dramatises how social environments, institutional structures, and modes of creative expression shape the experience of and recovery from mental ill health. Rather than displacing diagnostic approaches, we argue that these wider critical paradigms, inclusive of the social model and attendant attention to craft, can enhance understanding of the help such novels can provide for different kinds of readers. Full article

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly being used as assistants for creative design tasks. In knowledge-intensive, highly constrained design tasks, LLM prompt configuration may affect model responses across user needs, accessibility principles, technical feasibility, and implementation conditions, thereby affecting design output quality. To examine this relationship, this paper investigates the effects of a standard LLM assistant, divergent persona prompting, and a Domain-Structured Persona Prompting (DSPP) framework on design outcomes for age-friendly health monitoring wearable devices. Fifty-three participants with design backgrounds completed design tasks under these three prompt configurations. The resulting proposals were then evaluated by experts, and further analyzed through user experience questionnaires, domain knowledge invocation coding, and LLM-as-a-Judge-assisted validation. Results indicate that DSPP enhances the overall quality of design proposals, with particular advantages in age-friendliness, practicality, and implementation feasibility; DSPP-generated proposals also more frequently incorporate standards-based rationale, older user characteristics, and age-friendly design principles. This research shows the potential of DSPP in LLM-assisted professional tasks with complex requirements and constraints. Full article

Background: Digital gaming is an integral part of children’s everyday lives and may relate to both cognitive development and psychosocial well-being. Although computational thinking is considered a key skill for navigating digital environments, limited research has examined how digital game addiction relates to computational thinking and well-being, particularly among children with chronic health conditions such as structural heart disease. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the associations among digital game addiction, computational thinking skills, and well-being among middle school children with structural heart disease and their typically developing peers. Methods: An exploratory correlational design was employed. The sample consisted of 30 children with structural heart disease and 25 typically developing peers aged 10–14 years. Data were collected using the Computational Thinking Skills Scale, the Digital Game Addiction Scale for Children, and the EPOCH Well-Being Scale. Relationships among variables were examined using correlation analyses. Results and Conclusions: Among children with structural heart disease, higher levels of digital game addiction were associated with lower creativity, collaboration, and overall computational thinking skills. Computational thinking skills were positively associated with selected dimensions of well-being, particularly connectedness and perseverance. In typically developing children, digital game addiction was negatively associated with several computational thinking dimensions, whereas perseverance and certain aspects of well-being were positively associated with computational thinking skills. Overall, digital game addiction showed limited associations with well-being in both groups. These findings suggest that the relationships among digital game addiction, computational thinking, and well-being may be complex and context-dependent. Given the exploratory correlational design and relatively small sample size, the results should be considered preliminary. Full article

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the effects of reading and art on the human brain. However, how these activities are associated with brain structure in healthy middle-aged adults remains unclear, partly because structural brain measures are not easily accessible outside MRI-based settings. In Study I, we analyzed the correspondence between gray matter volume (GMV) derived from brain MRI and facial-expression data obtained while participants imitated four facial expressions (happiness, anger, sadness, and surprise). Based on these data, we developed an exploratory algorithm and a digital application to estimate brain-health-related indices from facial expressions. In Study II, we examined correlations between the estimated brain-health-related indices and questionnaire-based measures of creative behavior and reading habits in 113 self-reported healthy middle-aged adults. The results showed that estimated indices related to the default mode network (DMN) and central executive network (CEN) were positively associated with creative behavior and reading habits, respectively. To our knowledge, this is among the first studies to explore whether facial-expression-based estimates of brain-health-related indices may be used to examine associations between everyday intellectual activities and brain-health-related characteristics. However, the findings should be interpreted cautiously because the estimation model was evaluated within a limited sample, included repeated observations, and has not yet been externally validated. Full article

Background: A physically active lifestyle is crucial for long-term cardiovascular health; however, access to supervised exercise programs for children and adolescents with congenital heart disease (CHD) remains limited. Although prior digital exercise interventions for this population have demonstrated safety and feasibility, adherence has often been low. Mobile health approaches integrating gamification may enhance motivation and engagement, particularly among young “digital natives.” FOOTLOOSE is an app-based home exercise program developed specifically for children and adolescents with CHD. This study aimed to evaluate user experience, usability, and perceived impact using a multimethod approach. Methods: Children and adolescents aged 10–18 years with simple, moderate, or complex CHD were recruited between July and December 2025 mainly during routine outpatient visits at the TUM Klinikum Deutsches Herzzentrum. Participants used the FOOTLOOSE app in their daily lives over a two-week period. Evaluation included semi-structured qualitative interviews and standardized questionnaires assessing physical activity self-efficacy, enjoyment of physical activity (PACES-S), user experience (UEQ), and health-related quality of life (KINDL^®). Interviews were conducted digitally, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz until thematic saturation was reached. Results: A total of 22 participants (mean age 13.4 ± 2.3 years; 54.5% female) were included. Overall, the FOOTLOOSE app was perceived positively, with participants highlighting enjoyment, intuitive usability, and personalized workout creation. Participants contributed diverse and creative suggestions for further app development, particularly regarding more advanced gamification features (e.g., games or rankings). Most participants reported self-perceived increase in physical activity during the intervention period (n = 15). UEQ scores (mean ± SD) were as follows: attractiveness (1.3 ± 0.8), perspicuity (1.7 ± 1.1), efficiency (1.2 ± 0.9), dependability (1.4 ± 0.7), stimulation (1.0 ± 1.1), and novelty (0.6 ± 1.0). Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility and user acceptance of a gamified, app-based home exercise program for children and adolescents with CHD. User-centered feedback highlights important directions for iterative refinement, particularly regarding age-appropriate and engaging gamification elements. These findings provide a foundation for future studies evaluating long-term engagement and effectiveness in larger samples. Full article

Voluntary placement agreements are a less understood avenue through which children and families receive child welfare services. This article describes a qualitative exploratory study of participants who oversee and engage with children and families utilizing voluntary placement services in two states (n = 12). Thematic analysis of interviews revealed voluntary placements are used as a strategy for strengths-based engagement with families, including creative problem-solving, to help obtain resources for youth with emotional and behavioral health needs. Participants also described challenges managing ambiguity regarding the use of voluntary placements and acknowledged limitations and varied outcomes of voluntary placement. Youth in voluntary placements are often overlooked in broader child welfare and foster care practice and policy discussions. Stronger accountability and guidance on voluntary placements are needed to ensure children and families are provided adequate supports to reduce the need for out-of-home placements when possible. Full article