Search Results (13)

The exponential growth of human interactions on social media via the internet has revolutionized global communication, but it has also emerged as a critical factor in mental health linked to suicidal ideation and mental disorders. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesize evidence on the most prevalent disorders in adolescents and young adults associated with social media use based on previous research, highlighting risk factors and key findings. Publications from 2020 to 2024 in highly relevant databases were reviewed following the PRISMA declaration guidelines. The meta-analysis (conducted in R software) of the included documents (24 studies, 68 effects) verified a significant and positive association between exposure to risk factors in social networks and various disorders in adolescents and young adults (aggregate correlation r = 0.2173, 95% CI [0.1826, 0.2520], p ≤ 0.0001), although with high heterogeneity (I² = 99.66%). Prevention strategies were indicated by revealing data from contexts in which 40% of adolescents who died by suicide had developed online identities focused on suicidal thoughts. Full article

Background: Mental health issues among youth are a growing public health concern. Schools play a vital role in the early detection and prevention of mental health issues, with principals being central to the implementation of mental health initiatives. This study assessed the attitudes, preparedness, and practices of school principals regarding mental health promotion and prevention among school-aged children. Methods: A cross-sectional survey using computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) was conducted between March and April 2025. A 19-item questionnaire was sent to all 1564 primary and secondary school principals in the Lodz region. Data from 605 respondents (response rate: 38.7%) were analyzed. Results: A total of 94.9% of the principals reported an increase in student mental health problems over the past five years. Over one-quarter of school principals (26.3%) declared a very good or rather good level of preparation for teachers to work with students diagnosed with a mental disorder. Moreover, 42.3% declared a very good or rather good level of preparation of teachers for conversations with parents about mental health problems observed in their children. Mental health education was conducted in 94.7% of schools, and teacher training in 73.2% of schools. Secondary schools more often offered such training (81.9% vs. 70.7%; p = 0.01) and reported stronger support from specialist teachers (79.7% vs. 67.7%; p = 0.01) than primary schools did. Rural schools rated teacher-parent communication more positively (47.0% vs. 37.7%; p = 0.02) despite fewer training initiatives (68.7% vs. 77.7%; p = 0.01). Suicide response procedures were implemented in 78.5% of schools. Conclusions: The findings confirm a marked rise in student mental health needs and reveal structural disparities in providing school-based support. Enhancing school leadership, expanding teacher training, and ensuring systemic support may facilitate mental health promotion interventions in schools. Full article

The regulation of end-of-life decisions has been the subject of intense debate for years, marked by the challenge of reconciling two fundamental ethical principles: preservation of life and individual self-determination. From a legal perspective, numerous court rulings have outlined an evolving framework, highlighting the difficulty of establishing a regulatory approach that balances constitutional rights with ethical values. This study examines key Italian judicial decisions, with a particular focus on recent Constitutional Court rulings regarding end-of-life issues, and discusses the underlying ethical and humanistic perspectives. We aim to explore the key ethical and legal issues arising in the context of end-of-life regulation. Judicial developments demonstrate an increasing recognition of individual self-determination in accessing assisted suicide despite persisting ongoing ambiguities and regulatory gaps. The end-of-life debate underscores the urgency of moving beyond abstract and schematic approaches, favoring a perspective that integrates multidisciplinary expertise and human sensitivity. Ensuring effective access to palliative care and comprehensive social and healthcare systems is essential to alleviate suffering and provide genuine alternatives to assisted suicide. Full article

Suicidality is among the most controversial concepts in multi-disciplinary studies worldwide, regardless of the form and approach. The etiopathological variability in suicidal ideation correlates with the heterogeneity of the clinical and behavioural patterns of self-harm attempts, which significantly impact the prognosis and quality of life of patients. The main objective of the present study was to identify and outline the spectrum of factors predisposing to suicide, with the whole suite of consequences and manifestations in ideation and behaviour. In this regard, the research literature of the last decade contains numerous articles dealing with the theoretical premises pertaining to both the statistical and the profoundly psychological and philosophical dimensions of suicide. The micro-environment favouring the clinical evolution of self-harm/self-destructive thoughts and attempts to the terminal, final act integrates individual medical-biological and psychological factors into the overall social reality. Knowledge of the whole etiopathogenic amalgam with clinical-evolutionary implications allows for the development of methods and tools for the early assessment and prevention of suicidal risk. At the same time, the present study aims to qualitatively focus on the subjective motivation declared by patients regarding the internal, individual catalyst of suicidal ideation and attempts on a predominantly psycho-social coordination. Full article

Background: Adolescents who identify as sexual minorities often face social stigmatisation, which can lead to increased adversity and a higher risk of suicidal behaviours. However, there are also protective factors that may promote resilience to these risk behaviours. This study aims to identify factors that predict resilience in sexual minority adolescents with high suicidal vulnerability. Methods: The study sample comprised 78 self-reported LGBTIQ+ adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years old (M = 16.11, SD = 1.56) who had previously attempted suicide. They completed several psychosocial instruments to measure risk and protective variables related to suicidal vulnerability. Results: Entrapment was found to be the most predictive risk variable for suicide attempts. However, protective variables promoting resilience were also found, such as adequate parental communication, life satisfaction, and cognitive reframing. Discussion: The findings related to prevention of suicide attempts are discussed and we highlight the urgent need to enhance certain internal and contextual protective factors to promote resilience in the face of suicidal vulnerability in certain clinical subpopulations exposed to highly adverse situations. Full article

Background: This study aimed to analyse the attitudes of medical students, Polish and classical philology students and trainee doctors towards the legalisation and practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide, to explore their beliefs about palliative care and to identify the cognitive, behavioural and emotional factors influencing these attitudes. Methods: An anonymous 22-question survey was sent by email to 670 participants, who comprised students of medicine, students of Polish and classical philology and trainee physicians. Results: Out of the 670 people invited to the survey, 313 (46.72%) responded; 215 (68.69%) and 112 (35.80%) participants supported the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide, respectively. No differences were found between the respondent groups studied. The respondents’ attitudes were influenced by religion, place of residence and professed values in the doctor–patient relationship. Among the medical students and trainee doctors surveyed, the declared willingness to perform euthanasia was lower, with 90 (43.7%) people, than the support for its legalisation, with 135 (65.5%) people. Significantly higher support for palliative care was expressed by fifth- and sixth-year medical students and trainee doctors, with 88 respondents (89.89%), less support was expressed by first- and fourth-year medical students, with 74 respondents (68.5%), and the lowest support was observed among Polish and classical philology students, with 63 respondents (58.9%). Conclusions: The legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide was supported by more than two-thirds and one-third of all the respondents, respectively, with the majority of medical students and trainee doctors surveyed expressing uncertainty or lack of readiness towards their practice. More than 70% of all the respondents showed a positive opinion towards palliative care, with the lowest support being among Polish and classical philology students. Full article

In this paper, we study language used by suicidal users on Reddit social media platform. To do that, we firstly collect a large-scale dataset of Reddit posts and annotate it with highly trained and expert annotators under a rigorous annotation scheme. Next, we perform a multifaceted analysis of the dataset, including: (1) the analysis of user activity before and after posting a suicidal message, and (2) a pragmalinguistic study on the vocabulary used by suicidal users. In the second part of the analysis, we apply LIWC, a dictionary-based toolset widely used in psychology and linguistic research, which provides a wide range of linguistic category annotations on text. However, since raw LIWC scores are not sufficiently reliable, or informative, we propose a procedure to decrease the possibility of unreliable and misleading LIWC scores leading to misleading conclusions by analyzing not each category separately, but in pairs with other categories. The analysis of the results supported the validity of the proposed approach by revealing a number of valuable information on the vocabulary used by suicidal users and helped to pin-point false predictors. For example, we were able to specify that death-related words, typically associated with suicidal posts in the majority of the literature, become false predictors, when they co-occur with apostrophes, even in high-risk subreddits. On the other hand, the category-pair based disambiguation helped to specify that death becomes a predictor only when co-occurring with future-focused language, informal language, discrepancy, or 1st person pronouns. The promising applicability of the approach was additionally analyzed for its limitations, where we found out that although LIWC is a useful and easily applicable tool, the lack of any contextual processing makes it unsuitable for application in psychological and linguistic studies. We conclude that disadvantages of LIWC can be easily overcome by creating a number of high-performance AI-based classifiers trained for annotation of similar categories as LIWC, which we plan to pursue in future work. Full article

The unprecedented growth of prosperity in developed countries, including the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, interrupted by the economic crisis in 2008–2009, came to a halt at the beginning of 2020. This was due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 respiratory disease pandemic, for which no cure was known in June 2020. The response of governments in the form of declaring a state of emergency and closing national and regional borders for several months had serious economic and, above all, psychological consequences. Anxiety, depression, and possibly suicides were expected to increase. In this paper, we focused on the experience of happiness, understood as positive emotion, expressing the highest degree of well-being. The conceptualization of happiness is based on the analysis of six indicators. The aim of the paper was to explore the experience of happiness during the COVID-19 pandemic in Czechia. Two hypotheses were formulated in terms of the expected effects of this pandemic on the experience of happiness. Measuring happiness in one region of the Czechia on a scale of 0–10 using both face-to-face methods and social networks yielded different results from those expected. Full article

The Public Health Agency of Canada declared suicide a public health problem in Canada (2016). Employees working in correctional services, researchers find, experience high rates of life-time suicidal ideation in comparison to other public safety professionals and the general population. Suicide behaviours (i.e., ideation, planning, attempts, death) are a multifactorial phenomenon, explained in part by the Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide that suggests attempted suicide is facilitated by perceived burdensomeness, a lost sense of belonging, a feeling of hopelessness, and a progressively reduced fear of death, as well as capacity and planning to engage a lethal attempt. In the current study, we unpack the factors that can influence suicide behaviours as reported by correctional workers. Our intent is to make explicit the experiences of a small sample (n = 25) of correctional workers in relation to suicidal behaviours, highlighting stories of recovery and acknowledging the importance of facilitating psychologically safe workplaces. Analysis entailed an inductive semi-grounded emergent theme approach. Participants identified certain risk factors as being able to induce suicidal ideation, such as marital or family problems as well as difficulties at work (i.e., bullying or difficult working conditions). Having children and a partner may act as factors preventing suicide for those with ideation. Participants sought help from professionals, such as their family doctor, a psychologist, or the Employee Assistance Program (EAP); however, the lack of perceived organisational supports and recognition of the issue of suicide by the employer are two elements that can hinder the search for help. Full article

The presented research aimed to identify the impacts of the second wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on respondents’ mental health state and identify variables related to the respondents’ symptoms of anxiety and depression; 618 subjects participated in the research. A specially prepared survey and Polish adaptations of the following methods were used: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS 10), MINI-COPE Questionnaire (Brief COPE Inventory), Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), Scale of Death Anxiety (SDA), The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S). Over 24% of the respondents reported having experienced suicidal thoughts since the start of the pandemic. Almost 16% drank alcohol in a risky or harmful way. The average value of perceived stress indicated its high and very high intensity. Over 20% had symptoms of anxiety disorders, and almost 19% had anxiety and depression symptoms. It means that almost 40% of the respondents probably have mental disorders. More women, younger people, and those with disorders prior to the onset of the pandemic were among those who manifested these disorders. They also used passive and avoidance stress coping strategies more frequently. In conclusion, the second wave of the pandemic negatively affected the mental health of the respondents. A high percentage of the respondents manifested anxiety and anxiety-depressive disorders and declared having of suicidal thoughts. Full article

(1) Background: Psychological problems of adolescents have become a global health and safety concern. Empirical evidence has shown that adolescents experience diverse mental health conditions (e.g., anxiety, depression, and emotional disorders). However, research on anxiety-induced sleep disturbance among in-school adolescents has received less attention, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study’s central focus was to examine factors associated with t anxiety-induced sleep disturbance among in-school adolescents in Ghana. (2) Methods: Analysis was performed using the 2012 Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS). A sample of 1342 in-school adolescents was included in the analysis. The outcome variable was anxiety-induced sleep disturbance reported during the past 12 months. Frequencies, percentages, chi-square, and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted. Results from the multivariable logistic regression analysis were presented as crude and adjusted odds ratios at 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and with a statistical significance declared at p < 0.05. (3) Results: Adolescents who went hungry were more likely to report anxiety-induced sleep disturbance compared to their counterparts who did not report hunger (aOR = 1.68, CI = 1.10, 2.57). The odds of anxiety-induced sleep disturbance were higher among adolescents who felt lonely compared to those that never felt lonely (aOR = 2.82, CI = 1.98, 4.01). Adolescents who had sustained injury were more likely to have anxiety-induced sleep disturbance (aOR = 1.49, CI = 1.03, 2.14) compared to those who had no injury. Compared to adolescents who never had suicidal ideations, those who reported experiencing suicidal ideations had higher odds of anxiety-induced sleep disturbance (aOR = 1.68, CI = 1.05, 2.71). (4) Conclusions: Anxiety-induced sleep disturbance among in-school adolescents were significantly influenced by the psychosocial determinants such as hunger, loneliness, injury, and suicidal ideation in this study. The findings can help design appropriate interventions through effective strategies (e.g., early school-based screening, cognitive-behavioral therapy, face-face counseling services) to reduce psychosocial problems among in-school adolescents in Ghana. Full article

Nursing students and professionals are exposed to highly stressful clinical situations. However, when confronted with stress, which is exacerbated by academic and professional situations, there is a great disparity between those who do not know how to respond suitably to the demands from patients or teachers due to a lack of competence and personal resistance, and those who are more resilient and develop a greater range of strengths. This research aims to analyse the validity and psychometric characteristics of a questionnaire on resilience adapted to Spanish nursing bachelor’s degree students. The participants were 434 undergraduate nursing students from the province of Valencia (Spain) between 17 and 54 years of age (Mean, M = 21; Standard Deviation, SD = 0.320), 104 of whom were men (24%) and 330 women (76%). A cross-sectional group evaluation was carried out in the university itself, adhering to the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki. Based on the descriptive, factorial, exploratory and confirmatory analyses, it was possible to confirm the suitability of the questionnaire and its adaptation to nursing students. The model is thus suitable for evaluating the population under study. Furthermore, there are statistically significant differences depending on age and gender. The results show that the questionnaire analysed is suited to evaluating resilience among Spanish nursing students, thereby justifying the adaptation of a scale of this nature to foster resilience among nursing students and nurses in professional life, who are exposed to critical situations with patients’ suffering, deterioration or death. Our study highlights important practical implications: Spanish nursing studies involve theory and practice, but students and nurses in professional life have to confront critical situations of patients’ suffering, deterioration, or death. These situations cause stress and feelings of impotence that may lead to chronic stress and even suicidal thoughts. Full article

Background: Our main objective was to evaluate the fundamental biases detected in studies assessing the effects the Great Recession had on health for the case of Spain. As secondary objectives we presented methods to control these biases and to discuss the results of the studies in question if they had controlled for them. Methods: We carried out a systematic review of the literature published up to June 2018. We evaluated the biases that could have happened in all the eligible studies. Results: From the review, we finally selected 53 studies. Of the studies we reviewed, 60.38% or 32 out of 53, were evaluated as having a high risk of bias. The main biases our review revealed were problems with evaluation, time bias, lack of control of unobserved confounding, and non-exogeneity when defining the onset of the Great Recession. Conclusions: The results from the studies that controlled the biases were quite consistent. Summing up, the studies reviewed found that the Great Recession increased the risk of declaring poor self-rated health and the deterioration of mental health. Both the mortality rate and the suicide rate may well have increased after the Great Recession, probably after a three- to four-year delay. Full article