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Refugee and asylum-seeking women are particularly vulnerable to experiencing mental health difficulties during the perinatal period, with social factors compounding these experiences. Research is limited into the mental health needs of perinatal women who are refugees or seeking asylum. The purpose of this paper is to examine the best available international evidence on this topic and to discuss the findings with relevance to the UK context.

A modified population, intervention, comparison, outcome was used to formulate the research question and search strategy. Databases searched were: cumulative index of nursing and allied health literature, Medline, PsychINFO, Web of Science and Scopus. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis framework, results were screened against an inclusion and exclusion criteria. Each study underwent a quality assessment in which they were appraised using the mixed methods appraisal tool.

Eight papers were retrieved, and a thematic analysis was conducted. Two major themes were identified: mental health needs and social influences. Refugees and asylum seekers are likely to have experienced trauma as reasons for migration. Post-migration stressors, including hostility and dispersal from social networks, lead to cumulative trauma. These each add to the mental health needs of perinatal refugee and asylum-seeking women that cannot be ignored by policymakers, health and social care services or professionals.

Refugee and asylum-seeking women are particularly vulnerable to mental health difficulties in the perinatal period. Stressors accumulated pre-, during and post-migration to the host country exacerbate mental distress. In the UK, the treatment of this population may be detrimental to their mental health, prompting the need for greater critical awareness of the socioecological environment that refugee or asylum-seeking women experience.

In this manuscript, the authors argue that those suffering from depressive symptoms are prone to experiencing bouts of unproductivity. The authors argue further that such conditions promote instances of self-disclosure regarding related symptoms in the interest of procuring workplace support, i.e. the effect of depressive symptomology on workplace support is mediated by both unproductivity and self-disclosure, in turn.

Two different online investigations were implemented to assess the accuracy of this prediction. Moreover, two different samples of organizational employees from numerous organizations were procured, such that one sample contained diagnosed individuals, whereas the other contained undiagnosed individuals (total N = 756). In general, the main analyses consisted of confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis.

Substantial statistical support was obtained for the authors' four-variable path model. Specifically, across two different investigations, a model was found in which those with depressive symptoms were unproductive, which prompted self-disclosure and thus subsequent manifestations of workplace support. Moreover, this was generally true for both diagnosed and undiagnosed individuals. Correlation coefficients and model fit indices are reported in the manuscript.

This work contributes substantially to the understanding of how depressive symptomology, self-disclosure and workplace support are interrelated within organizations. In addition, having examined these relationships using a sample of undiagnosed individuals, new insights were gained regarding a subset of the population that remains vastly understudied.

The early care and education (ECE) workforce plays a pivotal role in shaping early childhood developmental trajectories and simultaneously experiences significant mental health disparities. The purpose of this study is to investigate how social determinants of health and external stressors are associated with the mental health of ECE staff, which represent a low-resourced segment of the workforce; how psychological capital (psycap) can mitigate these associations.

The authors administered an 89-item survey to 332 ECE staff employed in 42 Head Start centers in the USA. The authors ran three hierarchical linear regression models to analyze associations between social determinants of health, external sources of stress, psycap and potential moderation effects and mental health outcomes.

Individuals experiencing greater finance-related stress reported 0.15 higher scores on the depression scale and 0.20 higher scores on the anxiety scale than those experiencing less finance-related stress (p < 0.05). Individuals experiencing greater work-related stress reported 1.26 more days of poorer mental health in the past month than those experiencing less work-related stress (p < 0.01). After controlling for all sociodemographic variables and sources of stress, psycap was significantly and negatively associated with depressive symptomology (b-weight = −0.02, p < 0.01) and the number of poor mental health days reported in the past month (b-weight = −0.13, p < 0.05). Moderation models suggest that higher levels of psycap may mitigate the association between work-related stress and the number of poor mental health days reported in the past month (b-weight = −0.06, p = 0.02).

The implications of these findings suggest a need for policy change to mitigate social determinants of health and promote pay equity and multi-level interventio ns that target workplace-related stressors and psycap to combat poor mental health of the ECE workforce.

The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the extant literature on depression and anxiety disorders in police using a multinational data set to determine whether the prevalence of these trauma-related disorders (TRMDs) is elevated in comparison to the general population.

Systematic review was employed in combination with best-evidence narrative synthesis to evaluate these hypotheses.

Despite wide variability in prevalence outcomes across the literature, strong evidence supports the hypothesis that the prevalence of depression is elevated in police, whereas moderate evidence supports the same hypothesis regarding anxiety. Preliminary evaluation of commonly examined predictive factors for each disorder demonstrated weak and inconsistent associations between these TRMDs and sociodemographic factors. No studies evaluated the relationship between incident-related factors (e.g. severity or frequency of exposure) and TRMDs, thus, at present, the literature on police is almost entirely unable to address the question of whether the prevalence of these disorders in police is influenced by exposure to work-related trauma.

The findings highlight a critical need for future work to address incident-related factors in predicting symptoms of depression and anxiety in police samples to determine whether these disorders bear a unique relationship to work-related traumatic exposure. Such work will significantly benefit the design and implementation of successful prevention and intervention strategies in the workplace.

The present review provides a comprehensive synthesis of a highly variable literature, highlighting critical gaps in our current knowledge of TRMDs in police and suggesting numerous avenues for future study.

Understanding parental psychopathology interaction is important in preventing negative family outcomes. This study investigated the effect of paternal psychiatric history on maternal depressive symptom trajectory from birth to 12 months postpartum. Maternal Edinburgh Postpartum Depression screens were collected at 1, 6 and 12 months and fathers' psychiatric diagnoses were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV from 64 families. There was not a significant difference in the trajectory of maternal depressive symptoms between mothers with partners with history of or a current psychiatric condition or those without a condition. However, mothers with partners with substance abuse history had higher levels of depressive symptoms relative to those affected by mood/anxiety disorders or those without a disorder. Our results call for a closer look at paternal history of substance abuse when treating postpartum maternal depression.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether clinical levels of depression moderated university students’ momentary emotional states (e.g. feeling content, anxious, irritable and depressed) in response to conditions commonly experienced during universal, college-based Animal Visitation Programs (AVPs).

During a real-life efficacy trial, students (N = 192) were randomly assigned to three common AVP conditions: a hands-on condition in which participants could freely pet cats and dogs in small groups, an observation condition in which participants observed students in the hands-on condition while awaiting one’s turn and a control condition in which participants viewed images of the same animals while refraining from socializing with peers. Using a checklist, students reported their momentary emotional states (e.g. feeling content, anxious, irritable and depressed) before and after the 10-min intervention.

Multivariate regression analyses showed that clinically depressed students reported significantly higher levels of momentary negative emotion including irritability, depression and anxiety after waiting in line compared to non-depressed students, suggesting that clinical depression may moderate potential stress-relieving effects of universal college-based AVPs depending on implementation practices.

This is the first study to examine the causal impact of a common yet unstudied feature of college-based AVPs aimed at reducing general college student stress. Results support the utility of targeted approaches for students presenting clinical levels of depression.

Perinatal depression is common and increases the risk of adverse outcomes for both the mother and child. Despite regular contact with midwives and GPs during the perinatal period less than 50 per cent of women with depression are identified and treated. A number of reasons for this have been proposed; however, failure of health professionals to recognise the symptoms women present with may contribute. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore women’s self-report symptoms of perinatal depression and understand how the symptoms women present with might impact on identification.

Women were invited to post their experiences of perinatal depression on one of two online discussion forums over a nine-month period. Data were analysed using a process of deductive thematic analysis informed by cognitive behavioural therapy.

Women’s symptoms were presented using five headings: triggers (for perinatal depression), thoughts, moods, physical reactions and behaviours. Women believed having a previous mental health problem contributed to their depression. Women’s self-report symptoms included intrusive and violent thoughts; emotional responses including fear, worry and anger; and somatic symptoms including insomnia and weight changes. Women also reported aggressive behaviour and social withdrawal as part of their depressive symptomatology. Symptoms women present with may negatively impact on identification as they often overlap with those of pregnancy; may not be included in the criteria for mental health assessment and may involve undesirable and socially unacceptable behaviour, making disclosure difficult.

A more inclusive understanding of women’s self-report symptoms of perinatal depression is called for, if identification is to improve.

This paper offers an analysis of women’s self-report symptoms of depression, in the context of identification of perinatal mental health problems.

We previously examined the efficacy of rTMS for major depressive disorder in an applied clinical practice. Clinical response was related to severity of depression as well as the rTMS instrument utilized suggesting a relationship to instrument or magnetic field parameters and individual factors. The effectiveness of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the treatment of major depressive disorder was further evaluated using Log-Rank statistics for time to remission outcomes. A follow-up retrospective medical records study was carried out on patients with major depressive disorder undergoing rTMS therapy at AwakeningsKC Clinical Neuroscience Institute (CNI), a suburban tertiary psychiatric clinic. Cox Proportional Hazard with Log-Rank statistics were applied and the time course to clinical remission was evaluated over a 6-week period with respect to age, gender, and depression severity. Clinical response was observed referencing two different rTMS instruments (MagVenture; NeuroStar). Time to remission studies of 247 case reports (N=98 males; N=149 females) showed consistently greater clinically defined remission rates after 6 weeks of rTMS treatment for patients using the MagVenture vs NeuroStar instrument. Patients previously admitted for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization exhibited higher response rates when treated with the MagVenture rTMS unit. Stepwise Cox Proportional Hazards Regression final model of time to remission included rTMS unit, inpatient psychiatric hospitalization and obese body habitus. Response to rTMS in applied clinical practice is related to severity of psychiatric illness and may require consideration of magnetic field parameters of the rTMS unit with respect to individual factors such as sex or body composition.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a neurostimulatory technique used to modulate orbital frontal corticostriatal (OFC) activity and clinical symptomatology for psychiatric disorders involving OFC dysfunction. We examined the effectiveness of rTMS in the treatment of major depressive disorder in an applied clinical setting (Awakening KC CNI) to assess efficacy and optimize rTMS parameters within clinical practice. A retrospective review of medical records was carried out on patients with major depressive disorder undergoing rTMS therapy at Awakenings KC Clinical Neuroscience Institute (CNI), a suburban tertiary psychiatric clinic. A detailed de-identified data set of clinical outcomes was compiled. Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) total score, clinical remission rate and week achieved were evaluated over 6 weeks of treatment to assess clinical response referencing two different rTMS instruments (MagVenture; NeuroStar). Our survey included 247 participants from males (N=98) and females (N=149) with average baseline PHQ-9 scores of 21.7±4, classified as severe depression. Clinically rated remission rates of 72% were achieved in 3.1±1.0 weeks and associated with prior history of psychiatric hospitalization, suicide attempts and substance use disorder. Average baseline PHQ-9 scores decreased significantly over time with proportionately greater remission rates achieved for patients treated using the MagVenture over NeuroStar instrument. rTMS in applied clinical practice is efficacious over a wide range of settings and patients. Clinical response was related to severity of depression symptoms (e.g., prior hospitalization; suicide attempts) validating efficacy in critically ill groups. Clinical response may be impacted by rTMS instrument, magnetic field parameters or individual factors.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been proven to be efficacious in the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). We previously examined the effectiveness of rTMS for MDD in an applied clinical setting, AwakeningsKC Clinical Neuroscience Institute (CNI) and found high remission rates for patients diagnosed with MDD following rTMS treatment. An unexpected relationship with body composition and rTMS unit was discovered. This sub-study extends the previous investigation through a focused analysis of the effects of body composition on response to rTMS in the treatment of MDD. We utilized data collected from a retrospective review of medical records for patients diagnosed with MDD undergoing rTMS therapy at AwakeningsKC CNI. Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) scores, time to remission status and body mass index (BMI) at baseline were considered while referencing two different rTMS instruments (MagVenture; NeuroStar). We found 23 (9%) of 247 participants met criteria for obese status (BMI?30) with an average baseline PHQ-9 score of 22±4, classified as “severe depression”. Obesity status was differentially impacted by the rTMS instrument used for treatment. Patients with obesity showed a shorter time to remission (mean 2.7±0.27 vs. mean 3.4±0.3 weeks) and proportionately greater remission rate (100% vs. 71%) when treated using the MagVenture relative to the NeuroStar instrument. Clinical response to rTMS therapy for MDD appears to be guided by individual factors including body composition and rTMS parameters such as the unit used for treatment. Further study of these influences could aid in the optimization of clinical response to rTMS.