The onset of COVID-19 and cancellation of collegiate sports may have exacerbated student-athletes' psychological distress. Within a national sample of collegiate student-athletes (N = 5755; 66.7% women; 72.3% White), I determined how gender, race, and sport season related to rates of depression, stress, and counseling use. I used a cross-sectional methodology and collected data in April/May 2020. Overall, 26.5% (n = 1526) and 10.6% (n = 612) of the collegiate student-athletes endorsed clinical and high levels for depression and stress, respectively; 25.1% (n = 1443) and 69.7% (n = 4014) reported subclinical and moderate levels of depression and stress, respectively. Few student-athletes reported counseling use before (17.1%) or after (2.3%) the onset of COVID-19; those who reportedly used services endorsed higher levels of depression and stress than those who did not. Female student-athletes reported higher rates of depression, stress, and counseling use than male student-athletes. There were no race or sport season effects. Student-athletes who competed in spring sports endorsed higher levels of counseling use than student-athletes who participated in a fall season sport. Athletic departments must address their student-athletes' psychological distress by facilitating a higher use of mental health services.

South Asians are the third fastest growing racial/ethnic minority group in the United States with distinct cultural characteristics. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately impacted racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S, including South Asians, across several life domains: work, home life/education, social activities, economic, emotional and physical health, infection, quarantine, and positive changes. The COVID-19 pandemic may have critically impacted South Asians with traumatic event experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity across several life domains. Limited work suggests high rates of interpersonal traumas and substantial PTSD symptom severity in the South Asian community. Uniquely, the current study examined which life domains impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic associated with a greater count of traumatic event types, interpersonal vs. non-interpersonal traumas, and PTSD symptom severity. Results revealed that negative experiences in social activities, as well as distress in economic, emotional, and physical health domains, were significantly associated with the count of traumatic event types. Negative social activity experiences, and distress in the economic and emotional health domains, were also significantly associated with PTSD symptom severity. Quarantine and physical health domains significantly associated with the count of interpersonal traumas, while COVID-19-related experiences (in social, quarantine, and infection domains) …

Client pre-treatment expectations have a significant impact on psychotherapy outcome, therapeutic alliance, and attendance. Client expectations are thought to account for approximately 11-14% of variance in premature termination from psychotherapy. However, measures that conflate treatment beliefs and distinct measurement techniques for the same outcome construct obscure the relationship between expectations and psychotherapy outcomes. Clarifying these associations is necessary to support development of useful methods and processes that support client retention in evidence-based treatments. With drop-out rates of approximately 20% across treatment settings, and as high as 69.4% in psychology training clinics, risk of attrition is a significant liability to effective treatment. The meta-analytic findings presented herein clarify the association of pre-treatment expectations with psychotherapy outcome, considering competing definitions for client expectations and discrepant psychotherapy outcome measurement. Implications for attrition, treatment outcomes, and therapeutic alliance are discussed.

Relatively few studies have explored the relationship between gender role conflict (GRC) and an individual's religious/spiritual identities. This study sought to add to the research on GRC by exploring the experiences of female and male GRC, and expand the understanding of the influence of religion/spirituality (R/S) variables on GRC. Participants (N = 359) were recruited from social media and undergraduate courses and completed an online survey that assessed GRC, a variety of R/S variables, and life satisfaction. Overall, there were some significant differences found between male and female experiences of GRC. In general, the R/S variables did not have a large impact on GRC. However, religious fundamentalism and extrinsic and quest religious orientations were related to specific subscales of GRC. Maintaining congruency between one's personal values and one's religious institution was related to lower levels of specific subscales of GRC. Additionally, GRC was related to lower levels of life satisfaction. Regarding the subscales of GRC, restrictive emotionality was the strongest predictor of lower life satisfaction. By furthering research on the interplay between GRC and R/S, clinicians will be more equipped to handle the repercussions of stereotypical roles within gender and religion, address negative attitudes and behaviors, and lead discussions about …

This study was conducted as part of a parent grantwhich examined the relationship between components of sleep and antibody responses to the flu vaccine in a population of 392 nurses working at two large hospitals. During/after sleep data was collected, nurses had blood drawn at four time points: immediately pre-vaccination, 1-, 6-, and 11-months post vaccine to obtain serum for detection of anti-influenza antibodies measured with an HI (hemagglutination inhibition) assay. Additionally, the inflammatory biomarkers IL6, IL1-β, TNF-α and CRP were measured at the pre-vaccine time point only to determine any correlation between the markers and antibody response. Data was analyzed using a hierarchical regression. In the first step, analyses assessed whether each change/average in cytokines over the one-month period had an impact on vaccine response for each of the four viral strains in the flu vaccine. In a second step, analyses assessed whether variables such as insomnia, stress, age, smoking, BMI, and race had any impact on vaccine response beyond the effects exerted through inflammation. The change in association (β) between the primary independent variable and primary dependent variable were examined in order to determine whether there are any suppression effects caused by baseline covariates on the relationship between …

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a serious mental illness characterized by dramatically differing mood states and marked costs for the individual and society, making it important to find factors associated with the condition. Deficits in emotion regulation have been found across a wide range of mental health disorders and may represent an important risk factor for BD. Literature in this area has large methodological inconsistencies and many conclusions are mixed. Therefore, the current study sought to conduct a meta-analytic review of literature related to emotion regulation in BD. Results suggest that people with BD broadly report more frequent use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and less frequent use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies than healthy controls. Of these strategies, the largest effect sizes were found for risk-taking, rumination, impulsivity, catastrophizing, and self-blame. Comparisons to other clinical groups suggest that emotion regulation in BD is largely similar to major depressive disorder and less severely impaired than borderline personality disorder. Moderator analyses of BD samples in different mood states suggest mood state plays a limited role in emotion regulation strategy usage, although some maladaptive strategies may be more common in samples with depressive symptoms. Among emotion regulation strategies, increased positive rumination and suppression …

The data surrounding barriers to student-athletes seeking mental health care are limited, but show that stigma is one of the most frequently reported barriers. Further, the effect of sharing demographic identities (i.e., race, gender) between a student-athlete and their mental health treatment provider has not been fully explored. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of reported barriers and facilitators to mental health as well as the importance of sport psychologist characteristics as a facilitator of mental health treatment. Participants consisted of student athletes from an NCAA Division I university, representing 11 sports. A series of two-way, repeated measures ANOVA analyses were conducted to determine within-subjects differences in overall reporting of barriers and facilitators, as well as between groups differences in race and gender. Significant differences were found in the rating of barriers and facilitators. Female student-athletes rated sharing a gender identity with their mental health treatment provider as more important than did male student-athletes. The findings of the study may aid athletic departments in developing targeted interventions to lower barriers and increase use of mental health resources to promote psychological well-being among student-athletes.

Therapeutic alliance has been consistently demonstrated as a robust predictor of treatment outcomes, though the time in psychotherapy at which therapeutic alliance best predicts outcomes is unclear. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that racial and ethnic minority clients typically form weaker therapeutic alliances in treatment. The weaker development in therapeutic alliance among racial and ethnic minority clients may mediate discrepancies in treatment outcomes, including higher dropout rates. The purpose of this study was to explore this possibility by (1) investigating the temporal relationship between therapeutic alliance and treatment outcomes and (2) examining differences in therapeutic alliance ratings and treatment outcome, including unilateral termination, among racial and ethnic minority clients. The findings of this study may be integral to identifying and addressing psychotherapy treatment disparities that are tied to racial or ethnic minority status.

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) has gained widespread favor since its publication. However, validation studies of its interpretive descriptors remained limited to date. As such, the primary goal of the current study aimed at validating the interpretive descriptors through the lens of empirical correlates using the PDSQ as the external criterion. It also served as a replication and extension to the 2018 study conducted by Rogers and colleagues. The final archival sample included 204 clients from the UNT Psychology Clinic who were administered PAI between May 2016 and December 2020. Overall, reliability and construct validity were strongly supported for PAI clinical scales. Further, the current study replicated large majority of the correlates identified by Rogers and colleagues, which boosted the confidence in reproducible interpretations based on empirical correlates. Importantly, investigation of item-level and gendered correlates provided crucial interpretive implications that were otherwise obscured. For example, item-level correlates refined interpretation by clarifying the nature of scale-level correlates, particularly those of moderate strength. On the other hand, notable gender differences were identified for certain scales, which led to drastic differences in patterns of gendered vs. non-gendered correlates. Finally, several important methodological considerations are proposed in hope to facilitate the empirical research concerning …