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ObjectivesBeyond specific aspects of numerical or verbal intelligence or cognitive speed, a broad range of psychological capacities are generally important in school, job and social life for all age groups. People have to quit the labour market up from a certain age about 65, whereas (younger) unemployed are motivated for return to work. The question is which psychological capacity profiles can be found in different employment groups (employed, mini-jobbers, voluntary service, retired, unemployed).DesignA representative cross-sectional survey was conducted in Germany, reaching 2528 persons.SettingRepublic of Germany.ParticipantsRandomly selected inhabitants throughout Germany.Primary and secondary outcome measuresParticipants reported their sociodemographic and work characteristics, as well as their psychological capacity profiles (Mini-ICF-APP-S) and work-related specific mental health problems (work-anxiety, embitterment).ResultsThe unemployed had—compared with all other groups—highest rates of work-anxiety and embitterment (16.3%). In contrast to the unemployed, the ‘older’ (70 aged) retired group, who were no longer working on the labour market, seldomly reported work-anxiety (2.6%) or embitterment (4.2%). The unemployed had the worst capacity profiles, most frequently no school degree (11.5%), most unemployment in their history (four times, as compared with once in the older retired). The psychological capacity profiles of the retired were similar to employed persons.ConclusionsKeeping older persons with high psychological capacity levels in working life could be an alternative to forced reintegration of people with chronic participation problems into the competitive labour market. Unemployed persons with chronic health and participation problems might benefit from other social inclusion means.

Growing evidence highlights a rather long-term perspective on well-being. Eudaimonia—living meaningfully, acting in accordance with one’s values, and accepting hardship in pursuit of worthwhile goals—is associated with better mental and physical health, resilience, and higher global life satisfaction. However, there is a lack of evidence investigating eudaimonia and its connection to satisfaction with specific life domains. This study explores how eudaimonia relates to global and domain-specific life satisfaction. A convenience general population sample (N = 394) was investigated by online questionnaire, assessing sociodemographic data, eudaimonia, health impairments, well-being, and satisfaction across 17 life domains with the Differential Life Burden Scale. High eudaimonia was associated with higher psychological well-being and work participation compared to individuals reporting low eudaimonia. Thereby people with high eudaimonia despite mental health problems reported higher satisfaction than those with mental health problems and low eudaimonia. People with high eudaimonia despite mental problems were similarly satisfied like people without mental problems but lower eudaimonia. For both global and domain-specific life satisfaction, individuals with and without mental health problems benefit from higher eudaimonia. Eudaimonia can be a valuable resource for mental health, overall life satisfaction, and satisfaction across various life domains.

Background Wisdom is an important coping resource for difficult and ambiguous life situations. Wisdom trainings have been developed in clinical and non-clinical settings. What has been missing so far are representative data on wisdom affinity from the general population. These are important regarding needs assessments and identification of risk groups with low wisdom affinity and potential problems in coping with difficult and ambiguous life situations. Method The study examined a population-representative sample of 2509 persons. Socio-demographic data, presence of chronic and mental illnesses was assessed, and wisdom attitudes by the 12-WD Wisdom Scale. The surveys were carried out by means of interviews and self-report questionnaires at the respondents’ homes, done by an experienced social research company (USUMA GmbH). Results Only 6% of the whole sample appeared to be highly wisdom-affirmative (12-WD mean score 10 on scale 0–10), whereas 4% may appear low wisdom-affirm, due to very low agreement (12 WD mean score 0–4). Most of the moderately wisdom-affirm people had a religious denomination (70.9%), whereas only 57–59% of the high or low wisdom-affirm persons reported religious affiliations. Low wisdom-affirm were most often chronically ill (25%), with mental or physical illness in similar frequency, and had significantly more unemployment times than persons with higher wisdom scores. Wisdom affinity was independent from age, gender and age, household situation, and higher school education. Conclusion It must be assumed that people with socio-medical risk factors also have impairments in their wisdom-related problem-solving strategies, and that these can be of interest for transdiagnostic wisdom trainings in prevention or rehabilitation, which has shown positive effects.

Background Childbirth fear and interventions during childbirth might be related to the mindset and knowledge non-pregnant women have regarding childbirth. Non-pregnant women before their first birth experience may be particularly at risk for childbirth fear. Methods The present study examined the expressions and associations of birth-related mindset, knowledge, and fear among 316 young, non-pregnant women without birth experience. They participated in a cross-sectional online study and completed the Childbirth Fear Prior to Pregnancy, the Mindset and Birth Questionnaire, and a birth knowledge test. Results Most women (44%) had a natural mindset and low fear, 29% had a medical mindset and low fear, 8% natural mindset and higher fear, and 19% medical mindset and higher fear. There were no differences in knowledge between the four groups. Some gaps in knowledge appeared concerning signs of beginning birth, and non-medical approaches to pain relief. From women with natural mindset and low childbirth fear, a higher percentage (13%) has already watched a birth, as compared to the other groups. Natural mindset was associated with lower childbirth fear, whereas knowledge was independent from childbirth fear. Higher knowledge was low associated with natural mindset. Mindset and childbirth fear were independent from age and education degree. Conclusions Gynecologists, midwifes and other health professionals may develop an awareness for birth as a natural event in their non-pregnant patients, and take birth-related fear into account in their counseling, with focus on women’s self-efficacy and non-medical approaches to pain relief.

Aims Work-anxiety may produce overly negative views of the workplace that impair provider efforts to assess work ability from patient self-report. This study explores the empirical relationships between patient-reported workplace characteristics, work-anxiety, and subjective and objective work ability measures. Methods 125 patients in medical rehabilitation before vocational reintegration were interviewed concerning their vocational situation, and filled in a questionnaire on work-anxiety, subjective mental work ability and perceived workplace characteristics. Treating physicians gave independent socio-medical judgments concerning the patients’ work ability and impairment, and need for supportive means for vocational reintegration. Results Patients with high work-anxiety reported more negative workplace characteristics. Low judgments of work ability were correlated with problematic workplace characteristics. When controlled for work-anxiety, subjective work ability remained related only with social workplace characteristics and with work achievement demands, but independent from situational or task characteristics. Sick leave duration and physicians’ judgment of work ability were not significantly related to patient-reported workplace characteristics. Conclusions In socio-medical work ability assessments, patients with high work-anxiety may over-report negative workplace characteristics that can confound provider estimates of work ability. Assessing work-anxiety may be important to assess readiness for returning to work and initiating work-directed treatments.

In addition to illness, inactivity is a risk factor for high mortality in nursing homes. Using innovative technology, such as virtual reality (VR), for meaningful group activities could provide new opportunities for solving this problem. VR interventions have already been approved as a promising method for enhancing the health of older adults. In this study, we examined whether VR-based group activities can have a positive impact on activity level and group interaction among older adults living in nursing homes. We conducted a longitudinal study and provided VR interventions as a group activity once a week for 4 consecutive weeks in nursing homes. Participants were recruited based on the experience of the nursing staff members and the natural decisions of the older adults. Within a virtual cottage, designed according to the needs of the target group, older adults were able to perform daily tasks that they were no longer able to do in real life, such as gardening and making pizza. Overall, 2 psychologists measured the psychosocial capacities, activities of daily life, and well-being before and after the interventions using standardized instruments. The results focus on a total of 84 older adults from 14 nursing homes who completed at least 3 VR interventions. The results indicate that several psychosocial capacities among the older adults improved, including adherence to regulations (P<.001; η²=0.122), flexibility (P<.001; η²=0.109), and group integration (P<.001; η²=0.141). Problems related to competence also showed a slight decrease (P=.04; η²=0.039). In addition, the VR intervention promoted their proactivity (P<.001; η²=0.104) and mobility (P=.04; η²=0.039). During the VR group intervention, older adults' well-being could be maintained at a high level. The results highlight the beneficial effects of VR intervention as a meaningful activity in nursing homes, showcasing the potential of VR applications in this setting. This study provides a novel and naturalistic perspective, offering new insights into the use of VR in nursing homes. The VR intervention was well accepted and fulfilled the aim of enhancing capacity and well-being. It could be a meaningful group activity in nursing homes to improve social group interaction. To provide stronger evidence, randomized controlled trials are necessary.

PurposeRehabilitation professionals are faced with judging and describing the social-medicine status of their patients. Rehabilitation professionals must know the core concepts of acute unfitness for work, psychological capacities, and long-term work capacity. Acquiring and applying this knowledge, requires training. The research question is if and to what extent medical professionals and students’ knowledge changes after social medicine training.MethodsThis quasi-experimental study was carried out in the real-life context of social medicine training. Psychology students (n = 42), physicians/psychotherapists (i.e. state-licensed health professionals) (n = 44) and medical assistant professionals (n = 29) were trained. Their social medicine knowledge was measured before and after training by a 10-min expert-approved and content valid knowledge questionnaire. Three free-text questions had to be answered on the essential aspects of present and prognostic work ability and psychological capacities. Answers were rated for correctness by two experts. Paired t tests and variance analysis have been calculated for group comparisons.ResultsAll groups improved their social medicine knowledge from the pre- to the post-test. The students started with the lowest level of knowledge in the pre-test. After training, 69% of the physicians/psychotherapists and 56.8% of the medical assistant professionals, but only 7% of the students, obtained maximum scores for naming psychological capacities.ConclusionsSocial medicine knowledge increased after a training course consisting of eight lessons. The increase was greater for medical assistant professionals and physicians/psychotherapists than for students. Social medicine training must be adjusted to the trainee groups’ knowledge levels.

Employees with mental illness are often the first to be unable to cope with increasingly complex psychosocial work demands. But people without mental illness can also suffer from, for example, high workload. This study compares a short coaching to stabilize work ability for employees with and without mental illness regarding coaching topics, effects on work-related resources, goal attainment, and unwanted events. Individual coaching of three sessions (problem exploration by behavior analysis, practice of new behavior, reflection) was conducted with employees from different professional fields. A medical history was taken to determine whether participants are affected by a mental disorder. All coaching was conducted by the same behavior therapist in training (L.P.W.) under the supervision of an experienced behavior therapist (B.M.). Two hundred and three coachings with three sessions were completed. In total, 103 participants did not have a mental illness (51%), and 100 participants reported a mental disorder (49%). The coaching participants with mental illness had lower initial levels of work-related capacities (more severe impairments) and coping behavior as compared to the participants without mental illness. In the pre–post comparisons, both groups achieved significant improvements in work-related coping after the coaching. There were no differences in goal attainment between both groups. While participants without mental illness reported more unwanted events in parallel to the coaching (30% reported negative developments in life), participants with mental illness reported coaching-related unwanted events (20% felt to be dependent on the coach). Coaching with an individual focus on one topic can improve work-related resources in participants with and without mental disorders. Since participants with and without mental illness experience different unwanted events in coaching, psychotherapeutic expertise is needed in order to set the right focus.

Although vegetarian and vegan dietary can positively contribute to animal welfare, the environment and health, they also entail social costs for the people following them. These costs may be an increased risk of stigmatization and, presumably, feelings of embitterment. In this study, we investigated for the first time the association between feelings of embitterment and dietary identity centrality and motivation. Dietary motivation, dietary pattern centrality for identity (DIQ-D), and embitterment (PTED scale) were assessed in and compared between people with vegan (n = 489), vegetarian (n = 339) and omnivorous (n = 319) dietary pattern. The vegan group reported higher embitterment and discrimination perception than the vegetarian and omnivorous groups. High (vegan) dietary centrality, eating disorder, moral motivation, discrimination perception was associated with embitterment. The association between vegan dietary centrality and moral motivation with embitterment is relevant for actions in dietary education and counseling in clinical and public health settings. When dietary pattern becomes relevant for identity building this may come along with problems when it makes the person prone for discrimination perception.

Background/Objectives: Developmental research has shown that mental health and functioning is determined by social background and child and family characteristics. Until now, there have been few longitudinal studies which considered several aspects at the same time and observed children’s development over ten or more years. Methods: The aim of this 18-year-longitudinal study is to find out to which degree different child, family, and socioeconomic factors during early childhood (4 years of age) are associated with educational and professional outcomes in young adulthood (22 years of age). Of the initial sample of 280 participating families, 225 could again be investigated with standardized interviews and questionnaires at the 18 years follow-up (retention rate: 80%). Results: Educational degree of the parents was predictive of the child’s school success (β = −0.267, p < 0.001, in regression analysis). Maternal mental health (β = −0.005, p = 0.953), parenting behavior (β = −021, p = 0.782), and early child mental health problems (β = 0.071, p = 0.551) only had a low impact. The child’s sex did not predict school success. Better early learned skills (i.e., crystalline intelligence), but not cognitive skills, as measured by the child-specific intelligence test K-ABC, made children more likely to achieve good school-leaving grades (β = −0.240, p = 0.008). Children’s early mental health problems had no relevant impact on school degree (d = 0.00, p = 0.934/d = 0.02, p = 0.52 3) or professional status (d = 0.04, p = 0.157/d = −0.02, p = 0.299) at age 22. Conclusions: Besides the not-changeable parental education level, (learnable) competency aspects may be more predictive of a child’s educational success until young adulthood than earlier mental health problems in parents and children. This is good news as it supports the idea that mental health deficits can be compensated for through learning and competency training.