Highlights sociodemographic and COVID-19 related predictors were related to immediate mental health consequences in Germany. greater reduction of social contacts and perceived changes in everyday life were related to psychopathological symptoms. Subjectively perceived, but not officially announced stay-at-home orders are associated with mental health impairments. results do not support that public health measures per se are associated with mental health problems.

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Background The role of maternal personality and perceived social support for peripartum changes in psychopathological symptoms remains unresolved. Methods In a regional-epidemiological sample of 306 women, depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms were assessed three times during pregnancy and three times after delivery with the 21-item version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. In pregnancy, the Big Five personality traits and perceived social support were assessed with the short version of the Big Five Inventory and the Social Support Questionnaire. Results Multilevel analyses revealed that depressive (b =-0.055) and stress (b =-0.047) symptoms decreased from early to late pregnancy. After delivery, anxiety symptoms were lower (two months postpartum: b =-0.193; four/ 16 months postpartum: b =-0.274), but stress symptoms were higher (two months postpartum: b = 0.468; four/ 16 months postpartum: b = 0.320) than during pregnancy. Across the peripartum period, more conscientious and more extraverted women experienced lower depressive and stress symptoms (b =-0.147 to-0.177), and more emotionally stable women experienced lower depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms (b =-0.294 to-0.415). More emotionally stable women more strongly increased in anxiety during pregnancy (b = 0.019), and more extraverted women less strongly increased in depression after delivery (b =-0.010). Moreover, peripartum depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms were lower in women with higher perceived social support (b =-0.225 to-0.308).

We examined how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of 6,957 students from Germany, assessed between March 16 and April 21, 2020, when COVID-19 became a serious health concern in Germany, varied by personality. The Big Five personality traits—openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability—were assessed with the International Personality Item Pool. Students were asked whether they kept up with the COVID-19 news, followed specific governmental rules and recommendations (washing hands more, using public transport less, avoiding larger crowds, and restricting meetings with family/friends), hoarded supplies, felt less secure in public places, or expected financial losses due to the crisis. Logistic regressions adjusted for sociodemographic factors and cognitive abilities revealed that more conscientious (odds ratio (OR) = 1.133) and more agreeable (OR = 1.285) students kept up with the news more. More agreeable students were also more likely to wash their hands more often/intensively (OR = 1.262), use public transport less (OR = 1.182), avoid crowds (OR = 1.320), and restrict meetings with family/friends (OR = 1.410). Other Big Five traits were not associated with these behaviors, except that less emotionally stable individuals tended to use public transport less often (OR = 1.162). Additionally, less emotionally stable students, in particular, more often bought more supplies than usual (OR = 1.322), felt insecure in public spaces (OR = 1.597), and expected financial losses (OR = 1.270). Moreover, less open (OR = 0.876) and more conscientious (OR = 1.235) students more often felt insecure in public spaces, and more extraverted individuals more often expected financial losses (OR = 1.180). Taken together, our findings suggest that more agreeable individuals, in particular, tend to comply with governmental rules and recommendations to fight COVID-19, whereas less emotionally stable individuals, in particular, tend to hoard supplies, feel insecure, and fear financial losses due to the crisis.

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Personality predicts how we interact with others, what partners we have, and how happy and lasting our romantic relationships are. At the same time, our experiences in these relationships may affect our personality. Who experiences specific major relationship events, and how do these events relate to personality development? We examined this issue based on data from a nationally representative household panel study from Germany (N ϭ 49,932). In this study, the occurrence of major relationship events (moving in with a partner, marriage, separation, and divorce) was assessed yearly, and the Big Five personality traits were measured repeatedly in 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017 with the short version of the Big Five Inventory. We applied multilevel analyses to simultaneously model selection effects as well as different types of personality changes in the years before and after these events in the total sample and separately in women and men. Our findings revealed that less agreeable individuals were more likely to experience each of the examined relationship events. Moreover, each event was associated with personality changes, which only occurred after (not before) these events and considerably varied by event and gender. Individuals who moved in with a partner, got married, or separated from a partner primarily experienced changes in openness in the first year thereafter, and individuals who separated from a partner or got divorced became less emotionally stable in the following years. However, there was little evidence for "maturation" effects, except that individuals who moved in with a partner (especially men) became more conscientious in the following years.

In line with the social investment principle, becoming a parent should lead to more mature behaviour and an increase in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability. However, previous research provided mixed results that do not support this idea. Here, we used data from a nationally representative household panel study from Germany (N = 19 875) to examine whether becoming a parent relates to personality maturation. Whether a child was born was assessed yearly, and the Big Five personality traits were measured in four waves from 2005 to 2017. We used multilevel analyses to investigate whether personality differs between individuals who will or will not become parents, whether personality differs before and after becoming a parent, and whether these effects vary by gender, age, and living status. In sum, our findings revealed that less open and more extraverted individuals were more likely to start a family, and openness and extraversion both decreased after the transition to parenthood. Some other effects varied by gender, age, and living status. Taken together, our findings suggest that the Big Five personality traits differ before and across the transition to parenthood and that these differences especially apply to openness and extraversion.

Objectives:Although clinical evidence suggests important differences between unipolar mania and bipolar-I disorder (BP-I), epidemiological data are limited. Combining data from nine population-based studies, we compared subjects with mania (M) or mania with mild depression (Md) to those with BP-I with both manic and depressive episodes with respect to demographic and clinical characteristics in order to highlight differences.Methods: Participants were compared for gender, age, age at onset of mania, psychiatric comorbidity, temperament, and family history of mental disorders. Generalized linear mixed models with adjustment for sex and age as well as for each study source were applied. Analyses were performed for the pooled adult and adolescent samples, separately. Results: Within the included cohorts, 109 adults and 195 adolescents were diagnosed with M/Md and 323 adults and 182 adolescents with BP-I. In both adult and adolescent samples, there was a male preponderance in M/Md, whereas lifetime generalized anxiety and/panic disorders and suicide attempts were less common in M/ Md than in BP-I. Furthermore, adults with mania revealed bulimia/binge eating and drug use disorders less frequently than those with BP-I. Conclusions: The significant differences found in gender and comorbidity between mania and BP-I suggest that unipolar mania, despite its low prevalence, should be established as a separate diagnosis both for clinical and research purposes. In clinical settings, the rarer occurrence of suicide attempts, anxiety, and drug use disorders among individuals with unipolar mania may facilitate successful treatment of the disorder and lead to a more favorable course than that of BP-I disorder. K E Y W O R D S bipolar-I disorder, comorbidity, epidemiology, family history, gender, mania How to cite this article: Angst J, Rössler W, Ajdacic-Gross V, et al. Differences between unipolar mania and bipolar-I disorder: Evidence from nine epidemiological studies. Bipolar Disord. 2019;21:437-448. https://doi.