Subjective state constructs are defined within the traditional domains of affect, motivation, and cognition. Currently, there is no overarching state model that interrelates constructs within the different domains. This article reports 3 studies that provide converging evidence for 3 fundamental state dimensions labeled task engagement, distress, and worry that integrate constructs across the traditional domains. Study 1 differentiated the state dimensions by factor analysis of the scales of the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire (G. Matthews et al., 1999). Study 2 showed differential state response to performance of tasks making different cognitive demands. Study 3 showed that states are correlated with differing patterns of appraisal and coping. The 3 stress state dimensions provide a general descriptive framework consistent with transactional accounts of stress and performance.

Summary Background The current COVID‐19 pandemic, caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, has emerged as a public health emergency. All nations are seriously challenged as the virus spreads rapidly across the globe with no regard for borders. The primary management of IBD involves treating uncontrolled inflammation with most patients requiring immune‐based therapies. However, these therapies may weaken the immune system and potentially place IBD patients at increased risk of infections and infectious complications including those from COVID‐19. Aim To summarise the scale of the COVID‐19 pandemic, review unique concerns regarding IBD management and infection risk during the pandemic and assess COVID‐19 management options and drug interactions in the IBD population. Methods A literature review on IBD, SARS‐CoV‐2 and COVID‐19 was undertaken and relevant literature was summarised and critically examined. Results IBD patients do not appear to be more susceptible to SARS‐CoV‐2 infection and there is no evidence of an association between IBD therapies and increased risk of COVID‐19. IBD medication adherence should be encouraged to prevent disease flare but where possible high‐dose systemic corticosteroids should be avoided. Patients should exercise social distancing, optimise co‐morbidities and be up to date with influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. If a patient develops COVID‐19, immune suppressing medications should be withheld until infection resolution and if trial medications for COVID‐19 are being considered, potential drug interactions should be checked. Conclusions IBD patient management presents a challenge in the current COVID‐19 pandemic. The primary focus should remain on keeping bowel inflammation controlled and encouraging medication adherence.

Coping is an important aspect of operator stress: people use various strategies for dealing with potentially stressful task demands. This paper outlines two studies of a new instrument designed for human factors applications, the Coping Inventory for Task Stress (CITS). Factor analysis of coping items differentiated three aspects of coping specified by stress theory: task-focus, emotion-focus and avoidance. Patterns of coping appear to reflect both task demands and individual differences in perceptions of workload. Relationships between coping and other stress-related variables were investigated in a study of subjects who performed a rapid visual information processing task. Task-focus and avoidance were sensitive to experimentally-manipulated task factors: time pressure and negative feedback. Coping also related to personality factors, as well as to the external pressures of the task. At a practical level, assessment of coping may contribute to understanding of how operators cope effectively or ineffectively with a variety of task-related stressors, leading to a more informed choice of countermeasures for stress.

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Individuals differ considerably in their vulnerability to task-induced stress, in part because of individual differences in cognitions of task demands. This study investigated the personality and cognitive factors that may control stress vulnerability, using a 'rapid information processing' task that was configured to overload attention. Stress response was assessed using the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire . Fundamental dimensions of subjective state in performance settings: task engagement, distress and worry. Emotion, 2, 315-340), as well as instruments assessing workload, appraisal and coping. Time pressure was manipulated as a between-subjects stress factor. Higher time pressure tended to elicit decreased effort and task engagement and avoidance coping. However, much of the variance in state response was attributable to individual differences in appraisal and coping. The personality trait of neuroticism related to some of these cognitive processes. Subjective state, appraisal and coping were also predictive of objective performance indices. Consistent with the transactional theory of stress, subjective states appear to correspond to configurations of cognitive processes that signal the participant's mode of adaptation to task demands. The findings underscore the importance of accommodating individual differences in selecting operators for handling overload, for designing interfaces and for training operators to manage overload successfully.