Background Stigmatization of people with mental illness is still a significant problem even in Western society. Media is an important vector for public messaging that may lead to stigma (and potentially counteract it). There is an ongoing debate about the impact of news with potentially stigmatizing content on people with depression. This experimental study aimed at investigating the direct effects media reporting could have on people with depression, namely, higher levels of stigma attitudes and negative affect, as well as lower levels of self-esteem and positive affect. Methods Experimental study; target sample size n = 180 patients; eligibility criteria: clinical diagnosis of depressive episode or dysthymia, aged 18–70 years, sufficient cognitive abilities and German language skills; exclusion criteria: acute psychotic, manic or hypomanic episode, addiction symptoms, or suicidal ideation; parallel assignment to one of three arms (each n = 60): watching a short film about a negative event relating to depression (experimental group), about a negative event without relation to depression (control group 1), or about a neutral event relating to depression (control group 2); primary outcomes: degrees of stigma attitudes (stereotype awareness, stereotype agreement, self-concurrence, and self-stigmatization); secondary outcomes: degrees of self-esteem, positive and negative affect; statistical analyses: general linear models with repeated-measures; one-way ANOVAs of the change in scores, followed by Bonferroni-adjusted pairwise comparisons; IBM SPSS Statistics 24.0. Results Significant group × time interactions in stereotype agreement (medium effect: η = 0.10) and negative affect (large effect: η = 0.26); the level of stereotype agreement increased significantly more in the experimental group than in control groups 1 and 2. The level of negative affect increased significantly more in the experimental group and in control group 1 than in control group 2. All other interaction effects were non-significant. Conclusion The present study allows statements about the direct effects of potentially stigmatizing media reporting on carriers of the stigmatized attribute, i.e., depression: Even single film presentations of familiar events that contain potentially stigmatizing content have an impact on stereotype agreement and negative affect. The impact of long-term exposure and change in other stigma-measures require a deeper understanding of stigma-processes. Potential explanations and implications for practice and future research are discussed. Trial registration Deutsche Register Klinischer Studien, Trial registration: DRKS00011855 . Registered 23 June 2017, retrospectively registered; for details see Additional file 1 . E...
Research has shown that therapeutic sleep deprivation (SD) has rapid antidepressant effects in the majority of depressed patients. Investigation of factors preceding and accompanying these effects may facilitate the identification of the underlying biological mechanisms. This exploratory study aimed to examine clinical and genetic factors predicting response to SD and determine the impact of SD on illness course. Mood during SD was also assessed via visual analogue scale. Depressed inpatients (n = 78) and healthy controls (n = 15) underwent ~36 h of SD. Response to SD was defined as a score of ≤ 2 on the Clinical Global Impression Scale for Global Improvement. Depressive symptom trajectories were evaluated for up to a month using self/expert ratings. Impact of genetic burden was calculated using polygenic risk scores for major depressive disorder. In total, 72% of patients responded to SD. Responders and non-responders did not differ in baseline self/expert depression symptom ratings, but mood differed. Response was associated with lower age (p = 0.007) and later age at life-time disease onset (p = 0.003). Higher genetic burden of depression was observed in non-responders than healthy controls. Up to a month post SD, depressive symptoms decreased in both patients groups, but more in responders, in whom effects were sustained. The present findings suggest that re-examining SD with a greater focus on biological mechanisms will lead to better understanding of mechanisms of depression.
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