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Journal of Affective Disorders Feb 2021There is a growing prevalence of prolonged antidepressant use globally. Social group interventions may be an effective way to manage mild to moderate depression,... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
There is a growing prevalence of prolonged antidepressant use globally. Social group interventions may be an effective way to manage mild to moderate depression, especially with patients seeking to discontinue antidepressant use. This systematic review evaluates studies that used social group interventions to manage depression.
METHODS
Studies published up to June 2019 in nine bibliographic databases were identified using search terms related to depression, social interventions, and social participation. Formal therapies for depression (cognitive behaviour therapy, music therapy) were excluded as they have been reviewed elsewhere.
RESULTS
24 studies met inclusion criteria; 14 RCTs, 6 non-randomised controlled trials and 4 pre-post evaluations. In total, 28 social group programs were evaluated, 10 arts-based groups, 13 exercise groups and 5 others. Programs ranged in 'dose' from 5 to 150 hours (M = 31 hours) across 4 to 75 weeks (M = 15 weeks) and produced effect sizes on depression in the small to very large range (Hedge's g = .18 to 3.19, M = 1.14). A regression analysis revealed no participant variables, study variables or intervention variables were related to effect size on depression.
LIMITATIONS
Risks of bias were found, primarily in the non-randomised studies, which means the findings must be regarded as preliminary until replicated.
CONCLUSION
These findings indicate that social group interventions are an effective way to manage mild to moderate depression symptoms in a variety of populations. This approach may also help to prevent relapse among patients tapering off antidepressant medication.
Topics: Antidepressive Agents; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Depression; Humans
PubMed: 33302192
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.11.125 -
Pediatrics Nov 2017How do children and youth come to understand what it means to be a member of a particular race, gender, and other social groups? How do they come to hold beliefs about... (Review)
Review
How do children and youth come to understand what it means to be a member of a particular race, gender, and other social groups? How do they come to hold beliefs about the groups that they do and do not belong to? Both news stories and fictional narratives that we are tuned into as a culture tell stories about what it means to be a member of a particular social group. In this review article, we relate the latest scientific knowledge on news and entertainment media representations of race, gender and other social categories and what they tell us about how these messages are taken in and processed by developing minds. We include research on identity development, social learning about members of other groups, and both positive and negative behavioral outcomes to cultural messages about race, gender, and other social categories. We offer recommendations for stakeholders to understand the role of the media in educating youth about race, gender and other social categories.
Topics: Child; Child Development; Communications Media; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Mass Media; Minority Groups; Social Media
PubMed: 29093053
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2016-1758W -
Children (Basel, Switzerland) Feb 2023Suicide is one of the most common causes of death in the population of children and adolescents. Available data show the continuous growth of this phenomenon and the... (Review)
Review
Suicide is one of the most common causes of death in the population of children and adolescents. Available data show the continuous growth of this phenomenon and the ineffectiveness of prevention programs. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected young people's mental health, including an increased risk of suicidal behaviors due to limited direct contact with the school and peer groups in favor of the home environment. Therefore, the aim of this narrative review was to consider the risk factors and protective factors for suicidal behavior in the under-18 population, with a particular focus on the importance of belonging to a social group and building identification with it as a phenomenon protecting against suicidal behavior. Additionally, in this review, we evaluate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected these relationships. The PubMed database was used in the search with the following keywords: suicide, suicide behaviors, child and adolescent suicide behaviors, group affiliation, family affiliation, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and the COVID-19 pandemic, with articles published between 2002 and 2022 analyzed. Research conducted to date indicates that both sustained and stable family and peer relationships, as well as a sense of identification and belonging, noticeably reduce the risk of suicidal behavior. Ethnic or cultural affiliation seems to have been particularly important during the isolation in the home environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it has been shown that while in lockdown, contact through social media with individuals' identification groups was associated with a reduced chance of emotional crises. Furthermore, regardless of cultural background, attachment to a particular group correlates with enhanced psychiatric state of children and adolescents. Thus, available data highlight the need for building and maintaining affiliations with suitable groups as a protective factor against suicidal behaviors.
PubMed: 36832461
DOI: 10.3390/children10020333 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Sep 2019Living in groups affords individuals many benefits, including the opportunity to reduce stress. In mammals, such 'social buffering' of stress is mediated by affiliative...
Living in groups affords individuals many benefits, including the opportunity to reduce stress. In mammals, such 'social buffering' of stress is mediated by affiliative relationships and production of the neuropeptide oxytocin, but whether these mechanisms facilitate social buffering across vertebrates remains an open question. Therefore, we evaluated whether the social environment influenced the behavioural and physiological recovery from an acute stressor in a group-living cichlid, . Individual fish that recovered with their social group displayed lower cortisol levels than individuals that recovered alone. This social buffering of the stress response was associated with a tendency towards lower transcript abundance of arginine vasotocin and isotocin in the preoptic area of the brain, suggesting reduced neural activation of the stress axis. Individuals that recovered with their social group quickly resumed normal behaviour but received fewer affiliative acts following the stressor. Further experiments revealed similar cortisol levels between individuals that recovered in visual contact with their own social group and those in visual contact with a novel but non-aggressive social group. Collectively, our results suggest that affiliation and familiarity do not mediate social buffering in this group-living cichlid, and the behavioural and physiological mechanisms responsible for social buffering may vary across vertebrates.
Topics: Animals; Cichlids; Female; Male; Oxytocin; Social Behavior; Vasotocin
PubMed: 31506060
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1626 -
Journal of the American Medical... Jan 2023To report the overall prevalence of social frailty among older people and provide information for policymakers and authorities to use in developing policies and social... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
OBJECTIVE
To report the overall prevalence of social frailty among older people and provide information for policymakers and authorities to use in developing policies and social care.
DESIGN
A systematic review and meta-analysis.
SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
We searched 4 databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) to find articles from inception to July 30, 2022. We included cross-sectional and cohort studies that provided the prevalence of social frailty among adults aged 60 years or older, in any setting.
METHODS
Three researchers independently reviewed the literature and retrieved the data. A risk of bias tool was used to assess each study's quality. A random-effect meta-analysis was performed to pool the data, followed by subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, and meta-regression.
RESULTS
From 761 records, we extracted 43 studies with 83,907 participants for meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of social frailty in hospital settings was 47.3% (95% CI: 32.2%-62.4%); among studies in community settings, the pooled prevalence was 18.8% (95% CI: 14.9%-22.7%; P < .001). The prevalence of social frailty was higher when assessed using the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (32.3%; 95% CI: 23.1%-41.5%) than the Makizako Social Frailty Index (27.7%; 95% CI: 21.6%-33.8%) or Social Frailty Screening Index (13.4%; 95% CI: 8.4%-18.4%). Based on limited community studies in individual countries using various instruments, social frailty was lowest in China (4.9%; 95% CI: 4.2%-5.7%), followed by Spain (11.6%; 95% CI: 9.9%-13.3%), Japan (16.2%; 95% CI: 12.2%-20.3%), Korea (26.6%; 95% CI: 7.1%-46.1%), European urban centers (29.2%; 95% CI: 27.9%-30.5%), and the Netherlands (27.2%; 95% CI: 16.9%-37.5%). No other subgroup analyses showed any statistically significant prevalence difference between groups.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
The prevalence of social frailty among older adults is high. Settings, country, and method for assessing social frailty affected the prevalence. More valid comparisons will await consensus on measurement tools and more research on geographically representative populations. Nevertheless, these results suggest that public health professionals and policymakers should seriously consider social frailty in research and program planning involving older adults.
Topics: Humans; Aged; Frailty; Prevalence; Cross-Sectional Studies; Social Group; Hospitals; Frail Elderly
PubMed: 36402197
DOI: 10.1016/j.jamda.2022.10.007 -
Social group membership does not modulate automatic imitation in a contrastive multi-agent paradigm.Quarterly Journal of Experimental... Apr 2021A key prediction of motivational theories of automatic imitation is that people imitate in-group over out-group members. However, research on this topic has provided...
A key prediction of motivational theories of automatic imitation is that people imitate in-group over out-group members. However, research on this topic has provided mixed results. Here, we investigate the possibility that social group modulations emerge only when people can directly compare in- and out-group. To this end, we conducted three experiments in which we measured automatic imitation of two simultaneously shown hands: one in-group and one out-group hand. Our general hypothesis was that the in-group hand would be imitated more than the out-group hand. However, even though both explicit and implicit manipulation checks showed that we succeeded in manipulating participants' feelings of group membership, we did not find support for the predicted influence of group membership on automatic imitation. In contrast to motivational theories, this suggests that group membership does not influence who we do or do not imitate, not even in a contrastive multi-agent paradigm.
Topics: Group Processes; Hand; Humans; Imitative Behavior; Motivation
PubMed: 33427078
DOI: 10.1177/1747021820986528 -
Integrative Organismal Biology (Oxford,... 2021Group living is widespread among animal species and yields both costs and benefits. Presence of conspecifics can restrict or enhance the expression of individual...
Group living is widespread among animal species and yields both costs and benefits. Presence of conspecifics can restrict or enhance the expression of individual behavior, and the recent social environment is thought to affect behavioral responses in later contexts, even when individuals are alone. However, little is known about how social group size influences the expression of individual physiological traits, including metabolic rates. There is some evidence that shoaling can reduce fish metabolic rates but this variable may be affected by habitat conditions such as shelter availability via density-dependent processes. We investigated how social group size and shelter availability influence Eurasian minnow () metabolic rates estimated by respirometry. Respirometry trials were conducted on fish in isolation before and after they were housed for 3 weeks in a social treatment consisting in a specific group size ( = 4 or 8) and shelter availability (presence or absence of plant shelter in the experimental tank). Plant shelter was placed over respirometers for half of the duration of the respirometry trials, allowing estimation of minimum daytime and nighttime metabolic rates in both conditions (in the presence or absence of plant shelter). Standard metabolic rate (SMR), maximum metabolic rate (MMR), and aerobic scope were also estimated over the entire trial. Minimum daytime and nighttime metabolic rates estimated while in presence of plant shelter were lower than when estimated in absence of plant shelter, both before and after individuals were housed in their social treatment. After the social treatment, SMRs were higher for fish that were held in groups of 4 as compared with those of fish held in groups of 8, while MMR showed no difference. Plant shelter availability during the social treatments did not influence SMR or MMR. Our results suggest that social group size may directly influence energy demands of individuals, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of group size on variations in physiological traits associated with energy expenditure.
PubMed: 34859193
DOI: 10.1093/iob/obab032 -
Social Studies of Science Aug 2022This article maps the rise and fall of the idea of a (social) group across medicine in the context of contemporary analyses in psychology and sociology. This history...
This article maps the rise and fall of the idea of a (social) group across medicine in the context of contemporary analyses in psychology and sociology. This history shows the early 20th century emergence and growth of group medicine, group therapy and group comparisons. In recent decades, however, the idea that groups constituted the basic units of society has been replaced with the emergence of populations and systems that offer a more virtual and abstract context for individual relationships. This has implications for explanation itself as the demise of groups has changed the epistemological ground-rules for understanding identity formation and social change.
Topics: History, 20th Century; Knowledge; Social Change; Sociology
PubMed: 35635027
DOI: 10.1177/03063127221096389 -
Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation... Apr 2021Social group work is considered as a viable treatment modality for adults with intellectual developmental disabilities. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of...
Social group work is considered as a viable treatment modality for adults with intellectual developmental disabilities. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of conducting social group work for adults having developmental disabilities. The authors share their experience of conducting group work with them at psychiatric rehabilitation center in a tertiary care hospital. This article gives a brief description of group work which used to aid adults with intellectual disabilities in their activities of daily living, working, and learning situations.
PubMed: 34540560
DOI: 10.1007/s40737-021-00212-0 -
Social Work in Health Care 2004Deconstruction of traditional social work departments can isolate social workers from their primary source of professional affiliation, leaving them without the support... (Review)
Review
Deconstruction of traditional social work departments can isolate social workers from their primary source of professional affiliation, leaving them without the support to take stands on controversial patient care issues. This paper describes an alternative: the building of a powerful social work collective based on social group work theory that potentiates professional practice while transcending management forms. The model includes group supervision, but moves beyond it to utilize the social work group as a central organizing principle. At the heart of the collective are the elements of professional accountability, support, autonomy, and collaborative decision- making within democratic peer group structures. The authors highlight current management theory, distinctions that create an authentic social work value-based practice, and outcomes for social workers, their clients, and colleagues.
Topics: Conflict, Psychological; Cooperative Behavior; Humans; Interinstitutional Relations; Interprofessional Relations; Models, Organizational; Quality Assurance, Health Care; Social Support; Social Work; Social Work Department, Hospital
PubMed: 15774397
DOI: 10.1300/j010v39n03_05