Self-esteem: An antecedent or a consequence of social support and psychosomatic symptoms? Cross-lagged associations in adulthood

Abstract This study investigated the relationships of self-esteem with social support and psychosomatic symptoms in cross-lagged longitudinal data with two measurement points and a time lag of 6 years. Two hundred thirteen participants were drawn from the ongoing Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, Finland. The present study focused on data collected by questionnaires at ages 36 and 42. The cross-lagged analyses of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) indicated that high self-esteem at age 36 predicted high social support 6 years later and simultaneously, but to a lesser extent, high social support at age 36 predicted high self-esteem at age 42. In addition, lo…

Facilitation of goal-setting and follow-up in an internet intervention for health and wellness

Chronic work-related stress and insufficient recovery from workload can gradually lead to problems with mental and physical health. Resources in healthcare are limited especially for preventive treatment, but low-cost support can be provided by Internet-based behavior change interventions. This paper describes the design of an Internet intervention which supports working-age people in managing and preventing stress-related health and wellness problems. The intervention is designed for early prevention and aims to motivate individuals to take responsibility for their own well-being. It allows them to choose the approach to take to address personally significant issues, while guiding them thr…

Supplemental_figure_2 – Supplemental material for Effects of an individually targeted multicomponent counseling and home-based rehabilitation program on physical activity and mobility in community-dwelling older people after discharge from hospital: a randomized controlled trial

Supplemental material, Supplemental_figure_2 for Effects of an individually targeted multicomponent counseling and home-based rehabilitation program on physical activity and mobility in community-dwelling older people after discharge from hospital: a randomized controlled trial by Katri M Turunen, Laura Aaltonen-Määttä, Timo Törmäkangas, Timo Rantalainen, Erja Portegijs, Sirkka Keikkala, Marja-Liisa Kinnunen, Taija Finni, Sarianna Sipilä and Riku Nikander in Clinical Rehabilitation

Feasibility of a personal health technology-based psychological intervention for men with stress and mood problems: Randomized controlled pilot trial

BackgroundWork-related stress is a significant problem for both people and organizations. It may lead to mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, resulting in increased work absences and disabilities. Scalable interventions to prevent and manage harmful stress can be delivered with the help of technology tools to support self-observations and skills training. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of the P4Well intervention in treatment of stress-related psychological problems. P4Well is a novel intervention which combines modern psychotherapy (the cognitive behavioral therapy and the acceptance and commitment therapy) with personal health technologies to deliv…

A concept to empower self-management of psychophysiological wellbeing: preliminary user study experiences.

In prevention of chronic diseases, health promotion and early interventions based on self-management should be emphasized. Mental health problems and stress cause a significant portion of healthcare costs, and also complicate the management of other chronic conditions. In addition to physical health, psychophysiological and social wellbeing should be equally promoted. Thus, we have previously designed and reported the P4Well or Pervasive Personal and PsychoPhysiological management of WELLness concept for working-age citizens. The concept supports the stress and recovery management on a daily basis through improved health management strategies, and combines psychological methods with persona…

Job skill discretion and emotion control strategies as antecedents of recovery from work

Recovery from work protects employees’ health and well-being, and therefore it is important to understand its antecedents. The aim of this study conducted among 183 middle-aged participants drawn from the Finnish Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development was to examine whether job skill discretion and emotion control strategies (emotional rumination and emotional inhibition) are related to psychological aspects of recovery from work (subjective recovery evaluation, psychological detachment and relaxation). The results of hierarchical general linear models confirmed the hypothesis that job skill discretion is positively associated with subjective recovery evaluation …

The Circumplex Model of Occupational Well-being : Its Relation with Personality

The purpose of this study was to identify different types of occupational well-being based on the circumplex model (Russell, 1980; Warr, 1994), and to examine how these types are related to the Big Five personality profiles. The middle-aged participants were drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (N = 183). Application of a person-oriented approach with latent profile analysis yielded four types of occupational well-being: (a) Engaged (30%), (b) Ordinary (54%), (c) Bored-out (9%), and (d) Burned-out (7%). The personality profiles showed a strong relationship with these occupational well-being types. Resilient individuals (low in neuroticism and hig…

Allostatic load in relation to psychosocial stressors and health

Epävakaa työura osoittautui terveysriskiksi keski-ikää lähestyvillä henkilöillä, kun taas onnistunut tunteidensäätely suojasi terveysriskin kohoamiselta. Ammattiaseman ja koulutuksen yhteys terveyteen oli näitä monimutkaisempi. Nämä tiedot käyvät ilmi Marja-Liisa Kinnusen väitöstutkimuksesta.Kinnunen tutki terveyden biopsykososiaalista näkökulmaa allostaattisen kuorman mallin avulla. Hän selvitti erilaisten elämän haasteellisten tilanteiden merkitystä mahdollisina stressitekijöinä, jotka saattaisivat aiheuttaa terveysriskin eli allostaattisen kuorman nousun. Allostaattinen kuorma on fysiologisten stressireaktioiden kasautuva, pitkäaikainen seuraus, joka voi johtaa sairauksien syntyyn. Sitä …

Personality profiles and health: Longitudinal evidence among Finnish adults

Kinnunen, M.-L., Metsapelto, R. L., Feldt, T., Kokko, K., Tolvanen, A., Kinnunen, U., Leppanen, E. & Pulkkinen, L. (2012). Personality profiles and health: Longitudinal evidence among Finnish adults. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 512–522. This study investigates the associations of longitudinal Big Five personality profiles with long-term health in 304 adults (53% males). Personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness) were assessed at ages 33, 42, and 50. Subjective (self-rated health, symptoms, psychological distress) and objective (body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides) indicators of health were…

supplement_material – Supplemental material for Effects of an individually targeted multicomponent counseling and home-based rehabilitation program on physical activity and mobility in community-dwelling older people after discharge from hospital: a randomized controlled trial

Supplemental material, supplement_material for Effects of an individually targeted multicomponent counseling and home-based rehabilitation program on physical activity and mobility in community-dwelling older people after discharge from hospital: a randomized controlled trial by Katri M Turunen, Laura Aaltonen-Määttä, Timo Törmäkangas, Timo Rantalainen, Erja Portegijs, Sirkka Keikkala, Marja-Liisa Kinnunen, Taija Finni, Sarianna Sipilä and Riku Nikander in Clinical Rehabilitation

Effects of an individually targeted multicomponent counseling and home-based rehabilitation program on physical activity and mobility in community-dwelling older people after discharge from hospital: a randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of multicomponent rehabilitation on physical activity, sedentary behavior, and mobility in older people recently discharged from hospital. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Home and community. Participants: Community-dwelling people aged ⩾60 years recovering from a lower limb or back musculoskeletal injury, surgery, or disorder were recruited from local health center hospitals and randomly assigned into an intervention ( n = 59) or a control (standard care, n = 58) group. Intervention: The six-month intervention consisted of a motivational interview, goal attainment process, guidance for safe walking, a progressive hom…

A new model for the relations between longitudinal personality profiles and psychological functioning through middle age

Personality traits and psychological functioning were assessed three times between the ages from 33 to 50 years (average N = 250) in the Finnish Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development. Five longitudinal personality profiles were extracted: Resilient, Overcontrolled, Undercontrolled, Reserved, and Ordinary. The Resilients (neuroticism low, other traits high) were higher in optimism and personal control over development than the Overcontrolleds (neuroticism high, other traits low) at all ages, whereas the Overcontrolleds were higher in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Other profiles were between them in these characteristics. The Undercontrolleds (high openness and…

A new heart rate variability-based method for the estimation of oxygen consumption without individual laboratory calibration: Application example on postal workers

Traditionally, the estimation of oxygen consumption (VO2) at work using heart rate (HR) has required the determination of individual HR/VO2 calibration curves in a separate exercise test in a laboratory (VO2-TRAD). Recently, a new neural network-, and heart rate variability-based method has been developed (Firstbeat PRO heartbeat analysis software) for the estimation of VO2 without individual calibration (VO2-HRV). In the present study, the VO2-values by the VO2-HRV were compared with the values by VO2-TRAD in 22 postal workers. Within individuals the correlation between the two methods was high (range 0.80-0.99). The VO2-TRAD gave higher values of VO2 compared to VO2-HRV (19%) especially d…

Allostatic Load of Men and Women in Early Middle Age

Abstract. The present longitudinal study investigated three aspects of allostatic load, a long-term negative consequence of physical responses to stress: (1) sex differences in allostatic load in early middle age, (2) associations between career stability history and allostatic load, and (3) relationships between allostatic load and health problems. Participants consisted of 62 men and 55 women from the ongoing Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, Finland. Allostatic load was the sum of eight parameters (dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, 12-h urinary norepinephrine, high-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, glycosylated hemoglobin, systolic and diastolic blood p…

The associations of emotion regulation and dysregulation with the metabolic syndrome factor

Abstract Objective Emotion regulation has been associated with good, and dysregulation with poor subjective health; but it is unclear if emotion regulation is related to metabolic syndrome. Methods Associations between the metabolic syndrome factor (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, waist circumference, high-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, and glucose), emotion regulation (the strategies of repair and maintenance, self-perceived emotion regulation) and dysregulation (emotional ambivalence); and subjective health (self-rated health and psychosomatic symptoms) were studied using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The participants (96 women, 85 men) were drawn from the Jy…

Neljäkymmentä plus : erään ikäluokan selviytymistarina

Is work engagement related to healthy cardiac autonomic activity? Evidence from a field study among Finnish women workers

The present study investigated whether work engagement is related to and can explain healthy cardiac autonomic activity as indicated by decreased heart rate (HR; i.e., sympathetic and parasympathetic activity) and increased high-frequency power (HFP) of heart rate variability (i.e., parasympathetic activity). A total of 30 healthy Finnish female cleaning workers underwent an ambulatory monitoring period of two nights and two regular workdays, and mean values of work period HR and HFP were utilized as dependent variables. Correlations revealed that work engagement was, as hypothesized, negatively related to HR and positively to HFP. Furthermore, in hierarchical linear regression analysis, wo…

Association Between Long-Term Job Strain and Metabolic Syndrome Factor Across Sex and Occupation

The present study investigated whether long-term job strain increases the prevalence of risk for metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, across sex and occupation. The participants (64 men, 62 women) were drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, Finland. Job strain was measured by a combination of high job demands and low job control ( Karasek, 1979 ) at ages 36 and 42. Metabolic syndrome was measured at age 42. The results indicated that both sex and occupational group moderated the association between long-term job strain and the metabolic syndrome factor but in an unexpected way. In women, low long-term job str…

P4Well Concept to Empower Self-Management of Psychophysiological Wellbeing and Load Recovery

Chronic health problems related to mental wellbeing are rapidly growing, calling for novel solutions focusing on individual as a psychophysiological being. We describe a novel technology-based concept for empowering citizen towards holistic self-management of her wellbeing: “P4Well” (Pervasive Personal and PsychoPhysiological management of WELLness). The primary focus of the concept is on management of stress and recovery from stress caused by daily life through improved health management strategies. The P4Well concept combines modern psychological methods with personal health technologies. The technologies include a web-portal and web-based tools, mobile phone with mobile client applicatio…

Effects of vigorous late-night exercise on sleep quality and cardiac autonomic activity

Sleep is the most important period for recovery from daily load. Regular physical activity enhances overall sleep quality, but the effects of acute exercise on sleep are not well defined. In sleep hygiene recommendations, intensive exercising is not suggested within the last 3 h before bed time, but this recommendation has not been adequately tested experimentally. Therefore, the effects of vigorous late-night exercise on sleep were examined by measuring polysomnographic, actigraphic and subjective sleep quality, as well as cardiac autonomic activity. Eleven (seven men, four women) physically fit young adults (VO(2max) 54±8 mL·kg(-1)·min(-1) , age 26±3 years) were monitored in a sleep labor…