Our study aimed to explore how perceived baseline contact may influence acceptability of Connecting Today, a personal contact intervention, among people living with dementia. We aimed to generate hypotheses for testing in future studies. This was a sub-group analysis of pilot study data. Fifteen people living with mild to moderate dementia participated in Connecting Today. We explored how perceptions of intervention acceptability may differ in groups reporting weekly contact (n = 8) compared with groups reporting monthly/unknown (n = 7) contact at baseline. Measures of acceptability included a treatment perceptions and preferences questionnaire, and the number of and reasons for non-consent, missing data, and study withdrawal. We used descriptive statistics and content analysis. In visits one and two, a larger proportion (85.7–100%) of low baseline contact participants reported feeling better, and indicated that the visits helped them and were easy “mostly” or “a lot”, compared with the high baseline contact group (37.5–62.5%). Most missing data (71%) and all study withdrawals occurred in the high baseline contact group. Scheduled in-person visits with family, friends, or a volunteer may appeal to residents in care homes who have few existing opportunities for routine, one-on-one visits with others. Hypotheses generated should be tested in future studies.

Violence is a critical challenge for society and it disproportionately affects young people. Violence experienced in an intimate relationship is associated with attempted suicide, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as poorer physical health. Interventions to limit intimate partner violence, especially in adolescents and young people, are a priority. This commentary examines a systematic review and meta-analysis of educational interventions for relationship and dating violence in young people aged 12–25 years. Random-effects meta-analysis revealed a small statistical effect on knowledge, but no statistical associations with reduced violence. None of the included studies assessed health outcomes. The reviewers recommend further investigation of educational interventions in low- and middle-income settings, and studies with longer follow-up.

In health and chronic illness, satisfying marriages promote wellbeing and life satisfaction, yet stroke research has focused on either the stroke survivor as the patient or the spouse as a care-giver. Using Pope, Mays and Popay's framework for synthesising qualitative and quantitative methods, we conducted a systematic review and synthesis of 39 peer-reviewed studies to determine what happens to marital relationships after one partner has suffered a stroke. All the articles examined the impact of stroke. Three overarching themes characterise the evolution of marriage after stroke: chaos in the marriage, work to re-establish the marriage and evolution of the marriages. While both the stroke condition itself and the survivors’ need for care undermined the emotional qualities of the relationship for some couples, about two-thirds were able to retain or regain the relationship closeness. As in other chronic illnesses, the relationship closeness and a couple's ability to collaborate contributed to the survivor's recovery and to the satisfaction with life of the stroke survivor and the spouse. Our results underscore the need to consider the quality of, and the qualities of, the relationship between stroke survivors and their spouses. Future research could include a greater focus on qualitative or mixed-methods approaches to explore the interactions between stroke survivors and spouses that impact the wellbeing of both partners.

Objectives: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is associated with deficits in social cognition and visual perception, but little is known about how the disease affects perception of socially complex biological motion, specifically motion-defined communicative and non-communicative gestures. We predicted that individuals with PD would perform more poorly than normal control (NC) participants in discriminating between communicative and non-communicative gestures, and in describing communicative gestures. We related the results to the participants’ gender, as there are gender differences in social cognition in PD. Methods: The study included 23 individuals with PD (10 men) and 24 NC participants (10 men) matched for age and education level. Participants viewed point-light human figures that conveyed communicative and non-communicative gestures and were asked to describe each gesture while discriminating between the two gesture types. Results: PD as a group were less accurate than NC in describing non-communicative but not communicative gestures. Men with PD were impaired in describing and discriminating between communicative as well as non-communicative gestures. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated PD-related impairments in perceiving and inferring the meaning of biological motion gestures. Men with PD may have particular difficulty in understanding the communicative gestures of others in interpersonal exchanges. (JINS, 2016, 22, 1–11)

Social cognition, referring to one’s ability to perceive and process social cues, is an important domain in schizophrenia. Numerous studies have demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia have poorer performance on tests assessing social cognition relative to healthy comparison participants. However, whether variables such as motivation are related to performance on these tests in patients with schizophrenia is unclear. One thousand three-hundred and seventy-eight patients with schizophrenia completed the Facial Emotion Discrimination Task as a measure of emotional processing, a key facet of social cognition. Level of motivation was also evaluated in these patients using a derived measure from the Quality of Life Scale. The relationship between motivation and task performance was examined using bivariate correlations and logistic regression modeling, controlling for the impact of age and overall severity of psychopathology, the latter evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Motivation was positively related to performance on the social cognition test, and this relationship remained significant after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age and illness severity. Social cognition was also related to functioning, and the relationship was mediated by level of motivation. The present study found a significant relationship between motivation and performance on a test of social cognition in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia. These findings suggest that amotivation undermines task performance, or alternatively that poor social cognitive ability impedes motivation. Future studies evaluating social cognition in patients with schizophrenia should concurrently assess for variables such as effort and motivation. (JINS, 2015, 21, 436–443)

Background: Social engagement and depression are important outcomes for residents with dementia in long-term care. However, it is still largely unclear which differences in social engagement and depression exist in residents of various long-term care settings and how these differences may be explained. This study investigated the relationship between social engagement and depressive symptoms in long-term care dementia units, and studied whether differences in social engagement and depressive symptoms between units can be ascribed to the composition of the resident population or to differences in type of care setting.

Methods: Thirty-seven long-term care units for residents with dementia in nursing- and residential homes in the Netherlands participated in the study. Social engagement and depressive symptoms were measured for 502 residents with the Minimum Data Set of the Resident Assessment Instrument. Results were analyzed using multilevel analysis.

Results: Residents of psychogeriatric units in nursing homes experienced low social engagement. Depressive symptoms were most often found in residents of psychogeriatric units in residential homes. Multilevel analyses showed that social engagement and depressive symptoms correlated moderately on the level of the units. This correlation disappeared when the characteristics of residents were taken into account.

Conclusions: Social engagement and depressive symptoms are influenced not only by individual characteristics but also by the type of care setting in which residents live. However, in this study social engagement and depressive symptoms were not strongly related to each other, implying that separate interventions are needed to improve both outcomes.

Characterized by frontostriatal dysfunction, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is associated with cognitive and psychiatric abnormalities. Several studies have noted impaired facial emotion recognition abilities in patient populations that demonstrate frontostriatal dysfunction; however, facial emotion recognition abilities have not been systematically examined in HIV patients. The current study investigated facial emotion recognition in 50 nondemented HIV-seropositive adults and 50 control participants relative to their performance on a nonemotional landscape categorization control task. We examined the relation of HIV-disease factors (nadir and current CD4 levels) to emotion recognition abilities and assessed the psychosocial impact of emotion recognition abnormalities. Compared to control participants, HIV patients performed normally on the control task but demonstrated significant impairments in facial emotion recognition, specifically for fear. HIV patients reported greater psychosocial impairments, which correlated with increased emotion recognition difficulties. Lower current CD4 counts were associated with poorer anger recognition. In summary, our results indicate that chronic HIV infection may contribute to emotion processing problems among HIV patients. We suggest that disruptions of frontostriatal structures and their connections with cortico-limbic networks may contribute to emotion recognition abnormalities in HIV. Our findings also highlight the significant psychosocial impact that emotion recognition abnormalities have on individuals with HIV. (JINS, 2010, 16, 1127–1137.)

Background: Social networks may protect depressed elders against suicidal behavior. However, conflict in important relationships may undermine the sense of social support, potentially negating the protective effects. Thus, we investigated the role of chronic interpersonal difficulties and perceived social support in depressed elders with and without suicidal thoughts and attempts.

Methods: 106 individuals aged 60 years and older participated in this cross-sectional, case-control study. They were placed in three groups: suicidal depressed, non-suicidal depressed and non-depressed. Following a detailed clinical characterization, we assessed perceived social support (Interpersonal Support Evaluation List), and chronic interpersonal difficulties (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems). Using general linear models, we explored the relationship between suicidal thoughts/attempts, social support, and chronic interpersonal difficulties. We also examined whether lower perceived social support explained the relationship between chronic interpersonal difficulties and suicidal thoughts/attempts.

Results: Suicidal depressed elders reported the lowest levels of perceived social support (belonging, tangible support, and self-esteem) and higher levels of chronic interpersonal difficulties (struggle against others and interpersonal hostility), compared to both non-suicidal depressed and non-depressed elders. The relationship between chronic interpersonal difficulties and suicidal behavior was partially explained by low perceived social support.

Conclusions: The experience of strong affects, interpersonal struggle, and hostility in relationships may undermine the sense of social support in depressed elders, possibly leading them to contemplate or attempt suicide. Depressed elders with a history of interpersonal difficulties need to be carefully monitored for suicidal behavior.