Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Video Games Help Teens Cope With Academic Stress

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by PsyPost.

A recent study published in the journal Deviant Behavior has found a significant relationship between academic stress and increased video game use among adolescents. The research indicates that this connection is influenced by the adolescents’ confidence in their gaming abilities, suggesting that video games may serve as a coping mechanism for academic pressures.

The study, led by Yeungjeom Lee of the University of Texas at Dallas, aimed to examine how stress and gaming efficacy jointly affect video game overuse. The researchers utilized data from the Game User Panel administered by the Korea Creative Content Agency, which included a longitudinal sample of 801 adolescents from South Korea. The participants, ranging from 10 to 16 years old, provided data over five years, from 2014 to 2018.

The study focused on two types of stress: academic and peer-related. Academic stress encompassed concerns over grades, exams, and schoolwork, while peer stress involved difficulties in communication and bullying. The researchers measured excessive gaming using a 20-question survey assessing behaviors such as neglecting responsibilities and social life due to gaming. Gaming efficacy, or the belief in one’s ability to succeed in video games, was also measured.

The findings indicated a strong link between academic stress and increased video game use. Adolescents experiencing higher levels of academic stress were more likely to engage in excessive gaming. This relationship, however, was not observed with peer-related stress, which did not show a significant connection to gaming behavior.

A crucial element that the researchers identified was the moderating effect of gaming efficacy. Gaming efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in their ability to succeed at playing video games. The study found that adolescents with higher gaming efficacy were more likely to use video games as a coping mechanism in response to academic stress. This suggests that for those who feel competent and successful in the gaming environment, video games serve as an effective escape from the pressures and frustrations associated with their academic challenges.

The study highlights that video games provide a structured environment with clear goals and immediate rewards, which can be particularly appealing to adolescents who face ongoing academic pressures.

Source: PsyPost
https://www.psypost.org/video-games-help-teens-cope-with-academic-stress-study-suggests/

Early Life Stress Can Lead to Substance Use in Adolescents

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by News Medical.

Stress during childhood is associated with earlier substance use in male and female adolescents, according to a study presented Saturday at ENDO 2024, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Boston, Mass. Traumatic events may increase substance use risk for males, while environmental stress and early puberty may increase the risk for females, the researchers found.

Early life stress is children's experiences of abuse, neglect and conflict. Approximately 20% of adolescents in the United States have experienced early life stress at some point, and these experiences influence adolescent and adult health behavior outcomes.

Donovan and colleagues evaluated sex differences in the impact of puberty and stress on alcohol, nicotine and cannabis use by the age of 13. They analyzed data from 8,608 male and female participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, who were 9 or 10 years old when the study began. The study included data from the first three years of the ABCD study.

The researchers looked at the effects of early life stress and found it increased the likelihood of earlier use of alcohol, nicotine or cannabis use across both males and females.

Early life stress increased the likelihood of earlier substance use for males by 9-18% and for females by 13-20%. Environmental stress increased the likelihood of early use of nicotine and cannabis in females by 15-24%. Traumatic event stress increased the likelihood in males by 15-16%. Higher pubertal development scores increased the likelihood of earlier nicotine use for females while decreasing the likelihood for males.

Source: News Medical
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240603/Early-life-stress-can-lead-to-substance-use-in-male-and-female-adolescents.aspx

Stressed Parents Could Mean More Self-Harm by Kids

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Teens have a higher risk of self-injury -- deliberately cutting or burning themselves -- if they have a fraught relationship with a struggling parent, a new study shows.

Teenagers were nearly five times more likely to self-injure if, when they were 6, their moms and dads reported stress and discomfort in their role as parents, researchers found.

Teens also had a nearly doubled risk of self-harm if they perceived parental hostility and negativity at the age of 6, researchers report.

"Stress in parents is hypothesized to have widespread negative impacts on child development, including the development of behavioral problems,” said researchers Tove Wichstrom and Lars Wichstrom of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 759 Norwegian adolescents at ages 12, 14 or 16 to determine the teens’ rate of non-suicidal self-injury.

About 10% of the teens reported self-injury within the past year, with girls nearly 12 times more likely than boys to cut, burn or otherwise injure themselves.

Such self-injury is typically a way to cope with emotional pain, sadness, anger and stress, according to the Mayo Clinic. It’s rarely meant as a suicide attempt but rather as a means of finding calm and releasing physical and emotional tension.

The researchers linked that self-injury information to other data collected from the children’s parents, teachers, and the kids themselves when they were 6.

The results found an association between later self-injury as a teen and a strained relationship with an overwhelmed parent at age 6.

This fraught relationship did not need to be extreme to influence the child. Researchers noted there were few reported instances of parental sexual abuse or physical abuse among the Norwegian teens.

The new study was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/stressed-parents-could-mean-more-self-harm-by-kids

Mental Illness May be Waiting for Stressed Out Teens in Adulthood

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School in Brazil have discovered that excessive stress during adolescence can lead to changes in the gene expression in the brain. These changes, particularly in genes related to bioenergy, may impact cell respiration, leading to behavioral issues and psychiatric disorders in adulthood.

“Like the human brain, the brain of an adolescent rat is highly plastic. This plasticity is seen at the molecular level and in terms of behavior,” says study first author Thamyris Santos-Silva, who was a doctoral candidate in pharmacology at FMRP-USP at the time of the study, in a media release. “Changes in the expression profiles of specific genes in different brain regions lead to alterations in brain cell connectivity, which spread systemically and can produce persistent alterations in adulthood that correlate with psychiatric disorders.”

The study began by analyzing behavioral responses to stress in late-adolescent rats. The animals underwent a stress protocol for 10 days during a period of intense brain plasticity, showing marked behavioral impairments, including anxiety, reduced sociability, and cognitive dysfunction.

“The analysis showed alterations to the genes of the prefrontal cortex in the stressed animals. Among the ten most affected genes, several were associated with pathways linked to oxidative stress and mitochondrial function, a key cellular component of energy production for the brain,” notes Felipe Villela Gomes, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology at FMRP-USP and the article’s last author.

The study was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/stress-teens-mental-illness/

Stress Main Factor Driving Teens to Abuse Drugs, Alcohol

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

American teenagers cite stress as the leading reason they might get drunk or high, a new report reveals.

That only underscores the need for better adolescent mental health care, according to the research team behind the study.

Better "access to treatment and support for mental health concerns and stress could reduce some of the reported motivations for substance use," concluded investigators from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the study, a team led by CDC researcher Sarah Connolly looked at 2014-2020 data on over 9,500 people ages 13 to 18, all of who were being treated for a substance use disorder.

Teens were using a myriad of substances, including alcohol, marijuana, prescription painkillers (often opioids), prescription stimulants (for example, Ritalin), or prescription sedatives (such as Valium or Xanax).

The teens were also asked why they thought they were using or abusing substances. Easing stress in their lives was the leading factor cited.

"The most commonly reported motivation for substance use was “to feel mellow, calm, or relaxed” (73%), with other stress-related motivations among the top reasons, including “to stop worrying about a problem or to forget bad memories” (44%) and “to help with depression or anxiety” (40%)," Connolly's team reported.

Stress relief wasn't the only motivator, of course: Half of the teens reported using substances “to have fun or experiment." This reason for using substances was more often cited for alcohol or nonprescription drug use than it was for the use of marijuana or other drugs.

Substance abuse with the aim of easing stress was most often cited for marijuana (76% of teens), prescription pain meds (61%), and sedatives/tranquilizers (55%), the study found.

The findings were published in the Feb. 9 issue of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/mental-health/stress-main-factor-driving-teens-to-abuse-drugs-alcohol

Study Helps Explain Why Stress in Adolescence Can Lead to Predisposition to Mental Illness in Adulthood

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Excessive stress during adolescence can cause alterations in the profile of genes expressed in the brain, especially those associated with bioenergy functions. These alterations may affect cell respiration, resulting in behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders in adulthood, according to a study in rats conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP) in Brazil.

The results were published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

"Like the human brain, the brain of an adolescent rat is highly plastic. This plasticity is seen at the molecular level and in terms of behavior. Changes in the expression profiles of specific genes in different brain regions lead to alterations in brain cell connectivity, which spread systemically and can produce persistent alterations in adulthood that correlate with psychiatric disorders," said Thamyris Santos-Silva, first author of the article. At the time of the study, she was a Ph.D. candidate in pharmacology at FMRP-USP.

"Adolescence is a critical period for brain plasticity, which is significantly influenced by social experience," added Felipe Villela Gomes, last author of the article and a professor in FMRP-USP's Department of Pharmacology. "Susceptibility to adverse social and environmental factors, such as traumas, insults and abuse, increases during this period, and social experience can influence vulnerability and resilience to stress."

The study began by analyzing behavioral responses to stress, such as anxiety, social interaction and cognition, in late-adolescent rats. The animals were exposed to a stress protocol for ten consecutive days that coincided with an intense period of brain plasticity. They were then submitted to specific tests to assess their behavior, and the results showed distinct impairment in every case.

"We found that stressed animals in this life stage displayed a markedly poor behavioral profile, with anxiety, reduced sociability and impaired cognitive function," Gomes said.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-stress-adolescence-predisposition-mental-illness.html

Childhood Stress Linked to Higher Risk of High Blood Pressure, Obesity, Diabetes in Adults

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Young adults who reported higher stress during their teenage years to adulthood were more likely to have high blood pressure, obesity, and other cardiometabolic risk factors than their peers who reported less stress, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Cardiometabolic risk factors often occur together and are a significant cause of cardiovascular disease. These include obesity, type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure, researchers noted.

"Understanding the effects of perceived stress starting in childhood is important for preventing, lessening or managing higher cardiometabolic risk factors in young adults," said study author Fangqi Guo, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

"Our findings suggest that perceived stress patterns over time have a far-reaching effect on various cardiometabolic measures including fat distribution, vascular health and obesity," Guo said. "This could highlight the importance of stress management as early as in adolescence as a health protective behavior."

For this study, researchers analyzed health information from the Southern California Children's Health Study. Participants had enrolled in the study as children along with their parents, then participated in follow-up assessments as adolescents—average age 13—and as young adults—average age 24.

At each stage, stress was measured with a four-item Perceived Stress Scale, a questionnaire about feelings and thoughts during the last month. Study participants were categorized into four risk-based groups: consistently high stress over time, decreasing stress over time, increasing stress over time, and consistently low stress over time.

To evaluate cardiometabolic risk in young adulthood, Guo and colleagues used measures of carotid artery intima-media thickness (measures neck artery thickness); systolic (top number) and diastolic (bottom number) blood pressure; weight, percentage of body fat and fat distribution; and hemoglobin A1c.

The analysis found that consistently high perceived stress from adolescence through adulthood was associated with a greater risk for cardiometabolic diseases in young adulthood. If individuals experienced greater levels of stress from their teenage years into adulthood, they were more likely to have worse vascular health, higher total body fat, more fat around the belly and higher risk of obesity compared to those who felt less stressed over time.

A limitation was the study's relatively small size of 276 people. Studies with more participants would help clarify the results.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-childhood-stress-linked-higher-high.html

Young E-Cigarette Users Report Higher Levels of Chronic Stress

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Young electronic cigarette users are more likely to report having chronic stress than nonusers, according to a study presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress 2023, held from Sept. 9 to 13 in Milan.

Teresa To, Ph.D., from The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and colleagues used data from participants (ages 15 to 30 years) in the Canadian Health Measures Survey to compare physical activity (daily steps), physiological measurements, self-perceived stress, mental health, and quality of life (QOL) between e-cigarette users (ever; 115 individuals) and nonusers (never; 790 individuals).

The researchers found that when adjusting for confounders, e-cigarette users had significantly higher odds of being physically active (odds ratio, 2.19; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.14 to 4.20) and having self-reported extreme chronic stress (odds ratio, 2.68; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.45 to 4.92) compared with non-users. E-cigarette users also tended to have higher odds of poorer quality of life (odds ratio, 1.12; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.64 to 1.95) but lower odds of other health morbidities (high blood pressure or blood sugar; lower levels of high-density lipoprotein), although these findings were not statistically significant.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/young-e-cigarette-users-report-higher-levels-of-chronic-stress-2665304142.html

How Parents' Work Stress Affects Family Mealtimes and Children's Development

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Family mealtimes are important for parents and children as a space to communicate, socialize, and build attachment relationships. But it can be difficult for busy parents to balance family and work life. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explores how parents' job stress influences their attendance at family mealtimes, and in turn, children's socioemotional development.

"We all struggle to maintain the balance between work life and family life. But this might be especially challenging for parents, who are engaging in childcare after a busy and stressful day at work," said lead author Sehyun Ju, doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I.

The study included data from more than 1,400 dual-earner families, consisting of heterosexual married couples with children, in a nationally representative survey that traced children's development across family, home, child care, and school environments from 9 months to kindergarten. The researchers focused on the interplay of child characteristics, family mealtimes, and parents' job and financial dissatisfaction.

"We found that children of parents who expressed higher work-related stress when the children were 2 years old had lower socioemotional competency at age 4 to 5, measured by lower positive and higher negative social behaviors," Ju explained.

The findings speak to the pervasiveness of traditional gender roles, added Karen Kramer, associate professor in HDFS and co-author on the study. "Mothers are considered primary caregivers, and they are expected to be present and feed their children no matter what. The study showed they didn't adjust their mealtime frequencies in response to job dissatisfaction as fathers did."

"We have to acknowledge the challenges that families face in creating consistent routines. It's not just an outcome of individual influences. Outside factors, such as parents' work environment and financial situation can affect their interactions, mealtimes, and child development. For example, dinner time for young kids is typically around five or six o'clock, but the expectation that parents are home early in the day doesn't align with being an ideal worker."

The research was published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-parents-stress-affects-family-mealtimes.html

Adolescent Girls Sere Severely Affected By Pandemic Stress, Find Researchers

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

A new study led by researchers at Western and Lawson Health Research Institute has found that adolescent emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and self-poisoning increased across Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among adolescent girls.

Researchers from Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC), a network of 15 pediatric hospitals across Canada, looked at national data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) on ED visits and hospitalizations among adolescents between the ages of 10 and 18 from April 2015 to March 2022.

"Hospital admissions for suicidal ideation, self-poisoning, and self-harm increased significantly in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Dr. Naveen Poonai, professor at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute. "What came as a surprise to us is that the greatest increase was among adolescent females, a demographic that is often overlooked."

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that emergency department visits for suicidal ideation, self-poisoning, and self-harm rose during the pandemic (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2022) compared to the average from the previous five years, while hospital admissions for these conditions increased significantly, rising 11%, particularly among females, with the largest increase seen among 10–14-year-olds.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-adolescent-girls-severely-affected-pandemic.html