Adriana Baban

Babeș-Bolyai University | UBB · Department of Psychology

Background Cervical cancer remains a significant public health concern in Europe. Effective introduction and scaling up of human papillomavirus (HPV) detection-based cervical cancer screening (CCS) requires a systematic assessment of health systems capacity. However, there is no validated capacity assessment methodology for CCS programmes, especial...

Child abuse is prevalent worldwide, with most of the burden in developing countries. To reduce and prevent child abuse occurrence, many efforts are directed toward reducing maladaptive parental behaviors (MPBs), a predictor of parents' risk of engaging in child abusive behaviors. MPBs have been associated with child (e.g., behavioral difficulties)...

Background: Previous research shows that 61% of children younger than 6 months in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not exclusively breastfed. Although data on the role of pre- and postnatal depression on breastfeeding exclusivity is mixed, fetomaternal attachment might foster breastfeeding exclusivity. Thus, we tested the potential medi...

This study investigates the co-occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV) against mothers and their risk of perpetrating child maltreatment (CM) in North Macedonia, the Republic of Moldova, and Romania. Risk factors for IPV, CM, and their co-occurrence were identified. Two samples (N1 = 112, N2 = 701) of mothers with children with behavioral pro...

Social cognitive models of parenting consider the role of unrealistic parental expectations (UE) regarding children’s abilities and behaviors as antecedents to the occurrence of child abuse. However, existing self-report measures of UE yield inconsistent results, often failing to differentiate aggressive and non-aggressive parents, raising question...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.640955.].

Background Identifying common factors that affect public adherence to COVID-19 containment measures can directly inform the development of official public health communication strategies. The present international longitudinal study aimed to examine whether prosociality, together with other theoretically derived motivating factors (self-efficacy, p...

Background: Previous research shows that 61% of children younger than six months, in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not exclusively breastfed. While data on the role of pre- and postnatal depression on breastfeeding exclusivity is mixed, foeto-maternal attachment might foster breastfeeding exclusivity. Thus, we tested the potential med...

Background The International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) Child Abuse Screening Tool (Children's Version), known as the ICAST-C Version 3, is used widely to assess violence against children, but there is limited psychometric evidence, especially on content validity. Objective This study aimed to assess the content val...

Rationale The associations between COVID-19 cases/deaths levels and subsequent uptake of protective behaviors may reflect cognitive and behavioral responses to threat-relevant information. Objective Applying protection motivation theory (PMT) this study explored whether the number of total COVID-19 cases/deaths and general anxiety were associated...

Introduction/Background Despite the comprehensive implementation of screening strategies and vaccination programs against HPV, Cervical Cancer (CC) remains a significant health problem. Various treatments ranging from fertility sparring to combinatory regimes for both early and advanced disease produce significant distress regarding sexuality, body...

Measures that produce valid and reliable antenatal depressive symptom scores in low-resource country contexts are important for efforts to illuminate risk factors, outcomes, and effective interventions in these contexts. Establishing the psychometric comparability of scores across countries also facilitates analyses of similarities and differences...

Background: Cervical cancer (CC) can be prevented by screening and vaccination. Parents can help decrease the incidence and prevalence of CC by vaccinating their children. Objective: This study aimed to explore factors related to Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination intention in European parents by conducting a systematic review and metaanalysis....

PurposeSocial information Processing (SIP) biases have been associated with child abuse risk. However, little research was conducted with the purpose to evaluate the contribution of the SIP model in the prediction of child abuse risk, with most research testing SIP components independent from the model. This study aimed to extend the validity of th...

Objective ADHD symptoms can adversely impact functioning in a range of domains relevant for maternal well-being and fetal development; however, there has been almost no research examining their impact during pregnancy. We aimed to address this gap. Method We used data ( n = 1,204) from a longitudinal birth cohort study spanning eight countries to...

Background This paper enumerates and characterizes latent classes of adverse childhood experiences and investigates how they relate to prenatal substance use (i.e., smoking, alcohol, and other drugs) and poor infant outcomes (i.e., infant prematurity and low birthweight) across eight low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods A total of 118...

Issue Health care management is faced with a basic conundrum about organizational behavior; why do professionals who are highly dedicated to their work choose to remain silent on critical issues that they recognize as being professionally and organizationally significant? Speaking-up interventions in health care achieve disappointing outcomes beca...

Complex health needs are demanding and often require additional medical, psychological and social support. All those involved (e.g., patients, carers, professionals) face a unique set of challenges and needs, especially in families where the patient is a child or a young person with a lifelong condition. The aim of the study was to explore carers’...

Maternal prenatal stress places a substantial burden on mother’s mental health. Expectant mothers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have thus far received less attention than mothers in high-income settings. This is particularly problematic, as a range of triggers, such as exposure to traumatic events (e.g. natural disasters, previous pre...

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women that can easily be prevented by well-organized screening and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs. Objective: This study aimed to explore cognitive and emotional factors associated with HPV vaccine uptake in European adolescents and women by performing a systemat...

Considering the high impact strain that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has put on medical personnel worldwide, identifying means to alleviate stress on healthcare professionals and to boost their subjective and psychological wellbeing is more relevant than ever. This study investigates the extent to which...

Purpose: The study investigates the predictors of caregivers' experienced burden, stigma, and well-being, when looking after family members diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Design and methods: This cross-sectional study included 168 caregivers; perceived burden, stigma, well-being, knowledge, illness perception, and medical variables were...

ADHD symptoms can adversely impact functioning in a range of domains relevant for maternal well-being and foetal development; however, there has been almost no research examining their impact during pregnancy. We used data (n=1204) from a longitudinal birth cohort study spanning eight countries to address this gap. ADHD symptoms in the third trimes...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and soug...

Child abuse is a global problem that disrupts children’s normal development and has several negative consequences, including poor school adjustment. Some researchers have shown that social support might help abuse victims adjust better to the school environment. Thus, this study investigates the moderator and mediator roles of perceived social supp...

Background: Approximately 5% of colorectal cancer (CRC) cases are part of a well-defined inherited genetic syndrome and up to approximately 30% of these cases have a clinically defined familial basis. Psychosocial interventions in familial colorectal cancer address aspects mainly focused on affective, cognitive and behavioural outcomes. The presen...

Background Childhood adversities, such as poor parental practices, exposure to violence, and risk behaviours strongly impact children’s future mental and behavioural problems. Adversities affect families living in disadvantaged environments and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to a greater extent than in high-income countries. Parenting pro...

A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted during the first COVID-19 wave, to examine the impact of COVID-19 on mental health using an anonymous online survey, enrolling 9565 individuals in 78 countries. The current sub-study examined the impact of the pandemic and the associated lockdown measures on the mental health, and protective be...

Background Patterns of protective health behaviors, such as handwashing and sanitizing during the COVID-19 pandemic, may be predicted by macro-level variables, such as regulations specified by public health policies. Health behavior patterns may also be predicted by micro-level variables, such as self-regulatory cognitions specified by health behav...

Background The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the physical and mental health of people everywhere. The aim of the study is to understand how people living in 15 countries around the globe experience an unexpected crisis which threatens their health and that of loved ones, and how they make meaning of this disruption in the...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s engagement in health behaviors, especially those that protect individuals from SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as handwashing/sanitizing. This study investigated whether adherence to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) handwashing guidelines (the outcome variable) was associated with the trajec...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s engagement in health behaviors, especially those that protect individuals from SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as handwashing/sanitizing. Associations between the pandemic’s trajectory and engagement in the protective behavior of handwashing are unclear. This study investigated whether adherence...

Genetic counselling services are well established in North America, Western Europe and Australia. In other regions, genetic counselling services are still emerging. Where this is the case, an in-depth understanding of the main stakeholders’ needs, challenges and opportunities will inform the changes and innovations required to bring genetic counsel...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a massive health crisis that has exerted enormous physical and psychological pressure. Mental healthcare for healthcare workers (HCWs) should receive serious consideration. This study served to determine the mental-health outcomes of 1,556 HCWs from 45 countries who participated in the COVID-19 IMPACT project, a...

Background : Mothers from middle-income countries (MIC) are estimated to have higher rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and depression during pregnancy compared to mothers from high income countries. Prenatal depression can adversely impact on a mother's feelings towards her foetus and thus may be partially responsible for intergeneratio...

The prevalence of child emotional and behavioral problems is an international problem but is higher in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where there are often less mental health supports for families. Parenting programs can be an effective means of prevention, but must be low-cost, scalable, and suitable for the local context. The RISE projec...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unequivocal disruptive impact on all walks of life. Cancer care and the patients involved have been especially affected due to disruptions in treatment scheduling and enhanced vulnerability to COVID-19 infection. The present study undertook an exploratory qualitative analysis to investigate the emotional impact the...

Purpose: Understanding the factors impacting individuals’ emotional distress in the context of a family history of cancer is key in designing and implementing psychosocial interventions. Our study investigated the extent to which having a family history of cancer is associated with emotional distress and whether the perceived risk to develop colore...

Studies in high-income countries (HICs) have shown that variability in maternal-fetal attachment (MFA) predict important maternal health and child outcomes. However, the validity of MFA ratings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains unknown. Addressing this gap, we assessed measurement invariance to test the conceptual equivalence of t...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-021-01122-7

Aims This paper explores the number and characterization of latent classes of adverse childhood experiences across the Evidence for Better Lives Study cohort and investigates how the various typologies link to prenatal substance use (i.e., smoking, alcohol, and illicit drugs) and poor infant outcomes (i.e., infant prematurity and low birth weight)....

e-Health may enhance self-management of pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI). It is crucial to involve patients in planning, developing and monitoring the optimal e-Health solution. This research aims to describe patient-centered innovation in an early developmental stage of the WOMEN-UP solution. We conduc...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s engagement in health behaviors, especially those that protect individuals from SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as handwashing/sanitizing. Associations between the pandemic’s trajectory and engagement in the protective behavior of handwashing are unclear. This study investigated whether adherence...

Background and aims: The nonpharmacological therapy in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is expanding rapidly. Practitioners and medical educators need to be aware of progress and changes in knowledge of this topic. The Romanian Society of Neurogastroenterology aimed to create guidelines based on best evidence on the use of nonpharmacological therapy...

This study aimed to compare the mediation of psychological flexibility, prosociality and coping in the impacts of illness perceptions toward COVID-19 on mental health among seven regions. Convenience sampled online survey was conducted between April and June 2020 from 9130 citizens in 21 countries. Illness perceptions toward COVID-19, psychological...

Objective: Illness perceptions (IP) are important predictors of emotional and behavioral responses in many diseases. The current study aims to investigate the COVID-19-related IP throughout Europe. The specific goals are to understand the temporal development, identify predictors (within demographics and contact with COVID-19) and examine the impac...

Ending all violence against children by 2030 is a core part of Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 16. A number of promising violence reduction strategies have been identified in research studies. However, we lack an understanding of the implementation and impact of these programs in respect to their delivery at a large scale or within existing ser...

The following study is aimed at investigating the construct validity of the 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC 25) on a Romanian military population. The exploratory factor analysis was conducted on 434 male military participants, aged between 24 and 50 years (M = 34.83, S.D. = 6.14) and the confirmatory factor analysis was conducted...

Studies in high-income countries (HICs) have shown that variability in maternal-fetal attachment (MFA) predict important maternal health and child outcomes. However, the validity of MFA ratings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains unknown. Addressing this gap, we assessed measurement invariance to test the conceptual equivalence of t...

Mothers from middle-income countries (MIC) are estimated to have higher rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and depression during pregnancy compared to mothers from high income countries. Prenatal depression can adversely impact on a mother's feelings towards her foetus and has thus been hypothesised to be partially responsible for interg...

Measures that produce valid and reliable antenatal depressive symptom scores in low resource country contexts are important for research efforts to better understand risk factors, outcomes, and effective interventions in these contexts. Establishing the psychometric comparability of scores across countries also facilitates cross-country analysis of...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic triggered vast governmental lockdowns. The impact of these lockdowns on mental health is inadequately understood. On the one hand such drastic changes in daily routines could be detrimental to mental health. On the other hand, it might not be experienced negatively, especially because the entire population was affec...

This paper aims to analyze the current literature on the impact of infertility on women’s psychological health through systematic methods. A systematic review of the literature for the research of the psychological effects on infertile women was performed. Depression, anxiety and self-esteem were analyzed in the context of women with reproduct...

Background and aims: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most frequent form of cancer worldwide, and approximately one third of cases have a positive family history of CRC or associated cancers. Colonoscopy is one of the most effective methods of screening for CRC. Uptake of colonoscopy is suboptimal, and many countries lack a national screening...

Introduction Violence against children is a health, human rights and social problem affecting approximately half of the world’s children. Its effects begin at prenatal stages with long-lasting impacts on later health and well-being. The Evidence for Better Lives Study (EBLS) aims to produce high-quality longitudinal data from cities in eight low- a...

Background: Kidney transplantation is considered an optimal treatment option for patients with end-stage kidney disease in terms of survival rate, quality of life and cost-effectiveness. However, posttransplant life involves many medical, psychological and social challenges for transplant recipients. Understanding individuals' challenges and needs...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00115.].

The globalisation of crime means there is an increasingly vital need for effective sharing of knowledge by police organisations across international borders. However, identifying the complexities and challenges of this aspect of international collaboration has been relatively neglected in previous research. The research reported in this paper there...

Purpose: Concerning psychosocial aproaches to disability, Romania is characterized by significant discrepancies between the Disability Rights legislation and reality, while the input of people with disabilities regarding the matter is largely overlooked. This study aims to explore perceptions regarding Romania's built and sociocultural environment,...

Background: Hunger can influence healthy development of children and has been shown to be associated with other determinants of child health, such as violence within the family and maternal (mental) health problems. Whilst the majority of research has been conducted in high-income countries with vulnerable populations, less is known about the circu...

Objective Birth cohort studies (BCS) have generated a wealth of invaluable basic scientific and policy-relevant information on a wide range of issues in child health and development. This study sought to explore what research questions are currently a priority for the next generation of BCS using a 3-round Delphi survey of interdisciplinary experts...

Coaching is now a common practice for human development and change and, especially aninstrument for organizational development. Although widely used, coaching does not have aprecise scientific framework, as it is a field in the theoretical construction phase. This articleprovides a critical review of studies on coaching in order to summarize the th...

Breast cancer patients frequently report high emotional distress and low quality of life (QOL) through diagnosis, treatment and survivorship phases. The new cyberworld allows for increased reach and ease of access to internet delivered psychotherapeutic interventions. The current challenge is reliably adapting face-to-face evidence-based protocols...

Patient safety is one of the main goals of any medical act. Among the various organizational and individual factors that lead to positive medical outcomes, the wellbeing of healthcare professionals is one of the most emphasized in the existing literature. We propose that the concept of work recovery might shed some light on the mechanisms that help...

The objective of this paper was to identify the factors associated with moderate to high nicotine dependence in a sample of pregnant smokers from Romania. Data was collected through an ongoing cross-sectional pilot study from 130 pregnant smokers. The questionnaire included five main sections: socio-demographic information, medical and reproductive...

This cross-sectional study examined the mediator role of global and multidimensional team learning behaviors in the relation between positive psychological capital (PsyCap) and multiple team effectiveness criteria (team performance, team member satisfaction,and team viability). The sample comprised 190 employees working in 20 teams activating in va...

Background: Understanding lay perceptions concerning vaccination and identifying the most important psychological determinants of vaccine acceptability are relevant for health promotion campaigns. Methods: This cross-sectional study aimed to identify the psychological determinants of HPV vaccine and seasonal flu vaccine acceptability in a nation...

Breast cancer patients frequently report high emotional distress and low quality of life (QOL) through diagnosis, treatment and survivorship phases. The new cyberworld allows for increased reach and ease of access to internet delivered psychotherapeutic interventions. The current challenge is reliably adapting face-to-face evidence-based protocols...

Background: Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has become an emergent method in the therapy of several intestinal diseases, mainly in Clostridium difficile recurrence. The training of FMT in medical schools is at its beginning and in countries where FMT is only occasionally carried out, it is important to know the perception of medical student...

Background: Child mental health problems continue to be a major global concern, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Parenting interventions have been shown to be effective for reducing child behavior problems in high-income countries, with emerging evidence supporting similar effects in LMICs. However, there remain substantial...

The aim of the present systematic review is to evaluate the effects of webbased psychological interventions tested via randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on improving patient-reported psychological distress and quality of life (QOL) among adult cancer patients compared to control conditions and evaluate the quality of the intervention studies. We...

Background Aiming at generating evidence for formulating targeted and cost-effective public health interventions for the effective control of alcohol use (AU) in emerging adults in South Eastern Europe. The study’s objective was to assess if alcohol users experience adverse childhood experiences (ACE) more often than non-users, and to identify whic...

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can increase risks of health-harming behaviours and poor health throughout life. While increases in risk may be affected by resilience resources such as supportive childhood relationships, to date few studies have explored these effects. Methods: We combined data from cross-sectional ACE studies a...

Introduction Families in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) face multiple challenges (eg, poverty and adverse childhood experiences) that increase the risk for child mental health problems, while the context may provide them with few resources. Existing prevention-oriented parenting programmes have been shown to be effective in reducing...

This study investigates how people with mobility impairments experience disability and inclusion/exclusion, how they construct their identities, and how they challenge disabling social constructions within the Romanian post-socialist context. Phenomenological analysis performed on the transcripts of 11 semi-structured interviews revealed five major...

Background and aim: Psychosomatic medicine has different statuses in different countries and many physicians perceive it under various points of view. However, a common belief is that the father of the word psychosomatic is the German physician Johann Heinroth and that the word was coined in 1818. We looked for the history of the word psychosomati...