Anna Kagstrom

National Institute of Mental Health | NUDZ · Department of Public Mental Health

Mental health policies and plans (MHPPs) are important policy instruments and powerful tools to facilitate development of mental health systems and services across the world. We aimed to map and analyse methods and tools used to assess the extent, process and impact of implementing MHPPs. We systematically searched peer-reviewed and grey literature...

Introduction Social emotional competence is fundamental to the positive development of children and youth. Accurately understanding and assessing children’s social emotional competencies, using psychometrically sound instruments, are essential to global efforts to support children’s social emotional learning, academic achievements, and health. This...

Mental health literacy is an essential part of preventing mental illnesses. However, the quality of mental health literacy measures remain unknown, as does its universality across various settings and populations. Few studies focus on measures aimed at assessing mental health literacy of children and adolescents that covers knowledge about mental h...

Mental health literacy (MHL) grows in importance as the prevalence of mental health conditions rises worldwide. There is a need for valid MHL measures especially among adolescents. The current study aims to develop and validate a Universal mental health literacy scale for adolescents (UMHL-A), a self report scale to assess MHL of children between a...

Introduction Increasing educational attainment (EA) could decrease the occurrence of depression. We investigated the relationship between EA and depressive symptoms in older individuals across four European regions. Objectives 1) examine association between EA and depressive symptoms 2) determine, if there is an upper limit to this association 3)...

Objectives: To assess the association between students’ financial loss and depressive symptoms during the first wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and whether this association varied by countries having different levels of lockdown measures. Methods: This cross-sectional survey, conducted in spring 2020, included 91,871 studen...

There remains a lack of conclusive evidence as to the merit of season of birth as a predictor of mental illness across contexts. We studied 72,370 individuals (55% women; mean age 66) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Depressive symptoms were assessed with EURO-D scale and symptoms of anxiety with modified Beck Anxiety Inv...

Objective: The impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on suicidal thoughts and behavior has been widely hypothesized but remains largely unexplored at the population-level. We aimed to assess changes in suicide risk (SR) in people with and without mental disorders, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Czechia. Methods:...

Backgrounds Food insecurity and dietary diversity remain a public health concern in developing countries like Bangladesh which is exacerbated by the COVID-19 especially for day laborers’ families in Bangladesh. This study aimed to determine factors associated with household food insecurity and household dietary diversity among day laborers during t...

PurposeWe aimed to study sex differences in the association of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) with later-life depressive symptoms, the mediating effect of education and explore regional differences across Europe.Methods The study included 58,851 participants (55% women, mean age 65 years) from the multicentre, population-based Survey on Hea...

PurposeWe aimed to study the association of educational attainment with occurrence of mental disorders in the Czech Republic.Methods Data were derived from the CZEch Mental health Study (CZEMS), a cross-sectional study of community-dwelling individuals. Mental disorders were assessed with Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), an...

Objectives To assess the prevalence of mental disorders during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in comparison with both, baseline and the first wave of the pandemic, and to identify disproportionally affected non-clinical subgroups. Material and methods We used data from three nationally representative cross-sectional studies and compared the...

We aimed to explore sex differences in the association of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) with the level of cognitive performance and the rate of cognitive decline. We studied 84,059 individuals (55% women; mean age 64 years) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Sex differences in the association of childhood SEP (hous...

Background Increasing educational attainment (EA) could decrease the occurrence of depression. We investigated the relationship between EA and depressive symptoms in older individuals across four European regions. Methods We studied 108,315 Europeans (54% women, median age 63 years old) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe as...

Aims The United Nations warned of COVID-19 related mental health crisis; however, it is unknown whether there is an increase in prevalence of mental disorders as existing studies lack a reliable baseline analysis or they did not use a diagnostic measure. We aimed to analyse trends in the prevalence of mental disorders prior to and during the COVID...

This study sought to evaluate the quality of care in Czech psychiatric hospitals and adherence to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Each psychiatric hospital was evaluated by a team comprising a service user, a psychiatrist, a social worker, a human rights lawyer, and a researcher, all trained in using the World Heal...

Background: Internalized stigma negatively affects lives and prognosis of individuals with psychosis. Aim: This study aimed to identify correlates of internalized stigma among individuals with psychosis in a sample of community care users in the Czech Republic. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 133 community service users wi...

Introduction We aimed to estimate the prevalence of current mental disorders in the Czech population, and to identify associated disability. Methods We conducted a representative cross-sectional household survey of the Czech adult, community-dwelling population. We used the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), WHO Disability A...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the extent of the treatment gap for mental disorders in the Czech Republic, determine factors associated with the utilization of mental health services and explore what influences willingness to seek mental health care. METHODS: Data from the CZEch Mental health Study, a nationally representative study of community-dwelling a...

Background A large variation in cognitive performance exists between European regions. However, it is unclear how older Europeans differ in the rate of cognitive decline. Methods We analysed data from 22 181 individuals (54% women; median age 71) who participated in the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Cognition was measured usin...

Background We aimed to determine the prevalence and gap in use of mental health services for late-life depression in four European regions (Western Europe, Scandinavia, Southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe) and explore socio-demographic, social and health-related factors associated with it. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study bas...

Objectives: We aimed to investigate whether socioeconomic position (SEP) in childhood has an effect on the level of cognitive performance and the rate of cognitive decline in older adults. Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study of individuals enrolled in a multicenter population-based study, SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retireme...