Simone Freitag

Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (G-BA) / Federal Joint Committee (Health Care) · Fachberatung Medizin

Objectives A measurement tool to assess systematic reviews (SRs) 2 (AMSTAR 2) allows for deriving the overall confidence in an SR. We investigated how authors derived the overall confidence rating and whether different schemes lead to different results. Study Design and Setting We compared three different schemes (original 7-item scheme, a self-de...

Objective: To provide guidance on how systematic review authors, guideline developers, and health technology assessment practitioners should approach the use of the risk of bias in nonrandomized studies of interventions (ROBINS-I) tool as a part of GRADE's certainty rating process. Study design and setting: The study design and setting comprised...

It is unclear to what extent failure to recognize symptoms as potential sign of a mental illness is impeding service use, and how stigmatizing attitudes interfere with this process. In a prospective study, we followed a community sample of 188 currently untreated persons with mental illness (predominantly depression) over 6 months. We examined how...

This study aims to develop and implement brief implicit association tests (BIATs) assessing stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness, awareness of mental distress and self-identification as having a mental illness. We recruited 229 people (age range 18–80 years) with currently untreated depressive symptoms. In addition to BIATs, explicit measu...

Conceptualizing own symptoms as potential signs of a mental illness is an important, yet under-researched step towards appropriate help. Few validated measures address recognition and identification of own mental illness. Aim of this study is to investigate performance and correlates of the 'self-Identification as Having a Mental Illness’ scale (SE...

Backgrounds: The concept of mental health literacy suggests that higher literacy increases the likelihood of seeking treatment. However, previous studies mostly use vignettes, and do not investigate actual help-seeking behaviour. Methods: We assessed depression literacy and type of mental illness in a convenience sample of 207 adults with curren...

Aims Many people with mental illness do not seek professional help. Beliefs about the causes of their current health problem seem relevant for initiating treatment. Our aim was to find out to what extent the perceived causes of current untreated mental health problems determine whether a person considers herself/himself as having a mental illness,...

Zusammenfassung Ziel der Studie Übersetzung und psychometrische Testung einer Skala zum Depressionswissen. Methodik Übersetzung der Depression Literacy Scale von Griffith et al. (2004) ins Deutsche und Testung der Skala in einer Stichprobe von 229 Menschen mit depressivem Syndrom. Ergebnisse Im Durchschnitt war die Stichprobe 49,4 Jahre alt und es...

The aim of this study is to investigate whether personal stigma decreases self-identification as having a mental illness in individuals with untreated mental health problems. We interviewed 207 persons with a currently untreated mental health problem as confirmed by a structured diagnostic interview. Measures included: symptom appraisal, self-ident...

Past research has shown that among the general public, certain causal explanations like biomedical causes are associated with stronger desire for social distance from persons with mental illness. Aim of this study was to find out how different causal attributions of persons with untreated mental health problems regarding their own complaints are as...

Alcohol dependence is a highly stigmatized mental illness, and self-stigmatization has severe consequences for treatment outcomes and help seeking. To better understand the process of self-stigmatization for persons with alcohol dependence, this paper explores the impact of negative childhood experiences on self-stigmatization in alcohol dependence...

Objectives: The aim of the current study was to analyze whether biographical writing interventions have an impact on depression and QoL compared to daily diary writing. We also wanted to investigate differential effects between structured and unstructured interventions. Method: In two Northern regions of Germany, 119 older adults aged 64–90 were ra...

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate psychosocial variables associated with frailty status. Moreover, gender differences in the psychosocial variables associated with frailty were examined. Methods: This cross-sectional study examined a community-dwelling sample of N = 210 older adults (M = 75.31 years). Frailty was measured with...

Background: Frailty is a syndrome of increased vulnerability with adverse outcomes, increasing with age for elderly people. So far, intervention programs have mainly addressed the physical components of frailty. As biographical writing approaches have shown positive effects on cognition and health, the aim of this study is to investigate the effec...

Aims. Frailty is a geriatric syndrome which describes physical deterioration and adverse outcomes. Psychological factors and quality of life are contributing to frailty, but results are still heterogonous and need further exploration. This study aims to explore psychological factors which predict frailty status in older adults. Methods. A sample of...

The Tilburg frailty indicator (TFI) is a self-report measurement instrument which integrates the physical, psychological and social domains to assess frailty in older adults. The aim of this study was the adaptation of the TFI to a German version and testing of the psychometric properties. This study surveyed 210 individuals aged 64-91 years living...

Aims Guided autobiographical writing (Birren, Svensson, Abbott, & Kerschner, 2003), life review therapy (Maercker & Bachem, 2013) and expressive writing (Pennebaker & Chung, 2007) are all forms of reviewing ones own life or life stages. These approaches are mainly applied by older adults with psychological disorders like traumata, depression or dem...

Einleitung: Zahlreiche Befunde weisen darauf hin, dass die Therapie von Abhängigkeitserkrankungen und die Veränderung von Gesundheitsverhalten ähnliche Grundlagen teilen. Aufforderungen zur Veränderung von Gesundheitsverhalten werden häufig als Ich- Bedrohung angesehen. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass kurze Selbstbestätigungs-Interventionen (self-af...

Background: Long-term effects of World War II experiences affect psychological and physical health in aged adults. Forced displacement as a traumatic event is associated with increased psychological burden even after several decades. This study investigates the contribution of forced displacement as a predictor for mental health disorders and adds...

Traumatic events experienced in childhood can be reactivated in older age. The present study investigates the relation of age during flight and forced displacement within World War II (WWII; 2-7 years, 8-13 years, 14-20 years) and the current occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatic events and current posttraumatic stress sympt...

Abstract Traumatic events experienced in childhood can be reactivated in older age. The present study investigates the relation of age during flight and forced displacement within World War II (WWII; 2-7 years, 8-13 years, 14-20 years) and the current occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatic events and current posttraumatic st...

Individuals are facing traumatic situations like natural crises (like floods, earthquakes) and man-made disasters (terroristic attacks) incrementally. Traumatic events are related to psychological consequences for survivors (depression, posttraumatic stress disorder). The experience of a traumatic event can be disclosed through narratives, which ca...

adults with and without displacement experience in World War II as a biographical feature. The study aims to identify predictors of current QoL and to consider the relevant aspects of QoL for older people. Methods: In a survey of n = 420 persons (equally distributed to displaced and nondisplaced group) QoL, socio-demographic, age-related, psycholog...