Psychological distress and negative appraisals in survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

Cheng, Sammy; Wong, C. W.; Tsang, J.; Wong, Kwok-Chuen

doi:10.1017/s0033291704002272

Cited by 321 publications

(319 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

280

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The results are not surprising as, in addition to the physical impairment, the long period of isolation and extreme uncertainty during the SARS illness had created enormous psychological stress [150] and mood disturbances [151]. Furthermore, steroid toxicity, personal vulnerability and psychosocial stressors might have contributed to the development of psychosis in some patients [152].…”

Section: Long-term Outcomementioning

confidence: 99%

SARS: clinical presentation, transmission, pathogenesis and treatment options

2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) appeared as the first emerging infectious disease of this century. It is fortunate that the culprit virus can be grown without much difficulty from a commonly used cell line, allowing an unlimited supply of isolates for further molecular studies and leading to the development of sensitive diagnostic assays. How the virus has successfully jumped the species barrier is still a mystery. The superspreading events that occurred within hospital, hotel and high-density housing estate opens a new chapter in the mechanisms and routes of virus transmission. The old practice of quarantine proved to be still useful in controlling the global outbreak. Despite all the available sophisticated tests, alertness with early recognition by healthcare workers and prompt isolation of suspected cases is still the most important step for containing the spread of the infection. Although the rapidly evolving outbreak did not allow the conducting of systematic clinical trails to evaluate treatment options, the accumulated experience on managing SARS patients will improve the clinical outcome should SARS return. Although SARS led to more than 700 deaths worldwide, the lessons learnt have prepared healthcare systems worldwide to face future emerging and re-emerging infections.

show abstract

Section: Long-term Outcomementioning

confidence: 99%

SARS: clinical presentation, transmission, pathogenesis and treatment options

2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In Hong Kong, hospitalized survivors of SARS were more distressed on average than a matched group of healthy controls from the same geographic area (Chua et al, 2004). Categorical analyses indicated that 35% of the hospitalized SARS survivors in Hong Kong experienced moderate to severe levels of anxiety and depression (Cheng, Wong, Tsang, & Wong, 2004) and that 16% met criteria for depression and 10% for PTSD (Yan, Dun, & Li, 2004). Remarkably, almost as many survivors, 35% of the sample, evidenced a resilient trajectory of stable high mental health.…”

Section: Latent Growth Mixture Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weighing the Costs of Disaster

Bonanno

Brewin

Kaniasty

et al. 2010

Psychol Sci Public Interest

980

443

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SummaryDisasters typically strike quickly and cause great harm. Unfortunately, because of the spontaneous and chaotic nature of disasters, the psychological consequences have proved exceedingly difficult to assess. Published reports have often overestimated a disaster's psychological cost to survivors, suggesting, for example, that many if not most survivors will develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); at the same time, these reports have underestimated the scope of the disaster's broader impact in other domains. We argue that such ambiguities can be attributed to methodological limitations. When we focus on only the most scientifically sound research-studies that use prospective designs or include multivariate analyses of predictor and outcome measures-relatively clear conclusions about the psychological parameters of disasters emerge. We summarize the major aspects of these conclusions in five key points and close with a brief review of possible implications these points suggest for disaster intervention.1. Disasters cause serious psychological harm in a minority of exposed individuals. People exposed to disaster show myriad psychological problems, including PTSD, grief, depression, anxiety, stress-related health costs, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation. However, severe levels of these problems are typically observed only in a relatively small minority of exposed individuals. In adults, the proportion rarely exceeds 30% of most samples, and in the vast majority of methodologically sound studies, the level is usually considerably lower. Among youth, elevated symptoms are common in the first few months following a high-impact disaster, but again, chronic symptom elevations rarely exceed 30% of the youth sampled.2. Disasters produce multiple patterns of outcome, including psychological resilience. In addition to chronic dysfunction, other patterns of disaster outcome are typically observed. Some survivors recover their psychological equilibrium within a period ranging from several months to 1 or 2 years. A sizeable proportion, often more than half of those exposed, experience only transient distress and maintain a stable trajectory of healthy functioning or resilience. Resilient outcomes have been evidenced across different methodologies, including recent studies that identified patterns of outcome using relatively sophisticated data analytic approaches, such as latent growth mixture modeling.3. Disaster outcome depends on a combination of risk and resilience factors. As is true for most highly aversive events, individual differences in disaster outcomes are informed by a number of unique risk and resilience factors, including variables related to the context in which the disaster occurs, variables related to proximal exposure during the disaster, and variables related to distal exposure in the disaster's aftermath. Multivariate studies indicate that there is no one single dominant predictor of disaster outcomes. Rather, as with traumatic life events more generally, most predictor variables exert small...

show abstract

“…Thus, not only did they have to endure highly debilitating symptoms with minimal support, they also had to face the threat of death on their own (Cheng & Wong, 2005). Among those who survived, most suffered from significant psychological distress following one-month recovery (Cheng, Wong, Tsang, & Wong, 2004b;Cheng et al, 2004a). Following short-term physical recovery, SARS survivors were reported to experience significantly higher levels of distress, anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as a lower quality of life compared to the community and psychiatric samples (Cheng et al, 2004a;Cheng et al, 2004b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among those who survived, most suffered from significant psychological distress following one-month recovery (Cheng, Wong, Tsang, & Wong, 2004b;Cheng et al, 2004a). Following short-term physical recovery, SARS survivors were reported to experience significantly higher levels of distress, anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as a lower quality of life compared to the community and psychiatric samples (Cheng et al, 2004a;Cheng et al, 2004b). One year after illness onset, SARS survivors continued to have significant impairment across various quality of life domains compared to their same-age normal controls (Hui et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among them, one was conducted during the acute treatment phase (10 cases with psychiatric complications) (Cheng, Tsang, Ku, Wong, & Ng, 2004), one assessed survivors at 3, 6, and 12 months after symptom onset (Hui et al, 2005), and the rest of the studies surveyed survivors six months or less after hospital discharge (Cheng et al, 2004a;Cheng et al, 2004b;Cheng et al, 2006;Lee et al, 2005;Sheng, Cheng, Lau, Li, & Chan, 2005;Wu, Chan, & Ma, 2005). Given SARS is a novel infectious disease, studying its longterm effects on health and well-being and its psychosocial correlates may inform researchers and practitioners in preparing for and handling similar pandemic (e.g., avian flu) in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Social support and psychological adjustment to SARS: The mediating role of self-care self-efficacy

Mak

Law

Woo

et al. 2009

Psychology & Health

112

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The study tested the model of perceived support from medical staff and family/friends on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) survivors' mental health as mediated by self-care self-efficacy. One hundred and forty-three SARS survivors recruited from the Hong Kong Hospital Authority following 18 months recovery were surveyed by trained interviewers using structured questionnaires. Based on structural equation modeling, findings showed that self-care self-efficacy completely mediated the effects of perceived medical staff support and perceived family/friends support on mental health status. The model achieved a satisfactory fit, CFI = 0.98, NNFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.06, and explained 75.2% of the variance in mental health status. The study is the first attempt in understanding long-term psychological adjustment of SARS survivors. Findings may be applicable to other infectious disease outbreaks in informing psychosocial factors that are important to long-term recovery.

show abstract

Psychological distress and negative appraisals in survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

Abstract: Psychological distress of SARS survivors at 1-month recovery is real and significant. Negative appraisals may play a pivotal role in the development of psychological distress for SARS survivors, at least in the short term.

Cited by 321 publications

References 10 publications

SARS: clinical presentation, transmission, pathogenesis and treatment options

SARS: clinical presentation, transmission, pathogenesis and treatment options

Weighing the Costs of Disaster

Social support and psychological adjustment to SARS: The mediating role of self-care self-efficacy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About