The main objective of this paper is to assess pro-environmental behavior, climate change anxiety,... more The main objective of this paper is to assess pro-environmental behavior, climate change anxiety, perception, hope, and despair in different political orientations. Our specific aims included to assess the validity of all the instruments used; to assess whether the factor structure of the scales were valid across political orientations; to evaluate their reliability; to assess differences concerning age, gender, and political orientation; to learn the variables that explain pro-environmental behavior; and to evaluate the moderating role of climate change perception, despair, and hope in the relationship between climate change anxiety and pro-environmental behavior. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs), multi-group CFAs (to calculate measurement invariance), multiple linear regressions, and moderations were performed. Results showed that pro-environmental behavior and climate change hope achieved the four assessed levels of invariance across different political orientations; climate c...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This study aims to evaluate if the relation between love life satisfaction, assessed by the satis... more This study aims to evaluate if the relation between love life satisfaction, assessed by the satisfaction with love life scale (SWLLS), and capacity to love, assessed by the capacity to love inventory (CTL-I), is moderated by gender and by being or not in a romantic relationship, in a Portuguese sample. To this end, the adaptation and validation of CTL-I for this population were carried out through an exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) followed by a Robust Maximum Likelihood (MLR) confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA). A multi-group analysis for measurement invariance depending on being in a romantic relationship or not was assessed. The model’s reliability was also evaluated. The associations between SWLLS and CTL-I were tested by correlations, regressions and moderations. At last, differences between means and distributions concerning sociodemographic variables were determined. The results showed that a good model fit for the Portuguese version of the CTL-I was found, as well as ...
Introduction: Internet addiction results in intense and frequent use. There is a gap in the liter... more Introduction: Internet addiction results in intense and frequent use. There is a gap in the literature in relation to the unawareness of problematic Internet use (PIU) in predicting Internet use time (IUT). Objective: To identify sociodemographic/psychological variables contributing and moderating IUT. Participants: 1,270 participants of the European Social Survey (EES), Round 8. Instruments: EES variables assessing Internet use (IU), health perception, well-being, social life, and sociodemographic variables, underlying the construct. Results: Age, education, sources of household income, social activities compared to others of the same age and subjective general health explain IU per day; and age, years of education, domicile and socially meeting with other people with whom to discuss intimate matters explain IU per week. Education was found to be a significant moderator in the relationship between subjective general health and IU per week; and in the relationship between socially meeting with other people and IU per day. Discussion: Maladaptive IU, when the perception of health is worse, and adaptive IU, when the perception of social life is better, are both suggested, depending on education. Conclusions: These findings point to the need to study IUT involving educational level, keeping in mind that what may be PIU at one educational level may not be the case at another.
The main objective of this paper is to assess pro-environmental behavior, climate change anxiety,... more The main objective of this paper is to assess pro-environmental behavior, climate change anxiety, perception, hope, and despair in different political orientations. Our specific aims included to assess the validity of all the instruments used; to assess whether the factor structure of the scales were valid across political orientations; to evaluate their reliability; to assess differences concerning age, gender, and political orientation; to learn the variables that explain pro-environmental behavior; and to evaluate the moderating role of climate change perception, despair, and hope in the relationship between climate change anxiety and pro-environmental behavior. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs), multi-group CFAs (to calculate measurement invariance), multiple linear regressions, and moderations were performed. Results showed that pro-environmental behavior and climate change hope achieved the four assessed levels of invariance across different political orientations; climate c...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This study aims to evaluate if the relation between love life satisfaction, assessed by the satis... more This study aims to evaluate if the relation between love life satisfaction, assessed by the satisfaction with love life scale (SWLLS), and capacity to love, assessed by the capacity to love inventory (CTL-I), is moderated by gender and by being or not in a romantic relationship, in a Portuguese sample. To this end, the adaptation and validation of CTL-I for this population were carried out through an exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) followed by a Robust Maximum Likelihood (MLR) confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA). A multi-group analysis for measurement invariance depending on being in a romantic relationship or not was assessed. The model’s reliability was also evaluated. The associations between SWLLS and CTL-I were tested by correlations, regressions and moderations. At last, differences between means and distributions concerning sociodemographic variables were determined. The results showed that a good model fit for the Portuguese version of the CTL-I was found, as well as ...
Introduction: Internet addiction results in intense and frequent use. There is a gap in the liter... more Introduction: Internet addiction results in intense and frequent use. There is a gap in the literature in relation to the unawareness of problematic Internet use (PIU) in predicting Internet use time (IUT). Objective: To identify sociodemographic/psychological variables contributing and moderating IUT. Participants: 1,270 participants of the European Social Survey (EES), Round 8. Instruments: EES variables assessing Internet use (IU), health perception, well-being, social life, and sociodemographic variables, underlying the construct. Results: Age, education, sources of household income, social activities compared to others of the same age and subjective general health explain IU per day; and age, years of education, domicile and socially meeting with other people with whom to discuss intimate matters explain IU per week. Education was found to be a significant moderator in the relationship between subjective general health and IU per week; and in the relationship between socially meeting with other people and IU per day. Discussion: Maladaptive IU, when the perception of health is worse, and adaptive IU, when the perception of social life is better, are both suggested, depending on education. Conclusions: These findings point to the need to study IUT involving educational level, keeping in mind that what may be PIU at one educational level may not be the case at another.
Objective: To study anxiety as a variable of middle- and long-term psy-chological impact of pre-s... more Objective: To study anxiety as a variable of middle- and long-term psy-chological impact of pre-symptomatic testing (PST) for 3 autosomal dominant late-onset disorders: Huntington's disease (HD), Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) and familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) TTR V30M. This topic addresses specific and significant knowledge to the Portuguese consultant population. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 203 participants: 170 (83.7%) underwent the PST for FAP, 29 (14.3%) for HD and 4 (2%) for MJD. Of the 203 participants, 73 (36.0%) were asymptomatic carriers, 29 (14.5%) were symptomatic carriers, 9 (4.5%) were FAP patients who have had a liver transplant and 89 (44.5%) were non-carrier; they were mostly women (58.1%) and married (66.5%). The anxiety variable was assessed using the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). Results: The anxiety scores were higher for the symptomatic carriers and for those who underwent psychological support consultations over the years; for the formers, the mean scores were superior to 40 points, which reflects clinical anxiety. Conclusion: Although it was not possible to differentiate between the middle- and long-term psychological impacts, this study supports the conclusion that the proximity to the age of symptoms onset might be a factor that triggers individuals’ levels of psychological disturbance.
This cross-sectional study investigated depression as the middle-(4 years) and long-term (7 and 1... more This cross-sectional study investigated depression as the middle-(4 years) and long-term (7 and 10 years) psychological impact of pre-symptomatic testing (PST) for 3 autosomal dominant late-onset diseases: Huntington's disease (HD), Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) and familial amyloidotic poly-neuropathy (FAP) TTR V30M. It included 203 subjects: 170 (83.7%) underwent the PST for FAP, 29 (14.3%) for HD and 4 (2%) for MJD. Of these 203, 73 were still asymptomatic carriers, 29 (14.5%) were symptomatic, 9 (4.5%) were FAP liver transplanted patients and 89 (44.5%) were non-carriers. Subjects were mainly women (58.1%) and married (66.5%). The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to evaluate depression. Scores were higher for symptomatic carriers and for those who have made one or more psychological support consultations over the years. For the formers, the mean scores pointed to mild depression. Asymptomatic carriers and non-carriers had similar scores but it was impossible to differentiate the psychological impact between the medium and long-term. For symptomatic carriers, there
Objective: To study anxiety as a variable of the mid-and long-term psychological impact of pre-sy... more Objective: To study anxiety as a variable of the mid-and long-term psychological impact of pre-symptomatic testing for three autosomal dominant late-onset disorders – Huntington's disease (HD), Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) and familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) TTR V30M – in a Portuguese sample. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 203 participants: 170 (83.7%) underwent pre-symptomatic testing for FAP, 29 (14.3%) for HD, and 4 (2%) for MJD. Of the 203 participants, 73 (36.0%) were asymptomatic carriers, 29 (14.5%) were symptomatic carriers, 9 (4.5%) were diagnosed with FAP and had a liver transplant, and 89 (44.5%) were non-carriers. Most were women (58.1%) and married (66.5%). The anxiety variable was assessed using the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). Results: The anxiety scores were higher for symptomatic carriers and for those who underwent psychological support consultations over the years. For symptomatic carriers, the mean scores were superior to 40 points, which reflects clinical anxiety. Conclusion: Although it was not possible to differentiate between the mid-and long-term psychological impacts, this study supports the conclusion that the proximity to the age of symptoms onset might be a trigger for anxiety.
Presymptomatic Testing (PST) for Huntington’s disease (HD) is available since 1986 and its impact... more Presymptomatic Testing (PST) for Huntington’s disease (HD) is available since 1986 and its impact on carriers and non-carriers is not yet fully clear. It is important to understand its psychological impact so that the PST protocols are best suited to the subjects at-risk. Preventing a negative psychological impact is the ultimate purpose of the genetic counselling process. This study addresses the long-term negative psychological impact assessment of PST for HD. The sample consisted of 29 subjects that were 50% at-risk for HD, and had performed the PST for at least three years ago. Participants answered the sociodemographic questionnaire and the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Although most of the sample does not present clinically significant psychopathology values, 6 subjects present a Positive Symptoms Distress Index value which is equal to or greater than 1.7; 7 subjects present a value which is equal to or greater than 40 of anxiety; and 7 subjects present mild depression. Symptomatic carriers, who underwent the PST less time ago, present worse psychopathological symptoms, depression and anxiety. Subjects with this profile should have a more intense and personalized psychological and social support, aiming to prevent the risk of suicide and to improve the quality of their lives.
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Papers by Angela Leite