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ABSTRACT Background Research associates maternal stress exposures (especially when occurring late in gestation) with heightened risk of subsequent emotional and behavioral problems in affected offspring. However, as yet, no study has examined the association between prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) and affected children's risk of anorexia- or bulimia-type eating disturbances. Objective To study the influences of PNMS on later disordered eating in exposed offspring. Method We used the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT)-26 to measure eating attitudes and behaviors in 54 thirteen-year olds whose mothers had been exposed, while pregnant with these children, to the 1998 Quebec Ice Storm-a natural disaster regarded as a model of exposure to severe environmental stress. Mothers' stress was measured shortly after exposure to the storm using established indices of objective and subjective stress. Results Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses indicated that once variance owing to children's body mass index and sex was accounted for, stress exposures during the third trimester of pregnancy predicted elevated EAT-26 scores in affected children-perhaps even more so when levels of objective stress were high. Discussion Third trimester exposure to PNMS, especially when objectively severe, seems to be associated with increased eating-disorder-linked manifestations in affected early adolescents. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2015; 48:512-516) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Stress and coping have been found to be strongly associated with quality of life (QOL). Compared to community controls (CC), individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (SZ) report a lower QOL. Lower QOL in SZ may be explained by patients'' tendency to react differently to stress and to use less effective coping strategies than CC, but no studies to date have examined these possible associations. A main goal of this study, therefore, was to examine the roles of stress response and coping style in explaining QOL in SZ and CC, while controlling for potential confounds including personality. Subjects were 30 SZ patients and 29 matched controls who completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Salivary cortisol was used as an objective measure of stress response. Participants rated their coping strategies with the Brief COPE, judged their QOL with the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and rated their personality using the NEO-Five Factor Inventory. Results indicate that, even when confounds are controlled for, blunted cortisol response predicts better QOL in SZ patients. Additionally, results suggest that more frequent use of coping strategies is associated with better QOL but only in patients with blunted cortisol response; those who showed an increase in cortisol in response to the TSST have better QOL the lower their coping score. Possible explanations and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Some studies have found that the speech of certain schizophrenia patients becomes more disordered in stressful laboratory situations. It is unknown, however, whether affective reactivity of speech is associated with stress responsiveness of symptoms in the real world. This study examines whether language-reactive patients report more stress-related impairments in work functioning than language-nonreactive patients. Forty-six patients provided speech samples and completed a work history interview. It was found that the language-reactive patients were more likely than the language-nonreactive patients to endorse items pertaining to social anxiety and difficulty relating to others as reasons for their work difficulties. This suggests that language-reactive patients are more sensitive to social stressors than language-nonreactive patients. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]