Search

'Mentally vulnerable' young people are a strong focal point in public debate and policy in Denmark at present, and a variety of cultural activities are now being offered to them. Building on ethnographic fieldwork (April 2018-August 2019) with so-called mentally vulnerable young women (aged 18-36) who meet in literature reading groups, this article seeks to connect the reading group with the phenomenon of 'mental vulnerability', first through a review of the historical emergence and contemporary use of the term, and second by considering what (painful) experiences the term signifies for individuals belonging to this category. This contextualization involves a discussion of literature on the role of context in anthropological analyses. The article concludes with an empirical contradiction: the reading group provides a sanctuary from everyday demands for purposefulness and productivity, but it can also be used as a strategy for navigating such demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ethos (00912131) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background and Aim: Mental vulnerability (i.e. a tendency to experience psychosomatic symptoms, mental symptoms or interpersonal problems) is associated with various diseases. This study investigated whether mental vulnerability is associated with hospitalization for depression.Methods: A prospective study was conducted of six cohorts from the population of Copenhagen County, Denmark, with baseline information on mental vulnerability, lifestyle, social factors and comorbidity collected in 1976, 1982–84, 1991 and 1997–98 (N = 11,862). By register-linkage information on hospital contacts for affective disorders were obtained from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register. The association between mental vulnerability and depression was examined using Kaplan-Meier plots allowing for death as competing risk and Cox proportional-hazard models adjusting for possible confounders.Results: The cohort of 11,862 persons yielded a mean follow-up time of 12.3 years with 170 persons hospitalized with depression. The adjusted hazard ratio for hospitalization for depression associated with mental vulnerability was 1.23 (95% CI, 1.16–1.31) per step on the most used 12-item scale.Conclusions: Mental vulnerability may be a risk factor for depression. Early identification and treatment of depression are essential for preventing chronic depression, reduced social functioning and disability. Psychiatric interviews should be used to evaluate whether the criteria for depression are fulfilled, but it may furthermore be relevant to identify persons who may be at risk of developing depression in the long term. The possibility of using, for example, the mental vulnerability scale for such purpose should be further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: The mechanisms linking cardiovascular disease (CVD) and depression are still not established. We investigated the impact of mental vulnerability on the relationship between CVD and depression., Methods: A total of 19,856 individuals from five cohorts of random samples of the background population in Copenhagen were followed from baseline (1983-2011) until 2017 in Danish registries. Additive hazard and Cox proportional hazard models were used to analyze the effects of confounding by mental vulnerability as well as interactions between mental vulnerability and CVD on the risk of depression., Results: During follow-up, 15.3% developed CVD, while 18.1% experienced depression. A strong positive association between CVD and depression (hazard ratio: 3.60 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 3.30; 3.92]) corresponding to 35.4 (95% CI: 31.7; 39.1) additional cases per 1,000 person-years was only slightly attenuated after adjustment for mental vulnerability in addition to other confounders. Synergistic interaction between CVD and mental vulnerability was identified in the additive hazard model. Due to interaction between CVD and mental vulnerability, CVD was associated with 50.9 more cases of depression per 1,000 person-years among individuals with high mental vulnerability compared with individuals with low mental vulnerability., Conclusions: Mental vulnerability did not explain the strong relationship between CVD and depression. CVD was associated with additional cases of depression among individuals with higher mental vulnerability indicating that this group holds the greatest potential for intervention, for example, in rehabilitation settings.