Background: Depression is the top contributor to global disability. Early detection of depression and depressive symptoms enables timely intervention and reduces their physical and social consequences. Prevalence estimates of depression approach 30% among college students. Passive, device-based sensing further enables detection of depressive symptoms at a low burden to the individual. Objective: We leveraged an ensemble machine learning method (light gradient boosting machine) to detect depressive symptoms entirely through passive sensing. Methods: A diverse sample of undergraduate students (N=28; mean age 19.96, SD 1.23 y; 15/28, 54% women; 13/28, 46% Latine; 10/28, 36% Asian; 4/28, 14% non-Latine White; 11/28, 4% other) participated in an intensive longitudinal study. Participants wore 2 devices (an Oura ring for sleep and physiology data, and a Samsung smartwatch for physiology and movement data) and installed the AWARE software on their mobile devices, which collects passive sensing data such as screen time. Participants were derived from a randomized controlled trial of a positive psychology mobile health intervention. They completed a self-report measure of depressive symptoms administered weekly over a 19- to 22-week period. Results: The light gradient boosting machine model achieved an F1-score of 0.744 and a Cohen κ coefficient of 0.474, indicating moderate agreement between the predicted labels and the ground truth. The most predictive features of depressive symptoms were sleep quality and missed mobile interactions. Conclusions: Findings suggest that data collected from passive sensing devices may provide real-time, low-cost insight into the detection of depressive symptoms in college students and may present an opportunity for future prevention and perhaps intervention.

Background: Community service providers (CSPs) play an integral role in the health care of low-income Hispanic or Latinx (HL) communities. CSPs have high-stress frontline jobs and share the high-risk demographics of their communities. Relational savoring (RS) has been associated with lower cardiovascular reactivity and psychosocial benefits, with particular promise among HL participants. In this study, we aim to identify RS’s potential in promoting CSPs’ cardiometabolic health and, in so doing, having broader impacts on the community they serve. Objective: This randomized controlled waitlist study aims to examine the effect of an RS intervention on (1) CSPs’ cardiometabolic health (cardiometabolic risk factors and outcomes) and (2) CSPs’ threats to leaving the workforce. Methods: We will recruit a sample of 80 CSPs from community health agencies serving low-income HL populations. Participating CSPs will be randomized into an experimental or a waitlist control. Participants will complete 1 or 2 baseline assessment batteries (before the intervention), depending on the assigned group, and then complete 2 more assessment batteries following the 4-week RS intervention (after the intervention and at a 3-mo follow-up). The RS intervention consists of guided reflections on positive moments of connection with others. Electrocardiogram data will be obtained from a wearable device (Polar Verity Sense or Movisens) to measure heart rate variability. The primary outcome is cardiometabolic health, consisting of cardiometabolic risk (obtained from heart rate variability) and cardiometabolic health behaviors. The secondary outcomes include CSPs’ threats to leaving the workforce (assessed via psychological well-being), intervention acceptability, and CSPs’ delivery of cardiometabolic health programming to the community (exploratory). Analyses of covariance will be used to examine the effects of RS on cardiometabolic health and on CSPs’ threats to leaving the workforce, comparing outcomes at baseline, postintervention, and at follow-up across participants in the experimental versus waitlist group. Results: The study has been approved by the University of California, Irvine, Institutional Review Board and is currently in the data collection phase. By May 2023, 37 HL CSPs have been recruited: 34 have completed the baseline assessment, 28 have completed the 4 intervention sessions, 27 have completed the posttreatment assessment, and 10 have completed all assessments (including the 3-mo follow-up). Conclusions: This study will provide valuable information on the potential of RS to support cardiometabolic health in HL CSPs and, indirectly, in the communities they serve. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05560893; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05560893 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/51427

Purpose: This study examined whether female college students could accurately detect unknown male students’ propensity for aggression/intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration in romantic relationships after viewing their online dating profile, as well as whether individual differences in women’s IPV victimization history or attachment orientation predicted their accuracy. Method: Heterosexual adult males (N = 9, M_age = 23.40), selected from a larger sample of N = 41 males, created de-identifiable dating profiles and reported on their history of aggression and IPV perpetration within relationships. Participants (N = 453 heterosexual adult females, M_age = 21.87) then viewed all 9 dating profiles and rated their perception of each male’s level of aggression/IPV perpetration risk (naïve to all other information about the person), as well as reported on their own individual characteristics (attachment, IPV victimization history). Results: Female participants were able to discriminate between males at high/medium/low levels of aggression, but were only able to discriminate between males with high/low levels of IPV perpetration history. Attachment orientation predicted the magnitude of participants’ ratings of male aggression: Specifically, females higher in avoidance and lower in anxiety perceived males to be less aggressive. Additionally, participants’ attachment orientation was associated with their accuracy of identifying aggression, such that females higher in attachment anxiety and lower in avoidance were found to overestimate males’ aggression. Participants’ IPV victimization history was unrelated to their ratings of males’ aggression/IPV perpetration risk. Conclusion: Attachment, but not IPV perpetration history, impacts females’ perceptions of propensity for IPV risk.

Evidence for the effectiveness of attachment-based interventions in improving youth’s socioemotional health increases each year, yet potential for scalability of existing programs is limited. Available programs may have lower acceptability within low-income immigrant communities. Co-designing and implementing interventions with trained community workers (promotores) offers an appealing solution to multiple challenges, but community workers must have high investment in the program for this to be a workable solution. This study examines the experiences of promotores involved in the co-creation and delivery of an attachment-based intervention program for low-income Latinx youth (ages 8 to 17) and their mothers. Promotores (N=8) completed surveys, reporting on the experiences of each therapy group in terms of group dynamic (e.g., promotores’ connectedness to each group, perceived program relevance). Following the completion of the intervention study, promotores participated in interviews in which they described their experiences in co-creating the intervention, delivering the intervention to the community, and their recommendations for improving the intervention. Overall, promotores perceived group dynamics as positive, though the mother groups were evaluated as significantly higher in quality (e.g., lower conflict) than the youth groups. Interviews revealed that promotores enjoyed the co-creation process and identified important areas for improvements for the intervention (incorporation of more visuals, creation of age-limited groups, reducing number of youth sessions) and evaluation (reduction in length, modification of language). Integrating input from promotores in the process of co-creating and implementing an intervention can benefit every member of the community from the program participants to the providers themselves.

Mentalization refers to the ability to understand the mental states of oneself and those of others that motivate action and behavior. Mentalization has generally been linked to adaptive development and healthy functioning whereas diminished mentalization has been associated with maladaptive development and psychopathology. The vast majority of research on mentalization and developmental trajectories, however, is based on Western countries. The overall aim of this study was therefore to examine mentalizing abilities in a novel sample of 153 typically developing and atypically developing Iranian children (Mage = 9.41, SDage = 1.10, Range = 8–11, 54.2% females) recruited from a primary school and health clinic in Tehran. The children completed semi-structured interviews that were later transcribed and coded for mentalization. The parents provided reports on internalizing and externalizing symptoms, demographic information, and all formal diagnoses of the children. The results pointed at general age and sex differences across the two groups. Older children showed more adaptive mentalization compared to the younger children; boys and girls used different mentalizing strategies when facing difficult situations. The typically developing children were better at mentalizing than the atypically developing children. Finally, more adaptive mentalization was associated with lower externalizing and internalizing symptoms among all children. The findings of this study contributes with expanding mentalization research to also encompass non-Western populations and the results hold crucial educational and therapeutic implications.