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The Institute for Global Health and Development

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/9

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Author: search.filters.author.Ager, AlastairHas files: No

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    10 years of the Syrian conflict: A time to act and not merely to remember [Comment]
    (Elsevier, 2021-03-12) Jabbour, Samer; Leaning, Jennifer; Nuwayhid, Iman; Ager, Alastair; Cammett, Melani; Dewachi, Omar; Fouad, Fouad M.; Giacaman, Rita; Sapir, Debarati Guha; Hage, Ghassan; Majed, Ziad; Nasser, Rabie; Sparrow, Annie; Spiegel, Paul; Tarakji, Ahmad; Whitson, Sarah Leah; Yassin, Nasser
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    Decreased awakening cortisol over the course of humanitarian aid deployment is associated with stress-related symptoms: A prospective cohort study
    (Taylor & Francis, 2019-06-10) Qing, Yulan; van Zuiden, Mirjam; Eriksson, Cynthia; Ager, Alastair; Snider, Leslie; Lewis Sabin, Miriam; Scholte, Willem F.; Simon, Winnifred; Kaiser, Reinhard; Lopes Cardoza, Barbara; Olff, Miranda
    Background: Internationally deployed humanitarian aid (HA) workers are at risk for traumatic and chronic stress, and consequently stress-related psychopathology. Therefore, HA deployment may lead to long-term changes in neuroendocrine stress reactivity. Objective: We investigated whether awakening cortisol changed upon deployment, and whether this was associated with lifetime childhood and adulthood traumatic stressors, current deployment-related traumatic and chronic stressors and within-person changes in stress-related symptomatology upon deployment. Method: From a prospective study among expatriate HA workers (n = 214) from 19 international NGOs, we included n = 86 participants (68% females, 33 ± 8 years) who completed questionnaires and cortisol assessments at three points: pre-deployment, early post-deployment and 3–6 months post-deployment. At each assessment, cortisol parameters were calculated from two saliva samples: at awakening and 30 minutes post-awakening. Results: Linear mixed models showed significant decreased awakening cortisol over time (bs: −.036 [SE = .011] to −.008 [SE = .003], all ps < .007). Cortisol was significantly predicted by three-way interactions between lifetime stressors, deployment stressors and time, with the smallest decrease over time in those with limited lifetime and current stressors (all ps < .05). The change in cortisol was no longer significant upon inclusion of stress-related symptoms in the model. Moreover, a sharper cortisol decrease was significantly associated with higher anxiety (p = .004) and PTSD symptoms (p = .049) across assessments. Conclusions: This is the first study indicating decreased awakening cortisol after HA deployment. The exact decrease within participants depended on the amount of lifetime and current stressors. Importantly, when taking changes in stress-related symptomatology into account, we found these accounted for the attenuated awakening cortisol.
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    Issues in the definition and implementation of best practice for staff delivery of interventions for challenging behaviour
    (2001) O'May, Fiona; Ager, Alastair
    A sample of 160 ageing mothers to adult offspring with moderate intellectual disability living at home or out-of-home was studied in regard to the mothers' undesired life events, life satisfaction and well-being within a stress and coping research model. Overall, all significant differences occurred in the group of mothers who were 68 years and older. Caregivers to adult offspring living at home had fewer undesired life events than mothers whose offspring lived out-of-home. Mothers in one-parent families whose adult offspring lived at home had greater levels of life satisfaction than those in two-parent families, whereas mothers in two-parent families whose offspring lived out-of-home had greater levels of life satisfaction and well-being than those in one-parent families. Desired control and social support had differential moderating effects on the three outcome measures.