Essay: Alcohol's Impact On Mood & Mental Health - Annotated Bibliography.

This assignment contains two main sections, the structured reflection and the annotated bibliography.

Please use the following prompts based on Rolfe et al.’s (2001) three stage reflection model to guide you in this task.

Stage 1.

1. a) Which topic have you chosen and to which School’s Research Group is it linked?
2. b) What is your interest in this topic?
3. c) Describe an issue or problem from practice related to your chosen topic

Stage 2.

1. a) Why is this problem important and therefore worth exploring?
2. b) What is the relevance of this issue or problem to:
3. Nursing practice or
4. Healthcare

Have you provided a reflective account?

Does the reflective account deal with a topic from the School’s research matrix?

Have you included details about your search and included this as  an appendix?

Have you critiqued the journal papers that you intend to use?

Have you provided an annotation of three journal papers ?

Have you thoroughly proof read your work and completed it using the School’s presentation guidelines?

Have you included a declaration of originality?

Have you used the Harvard referencing guidelines to support your work?

Have you included abstracts from the three selected papers as an Appendix?

Stage 1:

This paper will paper will illustrate an annotated bibliography by applying the reflection model describe by Morrissey & Callaghan (2011).

Stage 1:

From the school of research groups (school of nursing-midwifery, 2018) I have chosen the topic “alcohol and its effect on a person’s mood”. I have interested in this topic during my placement in the mental health clinical department.  During my placement, numerous encounters with the mental health patients who had the history of consuming alcohol highlighted that people who often drink to regulate emotions, especially people drink to maintain the optimistic mood often ended up having negative emotions caused by depressions. A study by Cyders et al. (2016), suggested that individuals who drink alcohol might experience some which are influenced by their alcohol consumptions. During my placement, I have observed that binge-like pattern of alcohol consumption often related to the development of depression-like symptoms, which potentially affected their quality of life. I have observed that adolescents are at higher risk of developing depression-like symptoms, which will further influence their quality of life. Therefore, in order to resolve the issues associated with alcohol consumption, appropriate research is required.

Stage 2:

Mental health of individuals is a crucial part of human being, which influences the behaviour of human being and relationship with the surroundings (Simons et al. 2017). With the growing prevalence of alcohol assumptions consumptions and its associated effect, especially in adolescents, the concern arises to control the mental health of the individual. A study by Cyders  et al. (2016), showing that in Ireland,  where alcohol consumptions are high,  Irish men aged between 15 to 24 years have the tendency of committing suicide due to heavy alcohol consumptions. Mason et al. (2014), stated that approximately 48% of the adult individuals and over 60% of young adults between 14 to 22 years had reported the drinking behaviour outside the normal range, the majority of them developed the chronic mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety or other mental illness. Therefore, for young adults, there was a strong association between excessive consumption of alcohol and suicidal behaviour observed. Hence, the research should be conducted on this topic in order to resolve the issue.

Stage three:

 In order to find the relevant research articles, initially, I have conducted the research using PubMed using key terms such as “alcohol consumption”, “mental health” and “depression” reveling 44 journals. From this, I have selected three-research papers that I have found relevant to the topic of research ( Appendix 1). I also chose the articles that carried out on not only adults but also adolescents and opted for a balance qualitative and quantitative research articles to provide various dimensions of alcohol consumptions associations with emotions of individuals.

Stage 2:

 I have chosen these articles since research articles helped me to address the research questions “what is the effect of the alcohol consumption on an individual’s mood’. Moreover, the articles are peer reviewed and showed the different dynamics of the emotional mood changes realted to the alcohol consumptions with concrete evidences.

 The primary aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of alcohol on the emotional inertia with the assistance of the test of alcohol myopia. The study stated that in order to understand the alcohol’s reinfotmance properties, researchers have focused on the alcohol’s effect on the emotions of the individuals. Growing evidence suggested that the work has been evolved to incorporate a variety of the cognitive constructions for explaining the association between alcohol consumptions and emotional experience of the individuals. The authors showed that the most prominent theory of this approach is an alcohol myopia theory that highlights the subjective experience in order to explain the impact of alcohol on individuals. The theory stated that alcohol restricts the ability of the brain to connect immediate experience to prior experience to the extent where individuals’ thoughts and ideas are only driven by emotions. A test has been conducted by application of the theory practically considering the micro level where the tracking response time in milliseconds for demonstrating alcohol stress reliever properties that are associated with the reduction of attention resources. The study conducted a randomized trial control where they recruited the healthy male and female’s social drinkers between the ages of 21 to 28 years via the newspapers advertisements. one group were assigned to receive alcohol and other groups were assigned to receive placebo for comparing the effect.  Those participants who successfully completed the initial phone screening were invited for the alcohol and research smoking laboratory. Majority of the participants who took part in the study are European American, only 11% are African American and only very few participants. The study was conducted by measuring cognitive performance. Therefore, participants were assigned to same alcohol conditions and they seated in the table for the conversation where cameras were installed for recording the facial expression of the participants. The result of the observational study suggested that alcohol a conception associated with the elevation of the mood that allows an individual to enjoy the present situation and loss the awareness of  past experiences.

 The strength of the study lies in the research method.  According to Jamshed (2014), the most common format of data collection in qualitative research is interviewing the individual.   The study also conducted laboratory research for obtaining appropriate data. The study further highlighted the importance of the considering dynamic affective fluctuations using autocorrelation measurements.  The study has several limitations such as the participants who were participated in the study are frequent consumers of alcohol and therefore the rate of change of intoxication fluctuates which made it difficult to measures the association between alcohol consumptions and mood. Moreover, the researchers should examine the impact of alcohol on autocorrelation in social interactions associated with negative emotions.

Stage three:

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effect of alcohol consumption on self-mediated mood symptoms. The study highlighted that mood disorders and its alcohol dependency is a frequent phenomenon. A huge number of empirical evidence has documented the co-morbidity occurrence of alcohol dependency and depression. it is often observed that patients with alcohol dependency and depressions are more prone to death compared to the individual with either of it.  The researchers conducted a prospective study in a population-based sample of alcohol mood symptoms self-medication  with alcohol dependency. The researchers conducted the most common qualitative study that is in dept face-to-face interview based on the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.  The researchers conducted a survey involving 43093 adults in between 2001 to 2002 and  2004 to 2005, 34653 adults were recruited for the reinterviewed.  In the study, researchers measure the association between self-medication of mood symptoms with the alcohol consumptions. 12 months of dependence of DSM-IV alcohol was measured using the logistic regression along with propensity scored method. Researchers showed that the drinking to self-medicate mood symptoms are correlated with the development of alcohol dependency, therefore, once the alcohol dependency developed; it increased the probability of developing a persistent dependency on alcohol. The study showed that cases of alcohol dependency of individual is 12%  and 30% of the persistent alcohol dependency of the individual were contributed to self-medication of mood symptoms of alcohol.

  The strength of the study lies in the research method of the study. The prospective study had been conducted involving individuals that aid in obtaining the perception of the individuals about alcohol dependency.  The prospective study also aid in obtaining the changes of the result while conducting the study. Moreover, the strength of the study is that the researchers conducted a national survey, which provides the estimation of the alcohol dependency with persistent alcohol dependency and self-medication of mood symptoms. The study reduced the selection of potential bias. However, the study contains several limitations such as the researches did not incorporate the experience of sampling methodology. Therefore, the study lacks the ability to evaluate mood symptoms. Although the study has reduced the potential selection bias, misclassification bias still exists in the study which required to reduce in order to obtain an accurate result.

The purpose of the study is to investigate whether changes in the neurogenesis and brain-derived neurotrophic factors expressions are the most possible phenomenon, which involved the depression during the period of alcohol withdrawal after a longer period of alcohol consumptions. In the study, researchers suggested that the binge alcohol consumptions in the United States are 12% higher in younger adults compared to other countries. The majority of the individual who consumed a higher level of alcohol is in-between 12 years to17 years. Consequently, they develop not only depression-like symptoms but also a tendency of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency at a very young age. The researchers conducted a controlled study on 47 male rats who were subjected to the study when they are 25 days old.  The rates were divided into two groups, one were subjected to the ethanol or placebo. Further, they were subjected to either the BDNF receptor agonist or vehicle. The rates were further subjected to the self-administration of ethanol through training for 30minutes daily. The result of the study showed that self-administration of alcohol in binge is more prone to alcohol abuse. The consumption of alcohol is more likely to associate with the development of depression-like symptoms. However, no significant difference observed in alcohol in the blood of the two group of rats. Moreover, results also showed that the binge drinking of alcohol is associated with the development of depression-like symptoms; reduce the probability of survival neuronal progenitor cells present in the hippocampus of the brain.  However, the prime finding of the study is that the use of tyrosine kinase B help in BDNF actions that help in restoring neurogenesis and diminished the alcohol-induced the withdrawal period. Therefore, BDNF molecules can be targeted for the further intervention of alcohol dependence depressive symptoms.

Effect of Alcohol on Emotional Inertia

The strength of the study lies in the experimental methodology. The study showed a significant decrease of BDNF protein levels along with the reduced expression of phosphorated tyrosine B in the hippocampus of the rat.  However, the limitation of the study is that the study failed to consider another molecular mechanism that share the common signalling pathway with the BDNF that might influence the neurogenesis and depression-like symptoms.

These studies provided a clear understanding of the association of heavy alcohol consumptions with the emotional inertia amongst young populations. Fairbairn, and Sayette, (2013) through alcohol myopia test showed that the alcohol consumption, especially in the young individuals allow to enjoy the current context of life and allow them to abolish the past experience in the current context. Consequently, the individuals failed to connect the current context with the experiences.   Crum et al. (2013), highlighted through a prospective study that the individuals who are alcohol dependent, continues consumptions increases the persistent dependency in individuals which associated with self-medication of mood symptoms. Briones and Woods, (2013), experimented on 47 rats, which suggested that the alcohol consumptions are associated with the development of depression-like symptoms and augmenting BDNF actions by the use of tyrosine kinase B agonist which help in restoring neurogenesis. Although the relevant three articles chosen highlighted the associations between the alcohol consumption and emotional health of individual the further studies are required for these articles. The research should be conducted in alternative clinical areas and social context for obtaining an accurate result.

References:

Adamson, E. and Dewar, B., 2015. Compassionate Care: Student nurses' learning through reflection and the use of story. Nurse education in practice, 15(3), pp.155-161.

Briones, T.L. and Woods, J., 2013. Chronic binge-like alcohol consumption in adolescence causes depression-like symptoms possibly mediated by the effects of BDNF on neurogenesis. Neuroscience, 254, pp.324-334.

Crum, R.M., Mojtabai, R., Lazareck, S., Bolton, J.M., Robinson, J., Sareen, J., Green, K.M., Stuart, E.A., La Flair, L., Alvanzo, A.A. and Storr, C.L., 2013. A prospective assessment of reports of drinking to self-medicate mood symptoms with the incidence and persistence of alcohol dependence. JAMA psychiatry, 70(7), pp.718-726.

Cyders, M.A., VanderVeen, J.D., Plawecki, M., Millward, J.B., Hays, J., Kareken, D.A. and O'connor, S., 2016. Gender?specific effects of mood on alcohol?seeking behaviors: Preliminary findings using intravenous alcohol self?administration. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 40(2), pp.393-400.

Fairbairn, C.E. and Sayette, M.A., 2013. The effect of alcohol on emotional inertia: A test of alcohol myopia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122(3), p.770

Jamshed, S. 2014. Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation. Journal of   basic and clinical pharmacy, 5(4), 87.

Mason, B.J., Quello, S., Goodell, V., Shadan, F., Kyle, M. and Begovic, A., 2014. Gabapentin treatment for alcohol dependence: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA internal medicine, 174(1), pp.70-77.

Morrissey J., & Callaghan P. 2011 Communication Skills for Mental Health Nurses. Open University Press McGraw-Hill, Berkshire.

Simons, J.S., Emery, N.N., Simons, R.M., Wills, T.A. and Webb, M.K., 2017. Effects of alcohol, rumination, and gender on the time course of negative affect. Cognition and emotion, 31(7), pp.1405-1418.