Ellen Frank
Biographic Data
| ID | 4193370 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ellen Frank |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ellen |
| FAMILY NAME | Frank |
| SIGNATURE | FRANK E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pittsburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3298-7893 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Poor Sleep Health in Adulthood
OBJECTIVE: Childhood trauma has been related to adverse behavioral, mental, and health outcomes later in life. Sleep may be a potential mechanism through which childhood trauma is related to adverse health. The current retrospective study aimed to characterize the relationship between childhood trauma exposure and sleep health, a novel multidimensional measure of sleep. METHODS: Participants (N = 161; mean [standard deviation] age = 59.85 [9.06] …
Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk
We propose a model wherein chronic stress results in glucocorticoid receptor resistance (GCR) that, in turn, results in failure to down-regulate inflammatory response. Here we test the model in two viral-challenge studies. In study 1, we assessed stressful life events, GCR, and control variables including baseline antibody to the challenge virus, age, body mass index (BMI), season, race, sex, education, and virus type in 276 healthy adult volunte…
Dream Content in Complicated Grief
Bereavement and its accompanying psychological response (grief) constitute potent experiences that necessitate the reorganization of cognitive-affective representations of lost significant attachment figures during both wakefulness and dreaming. The goals of this preliminary study were to explore whether the dream content of 77 adults with complicated grief (CG) differed from that of a normative sample and whether CG patients who dream of the dec…
Psychothérapie interpersonnelle et des rythmes sociaux (PTIRS) dans le trouble bipolaire II
Le trouble bipolaire II (BP II) est une pathologie psychiatrique fréquente, récurrente et débilitante. Pourtant, peu d’études ont évalué quelles étaient les meilleures approches pour le traitement de cette maladie. La psychothérapie interpersonnelle et des rythmes sociaux (PTIRS) [Interpersonal and Social Rythm Therapy] a démontré une utilité dans le traitement du trouble bipolaire I, en association avec la médication. Contrairement au trouble BP…
Evidence of Dysregulated Peripheral Oxytocin Release Among Depressed Women
Objective: Oxytocin is a hypothalamic neuropeptide that plays a key role in mammalian female reproductive function. Animal research indicates that central oxytocin facilitates adaptive social attachments and modulates stress and anxiety responses. Major depression is prevalent among postpubertal females, and is associated with perturbations in social attachments, dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress axis, and elevated levels…
Attachment Anxiety, Relationship Context, and Sleep in Women With Recurrent Major Depression
Objective: To examine the relationship between attachment anxiety, marital status, bed-partner status, and sleep in recurrently depressed women. Methods: The current study measured polysomnography (PSG) and subjective sleep quality in 107 women with recurrent major depression. Women were categorized as high or low in attachment anxiety based on Bartholomew and Horowitz’s Relationship Questionnaire (1991). Results: There were no significant main o…
Assessment and Treatment of Depression in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease
Objective: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened an interdisciplinary working group of experts to develop recommendations for the assessment and treatment of depression in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Method: Consensus of experts. Results: Our current recommendations are that the Beck Depression Inventory-I be employed for epidemiological studies of depression and CHD, that the Patient Health Questionnaire 2-item v…
Treatment of Complicated Grief
CONTEXT: Complicated grief is a debilitating disorder associated with important negative health consequences, but the results of existing treatments for it have been disappointing. OBJECTIVE: To compare the efficacy of a novel approach, complicated grief treatment, with a standard psychotherapy (interpersonal psychotherapy). DESIGN: Two-cell, prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial, stratified by manner of death of loved one and treatme…
Feasibility of Providing Culturally Relevant, Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Antenatal Depression in an Obstetrics Clinic
Objective: To minimize barriers to care, ameliorate antenatal depression, and prevent postpartum depression, we conducted a pilot study to assess the feasibility of providing brief interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-B) to depressed, pregnant patients on low incomes in an obstetrics and gynecological (OB/GYN) clinic. Method: Twelve pregnant, depressed women were recruited as a convenience sample from the clinic and were offered a pretreatment engage…
Stressful Life Events Precede Exacerbations of Multiple Sclerosis
Objective We longitudinally monitored life events and health changes in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to determine whether stressful events may trigger exacerbation of MS. Methods Twenty-three women with MS were followed for 1 year. Each subject completed the Psychiatric Epidemiologic Research Interview on a weekly basis. Further information on potentially stressful events was acquired using the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule. Neur…
Adolescent Onset of the Gender Difference in Lifetime Rates of Major Depression
Prepubescent boys are, if anything, more likely than girls to be depressed. During adolescence, however, a dramatic shift occurs: between the ages of 11 and 13 years, this trend in depression rates is reversed. By 15 years of age, females are approximately twice as likely as males to have experienced an episode of depression, and this gender gap persists for the next 35 to 40 years. We offer a theoretical framework that addresses the timing of th…
Consensus criteria for traumatic grief
BACKGROUND: Studies suggest that symptoms of traumatic grief constitute a distinct syndrome worthy of diagnosis. AIMS: A consensus conference aimed to develop and test a criteria set for traumatic grief. METHOD: The expert panel proposed consensus criteria for traumatic grief. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analyses tested the performance of the proposed criteria on 306 widowed respondents at seven months post loss. RESULTS: ROC analyses …
Types of stressors that increase susceptibility to the common cold in healthy adults.
Two-hundred seventy-six volunteers completed a life stressor interview and psychological questionnaires and provided blood and urine samples. They were then inoculated with common cold viruses and monitored for the onset of disease. Although severe acute stressful life events (less than 1 month long) were not associated with developing colds, severe chronic stressors (1 month or longer) were associated with a substantial increase in risk of disea…
Gender Differences in Complicated Grief among the Elderly
The resolution of grief has been frequently posited to progress through stages. Seventy-one widows and twenty-six widowers bereaved from five months to thirty-seven years were studied to determine if their resolution of grief-related symptoms could be mapped onto a stage theory of grief and to examine if men and women follow the same temporal course. An analysis of variance was used to test for differences in complicated grief symptoms over time …
Inventory of complicated grief
The effects of marital status and partner support on rape trauma
Psychological functioning within the first four weeks after rape was compared for married and single victims. Marital status did not significantly affect psychological symptoms following the assault. For married women, lack of support by the partner--particularly when it was unexpected--was significantly related to poor psychological functioning after the rape
Frequency of Sexual Dysfunction in “Normal” Couples
In analyzing the responses of 100 predominantly white, well educated and happily married couples to a self-report questionnaire, this study examined the frequency of sexual problems experienced and the relations of those problems to sexual satisfaction. Although over 80 per cent of the couples reported that their marital and sexual relations were happy and satisfying, 40 per cent of the men reported erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction, and 63 per…
Dream Content in Complicated Grief
Bereavement and its accompanying psychological response (grief) constitute potent experiences that necessitate the reorganization of cognitive-affective representations of lost significant attachment figures during both wakefulness and dreaming. The goals of this preliminary study were to explore whether the dream content of 77 adults with complicated grief (CG) differed from that of a normative sample and whether CG patients who dream of the dec…
Feasibility of Providing Culturally Relevant, Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Antenatal Depression in an Obstetrics Clinic
Objective: To minimize barriers to care, ameliorate antenatal depression, and prevent postpartum depression, we conducted a pilot study to assess the feasibility of providing brief interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-B) to depressed, pregnant patients on low incomes in an obstetrics and gynecological (OB/GYN) clinic. Method: Twelve pregnant, depressed women were recruited as a convenience sample from the clinic and were offered a pretreatment engage…
Frequency of Sexual Dysfunction in “Normal” Couples
In analyzing the responses of 100 predominantly white, well educated and happily married couples to a self-report questionnaire, this study examined the frequency of sexual problems experienced and the relations of those problems to sexual satisfaction. Although over 80 per cent of the couples reported that their marital and sexual relations were happy and satisfying, 40 per cent of the men reported erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction, and 63 per…
The effects of marital status and partner support on rape trauma
Psychological functioning within the first four weeks after rape was compared for married and single victims. Marital status did not significantly affect psychological symptoms following the assault. For married women, lack of support by the partner--particularly when it was unexpected--was significantly related to poor psychological functioning after the rape
Inventory of complicated grief
Gender Differences in Complicated Grief among the Elderly
The resolution of grief has been frequently posited to progress through stages. Seventy-one widows and twenty-six widowers bereaved from five months to thirty-seven years were studied to determine if their resolution of grief-related symptoms could be mapped onto a stage theory of grief and to examine if men and women follow the same temporal course. An analysis of variance was used to test for differences in complicated grief symptoms over time …
Types of stressors that increase susceptibility to the common cold in healthy adults.
Two-hundred seventy-six volunteers completed a life stressor interview and psychological questionnaires and provided blood and urine samples. They were then inoculated with common cold viruses and monitored for the onset of disease. Although severe acute stressful life events (less than 1 month long) were not associated with developing colds, severe chronic stressors (1 month or longer) were associated with a substantial increase in risk of disea…
Consensus criteria for traumatic grief
BACKGROUND: Studies suggest that symptoms of traumatic grief constitute a distinct syndrome worthy of diagnosis. AIMS: A consensus conference aimed to develop and test a criteria set for traumatic grief. METHOD: The expert panel proposed consensus criteria for traumatic grief. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analyses tested the performance of the proposed criteria on 306 widowed respondents at seven months post loss. RESULTS: ROC analyses …
Adolescent Onset of the Gender Difference in Lifetime Rates of Major Depression
Prepubescent boys are, if anything, more likely than girls to be depressed. During adolescence, however, a dramatic shift occurs: between the ages of 11 and 13 years, this trend in depression rates is reversed. By 15 years of age, females are approximately twice as likely as males to have experienced an episode of depression, and this gender gap persists for the next 35 to 40 years. We offer a theoretical framework that addresses the timing of th…
Stressful Life Events Precede Exacerbations of Multiple Sclerosis
Objective We longitudinally monitored life events and health changes in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to determine whether stressful events may trigger exacerbation of MS. Methods Twenty-three women with MS were followed for 1 year. Each subject completed the Psychiatric Epidemiologic Research Interview on a weekly basis. Further information on potentially stressful events was acquired using the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule. Neur…
Feasibility of Providing Culturally Relevant, Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Antenatal Depression in an Obstetrics Clinic
Objective: To minimize barriers to care, ameliorate antenatal depression, and prevent postpartum depression, we conducted a pilot study to assess the feasibility of providing brief interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-B) to depressed, pregnant patients on low incomes in an obstetrics and gynecological (OB/GYN) clinic. Method: Twelve pregnant, depressed women were recruited as a convenience sample from the clinic and were offered a pretreatment engage…
Treatment of Complicated Grief
CONTEXT: Complicated grief is a debilitating disorder associated with important negative health consequences, but the results of existing treatments for it have been disappointing. OBJECTIVE: To compare the efficacy of a novel approach, complicated grief treatment, with a standard psychotherapy (interpersonal psychotherapy). DESIGN: Two-cell, prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial, stratified by manner of death of loved one and treatme…
Assessment and Treatment of Depression in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease
Objective: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened an interdisciplinary working group of experts to develop recommendations for the assessment and treatment of depression in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Method: Consensus of experts. Results: Our current recommendations are that the Beck Depression Inventory-I be employed for epidemiological studies of depression and CHD, that the Patient Health Questionnaire 2-item v…
Attachment Anxiety, Relationship Context, and Sleep in Women With Recurrent Major Depression
Objective: To examine the relationship between attachment anxiety, marital status, bed-partner status, and sleep in recurrently depressed women. Methods: The current study measured polysomnography (PSG) and subjective sleep quality in 107 women with recurrent major depression. Women were categorized as high or low in attachment anxiety based on Bartholomew and Horowitz’s Relationship Questionnaire (1991). Results: There were no significant main o…
Evidence of Dysregulated Peripheral Oxytocin Release Among Depressed Women
Objective: Oxytocin is a hypothalamic neuropeptide that plays a key role in mammalian female reproductive function. Animal research indicates that central oxytocin facilitates adaptive social attachments and modulates stress and anxiety responses. Major depression is prevalent among postpubertal females, and is associated with perturbations in social attachments, dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress axis, and elevated levels…
Psychothérapie interpersonnelle et des rythmes sociaux (PTIRS) dans le trouble bipolaire II
Le trouble bipolaire II (BP II) est une pathologie psychiatrique fréquente, récurrente et débilitante. Pourtant, peu d’études ont évalué quelles étaient les meilleures approches pour le traitement de cette maladie. La psychothérapie interpersonnelle et des rythmes sociaux (PTIRS) [Interpersonal and Social Rythm Therapy] a démontré une utilité dans le traitement du trouble bipolaire I, en association avec la médication. Contrairement au trouble BP…
Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk
We propose a model wherein chronic stress results in glucocorticoid receptor resistance (GCR) that, in turn, results in failure to down-regulate inflammatory response. Here we test the model in two viral-challenge studies. In study 1, we assessed stressful life events, GCR, and control variables including baseline antibody to the challenge virus, age, body mass index (BMI), season, race, sex, education, and virus type in 276 healthy adult volunte…
Dream Content in Complicated Grief
Bereavement and its accompanying psychological response (grief) constitute potent experiences that necessitate the reorganization of cognitive-affective representations of lost significant attachment figures during both wakefulness and dreaming. The goals of this preliminary study were to explore whether the dream content of 77 adults with complicated grief (CG) differed from that of a normative sample and whether CG patients who dream of the dec…
The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Poor Sleep Health in Adulthood
OBJECTIVE: Childhood trauma has been related to adverse behavioral, mental, and health outcomes later in life. Sleep may be a potential mechanism through which childhood trauma is related to adverse health. The current retrospective study aimed to characterize the relationship between childhood trauma exposure and sleep health, a novel multidimensional measure of sleep. METHODS: Participants (N = 161; mean [standard deviation] age = 59.85 [9.06] …
Psychology (15 works) · Clinical Psychology (12 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Psychiatry (11 works) · Anxiety (5 works) · Depression (economics) (5 works) · Grief (5 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (5 works) · Internal Medicine (5 works) · Complicated grief (4 works)