Community-Based Interventions to Reduce Low Income, African American Women's Risk of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Three Theoretical Models

A community-based sample of disadvantaged African American women (n = 445) was recruited to participate in 1 of 3 theoretically driven experimental interventions based on either the theory of gender and power, social learning theory, or cognitive behavioral theory. Intervention outcomes were compared with a waiting list control condition. From baseline to postintervention, women in the experimental interventions showed differential change on cognitive indices (knowledge and attitudes) and skill acquisition (partner negotiation skills, correct condom application, lubricant selection, and information-provision to social networks) whereas control participants were unchanged. Women in the 3 experimental interventions also completed follow-up assessments for 1 year following the interventions. In all 3 experimental conditions, condom use increased relative to the control group and there were no differences between the experimental interventions. Women who participated in one of the theoretically grounded interventions continued to increase condom use over the following year. Women entering new relationships reported significantly more condom use than did women who remained in ongoing relationships. The findings suggest that intervention models that have proven effective for women who engage in high-risk behavior may be less effective for women in established relationships for whom risk is primarily derived from the extrarelationship behavior of their partners.     

Rationale for Individualizing Interventions to Promote Adjustment to the Nursing Home

This study was designed to determine whether certain variables were predictors of nursing home residents' membership in groups representing qualitative categories of nursing home adjustment. Responses of 186 residents to an open-ended question about how they handled the change to nursing home life were coded as very good, fair, or poor; an adjustment variable was created on the basis of this classification. Analysis of variance of random samples from each adjustment group showed that affect and social support varied significantly with adjustment. However, when discriminant analysis was applied, the three groups could not be differentiated using measure of affect, life satisfaction, social support, participation in the decisions leading to admission, nursing home satisfaction, or health. Based on the conclusion that adjustment to the nursing home is a unique experience for each individual, strategies were proposed for individualizing interventions to enable adjustment.     

Next steps in the abortion debate: It is time to consider some overlooked and new data

As the abortion debate moves into its next stage since The Supreme Court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision, little has changed, except for the dire circumstances in which many pregnant women find themselves. Both sides in the debate continue talking past each other in nasty ways, using the same tired, old arguments. We need more and fresh data really to advance the discussion. This article provides fresh historical, neurobiological, and theological data for the debate. From history we learn that the debate on abortion has not always been about feminism versus conservatives (though the Pro-Life side has been associated with white nationalism) and that Protestants have not always been divided on the issue. Theologically the author directs us to his previous research indicating that disagreements today among the denominations on the issue have not been theologically related. This has important implications for rendering the debate more civil, since it is not about faith and Biblical fidelity. From Neurobiology, we receive fresh insights about when in the course of a pregnancy the fetus/embryo actually begins to function with a human-like brain, when it is truly a homo sapiens. In addition to offering reflections on the implications of these insights for the abortion debate, we are reminded that the inputs of history and science are most appropriate inputs for Lutherans committed to using the Two-Kingdom Ethic in social ethics and politics.     

A General Structure for Legal Arguments About Evidence Using Bayesian Networks

A Bayesian network (BN) is a graphical model of uncertainty that is especially well suited to legal arguments. It enables us to visualize and model dependencies between different hypotheses and pieces of evidence and to calculate the revised probability beliefs about all uncertain factors when any piece of new evidence is presented. Although BNs have been widely discussed and recently used in the context of legal arguments, there is no systematic, repeatable method for modeling legal arguments as BNs. Hence, where BNs have been used in the legal context, they are presented as completed pieces of work, with no insights into the reasoning and working that must have gone into their construction. This means the process of building BNs for legal arguments is ad hoc, with little possibility for learning and process improvement. This article directly addresses this problem by describing a method for building useful legal arguments in a consistent and repeatable way. The method complements and extends recent work by Hepler, Dawid, and Leucari (2007) on object‐oriented BNs for complex legal arguments and is based on the recognition that such arguments can be built up from a small number of basic causal structures (referred to as idioms). We present a number of examples that demonstrate the practicality and usefulness of the method.     

A Case-Control Study of Psychosocial and Aerobic Exercise Factors in Women With Symptoms of Depression

The study is an examination of specific aspects of psychosocial constructs and health-promoting behavior that may be related to symptoms of depression. The authors used a case-control design to investigate possible differences between provisional social support, hardiness dimensions, and exercise behavior and related perceptions in a sample of 94 White, middle-aged women with and without symptoms of depression. The results indicated that women with symptoms of depression have significantly fewer (p < .001) specific forms of social support resources (i.e., reassurance of worth, social integration, guidance, and attachment) and significantly lower (p < .0001) perceptions of control and commitment in their lives. The results also indicated no difference in perceptions and behaviors related to physical activity between women with and without symptoms of depression. Those results suggest that provisional social support, as well as specific dimensions of hardiness, should be the focus of interventions for women with symptoms of depression.     

Fetal Risks,Relative Risks,and Relatives' Risks

Several factors related to fetal risk render it more or less acceptable in justifying constraints on the behavior of pregnant women. Risk is an unavoidable part of pregnancy and childbirth, one that women must balance against other vital personal and family interests. Two particular issues relate to the fairness of claims that pregnant women are never entitled to put their fetuses at risk: relative risks and relatives' risks. The former have been used—often spuriously—to advance arguments against activities, such as home birth, that may incur risk; the latter implicate the nature of relationships in determining the acceptability of coercing or precluding activities. Motivated reasoning by clinicians and judges leads to inaccurate risk assessments, and judgments based on false claims to objectivity. Such judgments undermine the moral and legal standing of pregnant women and do not advance the interests of fetuses, pregnant women, families, or states.     

Individual Differences in Social Dominance Orientation Predict Support for the Use of Cognitive Ability Tests

This study investigates the personality processes involved in the debate surrounding the use of cognitive ability tests in college admissions. In Study 1, 108 undergraduates (M_age = 18.88 years, 60 women, 80 Whites) completed measures of social dominance orientation (SDO), testing self‐efficacy, and attitudes regarding the use of cognitive ability tests in college admissions; SAT/ACT scores were collected from the registrar. Sixty‐seven undergraduates (M_age = 19.06 years, 39 women, 49 Whites) completed the same measures in Study 2, along with measures of endorsement of commonly presented arguments about test use. In Study 3, 321 American adults (M_age = 35.58 years, 180 women, 251 Whites) completed the same measures used in Study 2; half were provided with facts about race and validity issues surrounding cognitive ability tests. Individual differences in SDO significantly predicted support for the use of cognitive ability tests in all samples, after controlling for SAT/ACT scores and test self‐efficacy and also among participants who read facts about cognitive ability tests. Moreover, arguments for and against test use mediated this effect. The present study sheds new light on an old debate by demonstrating that individual differences in beliefs about hierarchy play a key role in attitudes toward cognitive ability test use.     

Psychological interventions for carers of people with dementia: A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative evidence

Rationale: Carers of people with dementia experience significant levels of stress in their everyday role. The National Dementia Strategy in England identifies the key role that carers play in supporting people with dementia living at home, often to the detriment of their social, emotional and physical health. Aims: To add to the substantive knowledge‐base by combining search criteria used by Pinquart and Sörensen (2006) and Gallagher‐Thompson and Coon (2007) to update the literature on psychological interventions for carers of people with dementia published between 2005 and 2011. Method: Following the study inclusion criteria, comprehensive searches were conducted using the electronic databases Medline, PsycINFO, ERIC, and PubMed. Twenty studies were identified, graded and synthesised into the reported systematic review with both quantitative and qualitative studies included to maximise practice application. Results: Consistent with previous findings, three categories of psychological intervention were identified: (i) psychoeducational‐skill building (n=8); (ii) psychotherapy‐counselling (n=1); (iii) multicomponent (n=6). Our review also identified a fourth intervention category, (iv) technology‐based (n=5). The majority of studies in the updated review examine the constructs of depression, burden, social support and well‐being. The development of focused interventions for carers, whether individually tailored interventions or group interventions around a common issue, was significant for developing practice. Future studies across all categories should continue to embed supervision arrangements within their psychological intervention protocols.     

Perinatal substance abuse and human subjects research: are privacy protections adequate?

Privacy incursions in the clinical care of substance abusing pregnant women have gained lay and professional attention recently as the result of a high-profile Supreme Court finding in Ferguson vs City of Charleston et al. In March, 2001 the Supreme Court determined that nonconsensual drug screening of pregnant women by clinicians in a public hospital violated the women's Fourth Amendment rights to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. Coercive or punitive policy approaches to perinatal substance abuse are often based on mistaken assumptions about the nature of addiction and the outcomes of punitive interventions. Much attention has been given to efforts to criminalize pregnancy for drug using women, and civil laws are also coming under increasing scrutiny. Although no state has passed a law criminalizing pregnancy and drug use, an estimated 250 women in more than 30 states have been prosecuted around the country on theories of "fetal abuse." A growing number of states (eighteen to date) have amended their civil child welfare laws to address specifically the subject of a woman's drug use during pregnancy. No one has examined how these laws and social policies could affect research that includes pregnant and parenting women; women (and their families) who stand to lose a great deal should their drug use be brought to the attention of child welfare or criminal justice authorities. We examine the adequacy of current protective mechanisms, such as federal certificates of confidentiality, in protecting research subjects (and investigators) who may be subject to punitive civil or criminal sanctions. We determine that current protective mechanisms may be insufficient to protect research subjects and that investigators and IRB members are often ignorant of the risks imposed by punitive policy approaches to perinatal substance abuse or fall prey to the same mistaken assumptions that inform punitive policies. We conclude that investigators and IRB members have a moral responsibility to understand local, state and national policies and laws governing perinatal substance abuse. Investigators and IRB members should balance the harms of punitive interventions against the protections that may, or may not be afforded to prospective research subjects as well as the prospective benefits, individual and social, of the research. In situations where criminal or punitive policies are in effect, investigators and IRB members should consider whether adequate protections can be achieved. In the context of inadequate protections, potential risks to prospective research subjects and their families may outweigh the individual or social benefits that accrue from the research. Clinical researchers are professionally obligated to work toward amending laws and policies that are not in the best interests of prospective research subjects.     

The Social Networks of Women Experiencing Domestic Violence

The research literature has demonstrated that battered women living in shelters experience impaired social support. This study examines this phenomenon among battered women living in the community. This study compared a group of pregnant battered women (n = 145) and a group of pregnant nonbattered women (n = 58) in terms of their structural [e.g., total number of supporters, network members in violent relationships with their partners (an index of homophily or nonhomophily) and functional (e.g., emotional)] social support. Four reasons for impaired support in battered women were proposed and examined, including social isolation, failure to disclose abuse, homophily, and low SES. Only homophily was related to impaired support among battered women. In addition, the relationship between structural and functional support and mental health outcomes (e.g., depression, self-esteem) was examined. Criticism, practical support, homophily, and disclosure were all significant predictors of mental health for battered women. Implications for community-based interventions are discussed in the context of current intervention strategies with battered women.     

Heroin Use among Adolescents: A Multi-Theoretical Examination

Criminological examination of substance use is common in the extant literature; however, little research has examined heroin use among adolescents. Recent trends in drug use indicate a rise of heroin among adolescents indicating a need to provide theoretical explanations of this phenomenon. This study examines the efficacy of social learning theory and social bond theory to explain heroin use. The study uses a nationally representative sample of adolescents from the Monitoring the Future Survey (N = 2,465). The results support the central arguments from social structure social learning theory. First, the results show that social structure components have links with heroin use. Second, the results show that social learning theory mediates the effect of social structure measures on heroin use. The results are discussed.     

Partner Violence, Social Support, and Distress Among Inner-City African American Women

This study examined the role of social support in the partner violence–psychological distress relation in a sample of African American women seeking medical care at a large, urban hospital (n = 138). Results from bivariate correlational analyses revealed that partner violence was related to lower perceived social support and greater psychological distress, and lower social support was related to more distress. Furthermore, findings based on path analysis indicated that low levels of social support helped account for battered women's increased distress. Findings point to the need for service providers to screen for partner violence in nontraditional sites, such as hospital emergency rooms, and to address the role of social support resources in preventive interventions with African American battered women.     

Still a rite of passage? A perspective on current therapeutic attitudes and interventions in relation to cyberbullying

This paper examines cyberbullying concerning therapeutic interventions. A section on bullying and how bullying impacts the therapeutic environment is included. The author provides his definition of bullying to incorporate cyberbullying and how it is no longer a “new issue” but an evolving one. The current status of therapeutic interventions used to support victims of cyberbullying has been explored, emphasising their effectiveness in assisting those experiencing bullying. A segment has been implemented to comprehend whether practitioners fully understand the potential implications of cyberbullying on clients, whether bullying is still seen as a “rite of passage” and what the possible consequences of this could be. Peer interventions and support groups concerning cyberbullying have been referenced, including The KiVa Programme, the Shared Concern Method and The Circle of Friends Method. These have highlighted specific examples of therapeutic and nontherapeutic approaches to intervene with cyberbullying. A section on potential further training is presented for practitioners working within educational environments. Moreover, physical, psychological, sexual and relational bullying are discussed in the article when applicable, with the umbrella term “bullying” used to discuss all forms of bullying at once. The paper has uncovered two key messages: (1) cyberbullying requires more awareness in counselling and is no longer a new issue and (2) more extensive training is required to assist therapists to work with cyberbullying victims.     

Constructive conversations: Revisiting selected developments with clients and counsellors

Aim: to examine client and counsellor experiences in using and responding to social constructionist (e.g. solution‐focused, narrative and collaborative approaches) questions and other conversational interventions. Method: retrospective comments were elicited from 32 clients and 12 counsellors (trained in social constructionist counselling approaches) in reviewing their videotaped use of (or response to) questions and interventions from the social constructionist approaches in single session lifestyle consultations. These comments were transcribed then analysed using the constant comparison method of grounded theory. Results: five common themes (but with different emphases for clients and counsellors) were identified: exploring and adopting the client's perspective; identifying alternative perspectives; identifying strengths, possibilities, and solutions; developing a shared understanding; struggling to talk in a different way. Conclusions: the findings will be useful to counsellors interested in improving their responsive use of questions and interventions in dialogues with clients.     

Locke and Whately on the Argumentum ad Hominem

This is an exploration of what Locke and Whately said about the Argumentatum ad Hominem, especially in the context of what they said about the other ad arguments, and with a view to ascertaining whether what they said lends support to the understanding of this argument implicit in Johnstone's thesis that all valid philosophical arguments are ad hominem. It is concluded that this support is forthcoming insofar as Locke and Whately had in mind an argument concerned with principles.The essay ends with a brief reformulation of Johnstone's generalization regarding philosophical arguments.     

The Relationship Between Social Support and Family Relationships Among Low-Income Couples Attending Relationship Education

Results are mixed for relationship education (RE) interventions with low-income couples. For couples who experienced positive changes, it is not clear what aspects of program models contributed to change. Many low-income couples attend government-funded RE with limited access to social and community resources. Program models often provide related resources complimentary to RE skill-building. We examined the relationship between income, social support, and family functioning for low-income, ethnically diverse couples (N = 856) who attended RE, as well as the mediating effects of social support on family functioning outcomes. Analyses included three separate dyadic models that examined associations among constructs at baseline and immediately following the RE intervention. Results demonstrated relationships between participants’ reported social support and family functioning such that (a) social support was associated with baseline family functioning for both men and women; (b) men’s baseline social support was influenced by women’s baseline family functioning; and (c) men’s and women’s social support change score had a positive influence on their own family functioning change score. However, social support was not a significant mediator of change in family functioning. Implications for RE practice and research are also discussed.     

Beyond Legal Sanctions: The Correlates of Self-imposed and Socially Imposed Extralegal Risk Perceptions

Research on the formation of sanction risk perceptions has concentrated virtually exclusively on the bases of legal sanction perceptions. This article examines the correlates of extralegal risk perceptions. Theoretical arguments relate previous offending experiences to current perceptions of self-imposed (guilt) and socially imposed (social disapproval) sanctions. The empirical implications of these arguments are tested. Findings indicate that individuals' perceptions of the risk of social disapproval are associated with their own offending experiences, and individuals' perceptions of the risk of guilt are associated with their friends', as well as their own offending experiences. The findings suggest that research on the formation and modification of sanction risk perceptions should not be limited to perceptions of legal sanctions.     

Experiences with stigmatization among transgender individuals after transition: A qualitative study in the Netherlands

Abstract

Background: Transgender individuals belong to one of the most stigmatized groups in society. Although the social stigma of transgender individuals has been examined many times, post transition stigma experiences among transgender individuals have received limited research attention. The aim of this study was to examine experiences with stigmatization among Dutch transgender individuals after their transition.

Method: Ten trans women (age: M?=?58.50, SD?=?9.49) and 10 trans men (age: M?=?42.90, SD?=?13.62) participated in face-to-face semistructured interviews. Grounded theory was used to conceptualize and analyze the data. We examined the positive and negative reactions that transgender individuals experienced in the period after their transition. Furthermore, we explored differences between experiences of trans men and trans women. Finally, we examined differences between cisgender men and women regarding their reactions toward transgender individuals.

Results: Participants reported improved psychological well-being since transition. However, they still experienced different forms of stigmatization. Trans women appeared to experience stronger social stigma than trans men. Trans women also experienced lower social status after their transition. They mainly experienced negative responses from cisgender men. Participants emphasized the importance of social and peer support.

Conclusion: The current study findings demonstrate the presence of stigmatization after transition and argue for psychological aftercare. Social and peer support appeared to be important for coping with stigmatization, and improving the social network of transgender individuals is beneficial. Health providers and researchers are recommended to promote the development of constructive coping skills for transgender individuals with interventions especially targeting trans women.     

Eager,Reluctant, and Nonresponders to a Mailed Longitudinal Survey: Attitudinal and Substance Use Characteristics Differentiate Respondents1

Personality and attitudinal characteristics of eager, reluctant, and nonresponders to a mailed longitudinal survey focusing on substance use are examined through a series of logistic regression analyses. The characteristics that differentiate response patterns in men and women differ in terms of the relative importance of cooperation, behavioral low social conformity (substance use), and support of science/medicine. Socioeconomic status and attitudinal low social conformity did not differentiate among groups of responders, regardless of gender.     

Sexual Minority Stress and Social Support Explain the Association between Sexual Identity with Physical and Mental Health Problems among Young Lesbian and Bisexual Women

Bisexual women report more physical and psychological health problems than lesbian women do, which may be attributed to greater sexual minority stress and less social support. However, many studies combine lesbian and bisexual women into a single group. The current study examined if sexual minority stress and social support mediated the association between women’s sexual identity (lesbian or bisexual) and health-related outcomes. A total of 650 U.S. young adult lesbian (n?=?227) and bisexual (n?=?423) women completed an online survey about sexual minority stress, social support, and physical and mental health problems. Bisexual women reported more physical and mental health problems. A sequential mediation model showed that bisexual women reported greater sexual minority stress than lesbian women, which in turn was associated with less social support, which was associated with more physical and mental health problems. Greater sexual minority stress and lower social support may help explain why bisexual women report more health-related problems than lesbian women. The results of the present study support the importance of examining risk and protective factors for health problems separately for lesbian and bisexual women. Health-related intervention programs that target sexual minority women may need to be tailored differently for lesbian and bisexual women.