Coping strategies and quality of life in women with advanced breast cancer and their family caregivers

Abstract

This study examines the effects of personal resources of both heart patients and their close social partners on patients' coping and quality of life. Generalized personal resources (self-efficacy beliefs, dispositional optimism, self-regulation competence) and outcomes were assessed by questionnaire 1–3 days before surgery (n = 122) and again six months later (n= 50). Outcome variables were coping styles, social resources (social support and social integration), emotional states, and further measures of quality of life. Patients' personal resources were dominant in the prediction of most of the outcomes. Partners' resources were uniquely related to social support, social integration, and quality of life as perceived by the patients. Further, partners' personality resources predicted changes in patients' loneliness and energy levels during the six-month interval.     

Habitual Self‐Control: A Brief Measure of Persistent Goal Pursuit

Habitual self‐control is defined as a trait‐like personal resource factor that facilitates the enactment of difficult intentions. A 14‐item Habitual Self‐Control Questionnaire (HSCQ) was developed to assess this trait. Reliability, factorial validity, and criterion validity were assessed in five undergraduate student subsamples with an overall N of 2224. Internal consistency was .81 across the entire sample, and test–retest reliability was .83 over a one‐month interval. The HSCQ showed a theoretically meaningful pattern in terms of convergent and discriminant validity and criterion validity in predicting a variety of health behaviours that relate to self‐control, including exercise, dieting behaviour, binge eating and weight loss success. Further, the HSCQ contributed uniquely to the prediction of health behaviours beyond alternative self‐control scales. In a longitudinal part of the study, the HSCQ added to the prediction of action plan completion and satisfaction beyond motivation and moderated the relationship between motivation and enactment of action plans as theoretically expected. In sum, the results provided strong evidence for the reliability and validity of the HSCQ and highlighted some theoretically meaningful differences to already existing measures of self‐control. Theoretical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lobbying for Civil and Religious Rights of Immigrants and Muslims: Desecuritization Strategies of Islamic Umbrella Organizations in Germany

This article discusses how Islamic umbrella organizations advocate for civil rights of immigrants and Muslims in Germany. By focusing on the changing migration and security regimes at the turn of the twenty-first century, it analyzes the political emphasis on perceived “threats” in light of theoretical debates about the “securitization of migration”, and in particular, the role of Islamic organizations as lobbyists which publicly protest against associations being made between the two policy fields. Their public protest is against provisions of the new Nationality Act (2000) and the Immigration Act (2005) that require immigrants to prove German language skills, to be able to support themselves, and to pass naturalization tests as well as against the lack of dual citizenship and local voting rights. In addressing these issues, Islamic umbrella organizations expand their traditional scope of advocacy work to achieve religious rights for Muslim individuals and organizations, such as the official recognition of Islamic umbrella organizations and the introduction of Islamic religious education in public schools.     

Attentional Performance in Children and Adolescents with Tic Disorder and Co-Occurring Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: New Insights from a 2 × 2 Factorial Design Study

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of both tic disorder (TD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on attentional functions. N = 96 children and adolescents participated in the study, including n = 21 subjects with TD, n = 23 subjects with ADHD, n = 25 subjects with TD+ADHD, and n = 27 controls. Attentional performance was tested based on four computerized attention tasks (sustained attention, divided attention, go/nogo and set shifting). The effect of TD as well as ADHD on attentional performance was tested using a 2 × 2 factorial approach. A diagnosis of TD had no negative impact on attentional functions but was associated with improved performance in the set shifting task. By contrast, regardless of a diagnosis of TD, subjects with ADHD were found to perform worse in the sustained attention, divided attention and go/nogo task. No interaction effect between the factors TD and ADHD was revealed for any of the attention measures. Our results add to findings from other areas of research, showing that in subjects with TD and ADHD, ADHD psychopathology is often the main source of impairment, whereas a diagnosis of TD has little or no impact on neuropsychological performance in most cases and even seems to be associated with adaptive mechanisms.     

Dedicating Time to Volunteering: Values,Engagement, and Commitment to Beneficiaries

A moderated mediation model was developed to explain the variation in the amount of time volunteers dedicate to their chosen voluntary cause. Data from 534 volunteers of an international aid and development agency in the United Kingdom revealed a positive relationship between prosocial values and time spent volunteering. The results also show that volunteer engagement fully mediated the relationship between the value motive and time spent volunteering, and the strength of the mediated effect varied as a function of volunteers' commitment to beneficiaries. These findings provide a new perspective on the link between volunteers' motivation and active participation in volunteer activities. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.     

Settler Colonialism,Decolonization, and Climate Change

The article proposes that climate change makes enduring colonial injustices and structures visible. It focuses on the imposition and dominance of colonial concepts of land and self-determination on Indigenous peoples in settler states. It argues that if the dominance of these colonial frameworks remains unaddressed, the progressing climate change will worsen other colonial injustices, too. Specifically, Indigenous self-determination capabilities will be increasingly undermined, and Indigenous peoples will experience the loss of what they understand as relevant land from within their own ontologies of land. The article holds that even if settler states strive to repair colonial injustices, these efforts will be unsuccessful if climate change occurs and decolonization is pursued within the framework of a settler colonial ontology of land. Therefore, the article suggests, decolonization of the ontologies of land and concepts of self-determination is a precondition for a just response to climate change.     

Gains and losses in action memory.

Enacting action phrases (SPT for subject-performed task) produces better free recall than only learning the phrases verbally (VT for verbal task). A widespread explanation of the enactment effect is based on the distinction between item-specific and relational information. There is widespread agreement that the main reason is the excellent item-specific encoding by enactment. However, there is little direct evidence in the case of free recall. The role of relational information is less clear. We suggest that content-based relational encoding is better in VTs than in SPTs. In three experiments, in which multiple free recall testing used item gains and losses as indices of item-specific and content-based relational encoding, respectively, these assumptions were confirmed. Consistently more gains (indexing better item-specific encoding) and more losses (indexing poorer relational encoding) were observed in SPTs than in VTs (Experiments 1 and 2). Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the content-based relational information underlying losses is not identical with order-relational information (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, it was shown that an item-specific orienting task for VTs produced an equivalent number of item gains and losses as did the SPT condition.     

Early tracking of informant accuracy and inaccuracy

Three‐ and four‐year‐old children (N=131) were tested for their sensitivity to the accuracy and inaccuracy of informants. Children were presented with one of three conditions. In the Accurate‐Inaccurate condition, one informant named objects accurately whereas the other named them inaccurately. In the Accurate‐Neutral condition, one informant named objects accurately whereas the other merely drew attention to them. Finally in the Inaccurate‐Neutral condition, one informant named objects inaccurately whereas the other merely drew attention to them. In subsequent test trials, 4‐year‐olds preferred to seek and accept information in a selective fashion across all three conditions, suggesting that they monitor informants for both accuracy and inaccuracy. By contrast, 3‐year‐olds were selective in the Accurate‐Inaccurate and Inaccurate‐Neutral conditions but not in the Accurate‐Neutral condition, suggesting that they monitor informants only for inaccuracy and take accuracy for granted.     

Influence of social support on adaptation to surgery.

The authors investigated the influence of patients' social support on subjective and objective stress indicators before, during, and after surgery. The sample consisted of 42 male and 42 female patients. Social support as perceived by the patients was measured by a surgery-specific inventory with the Emotional Support and Informational Support subscales. Perioperative adaptation was assessed by self-reported anxiety, the amount of narcotics needed for anesthesia induction, and the length of the postoperative stay. Results demonstrated that patients who scored high on social support showed less anxiety, received lower doses of narcotics, and had a shorter hospital stay than did patients with low support. However, gender was a moderator of some of these associations. Compared with men, women exhibited more relationships that were in accordance with the hypotheses.