A Multi-Informant Approach to Assessing Safety Behaviors among Adolescents: Psychometric Properties of the Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination

Safety behaviors are subtle avoidance strategies for minimizing distress within social situations (e.g., avoidance of eye contact). These behaviors factor prominently in the development and maintenance of social anxiety concerns, and when patients use these behaviors within psychosocial treatments for social anxiety, this may impede treatment response. Prior work supports the need to include measures of safety behaviors within evidence-based assessments of social anxiety. Along these lines, researchers developed the Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination (SAFE) to assess safety behaviors among adults. However, we know relatively little about the SAFE’s psychometric properties when administered to adolescents. We tested the SAFE’s psychometric properties using adolescent self-reports and parallel parent reports in a mixed-clinical/community sample of 96 14 to 15 year-old adolescents and their parents (33 clinic-referred; 63 community control; 59.4% African American). Adolescent and parent SAFE reports displayed moderate correspondence with each other. Both adolescent and parent SAFE reports related positively to well-established measures of adolescent social anxiety and depressive symptoms. Both reports distinguished adolescents on referral status as well as cut scores on well-established measures of adolescent social anxiety. Further, both adolescent and parent SAFE reports displayed incremental validity in relation to survey reports of adolescent social anxiety, over-and-above survey reports of adolescent depressive symptoms, which commonly co-occur with social anxiety. However, adolescent (but not parent) SAFE reports predicted adolescents’ social anxiety and state arousal as displayed within social interactions with unfamiliar peer confederates. These findings have important implications for leveraging multi-informant approaches to assessing safety behaviors among adolescents.     

Individual differences in physiological flexibility predict spontaneous avoidance

People often regulate their emotions by resorting to avoidance, a putatively maladaptive strategy. Prior work suggests that increased psychopathology symptoms predict greater spontaneous utilisation of this strategy. Extending this work, we examined whether heightened resting cardiac vagal tone (which reflects a general ability to regulate emotions in line with contextual demands) predicts decreased spontaneous avoidance. In Study 1, greater resting vagal tone was associated with reduced spontaneous avoidance in response to disgust-eliciting pictures, beyond anxiety and depression symptoms and emotional reactivity. In Study 2, resting vagal tone interacted with anxiety and depression symptoms to predict spontaneous avoidance in response to disgust-eliciting film clips. The positive association between symptoms and spontaneous avoidance was more pronounced among participants with reduced resting vagal tone. Thus, increased resting vagal tone might protect against the use of avoidance. Our findings highlight the importance of assessing both subjective and biological processes when studying individual differences in emotion regulation.     

The relationship between caregivers’ gender equality norms and girls’ need satisfaction and self-esteem under conditions of resource scarcity

Motivation and Emotion - As key socialization figures in children’s lives, caregivers play an important role in the nurturing of children’s psychological needs. Parental conditional...     

Who Is Referred to Mental Health Services in the Juvenile Justice System?

We describe the mental health referral rate among youth in a correction facility, examine how sociodemographic and criminal history characteristics relate to referral, and explore how these variables and diagnostic class differ by referral source. Data were abstracted from case records. The referral rate was low (6%). Non-Latino youth, repeat offenders, and violent offenders were more likely to be referred compared to all detained youth. Referral source also varied by violent offense history and diagnosis type. Future studies examining access to mental health services should take into account a detained youth's sociodemographic, criminal history, and clinical characteristics.     

Understanding and Using Informants’ Reporting Discrepancies of Youth Victimization: A Conceptual Model and Recommendations for Research

Discrepancies often occur among informants’ reports of various domains of child and family functioning and are particularly common between parent and child reports of youth violence exposure. However, recent work suggests that discrepancies between parent and child reports predict subsequent poorer child outcomes. We propose a preliminary conceptual model (Discrepancies in Victimization Implicate Developmental Effects [DiVIDE]) that considers how and why discrepancies between parents’ and youths’ ratings of child victimization may be related to poor adjustment outcomes. The model addresses how dyadic processes, such as the parent–youth relationship and youths’ information management, might contribute to discrepancies. We also consider coping processes that explain why discrepancies may predict increases in youth maladjustment. Based on this preliminary conceptual framework, we offer suggestions and future directions for researchers who encounter conflicting reports of community violence exposure and discuss why the proposed model is relevant to interventions for victimized youths.     

Parent–Child Informant Discrepancy is Associated with Poorer Treatment Outcome

In child clinical psychology, parent and child reports are typically used to make treatment decisions and determine the effectiveness of treatment. However, there are often moderate to large discrepancies between parent and child reports, and these discrepancies may reflect meaningful information about the parent, the child, and the parent–child relationship. Additionally, parent–child discrepancy may predict treatment outcome. This study examined parent–child discrepancy in a sample of 62 children (10.15±1.26 years old) with prominent social competence deficits and mixed diagnoses who were treated with a resilience-based, cognitive–behavioral group therapy program (the Resilience Builder Program) in a private clinical setting. Further analyses were conducted to investigate whether parent–child discrepancy related to treatment outcome. Consistent with the literature, prominent parent–child discrepancy was found across domains, with parents generally reporting more severe symptomatology. Treatment with the Resilience Builder Program resulted in significant improvement in parent report of multiple domains of functioning, including resilience, social skills, and emotion and behavior regulation. Importantly, larger parent–child discrepancy at the start of therapy was predictive of poorer overall treatment response. Given its impact on therapeutic effectiveness, these results suggest that parent–child disagreement regarding the child’s impairment at the onset of therapy is worthy of assessment prior to treatment, and may itself be a topic worthy of targeting in treatment.     

Perspectives of children and adolescents on the perceived determinants of physical activity during recess

Promotion of healthy lifestyles in youth focuses on school-based interventions with the aim to increase physical activity (PA) during school days. Drawing on seventeen focus group discussions from three purposively selected Estonian schools, we explored factors that perceivably affect students’ recess physical activity (RPA). Both inductive and deductive principles of data analysis were used to extract major and subthemes related to factors that inhibit or enhance RPA. Participants identified barriers and facilitators to recess PA as originating mainly from physical and organizational school environment. Also, unsuitable weather was described as a barrier to being active. Additionally, feelings, behavioral and normative beliefs were described as constraining or facilitating RPA. Results highlighted two culture-specific unique perceived determinants of RPA that need to be addressed during the development of school-based interventions to increase PA.     

Identifying the role of sociodemographic factors in major depressive disorder and suicidality among Spanish-speaking Latino patients in a federally qualified health center

Rates of suicide and major depressive disorder (MDD) are currently at the highest point in the history of the United States (US). However, these rates are not distributed evenly among the population and Latinos show disproportionately high rates of both suicide and MDD. Yet, past research has infrequently explored factors related to suicide and MDD in primary care settings that serve as the major community portal for mental health among the Latino population. Thus, the current study investigated sociodemographic variables (marital status, nativity, education, employment, primary language, age, and gender) in terms of their relations with suicidal ideation, suicide risk, MDD, and MDD symptom severity among Latino primary care patients in a Federally Qualified Health Center (N = 634, M _age = 39.46, SD = 11.46, 87.1% female). Results indicated that gender and Nativity were associated with suicidal ideation, older age was associated with suicide risk, and higher education and having a partner were negatively associated with MDD and depressive symptom severity. These results provide novel insight into the role of sociodemographic factors predicting suicide and MDD among Latinos in primary care, and suggest greater scientific and clinical attention can be focused on certain sociodemographic factors to offset mental health disparities among this group.     

Synergistic effects of pain and alcohol use in relation to depressive and anxiety symptoms among Latinos in primary care

Although past work has shown that alcohol use co-occurs with anxiety/depression among Latinos, little work has examined the variables that qualify such associations. The present investigation sought to address whether pain severity (i.e. pain intensity and/or pain-related disability, respectively) moderated relations between hazardous drinking and depressive/anxious arousal symptoms among an economically disadvantaged Latino sample recruited from a primary care medical setting. Participants included 253 adult Latinos (M_age = 38.5 years, SD = 10.8; 86.6% female) who attended a community-based primary care clinic. There was a significant interaction of hazardous drinking with pain intensity in relation to depressive symptoms and significant interactions of hazardous drinking and pain-related disability in relation to depressive and anxious arousal symptoms. Hazardous drinking was associated with more severe depressive/anxious arousal symptoms only when pain intensity/disability was high. This is the first study to demonstrate the moderating role of pain intensity and disability in associations between hazardous drinking and anxiety/depression among Latinos in a primary care medical setting.