Jandu Yani U (for all families): Tailored Triple P Training and Support Promote Empowerment in Remote Aboriginal Communities

Journal of Child and Family Studies - To enhance the accessibility and acceptability of evidence-based parenting programs in Indigenous communities, there is a need to build a confident and skilled...     

Stress in telephone helpline nurses is associated with failures of concentration,attention and memory,and with more conservative referral decisions

Nurses working for telephone‐based medical helplines must maintain attentional focus while quickly and accurately processing information given by callers to make safe and appropriate treatment decisions. In this study, both higher levels of general occupational stress and elevated stress levels on particular shifts were associated with more frequent failures of attention, memory, and concentration in telephone nurses. Exposure to a stressful shift was also associated with a measurable increase in objectively assessed information‐processing errors. Nurses who experienced more frequent cognitive failures at work made more conservative decisions, tending to refer patients on to other health professionals more often than other nurses. As stress is associated with cognitive performance decrements in telephone nursing, stress‐reduction interventions could improve the quality and safety of care that callers to medical helplines receive.     

Latent Profile Analysis of Observed Parenting Behaviors in a Clinic Sample

We examined typologies of parenting practices using latent profile analysis (LPA) in a sample of families with young children who had externalizing behavior disorders. We also examined mother and child characteristics associated with class membership using ratings from multiple informants. The sample included pooled data from five parenting treatment outcome research studies on oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and/or conduct disorder (CD) conducted throughout the past 20 years. These studies included 21 separate cohorts of children resulting in a total of 514 families. All children met diagnostic criteria for ODD or CD and 78 % were male. Parenting practices were observed by independent raters using the Dyadic Parent–child Interactive Coding System-Revised (DPICS-R). Four summary scores (i.e., total critical statements, total commands, total positive, total supportive) from the DPICS-R were used as class indictors in the LPA. Four classes best characterized the parenting practices of this clinic sample, roughly comprising a quarter of the sample each: Positive Only, Negative Only, Positive/Negative, and Neither Positive/Negative. High observed child negative behaviors, low observed child warmth, high socioeconomic status, and low academic performance distinguished the two classes with high negative behaviors (Negative Only, Positive/Negative) from the other classes. These results provide markers of the most common parenting profiles at entry into treatment programs for behavior disorders in young children. Findings have significant implications for the tailoring parenting interventions and supports to specific family needs.     

Ethnically based rejection sensitivity and academic achievement: The danger of retracting into one's heritage culture

This study examined the relation between ethnically based rejection sensitivity and academic achievement in a sample of 936 immigrant students in Germany and Switzerland. The theory of race‐based rejection sensitivity that originated in North America was extended to immigrant students in Europe. The rough political climate against immigrants in Europe makes it probable that immigrant youth face particular difficulties and are affected by ethnically based rejection sensitivity, at least as much as—or even more than—minority youth in the United States. Using a standardized literacy performance test and multilevel analyses, we found that ethnically based rejection sensitivity was negatively related to academic achievement for immigrant students. This relation was partially mediated by a strong contingency of the students' self‐worth on the heritage culture, as well as by a low number of native German or Swiss majority‐group friends. We interpret these processes as immigrant students' efforts to cope with ethnically based rejection sensitivity by retracting into their heritage culture and avoiding majority‐group contact, which unfortunately, however, at the same time also results in lower academic achievement. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Common and specific cognitive deficits in schizophrenia: relationships to function

The goals of the present study were to assess the interrelationships among tasks from the MATRICS and CNTRACS batteries, to determine the degree to which tasks from each battery capture unique variance in cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia, and to determine the ability of tasks from each battery to predict functional outcome. Subjects were 104 schizophrenia patients and 132 healthy control subjects recruited as part of the CNTRACS initiative. All subjects completed four CNTRACS tasks and two tasks from the MATRICS battery: Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia Symbol Coding and the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test. Functional outcome was also assessed in the schizophrenia subjects. In both the patient and control groups, we found significant intercorrelations between all higher order cognitive tasks (episodic memory, goal maintenance, processing speed, verbal learning) but minimal relationships with the visual task. For almost all tasks, scores were significantly related to measures of functional outcome, with higher associations between CNTRACS tasks and performance-based measures of function and between one of the MATRICS tasks and self-reported functioning, relative to the other functioning measures. After regressing out variance shared by other tasks, we continued to observe group differences in performance among task residuals, particularly for measures of episodic memory from both batteries, although these residuals did not correlate as robustly with functional outcome as raw test scores. These findings suggest that there exists both shared and specific variance across cognitive tasks related to cognitive and functional impairments in schizophrenia and that measures derived from cognitive neuroscience can predict functional capacity and status in schizophrenia.     

Threats to the Internal Validity of Spinal Surgery Outcome Assessment: Recalibration Response Shift or Implicit Theories of Change?

A recalibration response shift will cause the patient to think about a self-report measure’s response options differently after a health state change. Commonly assessed using the retrospective-pretest design (“then-test”), recent guidelines suggest adjusting then-test estimates for competing explanations. This prospective longitudinal study investigated recalibration response shift after adjusting for implicit theories of change in patients undergoing spinal surgery. The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Short Form-36 (SF-36) were collected before surgery and at 6 weeks and 3 months after spinal decompression surgery. Then-tests of the measures were also collected at all post-tests. Recalibration response shift was operationalized as the then-minus-pre difference score on the evaluative SF-36. Implicit theories of change were operationalized as the then-minus-pre difference score on the perception-based ODI. Improved vs. No-Effect patient groups were compared using the Minimally Important Difference (±15 points) as a cut-off on the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) items for back and leg pain. Logistic regression analyses investigated whether recalibration response shift had an independent effect distinguishing patient groups, after adjusting for implicit theories of change. The sample (baseline n?=?169, mean age 52, 39 % female) was well-educated, and 1/3 were working. All then-minus-pre difference scores were non-zero at each time point and were stable over time. In the adjusted models distinguishing Improved versus No Effect groups, then-minus-pre ODI difference scores were significant in the majority of the adjusted models at all timepoints, but only one then-minus-pre SF-36 difference score—for physical functioning recalibration—was significant and only at 6-weeks post-surgery. This suggests that implicit theories of change bias the estimation of post-surgical outcomes, but that recalibration response shift biased only the estimation of physical functioning and only at 6 weeks post-surgery. Recalibration response shift and implicit theories of change can both be sources of bias in patient-reported outcome assessment. Our findings suggest that implicit theories of change are a greater threat to validity in this patient sample. Future research using the then-test should control for implicit theories of change to minimize misspecification of effects.