A randomized controlled pilot trial of acceptance and commitment training (ACT) for preventing stress-related ill health among future nurses

Background: Levels of stress and burnout increase during nursing education. This development has consequences for nursing students' health, learning, competence, and interest in quality issues in health care. Design: In a randomized controlled pilot trial with a sample of 113 nursing students the effect of an intervention using techniques from acceptance and commitment training (ACT) to prevent the development of stress and burnout was evaluated. Method: The 6 × 2-hour program was compared to standard treatment (reflection seminars) post-intervention and at a three-month follow-up using longitudinal analysis of mean response profiles. Mechanisms of change were investigated using a baseline-post intervention two-mediator model. Results: The intervention resulted in increased mindful awareness and decreased experiential avoidance, as well as decreased perceived stress and burnout. Levels of mindful awareness and perceived stress were sustained at follow-up. The proposed mechanisms of change were partly supported by the data. Conclusion: This study shows that techniques from ACT might have the potential to contribute to preventing the development of stress and burnout during nursing education. However, additional studies are needed to validate these results.     

Co‐witness feedback in line‐ups

The aim of the current study was to establish whether feedback from a co‐witness concerning their choice of suspect could influence an individual witness' certainty and other testimony‐relevant judgements. Eighty‐two university students and members of the general public viewed a film of a staged mugging in pairs and then made an identification of who they thought was the suspect from a culprit‐absent line‐up (i.e. identification parade). The participants were then required to tell their partner whom they had identified and to fill out a questionnaire with testimony‐relevant questions (e.g. How good a view did you get of the person in the line‐up?). When the pairs of participants agreed on their choice of suspect, their scores on the testimony‐relevant questions tended to be higher than when the pairs did not agree. This shows that co‐witnesses can influence each others' memory reports when giving each other feedback after the identification process. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Humor as aggression: effects of motivation on hostility expressed in humor appreciation

In 4 studies, the authors examined the hypothesis that relative to primed autonomy motivation, primed control would increase enjoyment of hostile (compared with nonhostile) humor as assessed by self-reported enjoyment and aversiveness and by nonverbal behavior. Results confirmed the hypothesis. Furthermore, initial state hostility moderated the effect such that high-hostility participants who were primed with control motivation especially enjoyed hostile humor. The 2 final studies showed that the effect was mediated by implicit aggression such that the combination of high initial state hostility and control priming led to implicit aggression, which in turn resulted in hostile humor enjoyment. Results are interpreted in terms of the effects of autonomy versus control motivation on intrapersonal self-regulatory processes, which influence interpersonal functioning.     

Experiences of Longing in Norwegian and Swedish 4- and 5-Year-Old Children

Longing can be defined as a blend of the primary emotions of happiness and sadness. These primary emotions are experienced very early by children, and the meanings of the words happiness and sadness are also known by children early in their verbal development. To find out at what age children are able to understand and use the more developed concept of longing, the authors interviewed 74 preschoolers (4- and 5-year-olds) in Norway and Sweden about their experiences of longing. Chi-square analyses showed age and sex differences in knowledge of the concept, and some differences between categories of longing were also significant. Results showed that young children's ability to understand and use the concept of longing appears to be limited and that girls seem to mature earlier in this respect than boys do.     

Five‐year outcomes of ADHD diagnosed in adulthood

There is a dearth of long‐term follow‐up studies of adults diagnosed with ADHD. Here, the aim was to evaluate long‐term outcomes in a group of ADHD patients diagnosed in adulthood and receiving routine psychiatric health care. Adults diagnosed with any type of ADHD (n = 52) and healthy controls (n = 73) were assessed at baseline and at a 5‐year follow‐up, using Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Clinical Global Impression (CGI), Brown ADD Scale (BADDS) and Adult ADHD Self‐Report Scale (ASRS). A multivariate regression method was used to identify factors predicting 5‐year outcomes, including baseline ratings, medication intensity, comorbidity, intelligence quotient (IQ), age, and sex. After 5 years, ADHD patients reported fewer and/or less severe symptoms compared to baseline, but remained at clinically significant symptom levels and with functional deficits. Baseline self‐reports of ADHD symptoms predicted their own 5‐year outcome and low baseline functioning level predicted improved global functioning at follow‐up. Factors previously reported to predict short‐term outcomes (i.e., medication, comorbidity, IQ, age, and sex) did not anticipate long‐term outcomes in present study.     

Universal parent support groups for parents of adolescents: Which parents participate and why?

Leader‐led parent support groups, offered universally to parents of adolescents, are increasingly common, yet little is known of the parents who use this support. The study presented here explored the characteristics of parents of 10‐ to 17‐year‐olds (N = 192) who had enlisted in universal support groups and their reasons for enrollment. Sociodemographic factors (parents’ country of origin, educational level, long‐term sick‐leave or unemployment, and marital status) were compared to the general population (Statistics Sweden, 2012 ) and parents’ psychological health and children's psychiatric symptoms were compared to a control group (the BITA study). Results showed that support group parents reported more psychosocial difficulties, such as higher frequency of long‐term sick‐leave or unemployment, more symptoms of anxiety and depression and more psychiatric symptoms in their children than parents in general. While about a fifth of the parents had problem‐oriented (targeted) reasons for enrollment, most parents had general (universal) reasons. Thus, the universal approach does seem to reach its intended recipients.     

Functions for traditional and multilevel approaches to signal detection theory

In the present article, functions written in the freeware R are presented that calculate several measures from traditional signal detection theory for each individual in a sample, along with summary statistics for the sample. Bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals are also produced. Arguments are made for using an alternative approach—multilevel generalized linear models—and a function is presented for it. These functions are part of the R package sdtalt, which is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network. Recent data from memory recognition studies are used to illustrate these functions.