A study of posttraumatic stress in a student population

The authors examined the incidence of posttraumatic stress (PTS), with respect to levels of exposure to traumatic events, in a British student population. Respondents (N = 700) completed a standard questionnaire booklet that contained a posttraumatic stress disorder interview. The questionnaire collected personal demographic information and was used by researchers to ascertain whether respondents had experienced a traumatic event. Consistent with previous American studies, PTS was found to be relatively common; 23.3% of the sample showed either current or past PTS. Female participants had a significantly higher incidence of PTS than did male participants, although the latter were more likely to report having experienced a traumatic event. The experience of trauma was significantly associated with the likelihood of PTS. The authors discuss implications of their results in terms of long-term consequences of unresolved trauma.     

Predictors of early person reference development: Maternal language input,attachment and neurodevelopmental markers

In a longitudinal natural language development study in Germany, the acquisition of verbal symbols for present persons, absent persons, inanimate things and the mother–toddler dyad was investigated. Following the notion that verbal referent use is more developed in ostensive contexts, symbolic play situations were coded for verbal person reference by means of noun and pronoun use. Depending on attachment classifications at twelve months of age, effects of attachment classification and maternal language input were studied up to 36 months in four time points. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that, except for mother absence, maternal verbal referent input rates at 17 and 36 months were stronger predictors for all referent types than any of the attachment organizations, or any other social or biological predictor variable. Attachment effects accounted for up to 9.8% of unique variance proportions in the person reference variables. Perinatal and familial measures predicted person references dependent on reference type. The results of this investigation indicate that mother-reference, self-reference and thing-reference develop in similar quantities measured from the 17-month time point, but are dependent of attachment quality.     

Risk-appraisal,outcome and self-efficacy expectancies: Cognitive factors in preventive behaviour related to cancer

Abstract

Health education often attempts to influence or persuade through risk-appraisal of impending danger or harm. Risk: appraisal implies cognitive processes concerning the severity of the threatening event and the probability of its occurrence. In two studies we investigated whether risk factors could adequately predict preventive behaviour with respect to cancer. The tint study concerned the health belief model. the second study the protection motivation theory. Protection motivation theory includes the health belief factors but also self-efficacy expectancy. The most important finding is that risk-appraisal does not predict preventive behaviour adequately: outcome expectancy and self-efficacy expectancy should be included in the prediction of preventive behaviour. In general, our findings suggest the superiority of the protection motivation theory to the health belief model in predicting preventive behaviour with respect to cancer.     

A Review of Epigenetic Markers of Tobacco and Alcohol Consumption

Over the past two decades, advances in genetic technologies have posed unexpected challenges to the ethical and legal framework guiding the application of the most recent advances in healthcare technologies. By and large, these challenges have been successfully met by the introduction by statutes such as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). However, over the past several years, these advances in the ability to measure genetic (or heritable) contributions to medical illness have been joined by advances in epigenetic (or acquired) contributions to common medical illnesses. Unfortunately, the moral and legal framework for the use of these epigenetic technologies, which can objectively determine the presence of medical illnesses such as diabetes or the consumption of substances of abuse, is not as well developed. This communication provides an introduction to the fundamentals of epigenetics and then reviews how some of the latest advances in this technology can now be used to assess the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Next, the possible mechanisms through which these tools could be employed clinically are discussed. Finally, the authors outline the potential for misuse of this technology and suggest that well-informed policy could play a critical role in shaping the optimal implementation of epigenetic technologies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.