Parents' Empathic Responses and Pain and Distress in Pediatric Patients

We investigated the relationship between parents' empathic responses prior to their children undergoing cancer treatment procedures and children's pain/distress during the procedures. We hypothesized: (1) parents' empathic distress would be positively associated with children's pain/distress, (2) parents' empathic concern would be negatively associated with children's pain/distress; and (3) parents' enduring dispositions and social support would be associated with their empathic responses. Parents completed: (1) measures of dispositions and perceived social support several weeks before their children underwent the procedures, and (2) state measures of empathic distress and empathic concern just before the procedures. Empathic distress was positively associated with children's pain; empathic concern was negatively associated with children's pain/distress. Predictions about dispositions and social support were also substantially confirmed.     

Daily Hassles,Intimacy, and Marital Quality in Later Life Marriages

This study addressed the relationship between daily stress, intimacy, and marital quality in mature marriages in which the ages of husbands and wives ranged from 55 to 75 years. Four hundred and seventy-two individuals married to each other and randomly sampled from all fifty states completed the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale, the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships, and the Hassles and Uplifts Scale. Findings indicated that daily stress was negatively related to marital quality for both wives and husbands, and that intimacy mediated the relationship between stress and marital quality for both husbands and wives. Implications for marriage and family therapy practice are explored.     

Testing Effects of Community Collaboration on Rates of Low Infant Birthweight at the County Level

Interorganizational collaboration has become a popular strategy for addressing population health and well-being. However, evidence for its effectiveness in achieving outcomes at the population level is limited, at least in part due to a variety of methodological challenges such as reduced sample size at the population level, the availability of suitable comparison groups of communities, and study durations that are too short to detect slowly emerging outcomes. The present study addresses these challenges by retrospectively examining the effectiveness of a mature network of community collaboratives, using latent growth modeling of longitudinal change in an archival community-level outcome, low infant birthweight, and propensity score matching of comparison communities. A group of 25 Georgia counties with collaboratives targeting low infant birthweight was compared to a weighted comparison group of counties from other southeastern states, using propensity score matching. We report results of full matching methods and outcome analyses examining differences in change in county rates of low infant birthweight from 1997 to 2004 between intervention and comparison counties. Results indicated significantly smaller increases in low weight birth rates in intervention counties than in comparison counties.     

Diverse Phases of Collaboration: Working Together to Improve Community-Based HIV Interventions for Adolescents

Although alliances between community-based organizations (CBOs) and university-based evaluators provide opportunities to enhance community-based interventions, such partnerships may be fraught with challenges and obstacles. This paper focuses on the "story" behind a collaborative partnership between a Latino-focused CBO and a team of university-based evaluators that was formed to evaluate HIV prevention interventions for Mexican American female adolescents and gay/bisexual/questioning (GBQ) Latino male adolescents. A developmental trajectory of the partnership is detailed, with a focus on the creation and enhancement of a reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship. In tracing this history, the paper explores challenges that were faced and presents ways in which the partnership attempted to overcome obstacles. Recommendations are offered to assist in the formation and maintenance of collaborative partnerships between CBOs and university-based evaluators/researchers.     

Why don't they just let it go?

Discrepancies between what children expect about physical causality (indexed by looking time) and how they act on that knowledge have led to criticisms of claims about what infants "know." Baillargeon [Baillargeon, R. (1999). Young infants' expectations about hidden objects: A reply to three challenges. Developmental Science, 2, 115-163] advocates examining more tasks before revising views of early cognitive development. We report another discrepancy which suggests an additional indicator of what is salient for preverbal infants. While examining the Uzgiris-Hunt test performances of 40 children (26 females), 7.6-26.9-months-old, infants appeared captivated by the bouncing of a small rubber ball. However, most infants reproduced the motion of the bounce event itself, repeatedly hitting the ball against the table, rather than the experimenter's action (dropping). Comparing performances of those who did and did not imitate the drop, two possibly interrelated interpretations remained consistent with the data: infants perform goal-directed imitation of interesting phenomena, perhaps because they believe they must apply force to make them happen.     

Epigenetic inheritance and the intergenerational transfer of experience

Currently, behavioral development is thought to result from the interplay among genetic inheritance, congenital characteristics, cultural contexts, and parental practices as they directly impact the individual. Evolutionary ecology points to another contributor, epigenetic inheritance, the transmission to offspring of parental phenotypic responses to environmental challenges-even when the young do not experience the challenges themselves. Genetic inheritance is not altered, gene expression is. Organismic pathways for such transmission exist. Maternal stress during the latter half of a daughter's gestation may affect not only the daughter's but also grand-offspring's physical growth. The author argues that temperamental variation may be influenced in the same way. Implications for theory and research design are presented along with testable predictions.     

Impact of substance abuse and child maltreatment training on service utilization in a rural setting

Substance abuse and child maltreatment have been recognized as co-morbid problems encountered in families presenting in the child protective services (CPS) system. Nonetheless, utilization rates of substance abuse treatment services have generally lagged well behind what the research would suggest are prevalence rates for substance abuse disorders in this population, suggesting problems in recognition and referral practices among CPS workers. In response to this, 25 training programs were funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. This study reports data from one program. Trainees indicated a high level of satisfaction and demonstrated significant knowledge gains. More importantly, utilization of substance abuse services increased significantly across time in a multi-county region receiving training relative to a comparison region receiving none. The gain was limited, suggesting that while increased knowledge may translate into increased service utilization, additional barriers to accessing needed services must also be addressed.     

The World Health Organization WHOQOL-100: tests of the universality of Quality of Life in 15 different cultural groups worldwide.

The World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment (WHOQOL-100) was developed simultaneously across 15 international field centers and includes 24 facets relating to quality of life, which are grouped into 4 larger domains: physical, psychological, social relationships, and environment. It also includes 1 facet examining overall quality of life and general health perceptions. This article examines the extent to which the WHOQOL-100 assesses quality of life perceptions in different cultures and whether it is structurally comparable in these cultures. Regression analysis showed all 4 domains to be important in assessing quality of life in each of the 15 centers. Structural equation modeling suggested further support for the proposal that there are universal facets and domains that are cross-culturally important in determining quality of life and suggested that the ordering of facets within domains is comparable across cultures.