The Relationship of Adverse Childhood Experiences to PTSD,Depression, Poly-Drug Use and Suicide Attempt in Reservation-Based Native American Adolescents and Young Adults

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with numerous risk behaviors and mental health outcomes among youth. This study examines the relationship between the number of types of exposures to ACEs and risk behaviors and mental health outcomes among reservation‐based Native Americans. In 2011, data were collected from Native American (N = 288; 15–24 years of age) tribal members from a remote plains reservation using an anonymous web‐based questionnaire. We analyzed the relationship between six ACEs, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect, witness to intimate partner violence, for those <18 years, and included historical loss associated symptoms, and perceived discrimination for those <19 years; and four risk behavior/mental health outcomes: post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression symptoms, poly‐drug use, and suicide attempt. Seventy‐eight percent of the sample reported at least one ACE and 40 % reported at least two. The cumulative impact of the ACEs were significant (p < .001) for the four outcomes with each additional ACE increasing the odds of suicide attempt (37 %), poly‐drug use (51 %), PTSD symptoms (55 %), and depression symptoms (57 %). To address these findings culturally appropriate childhood and adolescent interventions for reservation‐based populations must be developed, tested and evaluated longitudinally.     

Victim Ambiguity: Bystander Intervention and Sexual Assault in the College Drinking Scene

Alcohol-related sexual assault is the most common form of sexual victimization on college campuses. Bystander intervention has been suggested as effective in preventing sexual assault, but its usefulness in sexual assaults that involve alcohol in particular has not yet been examined. The current study draws from intensive interviews with 30 undergraduates at a large Midwestern university to understand how students’ perceptions about sexual victimization and alcohol use affect their bystander behavior. Findings suggest that in alcohol-involved situations, the ambiguity of whether the woman is at risk and her perceived worthiness are significant barriers to intervention. Policy implications are discussed.     

Brain drawings following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and links to illness perceptions and health outcomes – Findings from a population-based study

Objective: Individuals’ illness perceptions predict health behaviours and influence functional outcomes. This study examined associations between a novel assessment of illness perceptions, in the form of adult’s brain drawings after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and questionnaire measures of illness perceptions, quality of life and post-concussive symptoms.

Design: Population-based, prospective longitudinal study examining 245 adults with predominantly mild TBI with high risk of complications.

Main outcome measures: Participants were asked to draw pictures of what they thought their brain looked like before injury and at baseline and one month post-injury. Drawing characteristics (height, width and percentage damage at one month) were examined in relation to each outcome of interest at six months.

Results: Greater damage at one month was associated with more negative illness perceptions (rs = .23), poorer mental health (rs = ?.21), and more total post-concussive symptoms (rs = .27 to r = .35) at six months. The extent of damage depicted reduced over time (p < .001). No associations were found between the amount of damage drawn and injury severity, nor the height or width of drawings and injury severity or illness perceptions.

Conclusion: Drawings post-TBI offer a simple, cost- and time-effective way to begin discussions and improve understanding of peoples’ illness perceptions.     

Scope of Semantic Activation and Innovative Thinking in College Students with ADHD

Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show high divergent thinking on standardized laboratory measures. This study assessed innovative thinking in adults with ADHD using a realistic task and investigated a possible cognitive mechanism for ADHD-related advantages in innovative thinking. College students with and without ADHD (n = 30 per group) completed a cell-phone feature invention task and word association task. Latent semantic analysis was used to measure semantic distance within cue-associate pairs on the word association task. Compared to non-ADHD peers, students with ADHD scored higher in originality, novelty, and flexibility on the cell phone task, and produced associates of lower semantic relatedness on the word association task. Tests of statistical mediation confirmed that the higher flexibility of the ADHD group was explained by semantic distance within cue-associate pairs on the word association task. Results support the possibility that ADHD is positively associated with specific aspects of innovative thinking, which may in part be attributable to a wide scope of semantic activation.     

Linking Crimes Using Behavioural Clues: Current Levels of Linking Accuracy and Strategies for Moving Forward

The number of published studies examining crime linkage analysis has grown rapidly over the last decade, to the point where a special issue of this journal has recently been dedicated to the topic. Many of these studies have used a particular measure (the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, or the AUC) to quantify the degree to which it is possible to link crimes. This article reviews studies that have utilised the AUC and examines how good we are currently at linking crimes (within the context of these research studies) and what factors impact linking accuracy. The results of the review suggest that, in the majority of cases, moderate levels of linking accuracy are achieved. Of the various factors that have been examined that might impact linking accuracy, the three factors that appear to have the most significant impact are crime type, behavioural domain, and jurisdiction. We discuss how generalisable these results are to naturalistic investigative settings. We also highlight some of the important limitations of the linking studies that we reviewed and offer up some strategies for moving this area of research forward. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Positive Psychology and Attachment: Positive Affect as a Mediator of Developmental Outcomes

Fredrickson’s (1998) broaden-and-build model and Bowlby’s (1969) attachment theory provide alternate explanations for positive cognitive, social, physical, and psychological outcomes, positive affect and secure attachments, respectively. This study examined whether affect mediates the relationship between attachment and positive outcomes. The sample consisted of 99 undergraduate students from a small, public liberal arts college in the mid-Atlantic region. For people high in attachment anxiety, but not those high in attachment avoidance, affect partially mediated social and psychological outcomes and fully mediated health outcomes. People who scored high in attachment anxiety reported less positive affect and more negative affect, which results in poorer social, physical, and psychological outcomes than those with lower levels of attachment anxiety. Perhaps children with caregivers who are more responsive to their needs experience more positive affect; and, it is the experience of positive affect that yields developmental advantages.