Risk drinking and contraception effectiveness among college women

Risk drinking, especially binge drinking, and unprotected sex may co-occur in college women and increase the risks of STI exposure and pregnancy, but the relationships among these behaviors are incompletely understood. A survey was administered to 2012 women of ages 18–24 enrolled in a public urban university. One-quarter of the college women (23%) drank eight or more drinks per week on average, and 63% binged in the past 90 days, with 64% meeting criteria for risk drinking. Nearly all sexually active women used some form of contraception (94%), but 18% used their method ineffectively and were potentially at risk for pregnancy. Forty-four percent were potentially at risk for STIs due to ineffective or absent condom usage. Ineffective contraception odds were increased by the use of barrier methods of contraception, reliance on a partner's decision to use contraception, and risk drinking, but were decreased by the use of barrier with hormonal contraception, being White, and later age to initiate contraception. In contrast, ineffective condom use was increased by reliance on a partner's decision to use condoms, the use of condoms for STI prevention only, and by risk drinking. Thirteen percent of university women were risk drinkers and using ineffective contraception, and 31% were risk drinkers and failing to use condoms consistently. Risk drinking is related to ineffective contraception and condom use. Colleges should promote effective contraception and condom use for STI prevention and consider coordinating their programs to reduce drinking with programs for reproductive health. Emphasizing the use of condoms for both pregnancy prevention and STI prevention may maximize women's interest in using them.     

The Role of PTSD and Length of Shelter Stay in Battered Women's Severity of Reabuse after Leaving Shelter

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with significant morbidity, including high rates of reabuse even after women have taken steps to achieve safety. This study evaluated the roles of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity and length of shelter stay in the severity of reabuse in 103 IPV victims over a six-month period after leaving a battered women's shelter. Results suggest that the length of shelter stay is inversely related to reabuse severity after leaving shelter. Additionally, more severe PTSD symptoms on shelter exit were associated with greater reabuse severity after leaving shelter. Furthermore, additional study findings support prior research suggesting that the emotional numbing symptoms of PTSD are a significant risk factor for reabuse among IPV victims after leaving shelter.     

PTSD and Epigenetic Research: Decentering the Physical Body

To prevent youth violence, the GREAT Families program was implemented with a selective sample of 1,196 families of sixth-grade children from low-income schools in 4 cities making the transition to adolescence. To assess intervention effects, we used pre- and posttest data to estimate a structural model to test the hypothesis that random assignment to the intervention would predict changes in parenting practices, which in turn would predict changes in exposure to violence (i.e., a mediational model). We found that participation in GREAT was significantly related to changes in parenting practices and these changes significantly predicted changes in violence exposure. Furthermore, adolescents who reported greater increases in exposure to violence also tended to experience greater decreases in parental monitoring, discipline, and involvement. Implications for future research and prevention efforts are discussed.     

Visual development in human infants: Binding features,surfaces, and objects

The development of visual binding in humans has been investigated with psychophysical tasks assessing the extent to which young infants achieve perceptual completion of partly occluded objects. These experiments lead to two conclusions. First, neonates are capable of figure-ground segregation, but do not perceive the unity of a centre-occluded object; the ability to perceive object unity emerges over the first several postnatal months. Second, by 4 months, infants rely on a range of Gestalt visual information in perceiving unity, including common motion, alignment, and good form. This developmental pattern is thought to be built on the ability to detect, and then utilize, appropriate visual information in support of the binding of features into surfaces and objects. Evidence from changes in infant attention, computational modelling, and developmental neurophysiology is cited that is consistent with this view.     

The Personal and Social Correlates of Spiritual Well-Being Among Primary School Teachers

A sample of 311 primary school teachers completed the Spiritual Health in Four Domains Index alongside the abbreviated revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and measures of religiosity. The data demonstrate that higher levels of spiritual health are found among older teachers who record low scores on the psychoticism scale and who practice religious faith through church attendance and personal prayer.     

Unreinforced Conditional Selection by Two-Year-Olds in A Six-Comparison Matching Task

The Psychological Record - Four normally developing 2-year-old children were exposed to a story in which six novel characters appeared and were named. To assess learning of the character name...     

Patient Adherence With Medical Treatment Regimens: An Interactive Approach

Inadequate patient adherence to treatment regimens is a ubiquitous problem in health care and carries a profound personal, societal, and economic cost. This article illustrates a general theoretical framework we believe to be useful for the interpretation, conception, and design of adherence research. The core tenet of this framework is that factors that influence adherence can be better understood by considering the interactive effects of patients' characteristics, type of adherence intervention, and characteristics of the illness and medical treatment context. This framework represents an extension and application of previous theory and research from personality, social, and clinical psychology concerning the value of an interactionalist perspective. We illustrate the framework using some of our past work involving treatment adherence among patients with chronic renal failure.     

Ego Identity Status: A Step in the Differentiation Process

This study examined the relationship between identity development and differentiation levels in young adults. A total of 259 participants completed the Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (H. D. Grotevant & G. R. Adams, 1984), the Differentiation of Self Inventory (E. A. Skowron & M. L. Friedlander, 1998), and demographic questions. Results showed that each identity status had a unique effect on the various components of differentiation. Implications of the results for counselors and for future researchers are provided.