Development and initial validation of an outcome measure for home visitation: The healthy families parenting inventory

The Healthy Families Parenting Inventory (HFPI) is a 63‐item outcome measure that was designed to examine change in nine parenting‐related domains. The HFPI was developed to respond to the need for an outcome measure for home visitation programs that is relevant to the intervention, sensitive to change, and appropriate with a diverse participant base, and would produce data that are immediately useful in practice. The authors detail the steps in the development and initial validation of the HFPI. The pattern of inter‐item and item‐to‐subscale correlations as well as an exploratory factor analysis and sensitivity to change analysis support the nine‐factor model of the HFPI.     

Psychosocial and health consequences of adolescent depression in Black and White young adult women.

Depression in adolescent girls may result in negative consequences in young adulthood. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was administered to 1,727 Black and White girls ages 16 to 18 years who participated in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Growth and Health Study. Three years later, women in the depressed groups were more likely to be current smokers, had attained a lower level of education, and reported lower self-worth relative to the nondepressed group. Body dissatisfaction, eating concerns, and loneliness were greater in the depressed groups. Relative to Black women, White women who were moderately depressed during adolescence reported more health care services utilization in young adulthood. Prevention efforts for depressed adolescents should be broadly focused to improve young adult outcomes.     

Young children's interest in live animals

Animals are important stimuli for humans, and for children in particular. In three experiments, we explored children's affinity for animals. In Experiment 1, 11‐ to 40‐month‐old children were presented with a free‐play session in which they were encouraged to interact with several interesting toys and two live animals – a fish and a hamster. Experiment 2 used the same methodology with 18‐ to 36‐month‐old children and two additional animals – a snake and a spider – to examine whether children's behaviours would differ for benign and potentially threatening animals. Finally, in Experiment 3, a more controlled paired‐preference paradigm was employed to assess 18‐ to 33‐month‐old children's interactions with three live animals – a fish, hamster, and gecko – versus three physically similar toy animals. Across all three experiments, children interacted with the animals more often than with the toys. Further, they behaved differently towards the animals than the toys, talking about the animals more than the toys and asking more questions about them. The parents of the children also spent more time interacting with the animals, directing their children's attention more towards the animals than the toys. This research supports the idea that humans have an affinity for animals that draws their attention to animals, even when attractive toys are present.