A Preliminary Test of a Brief Online Intervention for Enhancing Parental Reflective Function and the Role of Parental Depressive Symptoms

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parental reflective functioning is a potential target for promoting sensitive caregiving behaviors, particularly for parents at higher risk for difficulties in...     

Promoting positive body image among university students: A collaborative pilot study

The purpose of the present study was to pilot a prevention program designed to promote positive body image among university students. Thirty-seven undergraduate students from three Canadian universities were recruited to participate in the study. They were selected from a pool of students enrolled in a peer health education program facilitated by the university-based health promotion staff. Borrowing from the tenets of the non-specific vulnerability stressor model and the disease-specific social cognitive theory, the intervention focused on media literacy, self-esteem enhancement strategies, stress management skills and ways to recognize healthy versus unhealthy relationships. Separate ANOVAs revealed that participants reported significant improvements in body satisfaction and reductions in the internalization of media stereotypes between the baseline and post-program period. The program received a favorable response from the participating students, who appreciated the face-to-face format of the intervention, and from the university staff who expressed interest in embedding the strategies into their routine peer mentoring training activities. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Low neuroticism and high hedonistic traits for female internet child pornography consumers

Limited research has attempted to identify and understand the personality characteristics of female consumers of Internet child pornography (ICP). In the current study, female respondents (N = 162) from the Seigfried et al. study were analyzed to determine if personality characteristics differed between female users (n = 10, 6.2%) and female non-users (n = 152, 93.8%) of ICP. An exploratory backward stepwise (Wald) logistic regression revealed a predictive model, with female ICP consumers scoring: low on neuroticism, high on moral choice hedonism, and self-reporting a non-white racial identity. The relationship between female ICP consumption, neuroticism, hedonism, and race are discussed, along with the study's limitations and future research suggestions in the area of computer deviance.     

Maternal Depression,Maternal Expressed Emotion,and Youth Psychopathology

Across development, maternal depression has been found to be a risk factor for youth psychopathology generally and youth depression specifically. Maternal Expressed Emotion (EE) has been examined as a predictor of outcome among youth with depression. The present study explored the associations between youth psychopathology and two predictors–maternal depression within the child’s lifetime and maternal EE–in a study of children at risk for depression. One hundred and seventy-one youth, ages 8–12, and their mothers participated. To assess maternal and youth psychopathology, dyads were administered structured diagnostic assessments, and mothers and children completed self-report measures of their own depressive symptoms. In addition, mothers completed the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist–Parent Report Version (CBCL) for their children. Maternal EE was assessed based on the Five Minute Speech Sample. History of maternal depression was associated with high maternal EE, and the combination of maternal depression history and maternal EE was associated with children’s own reports of higher depressive symptoms. Current maternal depressive symptoms were associated with mothers’ reports of children’s Internalizing scores on the CBCL, and maternal depression history, current maternal depressive symptoms, and maternal EE were strongly associated with mothers’ reports of children’s Externalizing and Total Problem scores on the CBCL. History of maternal depression and a rating of high or borderline Critical EE (characterized by maternal critical comments and/or reports of a negative relationship) were independently associated with children’s depression diagnoses.     

Domestic Violence Against Married Women in Egypt

We estimated the associations of social learning in childhood, marital resources and constraints, and community gender stratification and norms with women’s risk of physical domestic violence in a national sample of 5,272 married Egyptian women. Women who experienced corporal punishment or maltreatment as children had higher odds of such violence. An increase in women’s household-standard-of-living was associated with lower odds of such violence. Wives with unusually less and unusually more schooling than their spouse had higher odds of such violence, and the wives of paternal cousins had lower odds of such violence. Measures of community gender stratification and norms were inconsistently and weakly associated with such violence. Women’s marital resources and constraints accounted for most of their risk of experiencing physical domestic violence.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder's frequency and intensity ratings are associated with factor structure differences in military veterans

We examined possible differences in the factor structure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the basis of whether frequency or intensity symptom response formats were used to assess PTSD. Participants included 669 veterans recruited from an epidemiological study of four Veterans Affairs Medical Centers' primary care clinics in the southeastern United States. Confirmatory factor analysis using measurement invariance testing found that the frequency and intensity symptom formats were significantly different from each other on PTSD's factor structure parameters, including factor loadings, observed variable intercepts, and measurement errors. The only exception was for PTSD's effortful avoidance symptoms, which were associated with equivalent parameter estimates for both the frequency and intensity formats. Implications for the clinical assessment of PTSD and interpretation of the extant literature base on PTSD's factor structure are considered.     

A haphazard reading of McHugh and Barlow (2010)

Replies to comments on Do haphazard reviews provide sound directions for dissemination efforts? (see record 2010-24768-012) by Eileen Gambrill and Julia H. Littell on the current authors' article The dissemination and implementation of evidence-based psychological treatments: A review of current efforts (see record 2010-02208-010) by Kathryn R. McHugh and David H. Barlow. In their commentary, Gambrill and Littell (2010, this issue) suggested that we provided misleading guidance on the selection of treatments for dissemination in our recent article (McHugh & Barlow, February- March 2010) on the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments. These authors misread our article as an affirmation of the evidence base of the treatments involved in the dissemination and implementation efforts we described. In fact, we explicitly disclaimed in the third paragraph that "we do not revisit controversies surrounding the identification or appropriateness of [evidence-based psychological treatments] . . . rather, we focus on the status and adequacy of [dissemination and implementation] efforts currently under way (McHugh & Barlow, 2010, p. 73). Thus, our review was not intended as a guideline for which treatments to disseminate, nor was it a thorough review of the evidence base for the treatments included in the efforts we reviewed. We chose several programs for illustrative purposes as representative efforts from three general domains: national, state, and investigator initiated.     

Concurrent and incremental validity of three trait emotional intelligence measures

This study explored concurrent and incremental validity of three trait emotional intelligence measures: the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale, Multidimensional Emotional Intelligence Assessment, and Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. A total of 307 participants were drawn predominantly from community and student populations. Concurrent criterion validity of the measures varied depending on whether emotional intelligence (EI) was assessed as a lower, middle or higher level construct, with validity coefficients being larger for the former. In all cases, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire was the superior predictor of multiple psychological criteria. At the higher level of assessment, incremental validity beyond (a) age, gender and the Big Five, and (b) the remaining two EI measures, was also superior.     

Efficacy of CBT for benzodiazepine discontinuation in patients with panic disorder: Further evaluation

Despite its acute efficacy for the treatment of panic disorder, benzodiazepines (BZs) are associated with a withdrawal syndrome that closely mimics anxiety sensations, leading to difficulty with treatment discontinuation and often disorder relapse. An exposure-based cognitive-behavioral treatment for BZ discontinuation, Panic Control Treatment for BZ Discontinuation (CBT) targets the fear of these sensations and has demonstrated efficacy in preventing disorder relapse and facilitating successful BZ discontinuation among patients with panic disorder. In this randomized controlled trial, CBT was compared to taper alone and a taper plus a relaxation condition to control for the effect of therapist contact and support among 47 patients with panic disorder seeking taper from BZs. Based on the primary outcome of successful discontinuation of BZ use, results indicate that adjunctive CBT provided additive benefits above both taper alone and taper plus relaxation, with consistently medium and large effect sizes over time that reached significance at the six month follow-up evaluation. The efficacy of CBT relative to either of the other taper conditions reflected very large and significant effect sizes at that time. These findings suggest that CBT provides specific efficacy for the successful discontinuation from BZs, even when controlling for therapist contact and relaxation training.