Assessment of family functioning in Caucasian and Hispanic Americans: reliability, validity, and factor structure of the Family Assessment Device

The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) among a national sample of Caucasian and Hispanic American families receiving public sector mental health services. A confirmatory factor analysis conducted to test model fit yielded equivocal findings. With few exceptions, indices of model fit, reliability, and validity were poorer for Hispanic Americans compared with Caucasian Americans. Contrary to our expectation, an exploratory factor analysis did not result in a better fitting model of family functioning. Without stronger evidence supporting a reformulation of the FAD, we recommend against such a course of action. Findings highlight the need for additional research on the role of culture in measurement of family functioning.     

Closeness to God Among Those Doing God’s Work: A Spiritual Well-Being Measure for Clergy

Measuring spiritual well-being among clergy is particularly important given the high relevance of God to their lives, and yet its measurement is prone to problems such as ceiling effects and conflating religious behaviors with spiritual well-being. To create a measure of closeness to God for Christian clergy, we tested survey items at two time points with 1,513 United Methodist Church clergy. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated support for two, six-item factors: Presence and Power of God in Daily Life, and Presence and Power of God in Ministry. The data supported the predictive and concurrent validity of the two factors and evidenced high reliabilities without ceiling effects. This Clergy Spiritual Well-being Scale may be useful to elucidate the relationship among dimensions of health and well-being in clergy populations.     

I See Your Point: Infants Under 12 Months Understand That Pointing Is Communicative

Do young infants understand that pointing gestures allow the pointer to change the information state of a recipient? We used a third-party experimental scenario to examine whether 9- and 11-month-olds understand that a pointer's pointing gesture can inform a recipient about a target object. When the pointer pointed to a target, infants subsequently looked longer when the recipient selected the nontarget rather than the target object. In contrast, infants looked equally long whether the recipient selected the target or nontarget object when the pointer used a noncommunicative gesture, a fist. Finally, when the recipient had no perceptual access to the pointing gesture, infants looked longer when the recipient selected the target rather than the nontarget object. Young infants understand a fundamental aspect of the communicative function of pointing: Pointing, but not all gestures, can transfer information. Gestures may thus be one of the tools infants use for an early understanding of communication.     

Multiracial and Biracial Individuals: A Content Analysis of Counseling Journals, 1991–2013

This content analysis examines the counseling literature on multiracial individuals using the top journals. The authors conducted an exhaustive search for research articles and identified 10 published articles that addressed biracial and multiracial individuals from the years 1991 to 2013 in top‐tier counseling journals. Of the 10 counseling journals, 4 journals addressed multiracial individuals (Journal of Counseling & Development, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, Journal of Humanistic Counseling, and Journal of College Counseling). Recommendations for counselors and researchers are provided. Este análisis de contenido examina las investigaciones en el campo de la consejería sobre individuos multirraciales publicadas en las revistas académicas más importantes. Los autores llevaron a cabo una búsqueda exhaustiva de artículos de investigación e identificaron 10 artículos publicados en revistas académicas de consejería de alto nivel que trataban sobre individuos birraciales y multirraciales entre los años 1991 y 2013. Cuatro de las 10 revistas académicas de consejería trataban sobre individuos multirraciales (Journal of Counseling & Development, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, Journal of Humanistic Counseling y Journal of College Counseling). Se ofrecen recomendaciones para consejeros e investigadores.     

Group Narrative Therapy for Women With Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Women with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often struggle with the developmental challenges of adulthood and ADHD‐related problems. The authors provide specific clinical interventions from a narrative‐based group approach to help women with ADHD understand their symptoms, create strength‐based narratives, and apply these narratives to the developmental tasks of early adulthood.     

Olfactory Reference Syndrome: A Case Report and Screening Tool

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Olfactory reference syndrome (ORS) is a lesser known disorder that is related to obsessive–compulsive disorder. ORS is the obsessional and...     

Christian Churches and the Prevention of Preadolescent Aggression and Violence in Puerto Rico: Regional Leaders’ Perspective

Journal of Religion and Health - Preadolescents’ involvement in religious congregations may serve as a distal protective factor against aggression. Interviews were conducted to...     

Physical Health Functioning Among United Methodist Clergy

United Methodist clergy have been found to have higher than average self-reported rates of obesity, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, and high blood pressure. However, health diagnoses differ from physical health functioning, which indicates how much health problems interfere with activities of daily living. Ninety-five percent (n = 1726) of all actively serving United Methodist clergy in North Carolina completed the SF-12, a measure of physical health functioning that has US norms based on self-administered survey data. Sixty-two percent (n = 1074) of our sample completed the SF-12 by self-administered formats. We used mean difference tests among self-administered clergy surveys to compare the clergy SF-12 Physical Composite Scores to US-normed scores. Clergy reported significantly better physical health composite scores than their gender- and age-matched peers, despite above average disease burden in the same sample. Although health interventions tailored to clergy that address chronic disease are urgently needed, it may be difficult to elicit participation given pastors’ optimistic view of their physical health functioning.