Co‐Occurring Trajectory of Mothers’ Substance Use and Psychological Control and Children's Behavior Problems: The Effects of a Family Systems Intervention

This study examined the effects of a family systems therapy (Ecologically‐Based Family Therapy [EBFT]) on the co‐occurring trajectory of mothers’ substance use and psychological control, and its association with children's problem behaviors. Participants included 183 mothers with a substance use disorder who had at least one biological child in their care. Mothers were randomly assigned to one of the three intervention conditions: EBFT—home, n = 62; EBFT—office, n = 61; or Women's Health Education, n = 60. Participants were assessed at baseline, 3, 6, 12, and 18 months post‐baseline. A dual‐trajectory class growth analysis identified three groups of mothers in regard to their change trajectories. The majority of the mothers exhibited a synchronous decrease in substance use and psychological control (n = 107). In all, 46 mothers exhibited a synchronous increase in substance use and psychological control. For the remaining 30 mothers, substance use and psychological control remained stable. Mothers in the family therapy condition were more likely to show reduced substance use and psychological control compared to mothers in the control condition. Moreover, children with mothers who showed decreased substance use and psychological control exhibited lower levels of problem behaviors compared to children with mothers showing increased substance use and psychological control. The findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of family systems therapy, EBFT, in treating mothers’ substance use, improving parenting behaviors, and subsequently improving child behavioral outcomes.     

Extending Awareness of Catholic Healthcare Ethics Among Junior Clinicians: A Qualitative Study

Journal of Religion and Health - As Catholic healthcare organizations form a substantive part of healthcare delivery in the USA and Australia, ethical standards for Catholic health care were...     

Estimation of a Latent Variable Regression Growth Curve Model for Individuals Cross-Classified by Clusters

The cross-classified multiple membership latent variable regression (CCMM-LVR) model is a recent extension to the three-level latent variable regression (HM3-LVR) model which can be utilized for longitudinal data that contains individuals who changed clusters over time (for instance, student mobility across schools). The HM3-LVR model can include the initial status on growth effect as varying across those clusters and allows testing of more flexible hypotheses about the influence of initial status on growth and of factors that might impact that relationship, but only in the presence of pure clustering of participants within higher-level units. This Monte Carlo study was conducted to evaluate model estimation under a variety of conditions and to measure the impact of ignoring cross-classified data when estimating the incorrectly specified HM3-LVR model in a scenario in which true values for parameters are known. Furthermore, results from a real-data analysis were used to inform the design of the simulation. Overall, it would be recommended for researchers to utilize the CCMM-LVR model over the HM3-LVR model when individuals are cross-classified, and to use a bare minimum of more than 100 clustering units in order to avoid overestimation of the level-3 variance component estimates.     

Summer Camp Program for Children With Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder: Description and Preliminary Observations

Summer camp programming has a rich history of promoting childhood development. In the care of children with specific childhood psychiatric disorders, the incorporation of targeted cognitive-behavioral principles provides an opportunity to marry targeted evidence-based practices with broader development, in particular social, emotional, and fine- and gross-motor development. This union is synergistic, providing the practitioner with an opportunity to employ cognitive-behavioral practices in an environment that may overcome common barriers to effective interventions outside the scope of the targeted illness. In this paper, the authors describe the preliminary findings concerning a weeklong, 25-hour summer camp program targeting childhood obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Nine children ages 9–12 years participated in this pilot program. Child and parent feedback alike suggested strong treatment acceptability and efficacy in targeting both core symptoms of OCD as well as associated developmental deficits. The camp’s implementation of exposure and response prevention enables an opportunity to report on the capability of employing these strategies in a summer camp setting. In conjunction with an evidence-based treatment program for childhood OCD, a summer camp program specifically targeted for children with OCD presents a valuable tool for improving child welfare and reducing functional impairments.     

Pavlovian to instrumental transfer of control in a human learning task

Pavlovian learning tasks have been widely used as tools to understand basic cognitive and emotional processes in humans. The present studies investigated one particular task, Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT), with human participants in an effort to examine potential cognitive and emotional effects of Pavlovian cues upon instrumentally trained performance. In two experiments, subjects first learned two separate instrumental response-outcome relationships (i.e., R1-O1 and R2-O2) and then were exposed to various stimulus-outcome relationships (i.e., S1-O1, S2-O2, S3-O3, and S4-) before the effects of the Pavlovian stimuli on instrumental responding were assessed during a non-reinforced test. In Experiment 1, instrumental responding was established using a positive-reinforcement procedure, whereas in Experiment 2, a quasi-avoidance learning task was used. In both cases, the Pavlovian stimuli exerted selective control over instrumental responding, whereby S1 and S2 selectively elevated the instrumental response with which it shared an outcome. In addition, in Experiment 2, S3 exerted a nonselective transfer of control effect, whereby both responses were elevated over baseline levels. These data identify two ways, one specific and one general, in which Pavlovian processes can exert control over instrumental responding in human learning paradigms, suggesting that this method may serve as a useful tool in the study of basic cognitive and emotional processes in human learning.