Quality of Life and Adjustment in Youths with Asthma: The Contributions of Family Rituals and the Family Environment

This cross‐sectional study explored the relationships among family ritual meaning, cohesion, conflict, and health‐related quality of life (both specific to chronic health conditions and in general), and the emotional and behavioral problems reported by youths with asthma. Participants included 149 Portuguese children and adolescents between the ages of 8 and 18 who had been diagnosed with asthma and attended outpatient services at three public hospitals. The results showed that stronger family ritual meaning predicted a more positive family environment (i.e., higher cohesion levels and lower conflict levels), better health‐related quality of life, and fewer emotional and behavior problems in youths. Furthermore, family cohesion and conflict mediated the links between family ritual meaning and health‐related quality of life, and emotional and behavioral problems. These results did not change after controlling for participant age, gender, and asthma severity. The findings of this study suggest that family ritual meaning contributes to the adaptation of youths with asthma via its positive association with the family environment. The implications for multicontextual interventions with families are briefly discussed with regard to the positive role of family rituals and of their potential as a modifiable factor in families with increased health challenges.     

Likening stairs in buildings to climbing a mountain: Self-reports of expected effects on stair climbing and objective measures of effectiveness

Objectives

Health promotion agencies advocate use of mountain climbing goals to encourage regular stair climbing, a current public health target. This paper tests effects of a mountain climbing campaign on objective measures of stair use for the first time.

Design

Field interview and quasi-experimental, interrupted time-series study.

Method

In field interviews, a convenience sample (n = 1350) responded to questions about different goals, i.e., heights of climb, to encourage stair use in buildings. Subsequently, a point-of-choice intervention with the main message ‘Take the stairs to the top of this building once a day and in a year, you would have climbed Mount Everest almost twice’ was tested in a 12-floor worksite. A no-message baseline was followed by installation of the intervention.

Results

Stair ascent (n = 62,716) and descent (n = 61,218) at the ground floor was measured with automated counters at baseline (11 days) and during the intervention (18 days). The majority of interviewees (60%) chose a message based on climbing Mt. Everest as the most motivating, with only 5% of interviewees not motivated by any climbing goal. Nonetheless, the subsequent intervention using the mountain climbing goal had no effect on stair climbing (OR = 0.96). As the campaign specifically targeted stair ascent, it failed to influence the behaviour with the greater public health dividend.

Conclusion

The discrepancy between pre-testing and the campaign may reflect the fact that performance goals can only be achieved at the end of the task and may not be continually rewarded during accumulation of behaviour towards the goal.     

Le collectif de travail : une protection pour la santé psychologique d’éducateurs d’ateliers industriels en milieu carcéral

Using data from a survey conducted in Psychodynamic of Work in a maximum security penitentiary with monitors of industrial workshops, this paper proposes an understanding of the impact of organizational constraints on the psychological health. This qualitative study shows that the situation faced by these workers produces significant sources of suffering for example, work prevented, oppositions between different groups of workers, rough social relationships, fears and dangers). Few sources of pleasure, based on the team relationship, the challenge of rehabilitation of prisoners and the satisfaction of making quality products. The study identified various defensive strategies to counter the suffering at work. Finally, the discussion focuses on the importance of collective work as a means of protecting psychological health.     

Does initial behavior predict our physical fitness and health 18 years later?

ObjectivesThe aim of the present paper was, first, to analyze a four level biopsychosocial model to examine the interaction of various initial health behaviors and, second, their consequences with respect to the course of physical fitness (PF) and health of adults over the course of 18 years.DesignLongitudinal study based on medical examinations and self-ratings.MethodPath analysis along with latent growth curve analysis was based on the German study about the relationship of physical activity, fitness and health (1992–2010). Data were collected from 495 adults (243 women) with an average age of 45.03 years in 1992 (SD = 7.45). Participants were randomly selected from the official registers of local residents' registration offices in the community of Bad Schönborn.ResultsFor the mean PF and health levels in 1992, direct and indirect influences were shown on four levels including socioeconomic status and immigration on the first level, outcome expectations and stress coping strategies on the second level as well as eating patterns and physical activity on the third level; furthermore, the course of PF and the course of health (from 1992 until 2010) were affected by the initial behaviors (physical activity and eating patterns in 1992); finally PF and health were not related.ConclusionsInfluences on four levels provided evidence for the complexity of PF and health (outcome level). Initial behaviors predicted current PF and health status, as well as their course. Thus, preventive measures should ensure that healthy behaviors are adopted early in adulthood.     

Does substance abuse contribute to further risk of falls in dementia

This study aimed to predict the risk of falls by focusing on substance abuse in the elderly with dementia. Our national cross-sectional survey included 1210 elderly Malaysian demented subjects. The study identified the effects of age, ethnicity, sex differences, marital status, educational level, and substance abuse on the likelihood of falls in the elderly with dementia. The multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze data collected from samples. The prevalence of falls was about 17% among subjects and significantly increased with age (p = .006). Furthermore, the results showed that age (OR = 1.03), ethnicity (OR = 1.69), substance abuse (OR = 1.68), and female sex (OR = 1.45) significantly enhanced the risk of falls in respondents (p < .05). Educational level and marital status had no significant effects on the likelihood of falls (p > .05). However, the findings provided evidence of an additional effect of substance abuse on further risk of falls in older adults with dementia.     

The family roles of siblings of people diagnosed with a mental disorder: Heroes and lost children

In order to cope with the diagnosis of mental illness in a family member, siblings may be forced to adjust their roles in the family. Taking into account the crucial role that some siblings play in caregiving for the mentally ill especially when the parents are no longer available, it is imperative to develop awareness of their unique needs and address them. Thirty‐three adult siblings of people diagnosed with a mental disorder completed the Role Behaviour Inventory (RBI) and a general questionnaire including open‐ended questions regarding the roles they played in their families of origin. Findings from the inventory and general questionnaire suggest that the well siblings score higher on two roles, the Hero and Lost Child, and lower on the Mascot and Scapegoat roles relative to a comparison group (N = 33). Being a sibling caregiver emerged as a risk factor to assume certain dysfunctional roles in the family. Implications for future research and therapy are discussed.     

Identifying Emergent Social Networks at a Federally Qualified Health Center-Based Farmers’ Market

Identifying potential mechanisms connecting farmers’ market interventions with health, economic, and community outcomes could inform strategies for addressing health disparities. The present study used social network theory to guide the in-depth examination of naturally occurring social interactions at a farmers’ market located at a federally qualified health center located in a rural, low-income community. Trained observers recorded 61 observation logs at the market over 18 weeks. Thematic analysis revealed a range of actors and nonhuman facilitators instrumental to the farmers’ market context. These actors connected with one another for communication and relationship development, economic and financial exchange, education, resource sharing, community ownership of the farmers’ market, and conflict resolution. These interactions provided opportunities for social networks to develop among attendees, which may have facilitated the acquisition of social supports related to improved health, economic and community outcomes. Results provide insight into the role social networks may play in mediating the relationship between a farmers’ market intervention and individual benefits. Findings also contribute to defining the typology of social networks, which may further disentangle the complex relationships between social networks and health outcomes. Future research should identify strategies for purposefully targeting social networks as a way to reduce diet-related health disparities.     

Più mosso: Fast self-motion makes cyclic action faster in virtual reality

Visually induced self-motion (vection) affects the speed at which actions are performed.However, it has been unclear whether this speedy action induced by vection is based on the modulation of mental tempo. To clarify this issue, we tested whether the speed of vection influenced an observer's cyclic action related to mental tempo. Observers viewed fast and slow moving optic flow stimuli and dynamic random dots, whilst handclapping at their preferred tempo. The results revealed that the clapping rate was the fastest in the fastest optic flow condition. This effect vanished when optic flow stimuli moved fast but did not induce vection. Fast optic flow stimuli also induced larger pupil dilation, suggesting that it increased the observer's arousal level. These results suggest that illusory self-motion increased arousal levels, thereby modulating mental tempo.     

Silent music reading: Auditory imagery and visuotonal modality transfer in singers and non-singers

In daily life, responses are often facilitated by anticipatory imagery of expected targets which are announced by associated stimuli from different sensory modalities. Silent music reading represents an intriguing case of visuotonal modality transfer in working memory as it induces highly defined auditory imagery on the basis of presented visuospatial information (i.e. musical notes). Using functional MRI and a delayed sequence matching-to-sample paradigm, we compared brain activations during retention intervals (10 s) of visual (VV) or tonal (TT) unimodal maintenance versus visuospatial-to-tonal modality transfer (VT) tasks. Visual or tonal sequences were comprised of six elements, white squares or tones, which were low, middle, or high regarding vertical screen position or pitch, respectively (presentation duration: 1.5 s). For the cross-modal condition (VT, session 3), the visuospatial elements from condition VV (session 1) were re-defined as low, middle or high “notes” indicating low, middle or high tones from condition TT (session 2), respectively, and subjects had to match tonal sequences (probe) to previously presented note sequences. Tasks alternately had low or high cognitive load. To evaluate possible effects of music reading expertise, 15 singers and 15 non-musicians were included. Scanner task performance was excellent in both groups. Despite identity of applied visuospatial stimuli, visuotonal modality transfer versus visual maintenance (VT > VV) induced “inhibition” of visual brain areas and activation of primary and higher auditory brain areas which exceeded auditory activation elicited by tonal stimulation (VT > TT). This transfer-related visual-to-auditory activation shift occurred in both groups but was more pronounced in experts. Frontoparietal areas were activated by higher cognitive load but not by modality transfer. The auditory brain showed a potential to anticipate expected auditory target stimuli on the basis of non-auditory information and sensory brain activation rather mirrored expectation than stimulation. Silent music reading probably relies on these basic neurocognitive mechanisms.     

Evidence for the Role of Shape in Mental Representations of Similes

People mentally represent the shapes of objects. For instance, the mental representation of an eagle is different when one thinks about a flying or resting eagle. This study examined the role of shape in mental representations of similes (i.e., metaphoric comparisons). We tested the prediction that when people process a simile they will mentally represent the entities of the comparison as having a similar shape. We conducted two experiments in which participants read sentences that either did (experimental sentences) or did not (control sentences) invite comparing two entities. For the experimental sentences, the ground of the comparison was explicit in Experiment 1 (“X has the ability to Z, just like Y”) and implicit in Experiment 2 (“X is like Y”). After having read the sentence, participants were presented with line drawings of the two objects, which were either similarly or dissimilarly shaped. They judged whether both objects were mentioned in the preceding sentence. For the experimental sentences, recognition latencies were shorter for similarly shaped objects than for dissimilarly shaped objects. For the control sentences, we did not find such an effect of similarity in shape. These findings suggest that a perceptual symbol of shape is activated when processing similes.