Home Brewed Alcohol use Among High School Students in a Rural South African Community

This study investigates the use of home brewed alcoholic beverages among adolescents in high schools in a rural community in South Africa. There is much concern about alcohol misuse among young people and very little information exists on alcohol produced by the informal liquor industry in South Africa. A total of 1600 high school students participated in the study. The prevalence rates for past year use of home brewed alcohol was 22.2%. There was association between home brewed alcohol use and correlates such as “lived in city”; “raised by both parents”; “repeating school year”; “poor scholastic progress”; “absenteeism” “getting into trouble”, “arguing with parents/friends”; “neglecting homework”; and “recreation/leisure”. The prevalence rates for home brewed alcoholic beverages use in this rural schools calls for more research that focuses on home brews which could lead to the development of appropriate health promotion intervention in schools.     

Feasibility,acceptability, and impact of a web-based gratitude exercise among individuals in outpatient treatment for alcohol use disorder

This mixed methods pilot study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of a web-based gratitude exercise (the ‘Three Good Things’ exercise (TGT)) among 23 adults in outpatient treatment for alcohol use disorder. Participants were randomized to TGT or a placebo condition. The intervention was feasible with high rates of completion. Participants found TGT acceptable and welcomed the structure of daily e-mails; however, they found it difficult at times and discontinued TGT when the study ended. Participants associated TGT with gratitude, although there were no observed changes in grateful disposition over time. TGT had a significant effect on decreasing negative affect and increasing unactivated (e.g. feeling calm, at ease) positive affect, although there were no differences between groups at the 8 week follow-up. Qualitative results converged on quantitative findings that TGT was convenient, feasible, and acceptable and additionally suggested that TGT was beneficial for engendering positive cognitions and reinforcing recovery.     

Marital conflict: Correlates, structure, and context

Marital conflict has deleterious effects on mental, physical, and family health, and three decades of research have yielded a detailed picture of the behaviors that differentiate distressed from nondistressed couples. Review of this work shows that the singular emphasis on conflict in generating marital outcomes has yielded an incomplete picture of its role in marriage. Recently, researchers have tried to paint a more textured picture of marital conflict by studying spouses' backgrounds and characteristics, investigating conflict in the contexts of support giving and affectional expression, and considering the ecological niche of couples in their broader environment.     

The theory of learning styles applied to distance learning

Distance Education (DE) associated with the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) as interaction tools between the student and the educator has become a large research niche spread around the world. Techniques to improve learning effectiveness in VLEs seek to find relation-ships connections between pedagogical advances and educational technological resources available in VLEs. In this context, this work sought to associate the theory of Learning Styles with the behavior of the student of Distance Education, observing their interaction with the Virtual Learning Environment and trying to associate them with their learning style identified by the CHAEA questionnaire. For this purpose, the CHAEA questionnaire was applied to a group of distance learning students and the correlation between their interactions with VLE and their learning styles was verified. The results show that there is no correlation between these elements, which may show, in fact, the lack of coherence between these theories. Seeking a model for data, a linear regression was applied and the results were, then, confirmed.     

Patch choice as a function of procurement cost and encounter rate.

The effects of patch encounter rate on patch choice and meal patterns were studied in rats foraging in a laboratory environment offering two patch types that were encountered sequentially and randomly. The cost of procuring access to one patch was greater than the other. Patches were either encountered equally often or the high-cost patch was encountered more frequently. As expected, rats exploited the low-cost patch on almost 100% of encounters and exploited the high-cost patch on a percentage of encounters that was inversely proportional to its cost. Meal size was the same at both patches. Surprisingly, when low-cost patches were rare, the rats did not increase their use of high-cost patches. This resulted in spending more time and energy searching for patches and a higher average cost per meal. The rats responded to this increased cost by reducing the frequency and increasing the size of meals at both patches and thereby limited total daily foraging cost and conserved total intake.     

Perceptions of Liver Transplant Candidates with or Without an Alcohol Use History

Cirrhosis secondary to alcohol use is a primary cause of liver disease and a medical condition for which liver transplantation is a viable treatment option. However, there remains considerable debate within both the lay and the medical communities regarding the distribution of a scarce medical resource to adults with alcoholism. This study examined college students' perceptions toward an adult, presented in a written vignette, for whom liver transplantation was medically indicated. The influence of gender (female and male) and alcohol use history (no alcohol history, alcoholism history with long-term abstinence, alcoholism history with current use) on these ratings was examined. Subjects rated the adult presented with no alcohol history more positively than they did the adults presented with a history of alcoholism. Also, the adult with no alcohol history was more likely to be offered transplantation and was given higher priority ratings for transplantation by subjects. While subjects' own alcohol use history and organ donor registration status were not associated with ratings, having a family member with an alcohol problem and personally knowing a transplant recipient were related to more favorable ratings toward the adult presented in the vignette. Implications of these findings as well as limitations of the study are discussed.     

Traffic Offences: Planned or Habitual? Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour and habit strength to explain frequency and magnitude of speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol

This study addresses the socio‐cognitive determinants of traffic offences, in particular of speeding and drinking and driving. It has two aims: (1) to test the hypothesis of a direct effect of habits on offences (i.e., independent of intentions) by employing a specific measure of habits (i.e., the SRIH) and (2) to analyse the offences by taking account of three distinct parameters: Frequency, usual magnitude (i.e., the most frequent deviation from the law) and maximal magnitude (i.e., the greatest deviation occasionally adopted) in order to represent more accurately the variability of the offending behaviours. A total of 642 drivers replied to a questionnaire. The results corroborate the idea that intention and habit are distinct and direct determinants of offences. The use of the SRIH dismisses the criticisms made with regard to the measure of past behaviour. The distinction between the three behavioural parameters proves to be relevant, as their determinants are not exactly similar. Finally, attitude and subjective norm had direct effects on the maximal magnitude and/or on the frequency of the offence. The discussion concerns the contribution of this study to the analysis of offences as well as its limitations and addresses the theoretical plausibility of the direct effects of attitude and the subjective norm.