Mental Health in the Schools

Progress is being made in the area of delivering mental health services in the schools through collaborative programs that involve combinations of schools, communities, and research-based programs. The goal of extending collaborative efforts to initiatives that prevent emotional and behavioral problems from developing or escalating is a cross-cutting theme of the National Agenda for Achieving Better Results for Children and Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance. I discuss examples of collaborative efforts to prevent emotional behavioral problems in school children and ways by which this effort can be enhanced in schools and communities.     

Unemployment and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Perspective

Using longitudinal data, the current study examined the relation between mental health and unemployment. It was assumed that these concepts would mutually influence each other—that is, while the perceived characteristics of the situation of being unemployed affect mental health, mental health may also influence the intention to look for a job, amount and type of job-searching behavior, and the chances of finding a job. Drawing on partly longitudinal data from 229 unemployed Dutch youth, a model relating mental health, perceptions of the unemployment situation, job-searching behaviors, and employment status was tested using structural equation modeling and logistic regression analysis. While the expectations were largely supported, there were also several unexpected results, most notably that participants who felt powerless were more likely to be active job seekers, while only mental health (and not job-seeking behavior) was (weakly) related to the likelihood of finding a job.     

Choice preferences without inferences: subconscious priming of risk attitudes

We present a procedure for subconscious priming of risk attitudes. In Experiment 1, we were reliably able to induce risk‐seeking or risk‐averse preferences across a range of decision scenarios using this priming procedure. In Experiment 2, we showed that these priming effects can be reversed by drawing participants' attention to the priming event. Our results support claims that the formation of risk preferences can be based on preconscious processing, as for example postulated by the affective primacy hypothesis, rather than rely on deliberative mental operations, as posited by several current models of judgment and decision making. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Situation Awareness and Workload in Aviation

A pilot faces special challenges imposed by the need to control a multivariate lagged system in a heterogeneous multitask environment. The time lags between critical variables require prediction in an uncertain world. The interrelated concepts of situation awareness and workload are central to aviation psychology. Three components of situation awareness are spatial awareness, system awareness, and task awareness. Each of these components has real–world implications, spatial awareness for instrument displays, system awareness for keeping the operator informed about actions that have been taken by automated systems, and task awareness for attention and task management. Task management is directly related to mental workload, as the competing demands of tasks for attention exceed the operator's limited resources.     

Adolescent Neurodevelopment and Psychopathology

Adolescence is a high-risk period for the onset of psychopathology. The occurrence of depression increases markedly in the years following the onset of puberty, and most individuals who are eventually diagnosed with a psychotic disorder show a marked rise in adjustment problems during adolescence. It is well established that puberty involves increases in the secretion of gonadal hormones. More recently, research has shown that stress hormones show a similar normative rise following puberty. Accumulating findings indicate that the postpubescent period is also characterized by significant neurodevelopment; there are changes in brain structure and function that are partially a consequence of hormonal factors. Researchers are now challenged to elucidate the neural mechanisms relating postpubertal neurodevelopment with the elevations in risk for psychopathology that characterize adolescence. One plausible mechanism is the effect of hormones on gene expression. The normal neuromaturational processes observed in adolescence partially reflect the effect of gonadal hormones on the expression of genes that control brain development. Hormone surges following puberty may also trigger the expression of genes that code for brain abnormalities that give rise to mental disorders.     

角色压力源对教师生理健康与心理健康的影响

首先,对角色压力源量表在中国文化背景下的适用性进行了检验,6所学校586份调查问卷的探索性因素分析和内部一致性分析表明,角色压力源问卷具有较好的效度和信度;7所学校612份调查问卷的验证性因素分析进一步验证了角色压力源问卷的效度和信度。然后,利用7所学校612份有效数据,采用层次回归分析考察了角色压力源与教师生理健康、心理健康的关系,结果表明:角色压力源对教师的生理健康与心理健康有显著的负向影响。     

心内科处理心理障碍患者治疗方案的可行性分析

为了探讨在心内科治疗心理障碍患者的可行性,我们应用汉密尔顿量表评估400例到心内科就诊的患者,对诊断为焦虑或抑郁状态的患者分为两组（心内科干预组,心理科治疗组）,随访半年,观察焦虑或抑郁状态的缓解情况。结果显示,本研究共入选符合心理障碍诊断者71例,占就诊人数的17．75％。到心理科治疗患者30例,在心内科门诊治疗患者41例,半年随访评估,治疗有效率分别为16．7％和79．4％（16．7％vs79．4％,P〈0．05）。因此,在心内科门诊对就诊的心理障碍患者进行治疗,是一种可行的方案。     

惊恐障碍药物心理干预的临床动态研究

惊恐障碍（panic disorder,PD）是综合医院常见的一种急性焦虑障碍,严重地影响患者的精神心理健康、社会功能和生活质量,并造成医疗资源的极大浪费。本研究通过动态比较药物与药物加心理治疗的疗效,为更合理的对惊恐障碍进行临床干预提供了一定决策依据。     

牙科焦虑症患者心理干预的疗效分析

为了探讨心理诱导对牙科焦虑症(dental anxiety,DA)患者治疗的影响,采用焦虑自评量表及汉密顿焦虑量表对门诊就诊患者进行焦虑调查,筛选出伴焦虑者82例,随机分为两组,分别进行心理干预治疗和一般治疗,并对数据进行统计分析.结果显示,心理诱导指导组与对照组相比较焦虑水平明显降低.患者无论在完成第一次治疗还是复诊情况均优于对照组(P<0.01).提示心理干预对DA患者治疗有显著效果.     

大学生心理健康普查和建档工作的理性思考

本文针对目前高校心理普查和建档中存在的问题,深入探讨了心理普查和建档的目的、资料内容的构成、科学性与有效性的影响因素、能否筛查出心理障碍和心理危机者、结果的保密性和使用,以及投入与产出的问题等等,以期引起各方对此的深入思考,并科学地对待心理普查和建档工作。