Prevalence of traumatic brain injury in an inpatient psychiatric population

This study investigated the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in an inpatient psychiatric population. We hypothesized increased prevalence of TBI relative to the general population due to a variety of risk factors observed in psychiatric patients. One hundred (mean age = 34) psychiatric inpatients completed the revised Head Injury Questionnaire. Chart review of 17 subjects reporting injuries established whether injuries were documented in medical records. Sixty-eight percent of this psychiatric population reported one or more injuries in which they were unconscious or dazed. This number is higher than the prevalence in the general population. Injuries were generally of mild to moderate severity; multiple injuries were common. Chart review of 17 subjects reporting TBI indicated that histories of TBI had not been noted in the medical record. Finally, 63% of TBI subjects reported that their injury predated the onset of their psychiatric symptoms. These results suggest a possible role of TBI in psychiatric symptomatology and have implications for psychiatric treatment in this population.     

USE OF A SELF-RECORDING AND SUPERVISION PROGRAM TO CHANGE INSTITUTIONAL STAFF BEHAVIOR

The use of a self-recording and supervision program to increase interactions between direct care staff and profoundly retarded persons in a state residential facility was investigated. Following baseline, staff were provided with instructions regarding what to self-record, criteria for how many interactions to record, and a prepared card on which to make the recordings. Throughout the study, the staff supervisor monitored intermittently staff-client interactions. Observations indicated that when the staff recorded their interactions with clients in a loosely structured dayroom setting, the rate of interactions increased noticeably for each staff person. Behavioral ecology measures indicated that other staff responsibilities, such as maintaining the cleanliness of residents and the physical area, were not affected detrimentally when social interactions increased and actually showed small improvements. Additionally, small decreases in resident self-stimulatory and disruptive/aggressive behaviors occurred when the rate of social interactions from staff persons increased. Follow-up measures indicated that the rate of staff self-recording was variable, but when staff did self-record, the increased rate of staff-client interactions maintained.     

Integrated Treatment Programmes for Mothers with Substance Use Problems: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Interventions to Prevent Out-of-home Child Placements

Approximately half of mothers receiving substance use treatment are involved with childcare proceedings. This review aims to determine whether integrated treatment programmes for mothers with substance use problems are effective in preventing out-of-home placement (temporally/permanent) and influencing other maternal factors such as patterns of substance use, treatment completion and parenting behaviours. Six trials were identified—two randomised controlled trials and four non-randomised controlled studies. The pooled sample of participants was 1717. The results showed that mothers who participated in integrated treatment programmes were significantly less likely to have the children removed from their care (Odds Ratio (OR)?=?0.40, 95% CI?=?0.27, 0.61), more likely to complete substance use treatment (OR?=?3.01, 95% CI?=?1.79, 5.06), and more likely to reduce their alcohol consumption (Standardised Mean Difference (SMD)?=??0.40, 95% Cl?=??0.78, ?0.01) and drug use (SMD?=??0.30, 95% CI?=??0.53, ?0.07). However, non-significant reductions were observed for parent–child conflict (SMD?=??0.35, 95% CI?=??0.72, 0.03) and child abuse risk (SMD?=??0.03, 95% CI?=??0.36, 0.31). While the findings from this review suggest that mothers involved in integrated treatment programmes could potentially be less likely to experience out-of-home child placements and more likely to improve substance use treatment outcomes, little evidence exists for the effectiveness of these interventions. Further research, particularly high-quality RCTs, is required to demonstrate and persuade health and public policy on the far-reaching value of the integrated approaches.

     

Clinical Implications for Multi-Racial Individuals

Abstract

Multi- racial individuals experience distinctive struggles and challenges that can impact their mental health. However, despite the growing population and unique presenting issues there remains a scarcity of literature to effectively support them. In addition, there is a lack of research exploring the unique experience of the multiple heritage population. The article offers implications for effectively working with individuals of multi-racial decent as well as a call to action for MFTs to develop multicultural competencies for the profession.     

Sketching while narrating as a tool to detect deceit

In none of the deception studies that used drawings to date, was the effect of sketching on both speech content and drawing content examined, making it unclear what the full potential is of the use of drawings as a lie detection tool. A total of 122 truth tellers and liars took part in the study who did or did not sketch while narrating their allegedly experienced event. We formulated hypotheses about the total amount of information and number of complications reported and about various features of the drawings. Participants in the Sketch-present condition provided more information than participants in the Sketch-absent condition, and truth tellers reported more details than liars, but only in the Sketch-present condition. In contrast to previous research, no Veracity differences occurred regarding the content of the drawings, perhaps because sketching was introduced as a tool that facilitated verbal recall and not as a stand-alone tool.     

Face detection in 2‐ to 6‐month‐old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species

Humans detect faces efficiently from a young age. Face detection is critical for infants to identify and learn from relevant social stimuli in their environments. Faces with eye contact are an especially salient stimulus, and attention to the eyes in infancy is linked to the emergence of later sociality. Despite the importance of both of these early social skills—attending to faces and attending to the eyes—surprisingly little is known about how they interact. We used eye tracking to explore whether eye contact influences infants' face detection. Longitudinally, we examined 2‐, 4‐, and 6‐month‐olds' (N = 65) visual scanning of complex image arrays with human and animal faces varying in eye contact and head orientation. Across all ages, infants displayed superior detection of faces with eye contact; however, this effect varied as a function of species and head orientation. Infants were more attentive to human than animal faces and were more sensitive to eye and head orientation for human faces compared to animal faces. Unexpectedly, human faces with both averted heads and eyes received the most attention. This pattern may reflect the early emergence of gaze following—the ability to look where another individual looks—which begins to develop around this age. Infants may be especially interested in averted gaze faces, providing early scaffolding for joint attention. This study represents the first investigation to document infants' attention patterns to faces systematically varying in their attentional states. Together, these findings suggest that infants develop early, specialized functional conspecific face detection.     

Where and when to look: Sequential effects at the millisecond level

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Learning and imitating a complex motor action requires to visually follow complex movements, but conscious perception seems too slow for such tasks....