The Impact of a Mindfulness App on Postnatal Distress.

Objectives: The present study investigated the effectiveness of an 8-week mindfulness mobile phone app on women's depression, anxiety, stress and mindful attention/awareness in the postnatal period.

Methods: The study enrolled 99 mothers of a child under 1 year old, and randomly assigned them to intervention ( = 49, mean age = 31.11,  = 4.

Applying Rasch methodology to examine and enhance precision of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.

Background: The 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is a widely used depression measure with acceptable psychometric properties, but it uses ordinal scaling that has limited precision for assessment of outcomes in clinical and research settings. This study aimed to apply Rasch methodology to examine and enhance psychometric properties of the EPDS by developing ordinal-to-interval conversion algorithm.

Methods: The Partial Credit Rasch model was implemented using a sample of 621 mothers of infants (birth to 2 years old) who completed the EPDS as a part of a larger online survey.

Positively Pregnant: Development and piloting of a mobile app for social and emotional well-being in pregnancy.

This paper describes development of a mobile e-health application, Positively Pregnant, which provides tools to meet the psychological challenges of pregnancy and transition to parenthood. Positively Pregnant was developed with input from maternity carers and consumers, incorporating local cultures and contexts as well as international research on effective interventions for stress management and mental well-being. The prototype app was piloted with 88 New Zealand women.

Unmoving and unmoved: experiences and consequences of impaired non-verbal expressivity in Parkinson's patients and their spouses.

Hypomimia, or facial masking, is a decrease in voluntary control and spontaneous movement of the muscles of the face, which may occur in Parkinson's disease. Little is known about the psychosocial consequences or management of this symptom. The aim of this study was to provide an initial overview of patient & spousal experiences of living with an acquired nonverbal expressive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

How am I, really? Perceptions of health and distress by women and their midwives.

Objective: This study examined agreement between ratings of health and emotional distress by women and their midwives.

Background: Physical complaints and medical complications during pregnancy can significantly impact a woman's experience of pregnancy. Previous studies have found that women and their healthcare providers may have differing perceptions of their condition and how they are coping with the challenges of pregnancy.

Distress levels in pregnant and matched non-pregnant women.

This study examined self-rated symptoms of distress (Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-DASS-21 and Perceived Stress Scale-PSS-4) among 93 pregnant women and a comparison group of 93 non-pregnant women matched on age and educational attainment. There were no significant differences between the groups, either on mean levels of distress or on proportions above a clinical cut-off point. Overall, 22%, 31% and 16% of pregnant women reported experiencing at least moderate levels of depression, anxiety and stress, respectively.

Predictors of anxiety among pregnant New Zealand women hospitalised for complications and a community comparison group.

Objective: to investigate predictors of anxiety for women experiencing hospitalisation during pregnancy and a comparison group of pregnant women (with or without medical complications) in the community.

Design: correlational, cross-sectional observational questionnaire study.

Setting: regional antenatal inpatient unit and community-based settings in New Zealand in 2009 and 2010.

Homeless near a thousand homes: outcomes of homeless youth in a crisis shelter.

Clients who received crisis services at a homeless shelter for transition-aged youth were recruited for a study to describe the youth served, to track outcomes of care, and to examine factors associated with differing outcomes. Participants were 202 men and women who completed a battery of interviews and self-report measures at intake and at 3 follow-up points. Youth served had experienced high levels of adversity and trauma and typically had poor educational and vocational preparation.

The Target Symptom Rating: a brief clinical measure of acute psychiatric symptoms in children and adolescents.

Describes the development and psychometric properties of the Target Symptom Rating (TSR), a brief, multi-informant measure of commonly observed symptoms in child and adolescent clinical work. In a large sample of children and adolescents in inpatient and residential treatment, the 13 TSR items fell into 2 subscales: Emotional Problems and Behavior Problems, which were associated in expected ways with the Internalizing and Externalizing factors of the Achenbach scales and the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS). The measure was sensitive to change in brief and extended treatment, as rated by parents, patients, primary clinicians, and family therapists, and shows promise as a tool for outcome research in applied settings.