Transactional processes matter: experiences between parents of children with acquired brain injury and health and education providers.

Purpose: Little is known about how parents' transactions with health and educational professionals shape their experience of these systems, and impact on capacities to support their child with acquired brain injury (ABI). We explored experiences of specific transactions and perceptions of impact.

Methods: A focus group and individual interviews were conducted with seven parents of children in the chronic phase of recovery following ABI.

CHIP-Family intervention to improve the psychosocial well-being of young children with congenital heart disease and their families: results of a randomised controlled trial.

Objective: Children with congenital heart disease and their families are at risk of psychosocial problems. Emotional and behavioural problems, impaired school functioning, and reduced exercise capacity often occur. To prevent and decrease these problems, we modified and extended the previously established Congenital Heart Disease Intervention Program (CHIP)-School, thereby creating CHIP-Family.

The CHIP-Family study to improve the psychosocial wellbeing of young children with congenital heart disease and their families: design of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at increased risk for behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems. They often have reduced exercise capacity and participate less in sports, which is associated with a lower quality of life. Starting school may present more challenges for children with CHD and their families than for families with healthy children.

Neuropsychological outcomes in CHD beyond childhood: a meta-analysis.

Background: Risk for neurodevelopmental delay in infants and children with CHD is well established, but longer-term outcomes are equivocal. A meta-analysis was conducted to establish whether cognitive deficits remain beyond childhood - into teenage and young adult years. Methods and results A total of 18 unique samples, involving adolescents, teenagers, and adults with CHD significant enough to require invasive intervention, and sourced through searches of Web of Science, MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus, and PsychInfo, met the inclusion criteria.

A sibling-controlled, prospective study of outcomes at home and school in children with severe congenital heart disease.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to compare behaviour problems and competencies, at home and school, in 7-year-old children with congenital heart disease with a sibling control group, to examine the prospective determinants of outcome from infancy, and to explore whether any gains were maintained in our sub-group of children who had participated in a previous trial of psychological interventions in infancy.

Methods: A total of 40 children who had undergone surgery to correct or palliate a significant congenital heart defect in infancy were compared (Child Behavior Checklist) with a nearest-age sibling control group (18 participants). Comparisons were made between sub-groups of children and families who had and had not participated in an early intervention trial.

A randomized controlled trial of interventions to promote adjustment in children with congenital heart disease entering school and their families.

Objective: To report on a randomized controlled trial of psychological interventions to promote adjustment in children with congenital heart disease and their families.

Method: Following baseline assessment, 90 children (aged 4-5 years) and their families were randomly assigned to an Intervention or Control group before entering school. 68 (76%) were retained at 10-month follow-up.

The impact of hyperemesis gravidarum on maternal mental health and maternal-fetal attachment.

Background: In addition to physical health risks, it has been postulated that hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) - severe and persistent nausea and vomiting during pregnancy - can adversely affect maternal mental health and maternal-fetal attachment.

Methods: A prospective case-control design was used to compare psychological distress, social functioning and maternal-fetal attachment in 32 women with HG compared to 41 matched controls.

Results: Results suggested that while HG compromised some aspects of attachment early in pregnancy (7-16 weeks gestation), this negative effect was clinically small and had faded by follow-up (after 26 weeks gestation).

Autobiographical memory specificity, depression, and trauma in bipolar disorder.

Objectives: In a bipolar disorder (BD) sample, the present study investigated: (i) the prevalence of trauma; (ii) the specificity of autobiographical memory (AM); (iii) the influence of childhood trauma on AM specificity, current inter-episode depressive mood, and BD severity; (iv) if AM specificity moderates the influence of childhood trauma on current inter-episode depressive mood and BD severity.

Methods: Fifty-two participants were recruited from a geographically well-defined mental health service in Northern Ireland. The AM test, self-report measures of lifetime experience of trauma, childhood trauma, and depression were administered.

Effects of trauma on bipolar disorder: the mediational role of interpersonal difficulties and alcohol dependence.

Objectives: This study examined: (i) the prevalence of trauma in a bipolar disorder (BD) sample, and (ii) how trauma histories mediated by interpersonal difficulties and alcohol dependence impact on the severity of BD. The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its relationship to outcomes in BD were also examined.

Methods: Sixty participants were recruited from a geographically well-defined mental health service in Northern Ireland.

Cognitive biases for trauma stimuli in people with schizophrenia.

Objectives: This study investigates whether cognitive biases related to trauma (physical and sexual trauma) are present in a sample of participants with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Method: Fifty-three participants, with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia, completed tasks of attentional and memory bias, followed by several trauma report questionnaires. Those who reported a history of sexual and/or physical trauma were compared with a 'non-specific/no-trauma' subgroup.

Adjustment in children with intractable epilepsy: importance of seizure duration and family factors.

Seventy-five families of children with intractable epilepsy but without a severe learning disability (mean age 7 years 1 month, SD 2 years 6 months; range 2 to 12 years) who attended a regional paediatric neurology service, were surveyed. A postal questionnaire was used which included standardized measures of child and family adjustment; forty-eight families responded (64%; 31 males, 17 females). There was no significant difference between responders and non-responders in terms of age, sex, number of other chronic illnesses and disabilities, age at epilepsy diagnosis, seizure type, nor number of antiepileptic drugs currently prescribed (p > 0.