Objective: We examined alcohol use and consequences across five categories of same-day drinking intentions and willingness and tested whether same-day motives and protective strategies predicted differences in outcomes across categories of intentions and willingness.
Method: In a 14-week ecological momentary assessment design, undergraduate student participants (N = 196) reported drinking intentions and behaviors over 13 surveys weekly (four morning surveys [Thursday through Sunday]; three midday, early, and late evening surveys [Thursday through Saturday]). On average, participants were 20.
This study modeled disruptions in first-year undergraduates' trajectories of mental health associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, testing whether disruptions were worse for students who moved residences, reported low family income, or were food insecure. Participants ( = 510) at a large Canadian university reported depression, anxiety, and stress in September, November, January, and March. In March 2020, in tandem with COVID-related campus closures, students also reported for each mental health measure whether their responses were influenced by personal experiences surrounding the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: In the present study, we investigated the ways in which the ideographic goal descriptions and goal appraisals of European American high school seniors reflect potentials for intentional self-development during emerging adulthood (EA), a lifespan phase characterized by increasing levels of freedom and decreasing age-graded, socially sanctioned developmental norms. Additionally, we investigated whether variation in participants' goal appraisals and the motivational qualities emergent in their goal descriptions would predict variation in dimensions of identity development, both concurrently at age 18 and prospectively at age 23. Results of an exploratory, mixed method analysis of participants' ( = 129, 56.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCan J Diet Pract Res
September 2021
The present study examined differences in mental health and well-being between students with and without suspected food insecurity during their transition to university. We drew on existing data from 4 samples of first-year undergraduates enrolled at 3 large universities in 3 provinces (Alberta n = 199, Québec n = 299, and Ontario n = 461 and n = 510). Students completed online surveys assessing a wide range of health-related behaviours and indicators, and students were classified as food secure or insecure based on their responses to screening questions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSelf-reported depressive experiences are common among university students. However, most studies assessing depression in university students are cross-sectional, limiting our understanding of when in the academic year risk for depression is greatest and when interventions may be most needed. We examined within-person change in depressive symptoms from September to April.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSleep is a basic biological process supporting emotion regulation. The emotion regulation function of sleep may be particularly important in the context of chronic stress. To better understand how chronic stress and sleep interact to predict mood, 66 parents of children with autism completed daily diaries assessing parenting stress, negative mood, and sleep quality for 6 consecutive days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe transition to adulthood is a major life course transition that can pose risk to wellbeing. Research is needed to identify patterns of risk for compromised wellbeing, in order to best identify supports for individuals during this potentially vulnerable transition. The purpose of this study was to identify profiles of risk in an emerging adulthood sample, and to relate these profiles to mental health and subjective and academic wellbeing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe examined how positive and negative affect covary within individuals over time and how patterns of association between affective traits and states relate to academic success across 4 years of university. Participants were 187 full-time first-year students at a large Canadian university who completed questionnaires about recent affective experiences in 6 waves across 4 years. Grade point average for each year of study was provided by the registrar's office.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Marital quality impacts inflammatory processes. Dyadic coping, a spousal support process in which members of a couple work together to cope with the stressors that 1 or both partners are facing, is associated with higher marital satisfaction and reduced psychological distress. The goal of the present study was to evaluate whether dyadic coping is also related to systemic inflammation among individuals facing chronic parenting stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe examined the extent to which marital satisfaction across 7 years in 199 mothers was associated with the characteristics (gender, age, and intellectual disability status) of their adolescent or adult child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and whether fluctuations in marital satisfaction covaried with the child's autism symptoms, health, behavior problems, and closeness in the parent-child relationship. We also examined the impact of the departure of the adult child out of the family home on mothers' marital satisfaction. The effect of family context variables including the presence of an additional child with a disability, maternal education, and household income on marital satisfaction were also examined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Intellect Dev Disabil
January 2012
The present study explored the behavioral profile of individuals with fragile X syndrome during adolescence and adulthood. Individuals with both fragile X syndrome and autism (n = 30) were compared with (a) individuals diagnosed with fragile X syndrome (but not autism; n = 106) and (b) individuals diagnosed with autism (but not fragile X syndrome; n = 135) on measures of autism symptoms, adaptive functioning, behavior problems, and psychological symptoms. Results indicated that individuals dually diagnosed with fragile X syndrome and autism displayed greater communication and social reciprocity impairments than individuals with fragile X syndrome only.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The premutation of the FMR1 gene (defined as between 55 and 200 CGG repeats) is estimated to affect 1 in 149 females and 1 in 643 males, and some people who carry the FMR1 premutation display signs of impairment.
Method: This study focuses on 82 premutation carrier mothers (M age = 51.4 years; SD = 7.
Objective: The goal of the current study was to examine whether parenting an adult child with a serious mental illness (SMI) has a physiological impact on parents.
Method: Multiple samples of saliva were collected on 4 days from 61 parents (mean age = 60.07 years, SD = 10.
The association of marital satisfaction with parenting burden and quality of the parent?child relationship was examined in 91 married mothers and fathers of co-residing adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders. Within-couple differences between mothers and fathers in how child characteristics related to these parenting experiences were also evaluated. Multilevel modeling was used to control for the dependency in couple data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt Rev Res Dev Disabil
January 2011
In the current review, we highlight recent research on marital quality in parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD) and discuss the child and family factors that account for why some marriages fare better than others. We will also discuss the need for the field of DD to broaden its perspective on marital quality and to examine the impact of marriages on child well-being and the well-being of parents. The clinical implications of recent research findings on marital quality for improving supports and interventions for families of children with DD are discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRaising an adolescent or adult child with a developmental disability confers exceptional caregiving challenges on parents. We examined trajectories of 2 indicators of emotional well-being (depressive symptoms and anxiety) in a sample of primarily Caucasian mothers (N = 379; M age = 51.22 years at Time 1) of adolescent and adult children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD; M age = 21.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe compared the occurrence and timing of divorce in 391 parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and a matched representative sample of parents of children without disabilities using a survival analysis. Parents of children with an ASD had a higher rate of divorce than the comparison group (23.5% vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal self-esteem, appearance satisfaction, and self-reported dieting are interrelated. In the current study, we examine the temporal ordering of global self-esteem and appearance satisfaction across the early adolescence transition, from age 10 to age 14, as well as the independent associations of self-esteem and appearance satisfaction on self-reported dieting at age 14. Participants were 130 firstborn European American adolescents (40% girls).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCoping models of binge eating propose that stress and/or negative affect trigger binge eating, which serves to shift attention to the binge and its consequences. The current study tested these general assumptions using 14-day daily diary data collected from 66 first-year university females. Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling results showed that increased stress, negative affect, and weight concerns were associated with an increased likelihood of reporting symptoms of binge eating within days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study used a school-based community sample (N=920) to examine trajectories of depressive symptoms, self-esteem, and expressed anger in the critical years of emerging adulthood (ages 18-25). Using data from 5 waves, the authors discovered that multilevel models indicated that, on average, depressive symptoms and expressed anger declined, whereas self-esteem increased. Between-persons predictors of variability in trajectories included gender (gender gaps in depressive symptoms and self-esteem narrowed), parents' education, and conflict with parents (depressive symptoms and expressed anger improved fastest in participants with highly educated parents and in those with higher conflict).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined the relative influence of three parenting behaviors (support, behavioral control, and psychological control) and deviant peers on trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence. A white, working-to-middle-class sample of adolescents and their mothers and fathers in two-earner families participated in a 32-year longitudinal study (N = 109 families). The study began when the adolescents were in sixth grade (M age = 11.
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