This study explores the relationship between staff rejection sensitivity (a psychological concept grounded in histories of loss and trauma) and organizational attachment among mental health agencies transitioning to Trauma-Informed Care (TIC), which is currently outside the focus of most research. Specifically, this study examines: (1) whether staff rejection sensitivity predicts organizational attachment; (2) whether staff turnover intentions account for the association between rejection sensitivity and organizational attachment; and (3) whether those associations hold once taking into account staff demographic factors (gender, race and ethnicity, education, and income)? Around 180 frontline workers in three Northeastern U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman service organizations (HSO) have increasingly recognized the value of employing trauma-informed care (TIC) in a variety of practice settings. Evidence suggests that effectively adopting TIC has shown client improvements. Organizational barriers to TIC implementation, however, exist.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF: Clear explication of the conditions necessary to reproduce results is imperative in the development of evidence-based interventions. This study used a fidelity framework to guide the exploration of implementation fidelity in a study of the Tuning in to Teens (TINT) intervention in New Jersey. TINT is an evidence-based prevention program - previously tested with parents of pre-adolescents to reduce emotionally dismissive parenting - that was adapted for use with adoptive and guardianship families.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Improved understanding of the lasting ways trauma can impact self-regulatory and relational capacities have increased calls for Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) for child welfare-involved families. Little is known, however, about how the attitudes and characteristics of frontline workers impact the implementation of TIC and job retention. This work fills an important gap in knowledge regarding the relationship between staff relational capacities, the implementation of TIC and staff retention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvid Based Complement Alternat Med
November 2016
. A qualitative research methods approach was used to explore the experiences of participants in an ongoing community-based yoga program developed for cancer survivors and their support persons. .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Although center-based supervised physical activity interventions have proved to be successful in attenuating health declines in older adults, such methods can be costly and have limited reach. In the present study, we examined the effects of a DVD-delivered exercise intervention on self-esteem and its subdomains and the extent to which these effects were maintained. In addition, we examined whether psychological, demographic, and biological factors acted as determinants of self-esteem.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreased survival rates among breast cancer patients have drawn significant attention to consequences of both the presence of cancer, and the subsequent treatment-related impact on the brain. The incidence of breast cancer and the effects of treatment often result in alterations in the microstructure of white matter and impaired cognitive functioning. However, physical activity is proving to be a successful modifiable lifestyle factor in many studies that could prove beneficial to breast cancer survivors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study examined the effects of cardiorespiratory fitness, heart rate recovery, and physical activity on working memory in breast cancer survivors and age-matched controls.
Method: Using a case-control design, 32 women who had received a breast cancer diagnosis and completed primary treatment within the past 36-months (11 radiation only; 21 chemotherapy) and 30 age-matched women with no previous cancer diagnosis completed a n-back continuous performance task commonly used as an assessment of working memory. In addition, cardiorespiratory fitness and heart rate recovery were measured during a submaximal graded exercise test and physical activity was measured using 7-days of accelerometer monitoring.
As breast cancer treatment is associated with declines in brain and cognitive health, it is important to identify strategies to enhance the cognitive vitality of cancer survivors. In particular, the hippocampus is known to play an important role in brain and memory declines following cancer treatment. The hippocampus is also known for its plasticity and positive association with cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Nutrition plays an important role in brain structure and function, and the effects of diet may even be greater in those at greater risk of cognitive decline, such as individuals with cancer-related cognitive impairment. However, the relation of dietary components to cognitive function in cancer survivors is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine whether breast cancer survivors (BCS) evidenced impairments in interference control, a component of cognitive control, compared to age-matched women with no prior history of cancer, and to examine the moderating role of diet on cognitive function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The relationship between subjective memory impairment (SMI), future cognitive decline, and negative health status provides an opportunity for interventions to reduce memory complaints in high-risk groups. This study aimed to examine the relationship between SMI and indicators of well-being in older adults enrolled in an exercise trial. Additionally, the study examined whether two different modes of exercise training, aerobic walking and non-aerobic flexibility, toning, and balance, differentially influenced subjective memory across the trial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To assess the mental health and behavioral problems of children in institutional placements in Jordan to inform understanding of current needs, and to explore the effects of placement change on functioning and staff perceptions of goodness-of-fit.
Methods: An assessment was completed of 134 children between 1.5-12 years-of-age residing in Jordanian orphanages.
This study used the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study to examine the effects of repeated exposure to harsh parenting on child externalizing behavior across the first decade of life, and a moderating role for cumulative ecological risk. Maternal report of harsh parenting, defined as high frequency spanking, was assessed at age 1, 3, 5, and 9, along with child externalizing at age 9 (N=2,768). Controlling for gender, race, maternal nativity, and city of residence, we found a cumulative risk index to significantly moderate the effects of repeated harsh parenting on child behavior, with the effects of repeated high-frequency spanking being amplified for those experiencing greater levels of cumulative risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPers Soc Psychol Bull
November 2014
Four studies tested the hypothesis that a weaker belief in free will would be related to feeling less gratitude. In Studies 1a and 1b, a trait measure of free will belief was positively correlated with a measure of dispositional gratitude. In Study 2, participants whose free will belief was weakened (vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunity Ment Health J
January 2015
Stigma is a fundamental barrier to seeking and engaging in mental health treatment for individuals managing depression. This study examines stigma perceptions of mental health treatment for Arab adolescents managing depression using a vignette survey completed by adults in public spaces in Amman, Jordan (n = 108). The vignette was systematically changed across four different conditions that varied the described youth's gender and whether or not they were receiving treatment for their depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe use of multimedia to influence health behaviors offers unique advantages over more traditional center-based programs, however, little is known about the effectiveness of such approaches in improving physical activity levels over time. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a progressive and age-appropriate, DVD-delivered exercise program in promoting physical activity levels among older adult cohorts. Community dwelling older adults (N = 307, Mean age = 71 years) were randomized to one of two groups: a 6-month home-based DVD-delivered exercise (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor children residing in institutional settings, staff act as primary caregivers and often provide assessment of child psychopathology. Minimal research exists on how and when staff-caregivers are best positioned to report on youth mental health. This study examines differences between 60 staff-reported and 60 adolescent-reported Child Behavioral Checklist/Youth Self-Report (CBCL/YSR) scores in Jordanian care centers, and the associations between adolescent-staff agreement, demographic characteristics and child-caregiver relationship factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFYoga practice is reported to lead to improvements in quality of life, psychological functioning, and symptom indices in cancer survivors. Importantly, meditative states experienced within yoga practice are correlated to neurophysiological systems that moderate both focus of attention and affective valence. The current study used a mixed methods approach based in neurophenomenology to investigate associations between attention, affect, and cardiac activity during a single yoga session for female cancer survivors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: This study examines psychosocial functioning in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and/or externalizing behavior problems (EBPs) as compared to children with neither condition.
Methods: The longitudinal sample, drawn from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, included children who were 6 to 9 years old in Cycle 1 who were followed-up biennially in Cycles 2 and 3 (N = 3476). The associations between NDDs and/or EBPs, child and family socio-demographic characteristics and parenting behaviors (consistency and ineffective parenting), were examined across several measures of child psychosocial functioning: peer relationships, general self-esteem, prosocial behavior and anxiety-emotional problems.
Despite a growing literature associating physical discipline with later child aggression, spanking remains a typical experience for American children. The directionality of the associations between aggression and spanking and their continuity over time has received less attention. This study examined the transactional associations between spanking and externalizing behavior across the first decade of life, examining not only how spanking relates to externalizing behavior leading up to the important transition to adolescence, but whether higher levels of externalizing lead to more spanking over time as well.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmpirical research suggests that yoga may positively influence the negative psychosocial and physical side effects associated with cancer and its treatment. The translation of these findings into sustainable, evidence-informed yoga programming for cancer survivors has lagged behind the research. This article provides (a) an overview of the yoga and cancer research, (b) a framework for successfully developing and delivering yoga to cancer populations, and (c) an example of a successful community-based program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlike other forms of disaster, terrorism is not confined to a particular place or time, and recent evidence indicates that the 9/11 terrorist attack was a significant macrolevel stressor affecting the health and mental health of United States citizens. No studies, however, have reported symptoms in toddlers and their mothers both before and after the attacks. To address this gap, we examined the effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on mothers and their 33-month-old toddlers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To examine the prevalence of maternal and paternal spanking of children at 3 and 5 years of age and the associations between spanking and children's externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary through age 9.
Methods: The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children in 20 medium to large US cities, was used. Parental reports of spanking were assessed at age 3 and 5, along with child externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary at age 9 (N = 1933).