Substance use after residential treatment among individuals with co-occurring disorders: The role of anxiety/depressive symptoms and trauma exposure.

This longitudinal study examined the contribution of anxiety/depressive symptoms and lifetime and recent trauma exposure to substance use after residential substance abuse treatment among individuals with co-occurring disorders. Data were collected from adults at treatment entry and 6 and 12 months later. At treatment entry, nearly all participants reported lifetime trauma exposure, and over one third met criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Over the follow-up, nearly one third of the participants were exposed to trauma. Lifetime trauma exposure and a diagnosis of PTSD at treatment entry were not associated with substance use over the follow-up. Trauma exposure and anxiety/depressive symptoms over the follow-up were associated with an increased likelihood of substance use. Gender did not moderate the association between trauma exposure and anxiety/depressive symptoms and substance use. These findings highlight the importance of monitoring for trauma exposure and symptoms of anxiety/depression to better target interventions and continuing care approaches to reduce the likelihood of posttreatment substance use in this population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Childhood sexual abuse, stigmatization, internalizing symptoms, and the development of sexual difficulties and dating aggression.

Potential pathways from childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to subsequent romantic intimacy problems were examined in a prospective longitudinal study of 160 ethnically diverse youth with confirmed CSA histories. Participants were interviewed at the time of abuse discovery, when they were 8-15 years of age, and again 1-6 years later. Stigmatization (abuse-specific shame and self-blame) and internalizing symptoms (posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms), more than abuse severity, explained which youth with CSA histories experienced more sexual difficulties and dating aggression. Stigmatization was found to operate as a predictive mechanism for subsequent sexual difficulties. Internalizing symptoms were not predictive of romantic intimacy problems, although they did show correlational relations with sexual difficulties and dating aggression. Early interventions such as trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy that target stigmatization may be important for preventing the development of sexual difficulties in CSA youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subtyping children and adolescents who are overweight: Different symptomatology and treatment outcomes.

Children and adolescents who are overweight are a heterogeneous group. Whether pretreatment characteristics, such as dietary restraint and psychopathology, are related to differential treatment outcomes was not studied before. Using cluster analysis, the authors of this study examined the validity of subtyping along dietary restraint and internalizing psychopathology in 2 independent samples of treatment-seeking children and adolescents who were overweight (Study 1: n = 200; Study 2: n = 120). Three subtypes emerged: a dietary restraint/internalizing (DR/IN) group, a pure internalizing (IN) group, and a nonsymptomatic (NS) group. The DR/IN subtype showed more problems than the NS subtype, with complete consistency across the 2 studies for 1/4 of the validating variables. Although total weight change was not different across subtypes, compared with NS, the DR/IN and IN subtypes had a less positive weight prognosis during follow-up. Restraint scores only showed increases over time in the initially low-restraint IN group. These findings suggest that individual characteristics, such as degree of dietary restraint and internalizing psychopathology, can be useful in (a) classifying children and adolescents who are overweight, (b) stipulating specific treatment guidelines, and (c) making differential prognoses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perfectionism and bulimic symptoms in African American college women: Dimensions of perfectionism and their interactions with perceived weight status.

This study had 2 primary aims: (a) to examine the unique relations between maladaptive and adaptive dimensions of perfectionism and bulimic symptoms and (b) to test an interactive model of perfectionism and perceived weight status for bulimic symptoms in a sample of African American female undergraduates. The sample consisted of 97 women at Time 1 and 70 women at Time 2 about 5 months later, with bulimic symptoms assessed at both time points. Results showed that maladaptive perfectionism, but not adaptive perfectionism, was uniquely related to bulimic symptoms in cross-sectional analyses. Tests of interaction effects indicated that maladaptive perfectionism interacted with perceived weight status to identify elevated bulimic symptoms such that women with high levels of maladaptive perfectionism who felt overweight exhibited the highest levels of bulimic symptoms, both concurrently and prospectively after controlling for Time 1 levels of bulimic symptoms. This study highlights the relevance of maladaptive perfectionism to bulimic symptoms in African American college women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal study of family obligation and depressive symptoms among Chinese American adolescents.

The purpose of this 2-year, 3-wave longitudinal study of Chinese American adolescents was to examine how family obligation behaviors and attitudes change over time; how gender, nativity, and birth order predict these trajectories; and whether family obligation relates to depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that family obligation behaviors decreased over the 2-year period but that family obligation attitudes were stable. Moreover, foreign-born adolescents reported higher levels of family obligation behavior than U.S.-born adolescents, and firstborn adolescents reported higher family obligation attitudes than laterborn adolescents. There were no gender differences in family obligation behaviors or attitudes. The findings also suggest that initial higher levels of family obligation were associated with subsequently fewer depressive symptoms. Finally, changes in family obligation behaviors related to changes in depressive symptoms over time such that increasing family obligation behaviors related to decreasing depressive symptoms. The results highlight the importance of understanding the role of family obligation to Chinese American adolescents’ mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Association of Personal and Workplace Characteristics with Health,Comfort And Odor: A Survey of 3948 Office Workers in Three Buildings

A questionnaire on health symptoms, workplace conditions, and perceived indoor air quality was administered to 3948 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC in the winter of 1989. The main goal was to determine the personal or workplace characteristics associated with health symptoms. A principal components analysis of 32 health symptoms identified 12 health factors. Each factor was generally associated with a particular body system (eyes, nose, throat, chest, central nervous system, etc.). The 12 health factors were regressed linearly on the 50-100 personal, workplace, and spatial characteristics identified from the questionnaire and building blueprints. Significant variables (p < 0.01) were included in a second logistic regression to determine a final model. Eleven variables were associated with multiple health factors. The main workplace variables were dust and glare. Personal characteristics of importance were mold allergies and sensitivity to chemicals. Among women, lack of a college degree was an important factor. Air quality factors of importance included hot stuffy air and dry air: The odor of paint and other chemicals, and the odor of cosmetics were also associated with four or more of the health factors. Two measures of stress – heavy workload and conflicting demands – were also associated with several health factors.     

Smoking withdrawal dynamics: I. Abstinence distress in lapsers and abstainers.

Smoking withdrawal reports from a clinical trial (n=893) were submitted to hierarchical linear modeling as a cross-method replication of a heterogeneity approach to withdrawal measurement and to clarify the influence of postcessation smoking on symptom reports. Five individual difference parameters tapping distinct facets of withdrawal were derived: intercepts (mean severity), linear slope (direction and rate of change), quadratic trend (curvature), volatility (scatter) and, among lapses, a cigarette coefficient (smoking-related deflections of symptoms). All parameters were highly variable across persons. Lapsers had more aversive symptom patterns than abstainers, and symptoms tended to be higher than otherwise predicted on lapse days. These results reinforce the conclusion that withdrawal symptoms are highly variable and argue against discarding withdrawal data from participants who lapse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity in depressive symptoms in adolescents' friendship dyads: Selection or socialization?

This study examined friendship selection and socialization as mechanisms explaining similarity in depressive symptoms in adolescent same-gender best friend dyads. The sample consisted of 1,752 adolescents (51% male) ages 12–16 years (M = 13.77, SD = 0.73) forming 487 friend dyads and 389 nonfriend dyads (the nonfriend dyads served as a comparison group). To test our hypothesis, we applied a multigroup actor–partner interdependence model to 3 friendship types that started and ended at different time points during the 2 waves of data collection. Results showed that adolescents reported levels of depressive symptoms at follow-up that were similar to those of their best friends. Socialization processes explained the increase in similarity exclusively in female dyads, whereas no evidence for friendship selection emerged for either male or female dyads. Additional analyses revealed that similarity between friends was particularly evident in the actual best friend dyads (i.e., true best friends), in which evidence for socialization processes emerged for both female and male friend dyads. Findings highlight the importance of examining friendship relations as a potential context for the development of depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)