Child & Youth Care Forum最新文献

Background: In recent years, the penetration rate of smartphones among Korean teenagers has increased, making it critical to clarify the influence of these devices on adolescents' lives.

Objective: This study investigated the effects of smartphone dependence on peer relationships and life satisfaction among Korean adolescents.

Methods: Using the middle school panel of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS), longitudinal data of 2,250 participants (53.4% boys) at Grade 1 (M _age = 14.01, SD = 0.03) in 2018, Grade 2 in 2019, and Grade 3 in 2020 were analyzed to examine the causal relationships between smartphone dependence, peer relationships, and life satisfaction.

Results: This study found that smartphone dependence had a longitudinal effect on negative peer relationships. Negative peer relationships had a longitudinal negative effect on early adolescents' life satisfaction. Finally, negative peer relationships in early adolescents longitudinally mediated the relationship between smartphone dependence and life satisfaction.

Conclusions: This study showed that early adolescents' dependence on smartphones negatively affects their social relationships and, in turn, negative relationships with peers hindered life satisfaction, suggesting that adolescents' smartphone use should be guided and, when necessary, receive assistance to develop control of their smartphone use.

Background: With the increase of cyberbullying, several intervention programmes have been created that aim at reducing cyber-victimisation and perpetration.

Objective: Our study presents the effects of the STAnD anti-cyberbullying programme with peer-education both on the short and the long run among lower and upper primary school students, with a focus on the participants' cyberbullying roles.

Method: The sample comprised of 536 students who participated in the intervention programme, involving 36% lower and 64% upper primary school students. Participants were measured by a self-reported questionnaire before and right after the programme, then six months later.

Results: The main effect of the STAnD programme was a positive change in the participants' willingness to engage in help-seeking and their active-defending reaction, although this effect decreased after six months. The changes were larger among lower primary school students compared to upper primary school participants.

Conclusion: Our results imply that long-lasting and intensive health promotion programmes are necessary to reach a long-term intervention effect. Anti-cyberbullying programmes should take into consideration participants' involvement and roles in cyberbullying. As our study was a non-randomised uncontrolled study design, thus interpretation of the effectiveness of the programme is limited.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-022-09714-9.

Background: Adolescence is associated with a rise in the incidence of mental health issues. Thus, the factors, processes, and contexts that protect and promote positive mental health in adolescence are of key interest to policymakers.

Objective: Our aim was twofold: First, to explore the coping strategies and sources of support that adolescents identify as protective (or not) in the face of difficulty over a three-year period; second, to examine how and why this may vary in line with the levels of adversity that they report experiencing in life.

Methods: Participants were attending schools in England implementing a mental health prevention programme called HeadStart. 93 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 adolescents (age 11-12 at the outset of the study; 58% female) once per year over three years. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Six coping strategy themes (e.g., 'Disengaging from problems') and five support themes (e.g., 'Parents as a source of comfort and advice') were derived from the interviews. The types, quality, and consistency of reported coping strategies and support varied in line with whether adolescents were experiencing higher or lower levels of adversity in life over time, and according to the resources that they had available within their physical and social contexts.

Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance for mental health prevention programmes of bolstering both individual-level coping strategies and the resources available within adolescents' environments to help them to manage adversity.

Background: Parent-only psychological interventions can be effective treatments for child anxiety. Involving parents in treatment may be beneficial for children, ensuring that interventions are delivered effectively in a supportive environment. Few studies have investigated the feasibility and acceptability of parent-only interventions for child anxiety.

Objective: In this study, we report on feasibility, acceptability and preliminary clinical outcomes of a brief cognitive behavioural group intervention for parents of children (4- to 10-years-olds) experiencing anxiety in the absence of a diagnosed anxiety disorder.

Method: Parent participants attended a three-session group intervention delivered online. We collected feasibility information (recruitment and retention rates); parents and children (when appropriate) completed acceptability and clinical outcome measures after each session. Participants were also interviewed about the acceptability of the intervention and study processes.

Results: Nineteen parents consented to take part (child mean age 6.47, SD 1.23). Participant retention rates (68.4%) and intervention satisfaction (total mean CSQ score 28.52) were high​. Calculated effect sizes were moderate to large for parent-rated outcomes, small for child self-reported anxiety, and small to moderate for parent confidence/efficacy. Thematic analysis of interview data identified benefits, such as connecting with parents and learning strategies, as well as challenges associated with the intervention.

Conclusions: Attendance appeared to be associated with positive changes for parents and children. Overall, participants found this to be an acceptable and useful intervention. These findings demonstrated the potential benefit of a brief intervention for parents of anxious children. A larger trial is required to further investigate these preliminary findings.

Background: Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, mental health care has largely transferred its services to online platforms, using videoconferencing (VC) or teletherapy. Within the field of family therapy, however, there is little evidence on the feasibility of using VC, especially when working with whole families at the edge of care.

Objective: This study investigated the feasibility of remote Functional Family Therapy (FFT), using a mixed-method approach.

Method: Study 1 consisted of semi-structured interviews with 23 FFT professionals (18 female) about their experience of providing remote FFT during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study 2 included monitoring data of 209 FFT clients (46% female, M _age  = 14.00) who participated in FFT during the pandemic. We compared families who received mainly in-person, mainly remote or a mix of remote and in-person on client-reported alliance, drop-out, therapist-rated outcomes, and treatment intensity using MANCOVA's and chi-square tests.

Results: In Study 1 two themes emerged around experienced challenges, namely 'Feeling in control' and 'Engagement and alliance'. Two other themes emerged around adaptations, namely 'Being more on top' and 'Connecting in different ways'. In Study 2, we found that the therapeutic alliance was not related to using VC. Also, families had less between-session contact during the Engagement and Motivation Phase when receiving mainly VC, but had more sessions and longer therapy when receiving a mix of in-person and remote therapy.

Conclusions: The current study suggests that providing systemic family teletherapy to families on the edge of care is feasible. Further development of systemic family teletherapy is warranted.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-022-09692-y.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic can have a serious impact on children and adolescents' mental health. We focused on studies exploring its traumatic effects on young people in the first 18 months after that the pandemic was declared, distinguishing them also according to the type of informants (self-report and other-report instruments).

Objective: We applied a meta-analytic approach to examine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and psychological distress among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the moderating role of kind of disorder and/or symptom, type of instrument, and continent.

Method: We used PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus databases to identify articles on the COVID-19 pandemic, applying the following filters: participants until 20 years of age, peer-review, English as publication language. Inclusion required investigating the occurrence of disorders and/or symptoms during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The search identified 26 publications.

Results: The meta-analysis revealed that the pooled prevalence of psychological disorders and/or symptoms for children and adolescents, who were not affected by mental health disturbances before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, was .20, 95% CI [.16, .23]. Moreover, we found a moderating role of type of instrument: occurrence was higher for self-report compared to other-report instruments.

Conclusions: The study presented an analysis of the psychological consequences for children and adolescents of the exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, soliciting further research to identify factors underlying resilience. Notwithstanding limitations such as the small number of eligible articles and the fact that we did not examine the role of further characteristics of the studies (such as participants' age or design), this meta-analysis is a first step for future research documenting the impact of such an unexpected and devastating disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Teachers are important gatekeepers in suicide prevention for children and youth, yet little is known about factors that contribute to suicide prevention training effectiveness and the influence of student suicidality on teachers' role as gatekeepers.

Objective: This study examined teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy in suicide prevention including an examination of suicide prevention training and exposure to student suicidality. Researchers examined incremental prediction of the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and outcome values following prevention training.

Methods: Participants included teachers in PreK-12th grade schools in the United States (N = 505). Researchers used non-parametric statistics to examine group level differences and a structural equation model (SEM) to test the proposed theoretical model.

Results: Teachers who experienced a student death by suicide reported significantly higher levels of gatekeeper reluctance than teachers who had not experienced a student death by suicide (p < 0.01). Similarly, teachers who encountered students with suicidal thoughts reported greater levels of gatekeeper reluctance (p < 0.01) and higher self-efficacy to engage in suicide prevention (p < 0.05) compared to teachers who had not had this exposure. Results of the SEM indicated an adequate goodness of fit and fit statistics [χ² (87) = 194.420, p = 0.000; CFI = 0.95; RMSEA = 0.05]. The model remained in-tact when exposure to student suicide was added.

Conclusions: Findings support the importance of supporting teachers continued engagement in youth suicide prevention and prevention training that targets specific outcomes in teachers' attitudes and efficacy.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-022-09699-5.

Background: Youth-serving organizations in the United States provide programs, activities, and opportunities for young people before school, during school, after school, in summer, and on weekends. At the core of youth-serving organizations are the adults; that is, youth development staff.

Objective: In this explanatory sequential mixed methods study we explored youth development staff's stress and worries, their compassion satisfaction, and whether stress and compassion satisfaction varied by race/ethnicity and gender during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic - a collective trauma event.

Methods: We surveyed 283 youth development staff and interviewed a subset of 25.

Results: Results suggest that youth development staff experienced stress and compassion satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusion: We recommend organizational leaders provide youth development staff with support before a collective trauma event. They can work to change, add, or remove policies, practices, and routines to help decrease stress and increase compassion satisfaction. In addition, based on our results from this study our primary recommendation specific to collective trauma events, after taking care of their own personal wellness, is for youth development staff to focus on what is in their control and work to do those things for as many young people as they can.

Background: Following disasters, children and adolescents can use coping strategies to feel better. A growing body of studies investigated the relation between them and maladjustment/adjustment, i.e., negative symptomatology/positive indicators of development. Yet, these constructs are studied separately.

Objective: We conducted two meta-analyses to examine the mean correlation between disaster-related coping strategies and indicators of maladjustment/adjustment following natural disasters in children and adolescents, considering the role of some moderators.

Methods: We used PsycINFO, PubMed, Eric, and Scopus databases to identify articles on natural disasters (filters: participants ≤ 18 years at the disaster, peer-review, English language). Inclusion required investigating the relation between at least one coping strategy and at least one indicator of maladjustment (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression) and/or adjustment (e.g., self-efficacy, emotion understanding), for a total of 26 studies (k = 64, n = 9692, for maladjustment; k = 37, n = 3504, for adjustment).

Results: There were global positive significant correlations between coping strategies and negative symptomatology (r _pooled  = .23) for maladjustment, and positive indicators (r _pooled  = .17) for adjustment. Negative symptomatology positively correlated with escape (r = .19), social isolation (r = .15), submission (r = .64), and opposition (r = .16); positive indicators positively correlated with problem solving (r = .31), social support (r = .22), and submission (r = .30). We found a moderating role of age, disaster type, and continent for maladjustment.

Conclusions: The study presented an analysis of the coping strategies that can be effective for children and adolescents dealing with natural disasters.

Background: Preschool is a crucial period for developing motor skills.

Objective: This study evaluated factors associated with motor competence in preschoolers from a Brazilian urban area.

Methods: A total of 211 preschoolers (51.2% girls and 48.8% boys) were evaluated. Body mass index was calculated; the Brazilian Economic Research Criterion, the Mini-Mental Scale (MMC) and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale®, Revised (ECERS-R™) were applied; the Habitual Physical Activity time was recorded; the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2) was performed. Univariate analysis was performed using simple linear regression for the independent variables, considering the motor test subscales as dependent variables. Variables with p < 0.20 in the univariate analysis were considered for the multiple linear regression model and were entered into the stepwise method.

Results: The independent variables remaining in the Standard Score Locomotor model were BMI, presence of park at school, and MMC (R² = 0.16). The independent variables remaining in the Standard Object Control score were MMC and gender (R² = 0.03). The variables associated with the highest scores of Gross Motor Quotient were MMC, body mass index, and presence of a park at school, respectively (R² = 0.11).

Conclusion: Male eutrophic preschoolers who are physically active and attend schools with parks or courtyards in a Brazilian urban area have the highest scores for global cognitive function and motor competence.