Mental Health and Prevention最新文献

Background

Few studies within the field of emotion socialization have used a person-centered approach to investigate how supportive or unsupportive parent subpopulations influence child development over time. Furthermore, the role of parents’ emotion socialization processes at different child developmental stages remains understudied.

Objectives

The current study tests whether parent profiles of emotion socialization are associated with concurrent and long-term child mental health problems and emotion competence, and whether associations differ for parents of children in early (4-6 years) versus middle childhood (7-10 years).

Method

Three waves of annual data were drawn from the Child and Parent Emotion Study, a longitudinal study of multinational families (n = 869). We drew on previously derived profiles from a latent profile analysis describing ‘emotion coaching’, ‘emotion dismissing’, and ‘emotion disengaged’ profiles of parent emotion socialization. Linear regression models tested associations between parent profiles (assessed in 2019) and child internalizing and externalizing problems, negative affect, and child emotion regulation, assessed 0, 1, and 2 years later (2019-21).

Results

Emotion dismissing (versus emotion coaching) was associated with higher concurrent child internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and negative affect; and longitudinally with higher internalizing problems and negative affect, and lower emotion regulation. Emotion disengaged (versus emotion coaching) was associated with higher concurrent and longitudinal child negative affect, and lower longitudinal emotion regulation. Split by child age, we found stronger associations in early compared to middle childhood for emotion dismissing and child externalizing problems. The reverse was evident for emotion disengaged, where associations were stronger/more evident in middle compared to early childhood for child negative affect and emotion regulation. Other associations were no longer evident or were consistent across child ages.

Conclusion

Children of parents who have a pattern of emotion dismissing or emotion disengaged emotion socialization are at greater risk for mental health problems and lower emotion competence.

Background

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the central importance of socioemotional skills in positive child development has become even more apparent. Prevalent models of emotion socialization emphasize the importance of parent-child talk as a critical socialization context.

Purpose

Autobiographical reminiscing about the child's lived experience may be a particularly effective form of parent-child conversation that facilitates emotion understanding.

Method

The authors provide a theoretical and empirical review of how maternal reminiscing style impacts specifically on emotion socialization in both typically and atypically developing children.

Results

Individual differences in maternal reminiscing indicate that highly elaborative reminiscing is related to both better narrative skills and higher levels of emotion understanding and regulation both concurrently and longitudinally. Intervention studies indicate that mothers can be coached to be more elaborative during reminiscing and coaching leads to higher levels of emotion understating and regulation.

Conclusions

Reminiscing about lived experience allows mothers and children to explore and examine emotions in personally meaningful situations that have real world implications for children's evolving emotion understanding.

This research explored the relations among aggressive behavior, friend socialization of anger, and adaptive anger regulation within early adolescent friendships. Participants were 202 adolescents (52.50% girls; M_age = 12.68 years) who participated in 101 same-gender close friend dyads at an initial assessment (T1) and a second assessment two years later (T2). At T1, adolescents reported on their aggression, adaptive anger regulation, and on their friends’ socialization responses to anger at T1, and at T2 their own adaptive anger regulation. ActorPartner Interdependence Modeling (APIM) evaluated relations among aggression, anger socialization, and anger regulation. Adolescents’ T1 aggressive behavior was associated with lower supportive and greater unsupportive anger socialization within friendships, and with their lower T2 adaptive anger regulation. In turn, supportive anger socialization was associated with greater adaptive T2 anger regulation and unsupportive anger socialization with lower T2 adaptive anger regulation. Mediational analyses indicated that T1 aggressive behavior predicted lower T2 anger regulation indirectly through T1 greater unsupportive anger socialization. Results highlight how aggressive behavior may hinder healthy anger socialization processes within friendships and demonstrate the importance of friend emotion socialization as a venue in which adolescents may (or may not) learn adaptive ways of managing anger arousal.

FRIENDS is an internationally recognized program designed to prevent anxiety and improve resilience skills. More specifically, the program is grounded in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and is activity/play based, and variations of the program have been adapted for all age groups (i.e., preschool through adulthood). Numerous clinical trials have been conducted to examine the efficacy of these programs. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analytic review of the FRIENDS program for children and adolescents. A total of 41 controlled trials met inclusion criteria, and findings indicated that, relative to comparison groups, those who took part in FRIENDS exhibited lower scores on measures of anxiety (d= -0.20) and measures of depression (d= -0.24) at post-intervention. In addition, the effect sizes were maintained at 6- to 12-month follow-up. Based on moderator analyses, larger effect sizes were found for trials conducted by mental health clinicians relative to other professionals. Although not statistically significant, there was a trend towards larger effect sizes for targeted programs (d= -0.41) relative to universal programs (d= -0.14). Results of other moderator analyses, results of uncontrolled trials, and directions for future research are also discussed.

This pilot study aimed to explore the intersection of mindfulness, physical activity, and mental well-being within higher education populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. College students, faculty, and staff (n = 34) from a public university participated in the study during spring, summer, and fall 2021. All participants wore a Fitbit for two weeks and were assigned to a treatment group (n = 17), who completed a daily five-minute breathing meditation during the second week, and a control group (n = 17), who did not complete breathing meditation. Amount of sleep and physical activity were measured with the Fitbit. Surveys assessed feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, along with perceived anxiety, depression, well-being, worry, and mindfulness at baseline and after the two-week study. Results demonstrated that the intervention was feasible, and that daily breathing meditation may help reduce anxiety and may lead to greater physical activity and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This pilot study lays the foundation for further research into mindfulness, physical activity, and mental health, which may have important implications for promoting mental well-being in college populations following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mental health interventions delivered via virtual reality (VR) technology are available for treatment of adult anxiety and phobias. VR for other mental health needs is now being explored. A small number of studies have examined VR acceptability and helpfulness for adolescents in conjunction with clinician support. No studies have examined the potential of VR to support adolescents in schools as a form of prevention. We present our early-stage work to produce and field-test a youth co-designed VR intervention for use in schools to support adolescent well-being. Co-design decisions led to a focus on stress reduction via emotion regulation, supported by a mindfulness-based approach. The prototype for field testing offered both structured and user-selected practices which the young person could hear and experience in a fully immersive, calm virtual environment. Two mainstream and one specialist setting field tested the resource, implementing it in different ways. Fourteen adolescent participants tested the resource in school. Users tolerated and liked the resource, and it was welcomed by schools. Adolescents with complex needs around emotion and attention seemed to particularly benefit from the resource compared to heathy stressed adolescents. Field-testing outcomes led to the development of a prototype ready for pilot testing.

Introduction

This study describes the formative evaluation of students’ perspectives and feedback on the OurFutures: Mental Health program, with particular attention toward insights for future iterative design and implementation of the program.

Methods

An online mixed-methods evaluation survey was administered to 762 Australian Year 8 secondary school students (Mage = 13.5 years) who completed the online, cartoon-based, OurFutures: Mental Health program. Quantitative items assessing program satisfaction, relevance and perceived utility were summarised and qualitative data were analysed using deductive thematic analysis.

Results

Most students rated the OurFutures: Mental Health program as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ (60%), felt the program would help ‘somewhat’ or a ‘great deal’ to deal more effectively with future problems (69%) and found the program information ‘somewhat’ or ‘extremely helpful’ (58%). However, less than half (49%) of students thought the program storylines were ‘completely’ or ‘somewhat relevant’ to their lives, 38% of students felt they were ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to use the skills/information in the program, and 29% of students stated they would recommend the program to friends. Males, and students with probable depression or anxiety diagnoses were more likely to enjoy the program. Qualitative findings identified several positive aspects and areas for future improvement.

Discussion

Findings illustrate that while most students rated the OurFutures: Mental Health program favourably, and some students found it relevant, helpful, and useful; many students did not find the storylines in the program relevant to their own lives. These findings provide important insight for improving the OurFutures: Mental Health program relevance and inclusivity to engage all students, including those without and without existing mental health symptoms

Universities are witnessing growing rates of emotional and mental challenges among students. Demand for emotional assistance—involving high-impact, cost-effective interventions to strengthen students’ resilience— is outstripping available resources. Accordingly, a new 13-module online course, titled “Favoring Resilience” was designed and taught to undergraduate students. The objectives of this study were to assess this course's feasibility and effectiveness, through a quasi-naturalistic control trial. A sample of 124 students who took this elective course during 2019–2020 was compared with a matching sample of 150 students who did not attend the course. Students were assessed four times: immediately before, immediately after, and three, and six months after the course completion, using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD_RISK), Rosenberg Scale of Self-Esteem (RSE), Body Esteem Scale (BES), a standardized measure of emotional status (DASS-21), and the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire—4r (SATAQ-4r). The course was found to be both feasible and effective. Statistically significant differences were found between the respective improvements of the Intervention and the Comparison groups in all variables—with the Intervention group showing greater improvement, albeit with a small effect size. Improvement in resilience was mediated by self-esteem and emotional status, but not by body esteem. We conclude that in developing prevention programs for emerging adults, the focus should be both on increasing resilience directly, and on self-esteem and mental status as avenues for enhanced resilience.

Clinical trial registration number: NCT04129892

Parental emotion socialization, including processes of the socialization of coping and emotion regulation, is a key factor in shaping children's adjustment in response to acute and chronic stress. Given well-established links between parental depression and youth psychopathology, levels of parental depression symptoms are an important factor for understanding emotion socialization and regulation processes. The present study examined associations among maternal coping and depression symptoms with their adolescents’ coping and internalizing problems. A sample of 120 adolescents (45% female, M = 12.27, SD = 1.90) and their mothers participated in a cross-sectional, multi-informant study. Mothers’ depression symptoms and adolescents’ coping were significantly related to adolescents’ internalizing problems. Adolescents’ coping moderated the association between maternal depression symptoms and adolescents’ internalizing problems, where at low and moderate levels of primary control coping, maternal depression predicted greater internalizing symptoms in adolescents. Further, this study expanded on prior work, demonstrating that the relationship between adolescents’ coping and internalizing symptoms was associated with the degree to which mothers model coping. Taken together, results suggest that maternal coping and adolescent coping serve as salient risk and protective factors in the context of family stress. Findings emphasize a need for researchers to further clarify the role of emotion socialization processes in adolescents’ development of coping in the context of family stress.

Background

Evidence suggesting increased mental health and wellbeing problems with children gives a rationale for developing and delivering proactive interventions. The Decider Skills is a framework that aims to teach children skills to manage their emotions and wellbeing. This study looked at whether students who participate in the programme as a whole-school approach would demonstrate an increased ability to recognise and better manage their emotions as rated by themselves, their parents, and their teachers.

Method

This study involved an uncontrolled pre-post trial. Data was collected from parents, children and teachers using the Social Competence Scale across four school sites, with 532 children participating. Data was gathered before and after the implementation of the Decider Skills intervention.

Results

Analyses examined the difference between Social Competence Scale scores pre-implementation and immediately post-implementation. Scores showed increases across this period for children, parents and teachers, with this difference being significant in the parent and teacher groups. For one school, data was available at follow-up one term after the end of the Decider Skills implementation. Results showed an increase in scores from pre-implementation to post-implementation but no significant change from pre-implementation to follow-up.

Conclusions

The Decider Skills programme can be practically delivered in a whole school setting, with measurable positive changes in children's emotional regulation and communication. The study design limits the ability to attribute causation, and the results highlight the importance of embedding habits and the potential benefit of top-up training or refreshers.