ANCOVA Study of Psychotherapy Treatment of Internet Pornography Addiction in Heterosexual Men

Internet pornography has grown to become a problem that exists within the United States and across the globe. For those who suffer from this problematic behavior experience individual and familial problems as well as cause damage to the psyche, professionally and sexually. Those who suffer from addiction do not possess the ability to be able to stop the behavior on their own. Treatment is needed to help internet pornography users and addicts to recover while minimizing relapse from its consumption. This research proposal is a randomized, controlled, clinical ANCOVA study that will determine the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance Commitment Therapy for reducing Internet pornography viewing and behaviors among male heterosexual Internet pornography addicts. Treatment will take place for eight week period and consist of 75 male participants who are randomly assigned to either the CBT, ACT or wait-list control groups. Participants will be assessed at pretest (week 1), posttest (week 9) and three month follow-up (week 13) on the SIS/SES SAST-R, CPUI and AAQ-II measures. The study will define Internet pornography addictive behaviors, negative consequences and explain internal, external, construct and statistical construct validity with regard to the study’s design. Success of the study would provide effective treatment protocol and lessen the destruction of Internet pornography addiction on addicts who seek treatment as well as provide a format for therapists to follow as this is a new type of addiction, which has yet to be universally defined

A study of the effects of explicit story structure instruction on narrative writing in the upper primary school : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MLitEd (Master of Literacy Education) at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Many New Zealand middle and upper primary students, struggle with writing. This is a challenge, as research shows a continuing downward trend in writing standards as children move across the grades. Therefore, it is helpful to know whether children can write better narratives after appropriate instruction so that writing achievement can be improved. Previous research has found that teaching story structure in a very explicit way improves narrative writing quality and quantity but few studies have been done in New Zealand classrooms. Hence the present study. Participants were initially 50 children from a country school and a city school. The study started with 50 children from two classrooms in schools, one in the country and one in the city. Of these, 41 children completed all the assessments, 18 in the country school and 23 children in the city school. Initial data from the schools about the children in terms of ethnicity, gender, and writing achievement enabled the researcher to assign children randomly either to an experimental group or control group. The experimental group received writing instruction that focused on aspects such as setting, characters, plot, and theme. The control group received writing instruction that focused less on structure and more on main ideas and using literary elements. Both groups received tuition in how to use a story planner as a guide when writing. The lessons ran daily, for an hour at a time, for three days. The classroom teacher taught the experimental group and the researcher taught the control group. Children wrote three stories across five days. The results showed that the story structure intervention did have an effect on children’s writing of stories in the country school but the effect was smaller in the city school. The discussion focuses on possible reasons for this

Occupational and leisure time physical activity in contrasting relation to ambulatory blood pressure

Background: While moderate and vigorous leisure time physical activities are well documented to decrease the risk for cardiovascular disease, several studies have demonstrated an increased risk for cardiovascular disease in workers with high occupational activity. Research on the underlying causes to the contrasting effects of occupational and leisure time physical activity on cardiovascular health is lacking. The aim of this study was to examine the relation of objective and self-report measures of occupational and leisure time physical activity with 24-h ambulatory systolic blood pressure (BP). Methods: Results for self-reported physical activity are based on observations in 182 workers (60% male, mean age 51 years), while valid objective physical activity data were available in 151 participants. The usual level of physical activity was assessed by 5 items from the Job Content Questionnaire (high physical effort, lifting heavy loads, rapid physical activity, awkward body positions and awkward positions of head or arms at work) and one item asking about the general level of physical activity during non-working time. On a regular working day, participants wore an ambulatory BP monitor and an accelerometer physical activity monitor during 24 h. Associations were examined by means of Analysis of Covariance. Results: Workers with an overall high level of self-reported occupational physical activity as well as those who reported to often lift heavy loads at work had a higher mean systolic BP at work, at home and during sleep. However, no associations were observed between objectively measured occupational physical activity and BP. In contrast, those with objectively measured high proportion of moderate and vigorous leisure time physical activity had a significantly lower mean systolic BP during daytime, while no differences were observed according to self-reported level of leisure time physical activity. Conclusions: These findings suggest that workers reporting static occupational physical activities, unlike general physically demanding tasks characterized by dynamic movements of large muscle groups, are related to a higher daily systolic BP, while high objective levels of moderate and vigorous leisure time physical activity are related to lower daytime systolic BP. Ambulatory systolic BP may be a physiological explanatory factor for the contrasting effects of occupational and leisure time physical activity

Analysing randomised controlled trials with missing data : Choice of approach affects conclusions

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. PMID: 22265924 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Peer reviewedPostprin