Online positive interventions to promote well-being and resilience in the adolescent population: A narrative review

Numerous studies have shown an alarming prevalence of depression, anxiety, and behavior disorders in youth. Thus, prevention of psychological problems in this population becomes crucial. According to the World Health Organization (1), prevention should also include the promotion and development of the individual''s strengths in order to reduce vulnerability to suffering from mental disorders. In addition, other key elements of prevention are the reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of interventions. The information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, have much to offer in terms of the prevention and promotion of positive mental health in adolescents. This paper reviews these fields of research-prevention, positive psychology, Internet, and adolescents-and discusses the potential of positive interventions delivered over the Internet as effective and sustainable health promotion tools. The paper provides a brief description of the systems developed so far and a summary of selected features of the studies detected in the literature review. The overall conclusions are that there is a need for more controlled studies with long-term follow-ups, the interventions should be designed considering the specific features of the target users and the specific contexts where the interventions will be delivered, and they could be enhanced by the use of other technologies, such as smartphones, sensors, or social networks

Online interventions to prevent mental health problems implemented in school settings: the perspectives from key stakeholders in Austria and Spain

Background: Schools are key settings for delivering mental illness prevention in adolescents. Data on stakeholders’ attitudes and factors relevant for the implementation of Internet-based prevention programmes are scarce. Methods: Stakeholders in the school setting from Austria and Spain were consulted. Potential facilitators (e.g. teachers and school psychologists) completed an online questionnaire (N=50), policy makers (e.g. representatives of the ministry of education and health professional associations) participated in semi-structured interviews (N=9) and pupils (N=29, 14–19 years) participated in focus groups. Thematic analysis was used to identify experiences with, attitudes and needs towards Internet-based prevention programmes, underserved groups, as well as barriers and facilitators for reach, adoption, implementation and maintenance. Results: Experiences with Internet-based prevention programmes were low across all stakeholder groups. Better reach of the target groups was seen as main advantage whereas lack of personal contact, privacy concerns, risk for misuse and potential stigmatization when implemented during school hours were regarded as disadvantages. Relevant needs towards Internet-based programmes involved attributes of the development process, general requirements for safety and performance, presentation of content, media/tools and contact options of online programmes. Positive attitudes of school staff, low effort for schools and compatibility to schools’ curriculum were seen as key factors for successful adoption and implementation. A sound implementation of the programme in the school routine and continued improvement could facilitate maintenance of online prevention initiatives in schools. Conclusions: Attitudes towards Internet-based mental illness prevention programmes in school settings are positive across all stakeholder groups. However, especially safety concerns have to be considered

The Presidency and the Executive Branch in Latin America: What We Know and What We Need to Know

The presidential politics literature depicts presidents either as all- powerful actors or figureheads and seeks to explain outcomes accordingly. Th e president and the executive branch are nonetheless usually treated as black boxes, particularly i n developing countries, even though the presidency has evolved into an extremely complex branch of government. While these developments have been studied in the U nited States, far less i s known in other countries, particularly in Latin America, where presi dential systems have been considered the source of all goods and evils. To help close the knowledge gap and explore differences in policymaking characteristics not only between Latin America and the US but also across Latin American countries, this paper s ummarizes the vast literature on the organization and resources of the Executive Branch in the Americas and sets a research agenda for the study of Latin American presidencies.Fil: Bonvecchi, Alejandro. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Departamento de Ciencia Política y Estudios Internacionales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Scartascini, Juan Carlos. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo; Estados Unido

The Political Economy of Fiscal Reform in Latin America: The Case of Argentina

This paper investigates the political economy of fiscal reform activism in Argentina since the late 1980s. Between 1988 and 2008, tax legislation was changed 83 times, fiscal federal rules 14 times, and budgetary institutions sixteen times. Tax and budgetary reforms moved from centralizing revenue sources and spending authority in the federal government to mild decentralization lately. Fiscal federal rules combined centralization of revenues and management in the federal government with short-term compensations for the provinces. This paper contends that reform activism can be explained by the recurrence of economic and policy shocks while reform patterns may be accounted for as consequences of the decreasing political integration of national parties in a polity whose decisionmaking rules encourage the formation of oversized coalitions. The decrease in political integration weakened the national party leaderships ability to coordinate intergovernmental bargaining, and strengthened the local bosses and factions needed to form oversized coalitions

Supplemental material for Relationship Between Auditory Context and Visual Distance Perception: Effect of Musical Expertise in the Ability to Translate Reverberation Cues Into Room-Size Perception

<p>Supplemental material for Relationship Between Auditory Context and Visual Distance Perception: Effect of Musical Expertise in the Ability to Translate Reverberation Cues Into Room-Size Perception by Pablo E. Etchemendy, Ignacio Spiousas and Ramiro Vergara in Perception</p

Emotional eating and food intake after sadness and joy

Item does not contain fulltextDo people with a high score on a scale for eating in response to negative emotions also show high food intake in response to positive emotions? We studied these effects in 60 female students that were preselected on the basis of extreme high or low scores on an emotional eating questionnaire. Using a between subject deign we experimentally tested the difference in food intake following a mood induction designed to induce joy or sadness (the joy vs. sad mood condition). The high and low emotional eaters did not differ in their food intake, but emotional eating significantly moderated the relationship between mood condition and food intake. Whereas low emotional eaters ate similar amounts after the sad and after the joy mood condition, high emotional eaters ate significantly more after the sad mood condition than after the joy mood condition. A further finding was that a similar moderator effect for emotional eating was found for intake of sweet food but not for intake of salty food. These findings would suggest that eating in response to negative and to positive emotions refer to two different constructs

An e-health platform for the elderly population: The butler system

[EN] The Butler system is an e-health platform designed to improve the elderly population's quality of life. The Butler system has three applications diagnostic, therapeutic and playful. The objective of this work is to present the influence of the use of the platform on elderly users' mood states and the degree of acceptance. These measures were assessed through visual analogical scales before and after the platform use, with the outcome measures MANOVAS analyses were performed. Seventeen users (from 58 to 79 years old) completed four sessions with the system; they could choose which technological resources they used in each session. The results showed that after using the system, the participants' insensitive emotions increased and their negative ones decreased. In addition, they obtained high levels of satisfaction, low levels of subjective difficulty and would recommend Butler to other users. Therefore, the results indicate that Butler might be an effective system for improving emotional states in elderly population. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This study was funded in part by Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia Spain, Projects Consolider-C (SEJ2006-14301/PSIC), "CIBER of Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition, an initiative of ISCIII" and Excellence Research Program PROMETEO (Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Educacion, 2008-157).Etchemendy, E.; Baños, RM.; Botella, C.; Castilla López, DV.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.; Rasal, P.; Farfallini, L. (2011). An e-health platform for the elderly population: The butler system. Computers and Education. 56(1):275-279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.07.022S27527956