Gender differences in social support among older adults

The purpose of this study was to determine whether exposure to life stress can help explain gender differences in the use of social support. Findings from a longitudinal study suggest that as the number of stressful life events increase, elderly men and women are equally likely to become more involved in their social network, while gender differences emerge only in response to chronic financial strain. Further analysis indicates that elderly women are more likely than elderly men to report that the support they received increased their feelings of personal control.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45591/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00289174.pd

Is adolescent alcohol use associated with self-reported hypomanic symptoms in adulthood? - Findings from a prospective birth cohort

High rates of alcohol use disorder (AUD) are reported in people with major depression (MD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Substance abuse problems in adolescence may also indicate risk for future onset of mood disorders, especially BD. Data collected from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a large UK birth cohort, allowed information to be collected over several different time points and to test whether problematic alcohol use at age 16 was predictive of vulnerability to hypomanic symptoms at age 23. Controlling for a participant's gender, SES, marital status of the mother, a likely history of maternal depression, and adolescents’ level of depressive symptoms at age 16, a hierarchical linear regression revealed that self-reported alcohol use in adolescence predicted the future onset of hypomanic/manic symptoms. Limitations include attrition and relying solely on self-ratings. Despite these limitations, the results suggest problematic alcohol use in adolescence predicts a vulnerability to hypomanic or manic symptoms

Situational fears: Association with negative affect-related smoking cognition among treatment seeking smokers

Despite the consistent clinically-significant relation between smoking and anxiety and its disorders, there is limited understanding of how specific fears relate to smoking processes. To isolate therapeutic targets for smoking-anxiety treatment development, there is a need to identify the underlying situational fears most related to smoking processes. Thus, the present study examined the association between interoceptive, agoraphobic, and social fears in terms of clinically significant negative affect-related smoking cognitions including negative affect reduction expectancies, coping motives, and perceived internal barriers to cessation. Participants were 469 treatment seeking smokers (48.2% female, M = 36.59, SD = 13.58) enrolled in a smoking cessation trial and completed baseline measures of smoking cognitions and situational fears. Results indicated that the there was a significant effect for social fears, relative to interoceptive and agoraphobic fears, for each of the studied clinically relevant smoking variables. Overall, this study offers initial empirical evidence that social fears are significantly and consistently related to several clinically-significant types of smoking cognition