Multi-sector Service Use by Children in Contact with Ontario Mental Health Agencies

Children and youth frequently receive services for mental health issues from multiple service sectors but little is known about the rates of multi-sector involvement over time. Thus, the prevalence of multi-sector service use for children in contact with Ontario mental health agencies, and the influence of demographic, familial, and need variables on child multi-sector involvement, were examined. Secondary data analyses were performed on chart reviews of clients (N=355; 67% boys; ages 4 to 13) from six mental health agencies. Approximately two-thirds of clients had multi-sector involvement. In cross-sectional analyses, risk factors predicted increased likelihood of multi-sector involvement, whereas protective factors predicted decreased likelihood. In longitudinal analyses, increased risk/need at time 1 did not predict likelihood of multi-sector involvement at time 2. Ensuring a match between a client’s degree of need and services used may prevent misallocation of mental health resources

Exploring the links between Social Anxiety and Depression in the Maintenance of Romantic Relationships

Social anxiety is characterized by fear and avoidance of social encounters and has recently been associated with a variety of difficulties in romantic relationships. Complicating further investigation of these associations is the high degree of comorbidity between social anxiety and depressive symptomatology, which share several similarities in expression despite disparate underlying causes. The present thesis examines the unique influences of social anxiety and depression on a number of central aspects of relationship functioning and provide the first longitudinal investigation of the impacts of actor and partner social anxiety and depression on relationship quality and functioning. In Study 1, three independent samples drawn from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk participant pool (N = 888) completed measures of social anxiety, depression, relationship satisfaction, perceived social support, commitment, and dyadic trust. Results indicated that both social anxiety and depression were significantly inversely correlated with relationship satisfaction, perceived social support, and dyadic trust. However, hierarchical regression models revealed the variance in relationship satisfaction and dyadic trust to be more appropriately attributed to the influence of depression. Meta-analyses across all three samples revealed similar findings. In Study 2, 122 dyads (n = 244) recruited via Prolific Academic completed a series of measures of social anxiety, relationship satisfaction, perceived social support, and commitment over a 60-day time period. Longitudinal actor-partner analyses revealed partner, but not actor, depression predicted lower future relationship satisfaction and actor but not partner depression to predict lower perceived social support from one’s spouse. Social anxiety was not a significant predictor of change over time in any observed relationship variables. Academic and clinical implications of these findings are discussed

Update: Cytokine Dysregulation in Chronic Nonbacterial Osteomyelitis (CNO)

Chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis (CNO) with its most severe form chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis (CRMO) is a non-bacterial osteitis of yet unknown origin. Secondary to the absence of both high-titer autoantibodies and autoreactive T lymphocytes, and the association with other autoimmune diseases, it was recently reclassified as an autoinflammatory disorder of the musculoskeletal system. Since its etiology is largely unknown, the diagnosis is based on clinical criteria, and treatment is empiric and not always successful. In this paper, we summarize recent advances in the understanding of possible etiopathogenetic mechanisms in CNO

The Challenged Sense of Belonging Scale (CSBS) - a validation study in English, Arabic, and Farsi/Dari among refugees and asylum seekers in Germany

This study introduces and investigates the validity of a brief scale measuring a challenged sense of belonging. The sense of belonging as well as challenges to this sense are important, albeit neglected aspects of social integration and of significance to migration and refugee studies as well as to virtually all other social science contexts. Assessing a challenged or eroded sense of belonging provides important insights into how individuals relate to their environment and whether they feel socially connected or disconnected from it. The construct goes beyond national or cultural identity, instead emphasizing the dynamic processes of emotional attachment. Reviewing the substantial theoretical literature on belonging, we identify four of its key elements: connection, participation, identification, and congruence. Drawing on existing measurement instruments, we propose a brief Challenged Sense of Belonging Scale (CSBS) that addresses each of the four elements and investigate its validity in a unique, multi-lingual random sample of 3783 adult refugees in Germany from various national and cultural backgrounds. We provide evidence for the scale's validity separately for three main survey languages (English, Arabic, Farsi/Dari) using confirmatory factor analysis, a test of measurement invariance, item test and rest correlations, and correlation analysis to explore convergent validity. Our findings suggest that the scale is a suitable instrument for the assessment of a challenged sense of belonging in a heterogeneous population of refugees

Self-esteem, relationship threat, and dependency regulation:Independent replication of Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, and Kusche (2002) Study 3

Across three studies, Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, and Kusche (2002) found that low self-esteem individuals responded in a negative manner compared to those high in self-esteem in the face of relationship threat, perceiving their partners and relationships less positively. This was the first empirical support for the hypothesized dynamics of a dependency regulation perspective, and has had a significant impact on the field of relationship science. In the present research, we sought to reproduce the methods and procedures of Study 3 of Murray et al. (2002) to further test the two-way interaction between individual differences in self-esteem and situational relationship threat. Manipulation check effects replicated the original study, but no interaction between self-esteem and experimental condition was observed for any primary study outcomes

Plasma disappearance rate of albumin when infused as a 20% solution.

BACKGROUND The transcapillary leakage of albumin is increased by inflammation and major surgery, but whether exogenous albumin also disappears faster is unclear. METHODS An intravenous infusion of 3 mL/kg of 20% albumin was given over 30 min to 70 subjects consisting of 15 healthy volunteers, 15 post-burn patients, 15 patients who underwent surgery with minor bleeding, 10 who underwent surgery with major bleeding (mean, 1.1 L) and 15 postoperative patients. Blood Hb and plasma albumin were measured on 15 occasions over 5 h. The rate of albumin disappearance from the plasma was quantitated with population kinetic methodology and reported as the half-life (T1/2). RESULTS No differences were observed for T1/2 between volunteers, post-burn patients, patients who underwent surgery with minor bleeding and postoperative patients. The T1/2 averaged 16.2 h, which corresponds to 3.8% of the amount infused per h. Two groups showed plasma concentrations of C-reactive protein of approximately 60 mg/L and still had a similarly long T1/2 for albumin. By contrast, patients undergoing surgery associated with major hemorrhage had a shorter T1/2, corresponding to 15% of the infused albumin per h. In addition, our analyses show that the T1/2 differ greatly depending on whether the calculations consider plasma volume changes and blood losses. CONCLUSION The disappearance rate of the albumin in 20% preparations was low in volunteers, in patients with moderately severe inflammation, and in postoperative patients