THE PREVALENCE AND BURDEN OF MENTAL AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS IN ROMANIA: FINDINGS FROM THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF DISEASE STUDY 2016

Aims: National mental health policies must be grounded in accurate assessments of diseases. In the current article we used the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 to examine burden due to mental and substance use disorders in Romania. Methods: For each mental and substance use disorder included in the GBD 2016 we reported the yearly estimates for YLL (as a measure for non-fatal burden), YLD (fatal burden) and DALY (summing years lived with disability and years of life lost to give a measure of total burden). Results: Mental and substance use disorders were the third leading cause of non-fatal burden in Romania in 2016, explaining 13.53% of total years lived with disability, the ninth leading cause for fatal burden explaining 0.84% of total years of life lost, and were the fifth leading cause of total burden, accounting for 5.52% of total disability-adjusted life years. Among MSDs, depression, anxiety and alcohol use disorders have the highest rate. Starting 1997 there has been a slow decrease of age-standardized disabilityadjusted life year rates, with no significant change in the last 5 years. Conclusion: Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 found that mental and substance use disorders were the fifth leading contributors to disease burden in Romania, with anxiety and depressive being the most prevalent. Despite national programs and strategies in the area of mental health initiated especially after 1990, the mental health system does not fully meet the needs of the patients. Effective population-level strategic measures are still required in order to reduce the burden of disease

“We thought we were stronger than we were”: adopters’ narratives about the adoption journey and disruption

IntroductionAlthough the majority of adoptive families remain stable, some of them break up prematurely.MethodsAdopting a qualitative approach, this study gave voice to seven adoption applicants who began the adoption journey with one or more children but did not complete the legal process. Our goal was to understand their experiences throughout the adoption process and disruption.ResultsThe results show how adoption applicants went, in a short period, from the excitement of finding a child or sibling group to disillusionment and trauma. The main risk factors that hinder adoption stability include unrealistic expectations, intuitive choice of the child in the absence of accurate information, challenges posed by the child’s particular characteristics, and lack of professional support.DiscussionOur study highlights the need for adopters to be assisted throughout the entire process by specialists, to be better prepared to deal with the complex needs of children in the protection system, and to facilitate their access to a complex of specialized services to meet the different needs of every family

DEVELOPING VALUES FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS THROUGH THE STUDY OF ART OBJECTS

The paper begins with some issues related to aesthetics, aesthetic education, art and axiological education. The empirical research has the general assumption that secondary school students and youth have difficulties in selecting values. The objective of the research was three fold: to design, to organize and to carry learning activities from which students shall acquire educational values through the study of art objects. The exploratory research was conducted on a sample of 50 students (25 in experimental group and 25 in control group). The content sample included fairy-tales and short stories (Beauty and the Beast; The money earned by Alexandru Mitru) and artistic topics on several well-known art objects (The Endless Column, Table of Silence, The Gate of Kiss, Peleş castle, Voroneţ monastery, and St. Michael’s Cathedral from Cluj-Napoca). The tested hypothesis stated that if secondary school students are involved in learning contexts where they perceive, analyze and explain artistic objects then they develop aesthetic and ethic values. The learning context students were exposed to represents the independent variable and the outputs – the educational values themselves – represent the dependent variable. In order to test for the hypothesis we planned a formative didactic experiment. In order to test the hypothesis the pre-test/post-test design was used

Do wind turbines impact plant community properties in mountain region?

International audienceThe emergence of renewable energy infrastructures calls for a better understanding of their impact on biodiversity. The aim of the present study was to investigate in a mountain region the impact of a wind turbine on plant communities in their vicinity. A field survey was conducted in a wind farm situated in the Southern Romanian Carpathians, five years after the turbines were installed. We tested for the effects of the presence of the turbine and the distance to the turbine on plant species richness, on five plant ecological indicators and on the quality of the pastures. Overall, 33 plant species belonging to 16 families were recorded, and among them 21 were recorded in both the presence and the absence of wind turbine. The presence of a turbine did not affect the structure of the plant community, as the majority of the plots exhibited similar plant species richness and composition. Finally, the values of the ecological indicators and the pasture quality were not altered by the presence of the turbine. Such analyses could be extended over longer time periods so as to capture potential long-term effects and by integrating other environmental factors such as microclimatic conditions or soil properties

How Do High School Seniors See Their Future? Parental and Peer Influences on Their Personal and Professional Plans

Statement of problem: Future orientation is a multidimensional and multistage phenomenon. Studies have indicated that how adolescents anticipate and plan for their future is greatly influenced by the particular context in which they are placed, but most of the research in this area has been conducted with adolescents from western cultures. Aim: This study examined the personal (getting married, moving with the partner, having a child) and professional (having a job, starting a business) future planning of adolescents in contemporary Romania and its relation with adolescents’ background and with parents and friends support. Method: We administered a questionnaire measuring their future orientation and support from parents and friends to 3524 high school seniors from Romania. Results: Adolescents’ personal future planning varies across different life domains. Females were more likely to plan moving with the partner and getting married, while males were more likely to plan a career option. Family had an effect on professional plans, but the effect is negative, while friends were positive associated with all the future plannin

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CREATIVITY IN PRESCHOOLERS’ DRAWINGS THROUGH TASK-ORIENTED ACTIVITIES

The goal of this paper is to plan working task for preschool children in order to deliver original and creative outputs. The theoretical background of the paper is set in defining creativity as the capacity to create something new, original, and adequate to reality (Roco, 2004; Jaoui, 1975; Roşca, 1981; Boden, 1992). The research hypothesis states that if preschoolers are asked to comply with some predefined working rules in drawing they will deliver original outputs. The independent variable is the working task and the dependent variable is the output. The empirical research involved children enrolled in preparatory group from Floreşti Kindergarten (Cluj). The learning content involved elements from Math, Biology, and Decorative Art: circle, square, triangle, leaves, flowers. Children were involved 13 comparative experimental contexts. Therefore, their progress for each output was monitored. Preschoolers delivered original drawings, different from their peers’ but similar in using the same decorative element. The research hypothesis confirmed. Results are to be judged with caution as future researches should use fewer tasks as the independent variabl

Constructing future expectations in adolescence: relation to individual characteristics and ecological assets in family and friends

Required to manage multiple developmental tasks, multiple systems and processes are involved in making adolescents thinking about and making plans for the future. The current study aims at exploring the manner in which individual (optimism, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and self-concept) and contextual factors (family and peer influences) contribute to the construction of adolescents’ future expectations. 1509 youth (891 females and 618 males) with different socio-economical backgrounds were questioned using an online platform. Compared with their counterparts, girls, adolescents who were not experiencing severe material deprivation, those with high self-concept, displaying little depressive symptoms, and high level of optimism have more positive future expectations. As most of the available empirical data come from Western countries, these results complement the existing data in the area of emerging adulthood

MEASURING THE UPPER-ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN’S ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY IN CLUJ AREA, ROMANIA

In Romania, the number of environmental education studies on young children is not sufficient. This is mainly because scales for measuring the pro-environmental behaviour of young children are quite limited and are not quite common. This small-scale empirical study aims to supplement scarce research on children’s attitudes to the environment. The research included 51 children aged 9-10, receiving elementary education in Romanian urban area. The study was carried out in September 2012. Results show that in general children have developed proenvironmental attitudes, with girls displaying slightly higher means on all the scales, but with no significant differences computed. The most positive attitudes are in the area of nature appreciation, recycling and animal rights and protection. Although limited in its conclusions, the present study provides a significant contribution to the field for further studies to be conducted in Romania on the proenvironmental attitudes and potential behaviours of elementary school children