Enhancing the reach and impact of parenting interventions for toddler externalising and aggressive behaviours

Childhood externalising behaviours are associated with significant impairments in functioning and long-term negative outcomes. Physical aggression in the toddler years is both common and developmentally normal, however, longitudinal research shows that frequent physical aggression is highly stable over time and is a more robust risk factor for offending in adolescence and adulthood than other externalising behaviours. This thesis is concerned with enhancing the reach and impact of parenting interventions for toddler externalising and aggressive behaviour. Thirty years of research has demonstrated the efficacy of social learning based parenting interventions, typically 8 to 12 sessions in duration, for reducing externalising behaviour problems in childhood. However, the length of standard parenting interventions may overburden families and lead to low participation rates and high attrition rates; it may also prevent primary care health practitioners from implementing them as prescribed. Brief parenting interventions, delivered as part of a stepped care approach, may have the potential to increase the reach of parenting interventions and in turn, impact on externalising behaviour problems at the population level. This thesis reports on the findings of a randomised controlled trial which compared a standard 8 session parenting intervention to a brief 3 session intervention and a waitlist control group for reducing toddler externalising and aggressive behaviours, dysfunctional parenting and related aspects of parent functioning. Sixty-nine self-referred families with a toddler with aggressive behaviour were randomised to the respective conditions. At post-assessment, families who received the 8 session intervention showed significantly lower levels of observed child aversive behaviour, mother-rated child externalising and aggressive behaviours, dysfunctional parenting and higher levels of behavioural self-efficacy compared with waitlist. Families who received the 8 session intervention also reported lower levels of mother-rated dysfunctional parenting compared with those who received the 3 session intervention. Families who received the 3 session intervention differed from waitlist on one measure of mother-rated dysfunctional parenting. No significant group differences emerged at post-assessment for measures of parental negative affect or satisfaction with the partner relationship according to mothers, or for any father-rated measures (with the exception of behavioural self-efficacy). By six month follow-up, families who received the 8 session intervention did not differ significantly from families who received the 3 session intervention on any measure. Both mothers and fathers who received the 8 session intervention were significantly more satisfied with the intervention than those who received the 3 session intervention. Overall, the findings show greater short-term impacts of the 8 session relative to the 3 session intervention. However, medium effect sizes were found for the brief parenting intervention relative to waitlist for child aggressive behaviour and dysfunctional parenting. These effect sizes were similar to those reported in the literature for longer parenting interventions but the current study was underpowered to detect such effects. While this study provides some initial evidence that a brief parenting intervention may have significant effects on dysfunctional parenting, and may offer promise as the first step in a stepped care models of delivery, further research is needed

Pathways of care: longitudinal study on children and young people in out-of-home care in New South Wales

This article outlines a prospective longitudinal study on the wellbeing of children placed in out-of-home care in New South Wales and the factors that influence their wellbeing. Overview The Pathways of Care longitudinal study (POCLS) is a new prospective longitudinal study designed to address the methodological limitations of previous research. The overall aim of this longitudinal study of children and young people in out-of-home care (OOHC) is to collect detailed information about the wellbeing of children placed in OOHC in NSW and the factors that influence their wellbeing. It will provide a strong evidence base to inform policy and practice, and in turn improve decision making about how best to support children and young people who have experienced abuse and neglect. This five-year study, which commenced in March 2011, differs from previous Australian research in OOHC because the population cohort is all children and young people entering OOHC for the first time and includes children of all ages as well as all geographic locations in NSW. It also collects information from multiple sources, including carers, children and young people, caseworkers, teachers and administrative data through record linkage. The study has a broad scope and collects detailed information about the characteristics and circumstances of children and young people on entry to OOHC, the experiences of children and young people in OOHC, and their developmental pathways in order to identify the factors that influence their outcomes. The developmental domains of interest are the children\u27s physical health, social-emotional wellbeing and cognitive/learning ability. POCLS will follow children and young people regardless of their pathways through OOHC (e.g., placement changes, restoration, adoption or ageing out) to examine the factors that predispose children and young people to poorer outcomes and what factors are protective

Effect on survey response rate of hand written versus printed signature on a covering letter: randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN67566265]

BACKGROUND: It is important that response rates to postal surveys are as high as possible to ensure that the results are representative and to maximise statistical power. Previous research has suggested that any personalisation of approach helps to improve the response rate. This experiment tested whether personalising questionnaires by hand signing the covering letter improved the response rate compared with a non-personalised group where the investigator's signature on the covering letter was scanned into the document and printed. METHODS: Randomised controlled trial. Questionnaires about surgical techniques of caesarean section were mailed to 3,799 Members and Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists resident in the UK. Individuals were randomly allocated to receive a covering letter with either a computer printed signature or a hand written signature. Two reminders were sent to non-respondents. The outcome measures were the proportion of questionnaires returned and their time to return. RESULTS: The response rate was 79.1% (1506/1905) in the hand-signed group and 78.4% (1484/1894) in the scanned and printed signature group. There was no detectable difference between the groups in response rate or time taken to respond. CONCLUSION: No advantage was detected to hand signing the covering letter accompanying a postal questionnaire to health professionals

Mealtime Behaviour and Parent-Child Interaction: A Comparison of Children with Cystic Fibrosis, Children with Feeding Problems, and Nonclinic Controls

Examined the role of family interaction factors in dietary compliance problems reported by parents of children with cystic fibrosis (CF). The family mealtime interactions of children with CF, children with feeding problems and nonclinic controls were observed, and parents monitored children's eating behavior at home. Parents of children with CF reported more concern about feeding problems and recorded more disruptive mealtime behavior than parents of nonclinic children. Observational data showed children with CF to display overall rates of disruptive mealtime behavior not significantly different from either comparison group. Mothers of children with CF were observed to engage in higher rates of aversive interaction with their child than did mothers of nonclinic controls. Fathers of children with CF reported lower marital satisfaction than fathers of controls. Both mothers and fathers of children with CF reported lower parenting self-efficacy than non-CF families. Clinical implications are discussed

Dynamical mass constraints on the ultraluminous X-ray Source NGC 1313 X-2

Dynamical mass measurements hold the key to answering whether ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) or stellar mass black holes with special radiation mechanisms. NGC 1313 X-2 is so far the only ULX with HST light curves, the orbital period, and the black hole's radial velocity amplitude based on the He II $\lambda4686$\AA\ disk emission line shift of $\sim200$ km/s. We constrain its black hole mass and other parameters by fitting observations to a binary light curve code with accommodations for X-ray heating of the accretion disk and the secondary. Given the dynamical constraints from the observed light curves and the black hole radial motion and the observed stellar environment age, the only acceptable models are those with 40-50 Myrs old intermediate mass secondaries in their helium core and hydrogen shell burning phase filling 40%-80% of their Roche lobes. The black hole can be a massive black hole of a few tens of $M_\odot$ that can be produced from stellar evolution of low metalicity stars, or an IMBH of a few hundred to above 1000$M_\odot$ if its true radial velocity $2K^\prime<40$ km/s. Further observations are required to better measure the black hole radial motion and the light curves in order to determine whether NGC 1313 X-2 is a stellar black hole or an IMBH.Comment: 45 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables, to appear in ApJ in December 10 issu

Structure and kinematics of edge-on galaxy discs -- II. Observations of the neutral hydrogen

We present Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) HI observations of 15 edge-on spiral galaxies of intermediate to late morphological type. The global properties and the distribution and kinematics of the HI gas are analysed and discussed. We determine the rotation curves using the envelope-tracing method. For 10 spiral galaxies with a stellar disc truncation we find an average ratio of the HI radius to the truncation radius of the stellar disc of 1.1 +/- 0.2 (1 sigma). This paper has been accepted by MNRAS and is available in pdf-format at the following URL: http://www.astro.rug.nl/$\sim$vdkruit/jea3/homepage/paperII.pdfComment: Accepted for oublication in MNRA

Supernova 1998S at 14 years Postmortem: Continuing Circumstellar Interaction and Dust Formation

We report late-time spectroscopic observations of the Type IIn SN 1998S, taken 14 years after explosion using the Large Binocular Telescope. The optical spectrum exhibits broad emission features of [O I], [O II], [O III], H-alpha, H-beta, and [Fe II]. The last decade of evolution has exhibited a strengthening of the oxygen transitions, evidence that the late-time emission is powered by increasingly metal-rich SN ejecta crossing the reverse shock. The H-alpha luminosity requires that SN 1998S is still interacting with dense circumstellar material (CSM), probably produced by the strong wind of a red supergiant progenitor at least ~1000 years before explosion. The emission lines exhibit asymmetric blueshifted profiles, which implies that the receding hemisphere of the SN is obscured by dust. The [O III] line, in particular, exhibits a complete suppression of its red wing. This could be the result of the expected wavelength dependence for dust extinction or a smaller radial distribution for [O III]. In the latter case, the red wing of [O III] could be absorbed by core dust, while both the blue and red wings are absorbed by dust within the cool dense shell between the forward and reverse shocks; this interpretation could explain why late-time [O III] emission from SNe is often weaker than models predict. The [O I] line exhibits double-peaked structure on top of the broader underlying profile, possibly due to emission from individual clumps of ejecta or ring-like structures of metal-rich debris. The centroids of the peaks are blueshifted and lack a red counterpart. However, an archival spectrum obtained on day 1093 exhibits a third, redshifted peak, which we suspect has become extinguished by dust that formed over the last decade. This implies that the "missing" red components of multi-peaked oxygen profiles observed in other SNe might be obscured by varying degrees of dust extinction.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS on May 16 201

Reconstructing galaxy fundamental distributions and scaling relations from photometric redshift surveys. Applications to the SDSS early-type sample

Noisy distance estimates associated with photometric rather than spectroscopic redshifts lead to a mis-estimate of the luminosities, and produce a correlated mis-estimate of the sizes. We consider a sample of early-type galaxies from the SDSS DR6 for which both spectroscopic and photometric information is available, and apply the generalization of the V_max method to correct for these biases. We show that our technique recovers the true redshift, magnitude and size distributions, as well as the true size-luminosity relation. We find that using only 10% of the spectroscopic information randomly spaced in our catalog is sufficient for the reconstructions to be accurate within about 3%, when the photometric redshift error is dz = 0.038. We then address the problem of extending our method to deep redshift catalogs, where only photometric information is available. In addition to the specific applications outlined here, our technique impacts a broader range of studies, when at least one distance-dependent quantity is involved. It is particularly relevant for the next generation of surveys, some of which will only have photometric information.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, new section 3.1 and appendix added, MNRAS in pres