Exploring Relationship Quality as a Dyadic Mediator of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Health for Economically Disadvantaged Couples

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the directional relationships between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE; Felitti et al., 1998), relationship quality (as measured by the Relationship Assessment Scale [Hendrick, 1988] and the Behavioral Self-Regulation for Effective Relationships Scale [Wilson, Charker, Lizzio, Halford, & Kimlin, 2005]), and health (as measured by the OQ 45.2 [Lambert et al., 2004] and a Brief Medical History Questionnaire [Daire, Wheeler, & Liekweg, 2014]) among economically disadvantaged couples. The theorized model included a dyadic structure and mediation of ACE and health by relationship quality using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model (APIMeM). The researcher employed structural equation modeling analyses and the APIMeM to investigate the model fit with archival and enrollment data from 503 heterosexual couples in a relationship education program. The majority of participants (76.9%) also identified a racial or ethnic minority background. Final results indicated a good fit for the model to the sample data and explained a significant portion of variance in health (i.e., 82.3% for men [a large effect], 56.5% for women [a large effect]). Significant findings included: (a) ACE exerted an effect on health indirectly through relationship quality (i.e., 98.05% of the male total actor effect, 57.4% of the female total actor effect); (b) ACE exerted a direct effect on health for women; (c) overall ACE, relationship quality, and health were significantly related at the actor-level; and (d) a dyadic influence between male and female reports of ACE, relationship quality, and health contributed to the overall model fit. Discussion of results, implications for practice, recommendations for future research, and study limitations are provided

“It’s such a hard and lonely journey”: Women’s experiences of perinatal loss and the subsequent pregnancy

Background: Perinatal losses are devastating life changing events for mothers, with psychological consequences both after loss and in the following pregnancy. Societal taboos result in disenfranchised grief, with inconsistent support available.Aims: This qualitative study aimed to understand the holistic journey of perinatal loss and the subsequent pregnancy from mothers with lived experience, exploring what support made a meaningful difference.Methods: Qualitative data were collected via forty online surveys and five face-to-face semi-structured interviews with mothers who had experienced a perinatal loss followed by a living child. The data were then analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to develop themes that can inform policy and practice.Findings: Under the overarching theme “losing [a baby] shaped who I am today” three main themes were developed, representing the development of the individual. The first theme centred on the embodied experience, capturing the unique nature of losses taking place within the living body, how this impacted women’s relationship with their body and fed into the next pregnancy with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Secondly, language was developed by participants to challenge societal silence, legitimise the personhood of their loss, whilst creating a community of support. The final theme, “it’s my body, it’s my pregnancy” denotes women taking action to develop choice and ownership over their care and support needs, whilst navigating the reliance on and frustration with the healthcare system.Conclusion: These findings have implications for therapeutic practice, as well as healthcare policy and practice more broadly. The lasting impact of perinatal losses suggests that fertility narratives need to be considered when developing psychological formulations. Counselling psychology can play a meaningful role in perinatal care by supporting healthcare professionals in developing empathic care pathways that validate grief responses, as well as challenging the pervasive medical language of both perinatal losses and distress

Towards a new social justice agenda: understanding political responses to crises

This In Focus Policy Briefing was written by Naomi Hossain of the institute of development Studies with inputs and advice from Kate Bishop, Robert Chambers, Kate Carroll, Rosalind Eyben, Richard Jolly, Claire Melamed and Rachel Sabates-Wheeler. The series editor is Carol Smithyes.Food riots across the developing world in 2008 sent powerful messages about the limits to people’s tolerance of acute economic insecurity. Yet political responses of this kind are mainly treated as the inevitable social convulsions after economic shocks – as natural, almost physiological responses to hunger. This briefing proposes that these political responses to crises can provide insights into popular perspectives on the global political issues of the day: global economic uncertainty, the moral limits to market freedom, and responsibilities of governments to protect against risk. Understanding such perspectives could inform emerging debates within development and help shape a new social justice agenda

The Experiences of Counselors-in-Training in a School-based Counseling Practicum

Counselor education programs often must choose between providing in vivo faculty supervision or a community-based setting. Programs that combine both elements have shown positive preliminary findings related to counselor development; however, the in-depth experiences of students in such programs have not been explored. This phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of counselors-in-training who participated in a school-based counseling practicum with in vivo faculty supervision. Researchers identified six themes, including continuum of support within relationships, operational challenges and concerns, needs and challenges of the community, working with children, expectations and realities, and counselor identity development. Implications for counselor education and research are provided

The Experiences of Counselors-in-Training in a School-based Counseling Practicum

Counselor education programs often must choose between providing in vivo faculty supervision or a community-based setting. Programs that combine both elements have shown positive preliminary findings related to counselor development; however, the in-depth experiences of students in such programs have not been explored. This phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of counselors-in-training who participated in a school-based counseling practicum with in vivo faculty supervision. Researchers identified six themes, including continuum of support within relationships, operational challenges and concerns, needs and challenges of the community, working with children, expectations and realities, and counselor identity development. Implications for counselor education and research are provided

Rates and Correlates of Intimate Partner Abuse Among Indigenous Women Caregivers

Intimate partner abuse (IPA) is a public health crisis that disproportionately impacts indigenous women. We know little about rates and correlates of IPA victimization (IPAV) and abuse directed at one’s partner (ADP) among indigenous women caregivers (people who take care of children). The purpose of the current study was to address this critical gap in the literature. Participants were 44 indigenous women caregivers in the United States in a current relationship who completed a survey. Most women reported IPAV and ADP experiences in the past 6 months, and IPAV and ADP abuse directed at partner were positively associated. Further, IPAV was positively associated with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), participants’ engagement in harsh parenting, and depressive symptoms. IPAV was negatively associated with age, income, indigenous cultural identity, and social support. ADP was positively associated with ACEs, harsh parenting, and depressive symptoms. ADP was negatively associated with age and income. ADP was not associated with indigenous cultural identity and social support. These data suggest the urgency with which efforts are needed to prevent and respond to IPA among indigenous women caregivers, especially those who are younger and of lower income, and that culturally grounded initiatives that seek to build social support may be especially impactful

Commercialisation, women’s empowerment and poverty reduction: APRA outcome indicators papers

Much of the debate about agricultural commercialisation offers simplistic, dichotomous comparisons between, for example, large and small-scale farming, or export-oriented and domestic markets. There is often an assumption that there is one ideal type of commercialisation that can be realised through investment and policy intervention. Yet in practice, there are diverse ways that different people engage with processes of agricultural commercialisation along value chains, from production to processing to marketing. This range of pathways will have both risks and benefits for different groups of people, often differentiated by gender. Our research will examine the consequences of different types of commercialisation, contrasting, for example, smallholder, contract farming and large-estate arrangements, and pathways of commercialisation, examining commercialisation over time and the outcomes for different people. A comparative research design, across six countries and between different cropping/livestock systems, will enable the APRA Programme to draw out wider recommendations that will help inform and guide investment and policy decisions around agricultural commercialisation in Africa into the future. In practical research terms, the agenda described above requires that a range of indicators are specified in relation to our five main outcome areas. This document compiles five separate papers, each one reviewing the established literature on a specific outcome area and then providing a justification for the proposed indicators to be applied in the APRA studies

Cognitive Effects of Risperidone in Children with Autism and Irritable Behavior

Objective: The objective of this research was to explore the effects of risperidone on cognitive processes in children with autism and irritable behavior. Method: Thirty-eight children, ages 5-17 years with autism and severe behavioral disturbance, were randomly assigned to risperidone (0.5 to 3.5 mg/day) or placebo for 8 weeks. This sample of 38 was a subset of 101 subjects who participated in the clinical trial; 63 were unable to perform the cognitive tasks. A double-blind placebo-controlled parallel groups design was used. Dependent measures included tests of sustained attention, verbal learning, hand-eye coordination, and spatial memory assessed before, during, and after the 8-week treatment. Changes in performance were compared by repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Twenty-nine boys and 9 girls with autism and severe behavioral disturbance and a mental age ≥18 months completed the cognitive part of the study. No decline in performance occurred with risperidone. Performance on a cancellation task (number of correct detections) and a verbal learning task (word recognition) was better on risperidone than on placebo (without correction for multiplicity). Equivocal improvement also occurred on a spatial memory task. There were no significant differences between treatment conditions on the Purdue Pegboard (hand-eye coordination) task or the Analog Classroom Task (timed math test). Conclusion: Risperidone given to children with autism at doses up to 3.5 mg for up to 8 weeks appears to have no detrimental effect on cognitive performance

A multi-stage genome-wide association study of bladder cancer identifies multiple susceptibility loci.

We conducted a multi-stage, genome-wide association study of bladder cancer with a primary scan of 591,637 SNPs in 3,532 affected individuals (cases) and 5,120 controls of European descent from five studies followed by a replication strategy, which included 8,382 cases and 48,275 controls from 16 studies. In a combined analysis, we identified three new regions associated with bladder cancer on chromosomes 22q13.1, 19q12 and 2q37.1: rs1014971, (P = 8 × 10⁻¹²) maps to a non-genic region of chromosome 22q13.1, rs8102137 (P = 2 × 10⁻¹¹) on 19q12 maps to CCNE1 and rs11892031 (P = 1 × 10⁻⁷) maps to the UGT1A cluster on 2q37.1. We confirmed four previously identified genome-wide associations on chromosomes 3q28, 4p16.3, 8q24.21 and 8q24.3, validated previous candidate associations for the GSTM1 deletion (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹) and a tag SNP for NAT2 acetylation status (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹), and found interactions with smoking in both regions. Our findings on common variants associated with bladder cancer risk should provide new insights into the mechanisms of carcinogenesis