A Comparative Analysis of the Children's Future Orientation Scale Ratings of Traumatized Urban Youth with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

This study examined the future orientation, or attitudes about the future, of traumatized youth with and without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) relative to the future orientation of a non-traumatized comparison group. Participants included youth between 6 and 17 years of age who were previously evaluated for a larger trauma study at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. Youth presenting with major comorbid psychiatric disorders were excluded from participation. Child diagnostic interviews identified 30 youth with PTSD, 62 traumatized youth without PTSD, and 40 non-traumatized controls. Children and adolescents completed the Children's Future Orientation Scale, a multi-dimensional self-report measure assessing future thinking regarding having a family, social relationships, work, as well as general life outlook. Statistical analyses indicate that the total future orientation ratings of youth with PTSD were significantly lower than the aggregate ratings of traumatized youth without PTSD and non-traumatized controls. Youth with PTSD had substantially lower expectations about future social relations and more pessimistic general expectations about the future than controls. On the other hand, the traumatized groups did not significantly differ with regard to future socialization expectations. Moreover, traumatized youth without PTSD had considerably more negative future social expectations relative to the controls. Though these results offer preliminary support for the DSM-IV contention that PTSD is associated with negative expectations about the future, deficits in future orientation were not exclusive to diagnostic status and varied as a function of the type of future expectation. Future research should strive to compare youth with PTSD to youth with other psychiatric disorders in order to increase our understanding of future expectation across diagnostic categories and increase the external validity of empirical findings

Outcomes Following Pouch Formation in Paediatric Ulcerative Colitis : A Study From the Porto Group of ESPGHAN

Introduction: Contemporary pediatric data on pouch outcomes are sparse, especially in the era of laparoscopic surgeries. We aimed to assess outcomes and predictors in children with ulcerative colitis/inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-unclassified who underwent colectomy and ileal pouch-anal anastomosis. Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective cohort study from 17 IBD centers affiliated with the pediatric IBD Porto group of ESPGHAN. An electronic REDcap system was used to collate baseline characteristics, demographic, clinical, management and surgical data, short- and long-term outcomes, and to identify potential predictors of pouch outcome. Results: Of the 129 patients included, 86 (67%) developed pouchitis during follow-up of median 40 months (interquartile range 26-72), of whom 33 (26%) with chronic pouchitis. Patients operated on by surgeons performingPeer reviewe

Mental Health and School Functioning for Girls in the Child Welfare System : the Mediating Role of Future Orientation and School Engagement

This study investigated the association between mental health problems and academic and behavioral school functioning for adolescent girls in the child welfare system and determined whether school engagement and future orientation meditated the relationship. Participants were 231 girls aged between 12 and 19 who had been involved with the child welfare system. Results indicated that 39% of girls reported depressive symptoms in the clinical range and 54% reported posttraumatic symptoms in the clinical range. The most common school functioning problems reported were failing a class (41%) and physical fights with other students (35%). Participants reported a mean number of 1.7 school functioning problems. Higher levels of depression and PTSD were significantly associated with more school functioning problems. School engagement fully mediated the relationship between depression and school functioning and between PTSD and school functioning, both models controlling for age, race, and placement stability. Future orientation was not significantly associated with school functioning problems at the bivariate level. Findings suggest that school engagement is a potentially modifiable target for interventions aiming to ameliorate the negative influence of mental health problems on school functioning for adolescent girls with histories of abuse or neglect