Peer Victimization and Child Physical Health: The Moderating Role of Pessimism

Objective—Involvement in peer victimization has been associated with numerous negative consequences, including poor physical health. The purpose of this study is to improve on previous research evaluating the victimization– health relationship by examining the health (i.e., health-related quality of life [HRQoL], medical service utilization) of both victims and aggressors and examining individual variation in this relationship through the moderating effect of pessimism. Method—Sample included 125 ethnically diverse youth aged 8–11 years recruited from a low-income medical practice. Child-report of involvement in peer victimization and pessimism was assessed along with parent-report of HRQoL. 2-year medical service utilization was extracted from medical records. Results—Although not all hypotheses were supported, victims and aggressors were found to be at increased risk for certain poor health outcomes, which were exacerbated by high levels of pessimism. Conclusion—Findings expand on research into peer victimization and health and provide important implications for identification, prevention, and intervention strategies with at-risk youth

Peer Victimization and Child Physical Health: The Moderating Role of Pessimism

Objective—Involvement in peer victimization has been associated with numerous negative consequences, including poor physical health. The purpose of this study is to improve on previous research evaluating the victimization– health relationship by examining the health (i.e., health-related quality of life [HRQoL], medical service utilization) of both victims and aggressors and examining individual variation in this relationship through the moderating effect of pessimism. Method—Sample included 125 ethnically diverse youth aged 8–11 years recruited from a low-income medical practice. Child-report of involvement in peer victimization and pessimism was assessed along with parent-report of HRQoL. 2-year medical service utilization was extracted from medical records. Results—Although not all hypotheses were supported, victims and aggressors were found to be at increased risk for certain poor health outcomes, which were exacerbated by high levels of pessimism. Conclusion—Findings expand on research into peer victimization and health and provide important implications for identification, prevention, and intervention strategies with at-risk youth

Daily Bidirectional Relationships Between Sleep and Mental Health Symptoms in Youth With Emotional and Behavioral Problems

Objective The present study examined the daily, bidirectional relationships between sleep and mental health symptoms in youth presenting to mental health treatment. Methods Youth aged 6 to 11 (36% female, 44% European American) presenting to outpatient behavioral health treatment (N = 25) were recruited to participate in the study. Children and parents completed daily questionnaires regarding the child’s sleep, mood, and behavior for a 14-day period, while youth wore an actigraph watch to objectively measure sleep. Results Examining between- and within-person variance using multilevel models, results indicate that youth had poor sleep duration and quality and that sleep and mental health symptoms were highly related at the daily level. Between-person effects were found to be most important and significant bidirectional relationships exist. Conclusions Identifying and addressing sleep problems in the context of mental health treatment is important, as poor sleep is associated with increased symptomology and may contribute to worsened mental health

Expanding Mental Health Consultation in Early Head Start: Recommendations for Supporting Home Visitors in Increasing Parental Engagement

Early Head Start strongly emphasizes the importance of intervening with the entire family to promote healthy child development. Parents, in particular, are recognized as their child’s most important teacher. While Early Head Start performance standards currently mandate mental health consultation to identify and intervene with child mental health problems, there is little direct focus on the role of consultation in managing parental mental health concerns. This is problematic given that a wide body of literature outlines the impact of parental mental health on engagement in home-based programs such as Early Head Start. Investigations within the home visiting field have also shown persistent requests from staff for further support in addressing these barriers to engagement. Mental health professionals can be instrumental in providing support and education to home visitors dealing with parental mental health concerns, although formal guidelines are generally silent on best practices for establishing and maintaining effective consultation relationships. This Dialog from the Field discusses the issues posed to family engagement by parent-related problems such as mental illness. Synthesizing experience from consultation provided to an Early Head Start program with research from the field, we present a model expanding mental health consultation to address parent and family concerns

Pediatric sleep and psychopathology: The daily, sequential relationship between sleep and emotional/behavioral functioning in youth

Sleep problems are prevalent in youth with behavioral and emotional problems which is concerning considering the associated negative consequences found in nonclinical populations, including a decline in behavioral and emotional functioning. Despite research suggesting a dynamic relationship between sleep, mood, and behavior in nonclinical youth, there has been relatively little examination of these relationships, particularly at the daily level, in clinical samples. Thus, the primary aim of the present study was to examine the daily, sequential relationship between sleep and psychopathology in a clinical sample of youth. Youth aged 6 to 11 (36% female, 44% European American) presenting to outpatient behavioral health treatment (N = 25) were recruited to participate in the study. Baseline measures of sleep and emotional and behavioral functioning were collected. Additionally, children and parents completed daily questionnaires regarding the child\u27s sleep, mood, and behavior for a 14 day period while youth wore an actigraph watch to objectively measure sleep. Multilevel models were estimated to deconstruct the between and within person variance in the relationship between sleep and mental health. Overall, results indicate that these youth had poor sleep duration and quality and that sleep and psychopathology were highly related at baseline and at the daily-level. Between-person effects were found to be most important and significant sequential relationships between average daily mental health and sleep were found. Further, baseline moderators of this relationship were explored. Results indicate that identifying and addressing sleep problems in the context of mental health treatment is important as sleep is associated with worse psychopathology and may contribute to exacerbated mental health symptoms. Beyond treatment implications, results provide a stepping stone for future research to examine mechanisms and intervention strategies for this relationship

Expanding Mental Health Consultation in Early Head Start: Recommendations for Supporting Home Visitors in Increasing Parental Engagement

Early Head Start strongly emphasizes the importance of intervening with the entire family to promote healthy child development. Parents, in particular, are recognized as their child’s most important teacher. While Early Head Start performance standards currently mandate mental health consultation to identify and intervene with child mental health problems, there is little direct focus on the role of consultation in managing parental mental health concerns. This is problematic given that a wide body of literature outlines the impact of parental mental health on engagement in home-based programs such as Early Head Start. Investigations within the home visiting field have also shown persistent requests from staff for further support in addressing these barriers to engagement. Mental health professionals can be instrumental in providing support and education to home visitors dealing with parental mental health concerns, although formal guidelines are generally silent on best practices for establishing and maintaining effective consultation relationships. This Dialog from the Field discusses the issues posed to family engagement by parent-related problems such as mental illness. Synthesizing experience from consultation provided to an Early Head Start program with research from the field, we present a model expanding mental health consultation to address parent and family concerns

Feasibility and impact on daytime sleepiness of an experimental protocol inducing variable sleep duration in adolescents.

Although most research on sleep and adolescent health has focused on how long each youth sleeps on average, variability in sleep duration may be just as problematic. Existing findings have been inconsistent and unable to address cause-effect relationships. This study piloted an experimental protocol to induce sleep variability and explore its impact on daytime sleepiness in adolescents. Healthy adolescents aged 14-17 participated in a 3-week, at-home protocol. Sleep was monitored by sleep diaries and actigraphy. Following a run-in period to stabilize wake times (set at 6:30am throughout the protocol), participants were randomly counterbalanced across two 5-night experimental conditions. Bedtimes were consistent at 11:00pm during the stable sleep condition (7.5-hour sleep period each night) but changed on alternating nights during the variable sleep condition (ranging from 9:30pm to 12:30am) so that sleep duration averaged 7.5 hours across the condition with a standard deviation of 1.37 hours. Difficulty waking was assessed each morning and daytime sleepiness was assessed by end-of-condition parent- and adolescent-reports. Of the 20 participants who completed the study, 16 met the predetermined adherence definition. For those who were adherent, there were no differences in overall sleep duration between the stable and variable sleep conditions (p>.05) but adolescents had 58.6 minutes greater night-to-night variation in sleep duration in the variable condition (p < .001). Across all nights, youth reported greater difficulty waking following nights of shorter assigned sleep (p = .004) and greater overall sleepiness during the variable condition (p = .03). It is feasible to experimentally vary how long adolescents sleep on a nightly basis while holding average sleep duration constant. Such a protocol will promote tests of the acute effects of day-to-day changes in sleep duration on health