Psychological and physical adjustment to breast cancer over 4 years: identifying distinct trajectories of change.

The goal of this study was to identify distinct trajectories of adjustment to breast cancer over 4 years as well as to distinguish among the different trajectories. The mental and physical functioning of 287 women with breast cancer who remained alive and disease free through 4 years of follow-up were examined. The majority of women showed slight and steady improvement in functioning with time, but subgroups of women were identified who showed marked improvement and marked deteriorations over time. Age successfully distinguished different trajectories of physical functioning. Indices of personal resources (i.e., self-image, optimism, perceived control) and social resources (i.e., social support) successfully distinguished different courses of mental and physical functioning.</p

Individual differences in cue weights are stable across time: The case of Japanese stop lengths

<p>Speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions, and listeners give differential weighting to dimensions in phonetic categorization. The informativeness (predictive strength) of dimensions for categorization is considered an important factor in determining perceptual weighting. However, it is unknown how the perceptual system weighs acoustic dimensions with similar informativeness. This study investigates perceptual weighting of two acoustic dimensions with similar informativeness, exploiting the absolute and relative durations that are nearly equivalent in signaling Japanese singleton and geminate stop categories. In the perception experiments, listeners showed strong individual differences in their perceptual weighting of absolute and relative durations. Furthermore, these individual patterns were stable over repeated testing across as long as 2 months and were resistant to perturbation through short-term manipulation of speech input. Listeners own speech productions were not predictive of how they weighted relative and absolute duration. Despite the theoretical advantage of relative (as opposed to absolute) duration cues across contexts, relative cues are not utilized by all listeners. Moreover, examination of individual differences in cue weighting is a useful tool in exposing the complex relationship between perceptual cue weighting and language regularities.</p

National Survey of Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW): A Comparison of Model and Design Based Analyses of Cognitive Stimulation Scores

Understanding and protecting vulnerable children is key to helping them become productive members of society. The Department of Health and Human Services sponsored the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) to better understand the lives of children who come into contact with the child welfare system. This paper uses the NSCAW data to investigate the role of maternal depression and maternal substance abuse on a child's cognitive stimulation scores for a subset of the children. An investigation of the survey methodology and the actual data led to some manipulation of the data and assumptions for the analysis. The differences between design and model based analyses of survey data were explored. The two analyses were applied to the cognitive stimulation scores. For the model based analysis, two models were developed, one which used the weights at each stage of model building and one which did not use the weights at each stage. The models had conflicting results. Two recommendations were made to improve upon the model based analysis. First was to obtain information about the weights after each stage of adjustment. The second was to model the different strata separately. The design based analysis (design based-model assisted) used the two models created in the model based analysis and re-examined them using design based techniques. The design based analysis had similar results to the model based analysis. The two models in the design based setting also provided conflicting results regarding the question of interest. To determine which is better, the question of which ``regression line'' provides better data reductive properties needs to be addressed.</p

Measuring Communal Coping in Type 2 Diabetes Using A Multi-Method Approach

A study of 125 couples in which one person was recently diagnosed (< 3 years) with type 2 diabetes. We used a multi-method assessment of communal coping to examine the links of patient and spouse communal coping to relationship and health outcomes

Brief report: trajectories of glycemic control over early to middle adolescence.

OBJECTIVES: To identify distinct patterns of glycemic control over early to middle adolescence, and to determine whether psychosocial variables predicted those patterns. METHODS: We used trajectory analysis to examine glycemic control over 5 years among adolescents with type 1 diabetes who were of age 12 on average at study start (n = 132). Well-being, relationships, and self-care behavior were assessed with in-person interviews. Blood glucose testing was determined from blood glucose meters, and missed clinic appointments and glycosolated hemoglobin were obtained from medical records. RESULTS: We identified two distinct clusters of individuals, a stable good glycemic control group and a poorer deteriorating glycemic control group. Individuals in the deteriorating control group were characterized by higher peer conflict, more negative diabetes emotions, fewer blood glucose tests, and more missed clinic appointments. CONCLUSION: Psychosocial variables and behavioral markers of self-care may predict the course of glycemic control over early to middle adolescence.</p

Identification and prediction of distress trajectories in the first year after a breast cancer diagnosis.

OBJECTIVE: In this article, we aim to (a) identify distinct trajectories of psychological distress in the first year after a breast cancer diagnosis in women treated with adjuvant therapy and (b) explore possible predictors of these trajectories, that is, demographic, medical, and personal characteristics. METHOD: The 171 patients were assessed after diagnosis, after surgery, after adjuvant treatment, in the reentry phase, and in the (short-term) survivorship phase (2 and 6 months after the end of treatment, respectively). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Psychological distress was assessed with the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. RESULTS: There were four trajectories of distress: a group that experienced no distress (36.3%), a group that experienced distress only in the active treatment phase (33.3%), a group that experienced distress in the reentry and survivorship phase (15.2%), and a group that experienced chronic distress (15.2%). Personality and physical complaints resulting from adjuvant treatment could distinguish the distress trajectories. Mastery was the only unique predictor. CONCLUSION: Most patients were not distressed in response to breast cancer or only temporarily so. Yet, a minority of patients became or remained distressed after the end of treatment.</p

Impact of Interpersonal Conflict on Individuals High in Unmitigated Communion

The current study examined the impact of interpersonal conflict on mood and physical symptoms for individuals who scored high on a personality characteristic called unmitigated communion (UC), as compared to individuals who did not score high in UC. UC is defined as a focus on others to the exclusion of the self. Forty-one undergraduate students participated in 7 consecutive nightly interviews. Participants described their social interactions, indicated whether the interaction involved interpersonal conflict, and indicated their distress and physical symptoms at the end of the day. Multilevel modeling analysis demonstrated that conflict adversely affected UC and non-UC individuals similarly on the same day, but had a more negative impact for UC individuals on the following day.</p