The proposed study will explore the relationship between trauma and delinquent behaviors and how this relationship differs between male and female adolescents. I aim to investigate why childhood exposure to interpersonal trauma is a stronger predictor of delinquency in females than males. Within female adolescents, I propose that the relationship between trauma and delinquency is mediated by disruption in attachment schema which is caused by exposure to trauma. Therefore, I will use multiple regression to analyze a moderated mediation model. This model is informed by Social Control Theory and a Feminist Pathways Perspective of crime and delinquency. Study participants will include male and female adolescents attending public high school in Austin, Texas. / text

The purpose of the present study is to examine group differences between Hispanic adolescent females participating in a mental health focused obesity intervention and those in a treatment-as-usual (control) condition on Body Mass Index (BMI), self-esteem, coping strategies, and binge eating symptoms. The intervention teaches skills useful in managing emotions and situations impacting weight. Treatment-as-usual entails attending weight management clinic appointments. Participants will be obese Hispanic adolescent females attending a weight management clinic at a children's hospital in Texas. BMI will be taken and self-report questionnaires addressing self-esteem, coping strategies, and binge eating symptoms will be completed by participants pre- and post-intervention. Analysis of covariance, controlling for scores pre-intervention, will be utilized to examine group differences. It is hypothesized that participants in the ACES PLUS condition will demonstrate greater gains in self-esteem, coping strategies, and decreased binge eating symptoms and BMI relative to their treatment as usual counterparts. Implications for future research include additional focus on skills-building addressing psychosocial challenges faced by obese adolescent females in the treatment of pediatric obesity within this population. / text

Background: Despite its exclusion in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Internet addiction disorder (IAD) has received attention especially from the psychiatric community. Associated with multiple factors, IAD among adolescents may cause physical, emotional, social, and function impairments that extend to adulthood. Objective: This systematic review explores the prevalence of IAD among adolescents and identifies associated factors. Methods: The databases of Medline and PubMed were searched for related literature through the Boolean Advanced Search using the keywords “Internet” or “cyber,” “addiction” or “dependence,” and “adolescent” or “youth” from 2003 to 2013. A total of 232 articles were retrieved and screened. Only 11 cross-sectional studies from 5 countries were included in this systematic review. The age of adolescent participants in these studies ranged from 13.8 to 17.3 years. Four assessments were employed to explore IAD among adolescents in the 11 reviewed studies. Among these studies, 4 employed the Young’s Internet Addiction (IA) Test, 4 utilized the Chen IA Scale, 2 studies used the Internet-Related Addiction Scale, and one study adhered to the Young’s DRM 52 Scale of Internet use among adolescents. Results: The prevalence of IAD among adolescents range from 1.5% to 18.8%. In this review, factors associated with high prevalence of IAD among adolescents include psychological (e.g., depression, attention deficiency, and hyperactivity disorder), social (e.g., family conflict),and demographic factors (e.g., male gender and older age), as well as use of the Internet (e.g., longer use of the Internet, online chatting, and gaming). Conclusions: With the increasing use of the Internet in managing daily activities, including learning, communication, and entertainment, it has become an essential part of human living in the modern world. The negative effects of IAD among adolescents might result in high healthcare cost, particularly in psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation. Thus, prevention of IAD at the early stage and promotion of healthy use of the Internet are important in safeguarding the mental wellness of people. The result of this review showed the prevalence of IAD among adolescents is associated with psychological, socio-demographic, environmental and living factors. Primary preventive education that focuses on the healthy use of the Internet and guidance could be promoted among adolescents and parents at the school and community levels, respectively. Moreover, secondary prevention programs that concentrate on the early prevention and identification of IAD and specifically designed for the at-risk group could be launched. Extra resources for the employment of counseling personnel should be considered. Future research on the at-risk group population of IAD among adolescents could be conducted. These initiatives could assist in designing a tailor-made intervention, and eventually in preventing the early onset of IAD. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Previous research demonstrates a marked increase in the occurrence of depression during adolescence, particularly for females. Theorists contend that this phenomenon is associated with the development of beliefs about the self, world, and future (known as the cognitive triad), which constitutes a potential cognitive vulnerability to depression. Research has also demonstrated that family characteristics, such as cohesion, communication, conflict, social/recreational activity, parental messages, parental modeling of beliefs, and maternal depression are all related to depression and the development of depressive cognitions. The purpose of the current study was to build upon previous literature on family and cognitive correlates of depression in youth and analyze specific cognitive-interpersonal pathways to depression for girls transitioning from childhood to adolescence. 165 girls ranging in age from 8 to 14 participated in the study, along with their mothers. Participants completed self-report measures of family environment, beliefs about the self, world, and future, and perceived parental messages regarding the cognitive triad. Mothers completed a self-report measure of psychopathology and an instrument assessing their beliefs about the self, world, and future. Participants also completed a diagnostic interview, which served as the primary measure of depressive symptoms. As found in similar studies and consistent with Beck's theory of depression, daughter's reports of cognitive triad predicted the severity of her depressive symptoms. Moreover, the cognitive triad was found to be the mediating variable in the model; family variables affected daughter's beliefs, which then affected depressive symptomology. Specifically, girls who endorsed higher family conflict, lower social/recreational activity, and more negative parental messages reported more negative cognitive styles and subsequently higher levels of depression. Further results indicated that daughter's beliefs about the self and parent's messages about the future are particularly important factors in this model of depression. Contrary to what was expected, mother's reports of depression and cognitive triad did not predict daughter's cognitive triad or depressive symptoms. Implications of these results and recommendations for future research are provided.

In this study I explored the intrapersonal and interpersonal differences among individuals who maintained higher levels of hope for their personal future, with lower hope peers who similarly were experiencing challenging and uncertain circumstances. I administered self-report measures of hope and social connectedness to 76 American young adults aged between 18 and 22 years, in order to sample purposively participants who exemplified higher and lower levels of hope. I used qualitative data from semistructured interviews with 13 individuals recruited from three field sites to develop the current model of hope, then tested the model against an additional three individuals from a separate field site, who had scored highly on hope, in order to establish its generalizability. Total interview time with each of the original 13 participants lasted between two and four hours and I coded the resulting transcription data from audio taped discussions for categories and main themes according to grounded theory guidelines. The emergent model of hope comprised five themes, namely: 1) The Initiating Context: Perceptions of challenge and uncertainty; 2) Temporal Comparisons: Envisioning the future, being realistic about the present, learning from the past; 3) Developing Strategies: Values, goals, planning, and action; 4) Drawing on personal and social resources; 5) Openness and flexibility about outcomes. These data suggested that the higher hope participants differed from their lower hope peers with respect to their relationship with change, difficulty, and uncertainty. The higher hope young adults engaged in a process of hoping that relied on an overall positive orientation toward life. This combination of process and orientation better enabled them to take action, exert control, and regulate the fear experienced when faced with ambiguous outcomes associated with personally important and difficult circumstances. I compared and contrasted this new, inductively-derived model of hope with current conceptualizations from the psychological, philosophical, and nursing literatures on hope, and discussed its theoretical and practical implications. / text

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Rates of depression have been observed to increase markedly during adolescence. In addition, depression rates for adolescent girls have been reported to be up to twice those of boys. A wide variety of factors have been proposed to account for these changes, including psychological factors derived from cognitive theories of depression. Such theories have often awarded an important contributory role to a negative self-concept. In the meantime, research in child and adolescent development has revealed that the self-concept undergoes profound changes during adolescence, and that these changes affect boys and girls differently. Thus the significant sex difference in rates of depression occurring in adolescence appear to develop against the backdrop of significant structural and evaluative developmental changes in the self-concept that appear to differentially affect adolescent girls and boys. The current research project was aimed at examining the roles of two aspects of the self-concept proposed to be involved in the development of depressive symptoms and clinically significant episodes of depression in adolescence, namely: self-complexity and contingency of self-worth. These constructs were selected based on their empirically demonstrated relationship with depression in youth or adults, as well as their relationship with changes occurring in the self-concept during early adolescence. In order to examine the roles of self-complexity and contingency of self-worth, a large community sample of early adolescents was recruited and followed for a period of two years. During this period, participants were contacted to monitor changes in depressive symptoms, the occurrence of negative life events, and the onset of clinically significant episodes of depression. Results reveal that self-complexity best predicted depressive outcomes when deconstructed into its positive and negative components. Moreover, negative self-complexity successfully predicted the prospective onset of clinically significant episodes of major depression. In regards to the contingency of self-worth, results supported a previous self-worth contingency model of depression, but suggest that this conceptualization cannot account entirely for the phenomenology of depression in adolescence. Two additional conceptualizations of contingent self-worth were proposed and supported. Sex differences were observed. Results were interpreted within a cognitive vulnerability framework.

Adolescence is a transitional period from childhood to adulthood. It is important now to acquire asn indenpedance, to find identity.

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This study intended to bridge the gap in research on cyberbullying intervention strategies by examining the personal experiences of survivors in order to identify effective coping strategies. This study used a grounded theory methodology to allow data to fully emerge from participants’ perspectives. When analyzing the data, the researcher found that individuals activated coping strategies in response to the negative feelings and thoughts that cyberbullying caused. This main theme, survival strategies, was augmented by three supporting themes: internal characteristics, external influences on internal feelings, and environmental factors. These supporting themes either positively or negatively influenced adolescents’ survival strategies. As a result of this survival process, individuals ultimately became stronger as a result of their inner resilience. The findings of this study have highlighted effective coping strategies that may help to inform future counselling practices.