The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between occupational burnout and the behavioral well-being of social workers. Burnout is a multidimensional syndrome where workers experience feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment as a consequence of work related stress and overwhelming job demands. Burnout can negatively affect organizational functioning, work performance, and pose significant health risks to workers. There are a limited number of studies focusing on the impact of occupational burnout on the behavioral well-being of workers. The findings of this study indicated that there was a significant relationship between burnout and behavioral well-being. Emotional exhaustion was found to negatively impact exercise frequency, which was consistent with previous study findings. Depersonalization was positively correlated to the number of hours of sleep and the frequency of self-care activities participants engaged in. The effects of depersonalization on sleep and self-care activities suggest that workers may engage in these activities as a way to cope with feelings of depersonalization on the job.

Mental contamination (i.e., feelings of dirtiness in the absence of contact with a contaminant) is a potentially important yet understudied factor in posttraumatic psychopathology, particularly for survivors of sexual trauma. Mental contamination has been linked to PTSD symptom severity, negative affect, and coping cross-sectionally and in lab-based paradigms, but research has yet to assess these relationships in ecological contexts. The present study extends previous cross-sectional findings by modelling relationships between mental contamination and posttraumatic psychopathology, emotions, and coping both within-day and from one day to the next. Forty-two female sexual trauma survivors completed twice-daily assessments of mental contamination, PTSD symptoms, negative emotions, and avoidant/approach coping via a smartphone app. Daily averages and intraindividual changes in mental contamination scores were linked with PTSD symptoms at the same timepoint. Mental contamination also significantly predicted several specific avoidant coping strategies at later timepoints in addition to concurrent links. Unexpectedly, several negative emotions exhibited positive links with concurrent mental contamination but were negatively linked to later mental contamination. Exploratory analyses identified a significant interaction whereby elevated morning negative affect predicted evening reductions in mental contamination, but only for individuals also high in morning PTSD symptoms. Lastly, prevalence of reported baseline mental contamination was much higher in the present study compared to prior research. Clinical relevance and future recommendations for ecological research in trauma-related mental contamination is discussed.

Declining youth physical activity levels and lack of aerobic fitness have been well documented with a corresponding rise in obesity levels and health issues. Based on Bandura's social cognitive theory, healthy physical activity levels and aerobic fitness are strongly connected to positive physical activity self-efficacy beliefs. This study examined whether student physical activity self-efficacy, motivation, and effort were different for the FitnessGram-® (FG) 1-Mile Run when compared to the 15-minute Aerobic Assessment Based on Improvement (AABI). A concurrent mixed method quasi-experimental approach measured 5th grade students' physical activity self-efficacy beliefs through a pretest and posttest survey while aerobic assessment scores provided data that measured and compared student performance. Percent improvement and t-test analytic procedures found significant differences between groups and genders. The FG group (n = 131) improved 1.49% while the AABI group (n = 209) improved 22.53%; furthermore, FG girls' percent improvement decreased to -7.56% and the AABI girls' percent improvement was above the average score at 24.21%. Qualitative data collected and coded from teachers' (n = 6) found no noticeable differences in student behaviors or preparation between the FG or AABI groups. A 3-day workshop was created to initiate change in aerobic fitness assessment. Assessing student aerobic fitness based on improvement theoretically builds physical activity self-efficacy beliefs, especially for girls. Positive physical activity self-efficacy beliefs motivate greater student participation and engagement in physical education, which improves aerobic fitness. Social implications from these results indicate that students would increase their physical activity self-efficacy by assessing aerobic fitness based on individual improvement.

Objective: Attention Bias Modification Training (ABMT) for anxiety aims to train attention away from threatening stimuli and toward neutral stimuli. Although ABMT shows promising anxiety reduction effects in children and adolescents, no study has examined its influence on neural indicators of attention measured using event-related potentials (ERPs) in children or adolescents (i.e., youths). The present study examined the influence of ABMT on the P1, N170, P2 and P3 ERP components during completion of the emotional faces dot probe task in youths with anxiety disorders who failed to respond to cognitive behavioral therapy. Method: Thirty youths (M age = 11.97, SD = 2.89) with primary DSM-IV-TR anxiety disorders completed the dot probe task while undergoing electroencephalogram (EEG) to obtain ERPs before, immediately after, and eight weeks after eight sessions of either ABMT (n = 14) or a control task regimen (CT), (n = 16). Results: At post-treatment, statistically significant effects were found for P1 and P3 mean amplitudes: P1 was significantly higher during trials showing neutral-neutral (NN) face pairs in the ABMT arm than in the CT arm; P3 was significantly higher during trials showing NN face pairs than during trials showing neutral-threat (NT) face pairs in the ABMT arm, but not the CT arm. At eight-week follow-up, participants in both arms showed significantly higher (more negative) N170 responses for NN trials than for NT trials. Conclusions: Attention Bias Modification Treatment led to increases in neural processing of neutral stimuli in early and late stage attentional processing, as measured by the P1 and P3 components, respectively. These components during the dot probe task are promising neural markers of ABMT’s effects on attentional processing in youth with anxiety disorders.

To investigate whether there are different patterns of development for binge eating and purging behavior among pre-adolescent and early adolescent girls, I conducted trajectory analyses of those behaviors in 938 girls across eight waves of data from the spring of 5th grade (the last year of elementary school) through the spring of 9th grade (the first year of high school). Analyses revealed four separate developmental trajectories for binge eating behavior (labeled none, increasing, decreasing, and high steady) and three separate developmental trajectories for purging behavior (labeled none, dabble, and increasing). Fifth grade scores on risk factors that were both personality-based (negative affect and negative urgency) and learning-based (expectancies for reinforcement from eating and from thinness) differentiated among the trajectory groups, in some cases before the groups differed in the target behaviors. These findings are the first, to my knowledge, to examine developmental trajectories for eating disorder onset in youth as young as elementary school. Clinical implications are discussed.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects between 150,000 to 300,000 human immunodeficiency (HIV) positive adults in the US (Alter et al., 1999; Sherman, Rouster, Chung, & Rajicic, 2002). The majority of co-infected adults (50%-90%) have acquired HCV through substance abuse (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 1998; CDC, 2006b). A patient's decision to begin HCV treatment is not straightforward. HCV evaluation and treatment involves a significant amount of time, energy, effort, and compliance on the part of the patient. There is limited information on how adults with HCV mono-infection make decisions about HCV evaluation and treatment (Fraenkel, McGraw, Wongcharatraee, & Garcia-Tsao, 2005). Even less is known about how adults with HIV/HCV co-infection with a history of substance abuse make treatment decisions. The purpose of this study was to describe substance abuse experiences and to explore how these related to patient decision-making about HCV treatment in HIV/HCV co-infected adults. Qualitative descriptive design and secondary data analysis were used to study these phenomena. Data were managed by using NVivo software and analyzed by secondary data analysis and qualitative content analysis. Five major themes with sub-themes emerged during the data analysis. They were: (1) The Evolution of Substance Abuse (with sub-themes: substance abuse initiation, escalation, polysubstance abuse, normalcy: a family of addicts, the enemy within, and transmission and disclosure), (2) Revolving Door: Going Back Out (with sub-themes: specific events as a trigger, emotions as a trigger, alcohol as a trigger, and destructive relationships as a trigger), and (3) Reconstructing Life (with sub-themes: defining moments in substance abuse addiction and maintaining sobriety), (4) HCV Infection Treatment Issues (with sub-themes: HCV treatment: not a priority, fear, and misinformation, and desire to use stimulated during HCV treatment), and (5) Get Clean and Try It. The participants spoke about how their substance abuse evolved from inception to sobriety, and for some it remained a problem. Relapse and recovery were fragile in nature especially in these adults with HIV/HCV co-infection. The decision-making process is influenced by substance abuse experiences, however more research is needed to uncover specific factors influencing these decisions.

Introduction: The late menopausal transition is a time of increased risk of depression in the general population. Nonetheless, mood course during the late menopausal transition in women with bipolar disorder in relatively unknown. Methods: Mood state data in 519 reproductive age women (5989 clinic visits), 116 late menopausal transition (perimenopausal) women (2046 visits), and 133 postmenopausal women (1,437 visits) with bipolar disorder who were receiving optimized naturalistic treatment in the multisite STEP-BD study over an average of 19.8±15.5 months were analyzed for proportion of clinic visits with syndromal depression, mood elevation and euthymia between the three groups. History of postpartum and perimenstrual mood exacerbation as well as hormone therapy use were evaluated as potential predictors of mood. Results: No significant difference in the proportion of clinic visits with syndromal depression was found between reproductive age (18.1%), perimenopausal (18.1%) and postmenopausal (19.3%) women. Reproductive age women had significantly greater proportion of visits with syndromal mood elevation (5.3%) compared to perimenopausal (4.1%, Z=2.1, p2(3, N = 9960) = 19.8, p Conclusions: While proportion of clinic visits with syndromal depression did not differ among the three reproductive groups, thirteen women who had recorded transition from perimenopause to postmenopause showed significantly greater depression than reproductive age, perimenopausal or postmenopausal women. Proportion of visits with euthymia or with syndromal mood elevation decreased from reproductive age to perimenopausal to postmenopausal women. Reported history of mood exacerbation during times of hormonal fluctuation, or current use of hormone therapy, was not significantly associated with depression during the perimenopause. Limitations include women excluded due to absence of menstrual data. Future studies should include hormonal assessments.

Because parental alcohol misuse is associated with numerous negative outcomes for drinkers and other family members, it is important to examine factors predictive of alcohol misuse patterns among parents living with at least one child under the age of 18. Two possible factors include economic insecurity and poverty. This study sought to address whether measures of economic insecurity (i.e., housing and/or food insecurity in the past 12 months) and a dichotomous measure of poverty predict parental binge drinking and parental heavy alcohol consumption in a large population-based sample. It was hypothesized that economic insecurity and poverty, analyzed separately, would predict both occurrence of parental alcohol misuse and amount of alcohol consumed. Results did not support hypotheses; rather, where significant, they indicated that measures of economic insecurity and poverty negatively predicted parental alcohol misuse. However, effect sizes were small and preclude practical application. Findings are discussed and future research directions are identified.

Background Indoor tanning (IT) before the age of 35 increases melanoma risk by 75%. Nevertheless, IT and sunless tanning product (STP) use have gained popularity among youth. However, there are limited data on the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of both IT and STP use in a representative sample of American teens. Methods Teenage females (N = 778) aged 12–18 years were recruited as part of an on-going longitudinal study conducted between May 2011 and May 2013. Descriptive statistics explored IT and STP usage in teen females at baseline. Logistic regression was used to determine sociodemographic correlates of IT and STP use. Results Approximately 16% of female teens engaged in IT behavior and 25% engaged in using STPs. Female teens living in non-metropolitan areas were 82% more likely to indoor tan compared to those in metropolitan areas (OR = 1.82, 95% CI: 1.07–3.10). Age, geographic regions, and race increased the likelihood of IT and STP use. Conclusions Results indicate a significant proportion of teen females engage in IT and STP use. There was evidence that in teens that have never used IT before, STP use precedes IT initiation. Given the evidence for increased IT in rural populations, research focused on rural tanning bed use is needed.

Histone lysine methylation is an important epigenetic mark for regulation of gene expression and chromatin organization. Setdb1 (Set domain, bifurcate 1), one of the histone lysine methyltransferases, specifically methylates histone H3 at lysine 9 (H3K9) and participates in transcriptional repression and heterochromatin formation. The major task of my thesis work was to investigate the epigenetic roles of Setdb1 in regulating brain functions. I started my thesis work by examining Setdb1 expression pattern during mouse brain development. The most robust signal of Setdb1 was detected in the fetal brains at embryonic day 12.5, with a ubiquitous distribution in all the proliferative zones, as well as the cortical plate and other regions comprised of postmitotic neurons. The expression of Setdb1 decreased as the brain developed, and this down-regulation profile was correlated to neuronal maturation as examined in a primary culture model of mouse cortical neurons. I then generated CK-Setdb1 transgenic mice, in which a myc-tagged full length mouse Setdb1 was constantly expressed in postmitotic neurons under the control of the CaMK II alpha promoter (CK). The expression of mycSetdb1 was detected in NeuN positive cells throughout most forebrain regions including cerebral cortex, striatum and hippocampus. A sustained increase of Setdb1 in CK-Setdb1 transgenics was verified at both mRNA and protein levels. Furthermore, an increase of H3K9 trimethylation was detected at major satellite DNA repeats in CK-Setdb1forebrains, which indicated that transgene-expressed mycSetdb1 was functionally active in adult brains. The behavioral phenotype of CK-Setdb1 transgenics was examined by using two separate founder lines. Gross neurological functions including body weight, locomotion activity, motor coordination, and breeding behavior were generally normal in CK-Setdb1 mice. CK-Setdb1 mice were further subjected to behavioral paradigms related to mood and cognitive functions. Intriguingly, as compared to the littermate controls, CK-Setdb1 mice represent a lower level of depression as indicated by decreased total immobility in two different behavioral despair tests. Moreover, CK-Setdb1 mice showed an accelerated extinction in the learned helplessness paradigm after a delayed interval (7 days), indicating a faster recovery from an established status of despair. The potential confounding factors, like memory deficits, were ruled out as CK-Setdb1 mice showed normal or even improved performances in different memory-related paradigms. Anxiety scores and stimulant drug response were normal in CK-Setdb1mice. Taken together, these findings suggested that a specific antidepressant-like phenotype was elicited by the over-expression of Setdb1 in adult mice forebrains. To further study the molecular mechanism underlying Setdb1-associated antidepressant-like behavioral changes, I screened for Setdb1-binding sites in a genome-scale by ChIP-on-chip using a tiling microarray from Affymetrix. Unexpectedly, Setdb1 showed a very restricted binding profile with a high specificity towards ionotropic glutamate receptor genes including the NMDA receptor 2B subunit gene Grin2b, which is a new target for the treatment for major depression. An increase of H3K9 dimethylation at Setdb1-binding site on Grin2b locus was detected in CK-Setdb1 hippocampus, which was correlated to a decrease of Grin2b expression as well as an accelerated desensitization of NMDA receptor. Furthermore, Chromosome Conformation Capture (3C) on Grin2b locus revealed a repressive chromatin loop structure, which tethered the distal Setdb1-binding site (~ 32 Kb downstream of transcriptional start site (TSS)) to a proximal intronic region (~12 Kb downstream of TSS) that is enriched for the binding of KAP1, a well-studied Setdb1-interacting transcriptional corepressor. Taken together, our data indicated that Setdb1 repressed Grin2b expression via H3K9 hypermethylation and higher-order chromatin loop formation, which may contribute to the antidepressant-like phenotype we observed in CK-Setdb1mice. The second part of my thesis work was to investigate the role of Setdb1 in the animal model of a neurodevelopmental disorder - Rett syndrome (RTT). Loss-of-function mutations of the gene encoding methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) is the primary cause of RTT. There is an overlap between Setdb1- and Mecp2-associated repressive chromatin machineries, which both include histone deacetylase complex, H3K9 methyltransferase, DNA methyltransferase and heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1). Moreover, in contrast to Setdb1, which is downregulated during the cortical neuronal differentiation, Mecp2 is upregulated and the expression level is positively correlated to neuronal maturation. Therefore, we hypothesized that there is a functional redundancy between Setdb1 and Mecp2, and the up-regulation of Setdb1 in mature neurons will compensate for brain deficiency due to the loss of Mecp2. To test this hypothesis, I crossed CK-Setdb1 transgenic mice with nestincre-Mecp2 conditional knockout mice (Mecp2-/y). The behavior changes of CK-Setdb1/Mecp2-/y mice, including body weight, locomotion, motor coordination, and life span, were then compared to Mecp2-/y mice. No significant improvements in behaviors or survival were observed from CK-Setdb1/Mecp2-/y mice. Because the activation of CK promoter is limited to defined population of postmitotic neurons in forebrain, I tested our hypothesis by generating another strain of Setdb1 overexpression mice – tauSetdb1, in which the expression of mycSetdb1 is under the control of an endogenous pan-neuronal active promoter Tau. However, the introduction of tauSetdb1 also failed to rescue Mecp2 deficiency. The life span of tauSetdb1/ Mecp2-/y was even shorter as compared to Mecp2-/y mice (Kaplan-Meier, p=0.07). In conclusion, up-regulation of Setdb1 in adult brain was not sufficient to rescue Mecp2deficiency in the mouse model of RTT. One of the most challenges to study neuronal dysfunctions in brain diseases is the cellular heterogeneity of central nervous system. Current techniques for chromatin studies, including chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays, usually lack of single cell resolution and are unable to examine the neurobiological changes in defined cell populations. In the third part of my thesis work, I developed a modified protocol to isolate neuronal nuclei from brain homogenates via Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting (FACS). In general, total nuclei was extracted from frozen brains, neuronal nuclei were then immuno-tagged with NeuN and sorted via FACS. Besides the NeuN labeling-FACS protocol, I also generated CK-H2BeGFP transgenic mice, in which a histone H2B-eGFP (enhanced green fluorescent protein) fusion protein was expressed in the nuclei of postmitotic neurons in mouse forebrain. Nuclei extracted from CKH2BeGFP brain were directly applied for FACS sorting. By using this protocol, we routinely got around 6-8 x106neuronal nuclei from one adult mouse forebrain, which was sufficient for ChIP applications followed by single gene PCR and microarray studies. In conclusion, our protocol permits large-scale studies of chromatin modifications or any other nuclei events in defined cell populations from distinct brain regions. Taken together, my dissertation work will lead to a better understanding of the epigenetic roles of histone H3K9 methyltransferase Setdb1 in brain functions, and may provide new targets for the therapeutic treatment of major depression.