Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1962. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Ernest G. Osborne. Dissertation Committee: Paul E. Eiserer, Paul Vahanian. Includes tables. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-102).

<p> Research shows that approximately 12,500 new spinal cord injuries occur each year, which poses a drastic life change for the person who sustained the injury and their closest family members and friends who often times become the ones who care for them in the community. Due to this new, unexpected caregiving role, research shows that many are often unprepared to care for the spinal cord injured person once they are discharged from one of the inpatient settings. </p><p> The purpose of this study was to explore and examine the lived experiences of caregivers of spinal cord injury individuals. The results of this inquiry may benefit clinicians, patients, and caregivers with shared experiences and may help educate and guide future caregiver relationships. This study was guided utilizing van Manen&rsquo;s six research activities of qualitative inquiry. Participants were recruited for this study through purposeful sampling until data saturation occurred. A total of six participants were recruited for this study; five completed the study. Face-to-face, audio-recorded interviews were conducted. Colaizzi&rsquo;s 7-step approach was used for data analysis. Six main themes and two subthemes were identified during the interviews, which provided the overall essence to this qualitative study.</p>

<p> Foster youth in the United States who transition out of care have a difficult time transitioning into the world independently. In addition to emerging into adulthood the youth who are parenting during their transition are faced with even more significant barriers. As an attempt to guide those adolescent mothers transitioning out of care this curriculum is a tool to enhance their parenting skills, coping skills, and to increase their ability to overcome barriers as they transpire into the world of adulthood as parents. This curriculum will offer psychoeducation covering topics such as; stress management, coping, and parenting styles to assist in fulfilling adolescent mothers transitioning out of care to reach their full potential as individuals and as an adolescent mother. This curriculum will also include personal assessments, role-playing scenarios and other exercises for the participants to use to practice the concepts learned.</p>

‘Psychosocial problems’ are psychological problems that are regarded as resulting from the interaction between the adaptive capacities of individuals and the demands of their physical and social environments. Many different factors have been theoretically proposed, and empirically established, as predictors of a range of psychosocial problems in adolescents. However, a problem exists in that this literature appears to lack an integrative framework that has validity across the range of problems that are observed. The purpose of the current research is to propose and test a model that draws together three clusters of factors that are useful in predicting the incidence of adolescent psychosocial problems. These are family structural background factors, family functioning variables and control beliefs. Data were collected from 155 adolescent males aged between 12 and 19 by a single concurrent and retrospective self-report questionnaire. This included data about the respondent (age, involvements with mental health or juvenile justice agencies) and family structural background factors (days per week worked by mother/father, occupational status for mother/father, residential mobility, number of persons in the family home). The questionnaire also incorporated the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling & Brown, 1979) to quantify the levels of perceived parental care and overprotection, and an adaptation of the Parental Discipline Style Scale (Shaw & Scott, 1991), to assess punitive, love withdrawing and inductive discipline practices. In addition, the (Low) Self-control Scale (Grasmick, Tittle, Bursick & Arneklev, 1993) and the Locus of Control of Behaviour Scale (Craig, Franklin, & Andrews, 1984) were used to collect data concerning adolescents’ perceived behavioural self-control and locus of control. Finally, selected sub-scales of the Child Behavior Checklist Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991b) were used to collect data on the incidence of social withdrawal, somatisation, anxiety and depression, aggression and delinquency among the respondents, and in aggregated form, the incidence of ‘total problems’ and internalising and externalising behaviours. Results indicated family structural background factors, family functioning variables and control beliefs possess limited predicted validity and that the usefulness of the proposed model varies between specific psychosocial problems. Family functioning variables were generally stronger predictors than family structural background factors, particularly for internalising behaviours. Of these, levels of parental care and overprotection were generally the strongest predictors. Perceived self-control and locus of control were also generally strong predictors, but were particularly powerful with respect to externalising behaviours. The strength of predictive relationships was observed to vary between specific internalising and externalising behaviours, suggesting that individual difference variables not assessed in the current research were differentially influential. Finally, the parental and individual characteristics that predicted maximal levels of adjustment (defined in terms of minimal levels of internalising and externalising behaviours) were explored and the correlates of various parenting style typologies (Parker et al., 1979) were investigated. These results strongly confirmed the importance of family functioning and control beliefs with respect to the prediction of internalising, externalising and well-adjusted behaviours. In all analyses, substantial proportions of the variance in the incidence of problem behaviours remain unexplained. The findings are examined in relation to previous research focused on (familial) social control and (individual) self-control with respect to psychosocial problems in adolescents. In addition, methodological considerations are discussed and the implications of the findings for clinical and community interventions to address problem behaviours, and for further study, are explored.

This portfolio explored issues that are relevant to the judgements routinely made by clinical psychologists. The first chapter provides a theoretical overview of relevant issues. In this chapter, firstly, the debate over the relative merits of ‘clinical’ and ‘statistical’ approaches to clinical judgement (Meehl, 1954) is reviewed. It is noted that, although much of the empirical evidence supports the greater accuracy of statistical approaches to making judgements (where appropriate methods exist), they are rarely routinely used, and clinical approaches to making judgements continue to dominate in the majority of clinical settings. Secondly, common sources of errors in clinical judgement are reviewed. These include the misuse of cognitive heuristics, the presence of clinicians’ biases, the limitations to human information-processing capacities and the over-reliance on clinical interviews. Finally, some of the basic strategies that can be useful to clinicians in improving the accuracy of clinical judgement are described. These include undertaking advanced level training programs, using quality instruments and procedures, being wary of over-reliance on theories, adhering to the scientist-practitioner approach and being selective in the distribution of professional efforts and time. In the subsequent chapters these strategies are explored further through four clinical case studies. These cases were collected during the university placement program and they have been selected to illustrate some of the approaches as clinician may use in attempting to optimise the accuracy of judgements necessary in the context of clinical psychological practice. The final chapter provides a brief overview and discussion of these cases in relation to the issues identified in Chapter One,

<p> The purpose of this paper is to evaluate external factors in relation to their effect on adolescent smoking. The author measured smoking rates against variables of family and peer influence, community and school programs, and celebrity role models and the media. Three hypotheses were developed: (1) the less adult supervision there is after school, the higher chance adolescents have of smoking; (2) adolescents with lower levels of school support are more likely to smoke; (3) adolescents with entertainer role models have a higher chance of smoking. The ANOVA test was used to evaluate data from the California Health Interview Survey 2012. The results from this study produced slight but not statistically significant relationships except for celebrity role models and adolescent smoking rates. Studies such as these need to continue in order to decrease the percentage of teens that use tobacco and prevent them from continuing to smoke into adulthood.</p>

<p>The purpose of this prospective quantitative study was to examine primary caregivers' perceptions on the potential dangers of secondhand marijuana smoke on children and their knowledge of the health consequences of marijuana smoke. The sample included 33 primary caregivers in Los Angeles and Orange County, California. The online survey consisted of 25 multiple-choice questions. </p><p> The results revealed that 87.9% of the participants felt secondhand marijuana smoke is potentially dangerous to children. However, despite this high percentage of concerned caregivers, 90% of participants were in the low-knowledge category on the health consequences of marijuana. These findings suggest the need to provide better education to the public on the health risks for direct users of marijuana and cast light on the need to conduct further research on the potential dangers to children from secondhand marijuana smoke. </p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1992. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-06, Section: B, page: 3157. Adviser: Christine Zalewski.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 2003. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 63-11, Section: B, page: 5510. Chair: Charles E. Baker.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1994. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: B, page: 5462.