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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) play a role in the development of chronic mental and physical diseases in adulthood. These experiences include adversities such as: emotional/verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and household dysfunction. Building from the ACE study conducted by Kaiser Permanente from 1995-1997, this study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge gained about ACE’s and their effects on health in high risk populations, and to examine the effects of developmental diversity on criminality. In this study, we hypothesize that forensic mental health offenders will have higher ACE scores than community participants. Secondly, we hypothesize that these participants will show higher rates of and earlier incidences of offending, arrest, incarceration, and hospitalization as a result of their ACE scores. Further, we hypothesize that males and females will be affected by ACE’s differently, as seen in number of arrests, incarceration, and hospitalizations. Using archival data from a secure forensic psychiatric facility in the Midwestern US, data were collected from 211 participants, of which 80% were males and 18% females. The ages of the participants ranged from 23 to 72 with a median age of 42. Caucasians comprised 46% of the sample followed by African Americans at 34%. Using SPSS software, we were able to determine frequency of the ten categories of abuse, maltreatment, and familial dysfunction as included in the original 2015 Appalachian Student Research Forum Page 49 ACE research. Correlations were run to determine the relationship between ACE’s and criminal behavior. Statistical comparisons were also run to examine the differences between males and females. ACE score significantly correlated with age at first psychiatric admission. Males and females were significantly different with regard to ACE score. However, other variables were not significant, as predicted by prior research, and suggest that future research that need to more deeply examine differences between males and females with regard to adverse childhood experience, and additional variables that determine criminal outcomes in high-risk samples.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects about 15 million adults in the United States, and is an independent risk factor for all-cause mortality. The under-diagnosing of OSA has been linked to the inadequate screening by primary care practitioners (PCPs). Existing screening tools are not widely used by PCPs possibly due to time constraints they experience as providers. This study demonstrates how common high-risk diagnoses (obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2, dyslipidemia, arrhythmia, and coronary artery disease) can be used to help PCPs identify adult patients at risk for OSA. Unlike other screening tools, these diagnoses are easy to identify in a routine visit. This study was a retrospective chart review that used a random sample of 220 electronic health records. Seventy percent of the sample was positive for OSA, 69% had obesity, and 33% had two or more high-risk diagnoses. The setting of this study was six sleep centers located in five cities in Central Florida. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data to determine interaction among variables and odds ratios. The variables "obesity" and "two or more high-risk diagnoses" had significant effects on the likelihood of being diagnosed with OSA independently of each other (odds ratio of 4.2 and 4.3 respectively; p

No description available.

No description available.

<p>With advances in neonatal intensive care, many infants born at risk due to very low birthweight (1500 grams or less), due to intrauterine growth retardation (the small-for-gestational age infant has a birthweight less than 2 SD below the mean for gestation) or due to severe Respiratory Distress Syndrome and birth asphyxia, survive free of major debilitating sequelae. However, these apparently 'healthy' children may experience difficulties in perceptual, cognitive and academic performance. The early language development of 12 'healthy' children potentially at risk due to their pre- and perinatal histories, and a group of comparison children matched for sex and social class was investigated. Their language was recorded at home at three monthly intervals during a rapid phase of acquisition (18 to 30 months), to determine whether the two populations were acquiring language similarly. Of further interest was the ambient linguistic environment provided by their mothers. The language measures, derived from the child's spontaneous speech, quantified verbal output (rate and amount of speech), syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance, upper bound and type-token ratio) and morphemic acquisition. Comprehension and expressive scores were also derived from the Reynell Language Scales. The mothers' speech was scored for verbal output and syntactic complexity. The high risk children were as verbose as the comparison children, but their language was syntactically less complex. Their comprehension scores were also significantly lower. Although the high risk scores (uncorrected for the degree of prematurity) were within normal range, they were still significantly below those of the comparison children. This, along with the fact that the language of the two groups of mothers did not differ, and the fact that social class was not a significant factor, supports the position that maturational delay and/or cortical lesion may affect language acquisition. Other issues discussed included the propriety of applying a correction for prematurity to the results, and whether the results are evidence of a developmental lag, or a continuing disability likely to affect other emerging skills. Finally, this study provided correlations between language measures derived from spontaneous speech, and those from standardised language scales.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Prospective analyses suggest that young mothers may not be capable of perceptually discriminating between different infant cry stimuli. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the perceptual and caregiving responses of adolescent mothers to different infant cry stimuli. Twenty-five primiparous adolescents and 39 nulliparous adolescents listened to segments of three different infant cry types that varied in the amount of high-pitched, hyperphonation contained in the acoustic structure. Participants rated their responses to the low- and high-risk cries on perceptual rating scales, and selected a caregiving behavior in response to these same cries. Analyses of Variance showed that both groups of participants perceived the infant cry segments as more arousing, annoying, distressing, loud, and sick-sounding as the amount of hyperphonation increased across cries. Results also showed that adolescent mothers did not perceive high-risk cries as more arousing, annoying, urgent, loud, and sick-sounding than adolescents who were not mothers. However, primiparous participants perceived hyperphonated and partially-hyperphonated cries as less annoying and less loud than nulliparous adolescents. This study did not find significant differences between primiparous adolescents' and nulliparous adolescents' caregiving experiences. Chi-square analyses indicated no significant differences between the participant groups' caregiving response choice frequencies to all three infant cry types. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this project is to explore potential social cognitive and psychosocial predictors of lifestyle changes, including diet and physical activity behaviors, in a sample of colorectal cancer survivors who are at high risk of developing a second colorectal cancer. Participants, recruited from Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, are colorectal cancer survivors from families at high or confirmed risk of having a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome. Results indicate that, at the bivariate level, many of the psychosocial and social cognitive variables of interest are significantly associated with one another as well as with various health behaviors and health behavior changes. Correlational data indicate that lower distress is associated with higher psychosocial functioning, self-efficacy, and self-regulatory ability. In addition, the data also suggest that individuals with higher self-efficacy display higher self-regulation and more positive outcome expectations related to health behaviors. Overall, participants were more likely to increase healthy behaviors or remain consistent with moderately healthy lifestyles practiced prior to their colorectal cancer diagnosis and treatment, and decrease unhealthy behaviors. Implications and directions for future research are discussed within the paper. / Master of Science

It is well-known that adolescents participate in risky behaviors. College students are no different; in fact they take part in risky behaviors which can include sexual risk-taking. The purpose of this review of literature was to determining the types of risky sexual behavior that college students are engaging in, and how it is affecting their self-esteem. Emphasis was placed on the need for education regarding sexual behavior, effects of alcohol, and self-esteem. This review focused on the different risky behaviors that college students are participating in, including drinking games, drinking themed parties, and types of sexual behavior. Findings of this review determined that low self-esteem can impact an individual's decision to take part in sexual activity and drinking. Additionally, it was identified that there is a need for community-based education which should begin prior to college attendance. Utilizing the findings of this review can help provide the evidence needed to support education on risky college behaviors with a focus on the self-esteem aspect.

The objective of this thesis was to determine the association between exposure to parental BD during childhood and risk of mood disorder. Offspring of one parent with BD completed annual clinical assessments as part of a 16-year prospective cohort study. Clinical data in the parents from Ottawa and Halifax were mapped onto the first decade of their offspring’s life to estimate the timing, duration and severity of exposure to their illness. The duration of parental BD was associated with a 2 to 2.5 fold increased risk of any psychopathology (HR: 1.9, 95%CI: 1.0-4.0), and unipolar depression (HR: 2.6, 95%CI: 0.9-7.5), and a 7 fold increased risk of substance use disorders (HR: 7.1, 95%CI: 1.8-37.0). A longer duration of exposure to parental BD may be an important indicator of mood and non-mood psychopathology risk in offspring. This has implications for early intervention and preventive efforts in high-risk youth.