Background: Antenatal depression is relatively a new area of study compared to postnatal depression and the depth and sophistication of this research is yet developing. For instance, very little is reported on the specific role of the risk factors as moderators and mediators to explain the variability in the magnitude of exposure and the causal pathway for depression during pregnancy. Moderators are those variables that are not modifiable (e.g., ethnicity, and gender), or have qualitative character or nominal in nature, and could also often be antecedent to other independent variables (e.g., behavioural and psychosocial) and depression. Mediators are those variables that may be better able to describe the pathway that connects a predictor to an outcome and intervention can be designed targeting mediators as they are causally related to the outcome. This thesis will address this gap in research and provide empirical evidence to increase the understanding of the role of each identified risk factors that could potentially influence maternal mental health interventions. Methods: In this thesis, I have used the Feelings in Pregnancy and Motherhood (FIP) study. This was a longitudinal study and 649 pregnant women participated in the study. Women were interviewed three times over the course of their pregnancy and the immediate postpartum. Depression status was assessed by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS); sociodemographic characteristics, psychosocial and behavioural information were collected at each time point. Depression status in late pregnancy and postpartum were the two outcomes of interest. Non-modifiable sociodemographic risk factors were considered as moderators. Behavioural and psychosocial variables were considered as mediators. Moderators and mediators were tested through series of regression analysis. Results: In modeling moderating effects in late pregnancy, low income women who were in poor marital relationships (β=1.54; p<0.05) and partnered women (married or common law) who reported having used recreational drugs (β= -1.62; p<0.05) were more likely to be depressed. Young mothers with low social support (β= 1.04; p=0.15) and Aboriginal mothers with low social support (β= 1.12; p=0.17) were also almost significantly noted to have depression symptoms in late pregnancy. In mediating analysis for late pregnancy, psychosocial mediators such as stress, social support, and marital satisfaction, and behavioural factors, such as smoking and recreational drug use exerted partial or full mediating effect for depressive symptoms in women in late pregnancy. In moderating analysis for postpartum, Aboriginal women who had never exercised in late pregnancy were found to be depressed at postpartum compared with non Aboriginal mothers who did not exercise. In looking at mediating effects in postpartum, smoking at late pregnancy exerted full mediating effects for ethnicity and marital satisfaction pathways, and partial mediating effects for age, education, and stress pathways in predicting depression in postpartum period among mothers. Conclusion: Depression, particularly during pregnancy and in postpartum, is a top priority for women themselves, their families, care providers, and society in general. This study found that characteristics of women or their psychosocial or behavioural experiences could have specific effects such as either a mitigating or exacerbating role, or a mediating role, in depression in late pregnancy or in postpartum. This information could be strategically used by clinicians or by health promotion professionals to either target or provide tailored programs to women who might experience depression during pregnancy and postpartum.

Effects of neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness in online are affecting consumer impulse buying behavior are important to explore because it directly impacts the consumers individually. The objective of this study is to find out the role of demographics and personality traits of a consumer in shaping their online impulse buying behavior. This study will also will evaluate the moderating effect of hedonic shopping in impulse buying behavior of consumers. Quantitative research approach has been used by using survey method and data was collected through adapted questionnaires. The sample of the study was consisted of 200 respondents from different cities of Sweden and response rate was 80%. IBM SPSS data editor was used to conduct data analysis. Multiple linear regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with LSD technique was performed to test the proposed hypothesis. Based on the empirical analysis, it is been concluded that personality traits i.e. Neuroticism and Agreeableness have negative and significant relationship online impulse buying behavior. More a person possesses the characteristics of Neuroticism and Agreeableness less will be the online impulsive buying. Furthermore, Openness to Change, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion have positive and significant relationship with online impulsive buying behavior. Results also depict that hedonic motivation moderates the relationship of personality traits and online impulsive buying which implies that the pleasure of online shopping boosts online impulsive buying.

First responders are at increased risk for adverse mental health conditions (e.g., acute stress), possibly due to exposure to traumatic events; however, not all first responders exhibit symptoms to the same degree. Positive and negative attributes of working as a first responder (e.g., professional quality of life [QOL]) may contribute to vulnerability to or protection from distress. Additionally, beliefs about one’s ability to problem-solve and attain goals (e.g., self-efficacy) may ameliorate job-related difficulties and distress; this premise has not been tested. We examined the relations between professional QOL, self-efficacy, and acute stress in first responders. At the bivariate level, we hypothesized that self-efficacy and compassion satisfaction would be inversely related to acute stress, and burnout and secondary traumatic stress would be positively related to acute stress. At the multivariate level, three hypotheses were made: (1) higher selfefficacy would predict lower acute stress; (2) each professional QOL subscale would predict acute stress, such that higher compassion satisfaction would predict lower acute stress and higher secondary traumatic stress and burnout would predict greater acute stress; and, (3) self-efficacy would moderate the relation between each professional QOL subscale and acute stress. Our sample of 170 first responders were primarily male (73%, n = 124) and White (89.4%, n = 151) with a mean age of 34.75 years (SD = 8.79). Participants were recruited via workplace email and completed self-report measures: General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL), and Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R; index of acute stress). In addition to bivariate analyses, we conducted multivariate regression analyses to examine the relation between QOL and trauma, and the moderating effect of self-efficacy. At the bivariate level, all correlations were as predicted. At the multivariate level, hypotheses were partially supported. Self-efficacy, compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout all significantly predicted acute stress. Self-efficacy significantly moderated the relation between compassion satisfaction and acute stress, β = 0.12, p = .03, accounting for a significant increase in the variance in acute stress, ΔR 2 = .03, F (1, 148) = 4.80, p = .03. However, self-efficacy did not moderate in other models. Better professional QOL and self-efficacy were related to acute stress in first responders. Further, the relation between compassion satisfaction and acute stress was dependent on level of self-efficacy; with greater competence, the beneficial relation between compassion satisfaction and distress, is strengthened. Therapeutically addressing professional QOL, specifically secondary traumatic events, and increasing self-efficacy (e.g., via Cognitive Behavioral Therapies), may reduce risk for adverse stress reactions in first responders.

College students’ perceptions of filial obligation can differ across individual, familial, and cultural contexts. However, comparative and empirical studies on this issue are scarce. To address the gap in literature, we examined how American and Korean cultural contexts differently affect the association between two types of parent-child relationship quality (mother-child dyad and father-child dyad) and two types of filial obligation (instrumental support and emotional support). In addition, we examined how children’s gender moderates the above associations. We collected a sample of 500 college students, ages 18 to 25 years, from private universities in the United States (n = 224) and South Korea (n = 276). Regarding American college students, results showed that mother-child relationship quality was positively associated with emotional support of filial obligation. In terms of Korean college students, however, mother-child relationship quality was positively associated with two types of filial obligation respectively. These results indicate that Korean college students consider both instrumental and emotional support as important values of filial obligation, whereas American college students consider emotional support as the more important value of filial obligation compared to instrumental support. Regarding the moderating effect, we found that children’s gender moderated the associations between father-child relationship quality and two types of filial obligation in Korean college students. We suggest that Korean cultural contexts based on the tradition of patriarchy and gender socialization affect the association between father-child relationship quality and filial obligation.