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No description available.

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No description available.

The purpose of this project is to outline a validation study demonstrating the utility of the Mulicultural Education and Training Structured Interview for Cultural Formulations (METSICF).

Previous research has suggested there may be racial differences in how adults perceive and rate children’s ADHD behavior (i.e., inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity). The current study examined these differences between African-American/Black (AA/B) parents and European-American/White (EA/W) parents and teachers. Participants watched video clips of children in classrooms and rated their ADHD behaviors and their likelihood of having ADHD. Results showed that EA/W parents and teachers rated African-American boys’ ADHD behaviors and their likelihood of having ADHD higher than AA/B parents. Mechanisms by which these differences exist were explored, including beliefs about stigma related to ADHD, values in movement and expressiveness, experiences with racism, and racial attitudes. Results suggested that EA/W teachers’ racial attitudes toward African Americans were related to their ratings of African-American boys’ ADHD behaviors and likelihood of having ADHD. More research is necessary to further explain the mechanisms by which such discrepancies in ratings of African-American boys’ ADHD behaviors exist between African-American and European-American adults to inform culturally sensitive assessment and diagnosis of ADHD in African-American children.

In the U.S., Black mothers experience fetal and infant mortality at alarming rates when compared to White and Latina mothers (Gregory, Drake, & Martin, 2018). The intent of this study was to examine perinatal loss among Black American women and to expand understanding of how the Strong Black Woman (SBW) ideology influences bereavement. Data were gathered from (N=109) Black American bereaved mothers. It was predicted that endorsement of differing aspects of the SBW would moderate the relationship between perinatal grief and psychosocial outcomes (i.e., depression and post-traumatic growth). Regression analyses, alongside a bootstrapping procedure via PROCESS (Hayes, 2017), were used to evaluate the moderation models. Results yielded a model of perinatal bereavement among Black American mothers. In particular, reliance on spirituality moderated the relationship between perinatal grief and depression, while the obligation to manifest strength moderated the relation between perinatal grief and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Neither moderated moderation model was significant. The model provided significant implications for clinical practice and intervention.

Spirituality represents a key part of life for the majority of U.S. adults and there is a growing body of research supporting relationships between spirituality and numerous health outcomes. Governing healthcare organizations have acknowledged the role religiousness and spirituality play in comprehensive and holistic patient care. While the U.S. shows documented trends towards diverse expressions of spirituality, existing theory-driven measures of spirituality are largely theocentric. The current study concludes a multiphase project that aimed at the outset to develop an inclusive measure of spirituality and establish initial psychometric evidence, validating its use across both theistic and nontheistic spiritual populations. The Inclusive Spiritual Connection Scale (ISCS) was developed based on an expanded conceptualization of spiritual connection to include both theistic and nontheistic expressions of spirituality. The current study builds on a previous study that established preliminary evidence of content validity of the ISCS, from which a 45-item pool was developed. In the present study, data were collected from 736 participants who indicated either theistic or nontheistic sources of spiritual connection. Using a split sample approach (primary developmental sample, n = 368; secondary developmental sample, n = 368) and a test-retest subsample (n =129), the 45-item pool underwent three phases of data analysis to establish initial psychometric evidence of the ISCS for use with theistic and nontheistic populations. Through a series of factor analytic procedures, the 45-item pool was reduced to 13 items, yielding a unidimensional scale of spiritual connection with evidence of sound psychometric properties. The ISCS demonstrated adequate evidence of convergent validity, limited evidence of divergent validity, and strong evidence of reliability. Assessment of measurement equivalence across nontheistic and theistic groups yielded partial evidence of equivalence; however, the baseline levels of spiritual connection appeared to differ between theistic and nontheistic participants. Initial psychometric properties support the ISCS as a reliable and valid tool to assess spiritual connection in spiritually diverse populations, though comparison between spiritual groups requires further validation. The ISCS responds directly to existing gaps in research and possesses the ability to support holistic healthcare care for all US adults regardless of spiritual expression.

Several mental health professionals have suggested that Chinese in the United States as a group are less subject to mental disorders than other races. Whereas other investigators have also indicated that due to the influences of cultural conflict and racism, Chinese in the United States are under greater emotional distress than members of the host society. When stress from these sources becomes too great, mental health problems are frequently the result. The purpose of this library research thesis is to review the available research works related with Chinese Americans mental health problems in the hope of seeking answers to the following questions: Is mental illness among the Chinese a myth or reality? If mental illness does exist among the group, what is the rate and how is it distributed in the Chinese population? Are there some particular psychiatric maladies more commonly reported among the group than others? First, the literature review confirms that mental illness does exist among the Chinese population residing in the United States. Second, the review shows that the rate of mental illness is not uniform within the group, in that among recent immigrants, the aged and students studying in the United States experience a higher risk of mental break-down than do female immigrants, the young or the native born. Last but not least, research reveal that psychosomatization seems to be the origin of a significant portion of those reported cases of mental disorders. These conclusions are not as extreme as those suggested by Tom in his Chinatown sample, namely that Chinese-Americans have an extremely high rate of mental illness. However, they do indicate the mental health needs of Chinese are sufficient to warrant greater concern. Several suggestions on how to improve the mental health care for Chinese are made in the text. They include training bilingual professionals and paraprofessional modifications in therapeutic concepts and techniques; setting up community health programs in Chinatown's and encouraging more research to be done in this particular area.