This thesis examined the relationship of behavioural self-blame and psychological adjustment to chronic illness and addressed some of the conceptual and methodological inconsistencies found in the existing literature on self-blame by studying different groups of chronically ill patients. Study One comprised a questionnaire study and was designed to mainly examine 1) differences in the levels of self-blame in three different patient groups (i.e. diabetes, heart disease and breast cancer patients), 2) the relationship between perceptions of behavioural risk factors contributing to the patients' illness and level of self-blame and 3) the relationship between self-blame, self-efficacy and psychological adjustment. Findings showed that there are significant differences in the levels of self-blame across the three groups with breast cancer patients showing the least self-blame. These differences were explained in terms of the different levels of perceived lifestyle factors contributing to the cause of illness and its subsequent management in the three groups. Also, self-blame was higher when patients were asked to consider a specific negative event relevant to their illness than when they considered their illness in general. For all three groups, self-blame was correlated to the number of behavioural risk factors patients reported as having contributed to their illness. No relationship was found between self-blame and self-efficacy or psychological adjustment. Study Two looked at the predictors of behavioural self-blame in heart disease patients by testing a theoretical model derived from evidence in the literature. The model included certain person (i.e. gender, age, characterological self-blame, and prior risk) and illness- related characteristics (i.e. type of diagnosis, time since diagnosis, perceived illness consequences, controllability of health behaviours) that had either direct paths to behavioural self-blame or indirect paths through their effect on behavioural causal attributions. The final model -showing gender and characterological self-blame as having both direct and indirect paths to self-blame, and prior risk, diagnosis and consequences as having only indirect paths- fit the data well. Also, behavioural attributions predicted improved health behaviour after the illness. No relationship between behavioural self-blame or causal attributions and psychological adjustment was found. Studies Three and Four addressed criticisms regarding the inconsistent conceptualisation and operation definitions of self-blame, which caution against unfounded generalisations such as the interchangeable use of the terms causality, responsibility and blame or the generalisation of results across different populations. This was done by 1) examining the degree to which self-blame is contingent upon the actual experience of illness, and 2) by comparing 14 negative events rated on dimensions relevant to blame and controllability. Specifically, in Study Three, non-patients were compared to patient counterparts from the previous study to look at differences in levels of self-blame for heart disease. Non-patients were found to have higher levels of self-blame than non-patients and showed no relationship between self-blame and behavioral risk suggesting a different understanding and utility of the concept. In Study Four, non-patients rated 14 negative events on the dimensions of blame, responsibility, control and avoidability. Two dimensional plots showed that while there were many similarities in the way the examined dimensions were applied to the 14 events, illnesses were represented separately from other negative events. Overall, these studies suggest a strong cognitive component in self-blaming patients as opposed to the motivational elements suggested in the literature. Possible explanations and ways to theoretically link the contradictory findings are discussed in the last chapter of the thesis and include the consideration of self-regulation processes and of changes that the self is subject to throughout the course of an illness.

The problem of this study was to investigate the relationship between parent and pre-adolescent adjustment within intact families, short-term divorced families, and long-term divorced families, and to compare the adjustments of parents from intact families, short-term divorced families, and long-term divorced families.

Pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers are a population at risk to a variety of negative social, economic, and psychological consequences. Numerous group interventions have been designed to improve the psychological adjustment of pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers. However, there has been a paucity of research evaluating the efficacy of these interventions. This research was designed to evaluate the efficacy of the development group intervention. The primary objective of this research was to evaluate the effects of this intervention upon the psychological adjustment of the participants. Thirty-two subjects (16 experimental and 16 comparison) enrolled in two alternative public high schools in Ogden, Utah, participated in the study. Demographic data were obtained for all subjects prior to the initiation of the study. All subjects completed a battery of self-report questionnaires prior to the development group intervention. This battery was comprised of the following assessment instruments: Revised Kaplan Scale, Adolescent Life Change Event Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Rathus Assertiveness Schedule, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Wazlavek Support Scale. At the end of the 14-week intervention period, all participants again completed the self-report assessment battery. No statistically significant differences were found between the experimental group and the comparison group. However, development group attendance was significantly positively correlated with posttest levels of perceived social support. There is indication that married adolescents may benefit more from the development group experience than single adolescents.

This study is research into Invisible Chronic Illness (ICI): illness that cannot be seen by another, but that can have a major, sometimes catastrophic, effect on the lives of people concerned, especially their working lives. Each chapter deals, in some detail,with certain aspects of chronic illnesses that cannot be readily seen. The research is argued to be a vital excavation - a recognition of authentic and previously unheard voices and a methodology of primary value in researching the incommensurable, the difficult, the nasty in organisational life / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The present study evaluated the relations among positive parenting practices, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and positive and negative psychological adjustment among Chinese and Canadian emerging adults. Emotion regulation was hypothesized to mediate the relations between positive parenting and psychological adjustment. Participants included 75 international Chinese students and 120 Canadian students between the ages of 18 to 25 enrolled at the University of Victoria. Participants completed multiple-choice questionnaires assessing perceptions of their mothers’ and fathers’ positive parenting practices (i.e., warmth, volitional autonomy support and parent as teacher), their use of positive and negative cognitive emotion regulation strategies, and their levels of positive psychological adjustment (i.e., happiness, life satisfaction and academic satisfaction) and negative psychological adjustment (i.e., depression, anxiety and loneliness). Emotion regulation partially mediated the relations between perceptions of fathers’ parenting and positive and negative psychological adjustment for Chinese and Canadian students, and for Canadian students’ perceptions of mothers’ parenting. Few group differences emerged in the relations among parenting, emotion regulation and adjustment; greater positive parenting was associated with students’ use of more positive emotion regulation strategies and fewer negative strategies, and with higher levels of positive adjustment and lower levels of negative adjustment. In contrast to the overall similarity observed in terms of relations among the constructs, an exception to this pattern was the lack of relations between parenting and emotion regulation for Chinese students. Mean differences between Chinese and Canadian students in emotion regulation and psychological adjustment were found. Chinese students used all of the assessed emotion regulation strategies more often than Canadian students, and had higher levels of negative adjustment and lower levels of positive adjustment as compared with Canadian students. Clinical implications in terms of how parents, mental health professionals and post-secondary institutions can help bolster the positive adjustment of emerging adults cross-culturally are discussed, along with the strengths and limitations of the current study and directions for future research. / Graduate / 0622 / 0620

The adjustment of immigrants has been an important area of research over the past few decades. The current literature on immigrants’ psychological adjustment typically focuses on identifying specific contextual, interpersonal, and intrapersonal risks that contribute to negative adjustment. However, the mechanisms through which maladjustment occurs are less well-understood. In addition, less research has focused on understanding immigrants’ hopes, aspirations, and expectations for themselves and the extent to which they are meeting these ideals. According to existing literature on psychological incongruence, failure to fulfill one’s ideals can trigger dejection-related feelings, such as shame, and these feelings are closely connected with negative psychological adjustment. In collectivistic cultures such as the Chinese culture, where much of an individual’s identity is dependent on close relationships, incongruence can be conceptualized both within an individual (e.g., I failed to achieve my ideals) and in relation to one’s significant other (e.g., My child failed to achieve my ideals for him/her). Informed by theories of psychological incongruence, this dissertation aimed to study Chinese immigrant parents’ psychological adjustment, focusing on incongruence in two broad domains: 1) occupational and educational achievement; and 2) cultural adjustment, as well as incongruence within oneself and in relation to one’s child. The general hypothesis was that incongruence between ideal and actual functioning across the domains studied would predict a decrease in psychological adjustment over time, as represented by lower self-esteem and higher depressive symptoms. Participants were 182 Chinese immigrant families (mothers, fathers, and adolescent-aged children) residing in British Columbia, assessed twice with 18 months apart. A combination of polynomial regression with response surface analysis and linear multiple regression methods were used to evaluate the extent to which the direction and magnitude of congruence and incongruence between ideal and actual functioning predicted change in parents’ psychological adjustment over time. Results provided partial support for the hypothesized relations, particularly within the domains of Chinese parents’ own Canadian acculturation and their children’s academic functioning. Support was also found within the domain of parents’ own occupational functioning, but this was the case only for mothers. The hypothesized relations within the domain of children’s Chinese cultural orientation were generally not supported. Overall, the results highlight the importance of understanding immigrant adults’ adjustment process using a goodness-of-fit, family-oriented approach. Clinicians and settlement workers are encouraged to consider cultural and personal ideals when supporting immigrants in their adjustment process, as well as fostering successful coping with the incongruence that can arise in parent-child dyads. Finally, immigration policies should continue to address structural barriers that prevent immigrants from achieving their ideals, such as in the domain of employment. / Graduate

Experiencing growth after the diagnosis of a life threatening illness is commonly reported among people living with HIV (PLWH). The links between benefit finding and better adjustment in PLWH have been identified, but it is less clear whether these links vary by ethnicity. Minority stress theory suggests that individuals from minority populations may have unique stress experiences, which can have negative health implications but may also provide opportunity for growth. We hypothesized that the association between benefit finding and psychological adjustment would be stronger for Black (n = 80) than White (n = 87) PLWH. Contrary to predictions, the relationship between benefit finding and better adjustment was significant for White but not Black PLWH. Post-hoc analyses suggested that sexual orientation played role in this relationship. The relationship between benefit finding and psychological adjustment may be complex for Black PLWH, or they may achieve adjustment using other resources.

Yes / The self-regulatory model proposes that illness representations influence adjustment and coping in chronic conditions. Better understanding of the illness representations held by people with dementia could help with targeting information and support so as to optimize adjustment and coping. In this mixed-methods study of illness representations among people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, vascular, or mixed dementia we aimed to clarify the nature of the representations held, to determine whether specific profiles can be identified based on perceptions of the identity and cause of the condition, and to examine associations between these profiles and other participant characteristics. Data were collected in the second wave of the Memory Impairment and Dementia Awareness Study (MIDAS). Sixty-four people with dementia, who had been told their diagnosis at a memory clinic, completed interviews and responded to questionnaires. In each case a carer was also interviewed. Cluster analysis based on responses about identity and cause identified three profiles. ‘Illness’ cluster participants saw themselves as living with an illness and used diagnostic labels, ‘ageing’ cluster participants did not use diagnostic labels and viewed their difficulties as related to ageing, and ‘no problem’ cluster participants considered that they did not have any difficulties. ‘Illness’ cluster participants had better cognition and better awareness, but lower mood, and perceived more practical consequences, than ‘ageing’ cluster participants. Holding an ‘illness’ model may not be advantageous. Rather than encouraging adoption of such a model, it may be preferable to target information and select interventions in line with the person’s representation profile.

No description available.

The Brief Adjustment Scale-6 (BASE-6) was recently developed and initially examined as a brief, reliable, no-cost survey for measuring general psychological functioning within Measurement-Based Care (MBC). This study aims to further evaluate the psychometric properties of the BASE-6 in both clinical and nonclinical populations. More specifically, psychometric properties including reliability and validity, generalizability for different race/ethnic samples, and clinical utility within the context of MBC were examined. Three adult samples participated in this study: online community participants (Sample 1: n = 394), college students (Sample 2: n = 249), and individuals receiving outpatient clinical services (Sample 3: n = 80). Participants within the clinical sample regularly completed the BASE-6 while receiving evidence-based treatment in a community based psychological training clinic, where the practice of MBC is standard. Results showed that the BASE-6 had a high level of internal consistency and good test-retest reliability. It showed high convergent validity through a significant positive correlation with total and subscale scores of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) results supported a unidimensional model that strongly fit the data. All results were uniform across samples. When comparing the clinical and nonclinical samples, participants from the clinical sample demonstrated higher scores in total and most of the single items of the BASE-6. Finally, within the clinical sample, the BASE-6 was sensitive enough to capture change over time by demonstrating a large effect size of pre-post treatment changes and significant linear change in multilevel growth modeling. These results support the BASE-6 as a reliable and valid measure that has a one-factor structure, regardless of race/ethnicity and participants’ clinical status. Additionally, it can sensitively detect clinical change in individuals over the course of the treatment. Thus, the BASE-6 appears to accurately monitor overall psychological adjustment. / M.S. / The Brief Adjustment Scale-6 (BASE-6) is a short, no-cost survey that assesses general psychological adjustment. It can be used in a psychotherapy setting to evaluate overall functioning of individuals on a regular basis. This study aims to further investigate the BASE-6 in both clinical and nonclinical populations, more specifically, whether the BASE-6 questionnaire is reliable, consistent, and valid with various race/ethnic populations. Additionally, it was examined if the BASE-6 can sensitively capture the change in psychological adjustment over the course of treatment. Three adult groups participated in this study: online community participants (Sample 1: n = 394), college students (Sample 2: n = 249), and individuals receiving outpatient clinical services (Sample 3: n = 80). Participants within the clinical sample regularly completed the BASE-6 while receiving psychotherapy in a community based psychological training clinic. Results showed that the BASE-6 was a reliable, consistent measure and the items all measured the same construct – general psychological adjustment. The BASE-6 was also highly correlated with depression, anxiety, and stress. Results did not differ across samples or race/ethnicity. When comparing the clinical and nonclinical samples, participants from the clinical sample showed higher scores of the BASE-6. Finally, within the clinical sample, the BASE-6 was sensitive enough to capture change over time by demonstrating large treatment changes from the beginning until the end of the treatment. These results support the BASE-6 as a reliable and valid measure regardless of race/ethnicity and participants’ clinical status. Additionally, it can sensitively detect clinical changes in clients over the course of the treatment. Thus, the BASE-6 appears to accurately monitor overall psychological adjustment.