Invasive procedures are often painful and distressing for children and disturbing for their parents. The purpose of this study was to develop a substantive theory of parental perceptions of their school-aged child's responses to an outpatient minor surgical procedure with nitrous oxide. The sample included 22 parents of 21 children who underwent a nitrous procedure. Participants were recruited from the pediatric surgery department at a children's hospital. Semi-structured, audio-recorded interviews were conducted with each participant. Grounded theory method was used to simultaneously collect and analyze the data using the constant comparative method. The findings of the study revealed parental impressions involving a process of various emotions and behaviors. The identified process began at procedural scheduling, progressing through the procedure, and terminated going home. The core category derived from the data was Weathering the Storm before the Calm by Securing Connections. This core category describes the complexity of parental impressions and all categories subsumed by the core category. Six major categories and seven subcategories derived from the data represent parental impressions. Parental feelings of anxiety and fear arose during initial phases of the process. Parents attempted to deal with these stormy feelings in several ways. Parents experienced a sense of calmness after the procedure upon realizing their child was safe. The theme that weaves through the entire process is the parental-child connection and parental presence during the nitrous procedure. Parents also identified barriers and facilitators they faced during this process. The substantive theory that emerged provides nurses with an understanding of the stormy and subsequent calm phases parents endured. This information offers clinicians unique interventions to help parents get through this process. Future research needs extension to other settings such as radiology and other specialties such as plastic surgery and urology. Further research warrants investigating children's perceptions to their procedure with nitrous oxide.

Sensation seeking is a personality characteristic associated with problematic alcohol use and positive alcohol expectancies, but little research has examined the relationship between sensation seeking and the acquisition of alcohol expectancy information. In a recent study (Steinberg, 2003), sensation seeking was associated with how quickly and accurately college-aged students were able to learn alcohol-expectancy word pairs in a paired associate learning task. In this age group, however, the individuals had fully developed alcohol expectancies that may have influenced their rates of learning. The current study sought to minimize the influence of previously held alcohol expectancies by exploring this relationship in children when the development of alcohol expectancies is just beginning. The participants in this study were fifth grade students. A series of regressions examined the relationship between sensation seeking, alcohol expectancies, current and predicted future drinking with the acquisition of alcohol and expectancy word pairs in a paired associate learning task. Although no statistically significant relationships were found, children with higher drinking frequency and males with higher Thrill and Adventure Seeking (TAS) demonstrated a minor advantage in their ability to match alcohol and expectancy words in cued-recall trials. Although the results of this study are inconclusive, they suggest that sensation seeking may play a role in the acquisition of alcohol expectancies. Future research with refined word pairs and a larger sample size is necessary to further clarify these trends.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to a person’s ability to remember to do something in the future. It is a complex behaviour that is essential for the daily functioning of young and old alike. Despite its importance in everyday life, few studies have sought to examine PM in a naturalistic way and even fewer have done so using school-aged children. The current study aimed to understand a particular form of time-based PM (TBPM), general TBPM, in children through the use of a novel naturalistic paradigm. In addition, the study aimed to add to the current PM literature by including an analysis of the circumstances surrounding a child’s prospective remembering. Results demonstrated that general TBPM was not significantly related to the parent-report Prospective Retrospective Memory Questionnaire for Children (PRMQC) or to the Memory for Intentions Screening Test for Youth (MISTY). Interestingly, general TBPM was not found to significantly relate to WM either. Descriptive analyses of the qualitative data demonstrated that no trigger rehearsals were most often responsible for children’s successful PM remembering. In contrast, when children forgot to complete their PM tasks, they most often reported being too busy with other things as the reason. The current findings provide preliminary support for the existence of a new sub-type of TBPM. They also call into question the utility of using measures like the MISTY and PRMQC to evaluate the ecological validity of new PM task paradigms. Consequently, future research should focus on validating current PM measures before using them to evaluate the ecological validity of new ones. Finally, it is also believed that the inclusion of qualitative measures assessing the contexts of PM retrieval have important implications for the effective development of future interventions for children who experience PM difficulties. / Graduate / 0621 / 0633 / 0620 / kdtalbot@uvic.ca

This study aimed to determine what the effect of a sport development and nutrition intervention programme would be on the following components of psychological development of previously disadvantaged, primary school-aged rugby players: self-esteem; cognitive development, attention and concentration and social support. The participants were primary school boys between the ages of 9 and 14 years from disadvantaged communities. They were recruited on the basis of availability from six primary schools in the Potchefstroom area of the North West Province involved in a rugby development programme. The research design was a randomised, single-blinded, controlled intervention study. The children were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. The experimental group of children received an exercise intervention and a nutritional supplement twice a week for a period of three months. The control group received no sport or nutritional interventions during this period. The research methodology included pre-testing, intra-testing and post-testing. With the pre-testing a comparison could be drawn between the experimental and control group regarding the above-mentioned psychological components. During the intra testing each of the 2 groups was evaluated separately regarding these components to identify any changes that could have taken place within the group from baseline to end. With the post-testing the 2 groups were compared with each other regarding these components to determine whether the nutrition and exercise interventions resulted in any markable changes to especially the experimental group. The results showed an statistically significant improvement in self-concept within the experimental group (p = 0.028) whereas no difference in self-concept within the control group was obtained. The effect of the intervention programme was not as clearly observable in any of the other psychological components. A longer duration of such an intervention programme could possibly contribute to better test results. The socioeconomic circumstances of the participants played an important role in the final outcome of the study in that it influenced the social support the participants received and it also had an effect on the test behaviour of the participants. / Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Bakalauro darbe analizuojamas žalingų įpročių paplitimas bei vartojimas pagrindinio ugdymo mokykloje bei priežastys, paskatinusios vartoti tabaką, alkoholį ir kitas narkotines medžiagas. Tyrime dalyvavo 75 pagrindinių mokyklų IX- X klasių moksleiviai bei 25 šiuos mokinius ugdantys pedagogai. Anketinės apklausos metodu tirta, kiek pagrindinėse mokyklose paplitęs tabako, alkoholio ir kitų narkotinių medžiagų vartojimas ir kas sąlygoja šių medžiagų paplitimą, taip pat aiškintasi koks yra pedagogų požiūris į narkotinių medžiagų vartojimo problemiškumą jų mokyklose, kaip jie siūlo organizuoti prevencinę veiklą paaugliams. Tyrimu nustatyta, kad 9- 10 klasių moksleiviai tabaką išbando gana jauname amžiuje. Daugelis mokinių nurodė per pastarąjį mėnesį vartoję silpnus alkoholinius gėrimus. Tiek tarp vaikinų, tiek tarp merginų populiariausias yra alus, tarp merginų dar vartojamas vynas ( šampanas) bei alkoholiniai kokteiliai. Mokiniai alkoholį vartoja iš neturėjimo ką veikti, norėdami atsipalaiduoti, pamiršti slegiančias problemas, apsvaigti bei vedami smalsumo. Tyrimas parodė, jog reikia daugiau dėmesio skirti moksleivių laisvalaikio organizavimui, gyvenimo įpročių ugdymui. Mokinių nuomone narkotikus jaunimas vartoja norėdami atsipalaiduoti. Tuo tarpu pedagogai mano, jog jaunimas narkotikus vartoja norėdami neišsiskirti iš bendraamžių, iš smalsumo. Pačius mokinius nuo ketinimo vartoti narkotikus dažniausiai sulaiko baimė tapti priklausomiems, suvokiama neigiama narkotikų žala. / Prevalence of addictions and reasons stimulating use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs at basic schools are analysed in the Bachelor Thesis. 75 9th – 10th form pupils and their 25 teachers working at Rusnė and Kairiai Basic Schools took part in the research. A questionnaire survey method was employed when investigating tobacco, alcohol and other drug use as well as the reasons for prevalence of the harmful substances at the basic schools. Moreover, teachers’ attitude towards a complex of problems of drug use and their proposals for organizing prevention activities for teenagers at the schools were investigated. It has been ascertained that 9th – 10th form pupils start using tobacco at a relatively young age. The majority of questioned pupils indicated that during the last month they had tried mild alcoholic drinks. Beer was the most popular drink among boys and girls. Besides, wine (champagne) and alcoholic cocktails were girls’ favourite drinks. The pupils indicated that they had used alcohol because of not having anything fun to do or willing to relax, forget about their problems, inebriate as well as being led by curiosity. The research has revealed that it is necessary to pay greater attention to organization of pupils’ free-time and education of their healthy life habits. According to the questioned pupils young people use drugs when they are willing to relax, whereas teachers are of the opinion that pupils use drugs being led by curiosity and willing not to stand... [to full text]

This study aimed to determine what the effect of a sport development and nutrition intervention programme would be on the following components of psychological development of previously disadvantaged, primary school-aged rugby players: self-esteem; cognitive development, attention and concentration and social support. The participants were primary school boys between the ages of 9 and 14 years from disadvantaged communities. They were recruited on the basis of availability from six primary schools in the Potchefstroom area of the North West Province involved in a rugby development programme. The research design was a randomised, single-blinded, controlled intervention study. The children were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. The experimental group of children received an exercise intervention and a nutritional supplement twice a week for a period of three months. The control group received no sport or nutritional interventions during this period. The research methodology included pre-testing, intra-testing and post-testing. With the pre-testing a comparison could be drawn between the experimental and control group regarding the above-mentioned psychological components. During the intra testing each of the 2 groups was evaluated separately regarding these components to identify any changes that could have taken place within the group from baseline to end. With the post-testing the 2 groups were compared with each other regarding these components to determine whether the nutrition and exercise interventions resulted in any markable changes to especially the experimental group. The results showed an statistically significant improvement in self-concept within the experimental group (p = 0.028) whereas no difference in self-concept within the control group was obtained. The effect of the intervention programme was not as clearly observable in any of the other psychological components. A longer duration of such an intervention programme could possibly contribute to better test results. The socioeconomic circumstances of the participants played an important role in the final outcome of the study in that it influenced the social support the participants received and it also had an effect on the test behaviour of the participants. / Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

This study investigated the relationship between maladaptive behavior, defined as referral to counseling, and the Adlerian construct of birth order. The birth order variables examined were ordinal position, sex of subject, family density, family size, socio-economic status, intactness of family, age of mother, and sex of sibling. The subjects in this study were 217 school-aged children with academic and/or behavior problems who were referred to an interdisciplinary guidance center. The subjects were assigned to counseling or no-counseling groups on the basis of an interdisciplinary evaluation and staffing, which included an extensive battery of academic and psychological tests.

Diet contributes to a large proportion of preventable deaths and diseases. Adolescence is a period during which diet may particularly evolve, and therefore represents an opportunity to develop long-lasting healthy dietary behaviours. However, dietary habits are particularly subject to social variations, which may lead to social inequalities in health. Tackling them requires public health actions based on a comprehensive approach of social determinants at this life stage. This doctoral thesis aimed to examine socioeconomic and sociocultural disparities in dietary habits among adolescents, using the repeated cross-sectional Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) surveys conducted in French- and Dutch-speaking Belgian schools. The three specific objectives of this aim were: (i) to study the socioeconomic disparities in dietary habits of adolescents from different migration status; (ii) to determine trends in dietary disparities between 1990 and 2014; (iii) to estimate disparities in dietary habits according to the socioeconomic and migration status at both individual and contextual levels. Firstly, different socioeconomic disparity patterns according to the migration status were observed, with narrower disparities in 1st-generation immigrants than among natives, highlighting the major role of cultural influences in immigrant populations. Secondly, the long-term trend analyses emphasised increasing disparities for healthy foods and decreasing disparities for unhealthy foods. In addition, when the consumption of a food group increased overall, disparities decreased, and vice-versa. Finally, the multilevel analyses showed that individual and school disparities were independently associated with food consumption frequencies. Furthermore, this observational assessment revealed the weak relationships between nutrition policy in schools and dietary habits. Note that in the Brussels-Capital Region, native adolescents were at higher risk of unhealthy dietary behaviours than immigrants, but the risk of unhealthy behaviours tended to be higher when, in the school, the socioeconomic index decreased, and the proportion of immigrants increased. Overall, our analyses underlined the need to include, in addition to the socioeconomic factors, cultural components in public health actions aimed at addressing social inequalities in adolescent diet, in a multicultural context such as Belgium. Support to schools, with a greater emphasis on those disadvantaged in order to prevent increased inequalities, is needed to develop a consistent and effective nutrition policy. Finally, further studies are needed to better understand the mechanisms behind dietary disparities among adolescents, particularly those related to their migration status and broader socioeconomic environment. / Doctorat en Santé Publique / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Background Overweight/obesity is a risk factor for non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and some cancers. Obesity in childhood is known to predict later obesity in adolescence and adulthood. Understanding the factors associated with overweight/obesity among children may present an opportunity for timely and appropriate interventions in the African setting. Aims 1. To describe the prevalence of overweight and obesity and associated factors among school children aged 8 - 11 years in primary schools in Adentan Municipality, Ghana. 2. To review the available literature on childhood obesity in the African context to provide evidence to support the design and improvement of appropriate school-based interventions for the prevention and control of overweight/obesity among African learners. Methodology This was a cross-sectional study design which was conducted in two phases. In Phase I, the available literature on the prevalence of overweight and obesity among learners, school-based interventions to promote healthy nutrition and physical activity (PA), and weight status, and key policy interventions at the national levels to provide supportive environments in the African context was reviewed and synthesised. In Phase II, interviews were conducted to collect individual and family data from 543 learners in 14 schools to assess family socio-demographics characteristics, dietary, PA, and sedentary behaviours, and sleep duration. Body weight, height, and waist circumference were measured. Data on perceived school neighbourhood/ community, school food, and PA environments were collected from school heads/administrators. A sub-sample of 183 children participated in the assessment of body fat using the deuterium dilution method. Multivariable and logistic regressions, multilevel logistic regressions, and multilevel linear regression models were used to examine the associations among child, family, and school level explanatory variables, and overweight/obesity, abdominal obesity and body mass index (BMI). Results The reviews revealed the following: (i) The pooled overweight and obesity estimates across Africa were: (10.5% 95% CI: 7.1-14.3) and 6.1% (3.4-9.7) by World Health Organization; 9.5% (6.5-13.0) and 4.0% (2.5-5.9) by International Obesity Task Force; and 11.5% (9.6-13.4) and 6.9% (5.0-9.0) by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, respectively and differed for overweight (p=0.0027) and obesity (p<0.0001) by the criteria. The estimates were mostly higher in urban, and private schools, but generally similar by gender, major geographic regions, publication year, and sample size; (ii) Although inconsistent, school-based interventions broadly improved weight status and some energy-balance related health behaviours of African learners; (iii) On applying the Analysis Grid for Environments Linked to Obesity (ANGELO) framework, key interventions on unhealthy diets and physical inactivity targeted the school, family and community settings, and macro environments, and broadly aligned with global recommendations. In the school-based study, 16.4% of Ghanaian learners were overweight (9.2%) or obese (7.2%), with the prevalence being significantly higher in children from middle- to high socio-economic status (SES) households, and private schools. In multivariable regression models, attending private school (AOR = 2.44, 1.39–4.29) and excessive television viewing (AOR = 1.72, 1.05–2.82) significantly increased the likelihood of overweight/obesity, whereas adequate sleep (AOR = 0.53, 0.31–0.88), and active transport to and from school (AOR = 0.51, 0.31 – 0.82) decreased the odds. Using deuterium-derived percent body fat as criterion method, the published BMI criteria was found to be highly specific but with moderate sensitivity for diagnosing obesity among Ghanaian children. Moreover, the BMI-for-age z-scores that optimise sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values for obesity were lower than the published cut-off points. Multilevel logistic and linear regression analyses revealed that the school contextual level contributed 30.0%, 20.6% and 19.7% of the total variance observed in overweight (including obesity), abdominal obesity, and BMI respectively. Availability of school cafeteria (β = 1.83, p = 0.017) and shops (β = 2.34, p = 0.001), healthy foods (β = 0.77, p = 0.046), less healthy foods (β = 0.38, p = 0.048), child age (β = 0.40, p = 0.008), school-level SES (β = 1.02, p < 0.0001), private school attendance (β = -1.80, p = 0.006), and after-school recreational facilities (β = 0.89, p < 0.0001) were all associated with BMI. In the mutually adjusted models for all significant predictors, school-level SES, healthy foods, after-school recreational facilities, and PA facility index remained significant predictors of overweight and or abdominal obesity. Conclusions The prevalence of overweight/obesity is significantly higher in urban children attending private or high SES schools, regardless of criteria used to define obesity. A number of individual, family, and school-level factors significantly predicted weight status of school children in Ghana. Given that many African governments have initiated policy interventions aiming to provide supportive environments for healthy choices, it is recommended that resources are made readily available for the implementation of these interventions across the home, school and community.

No description available.