This study examines a collaborative creation and application of an evaluation process for a teen shelter. An independent researcher collaborated with the key administrators of a teen shelter to create an agency-specific evaluation process that gathered both quantitative and qualitative data from three separate participant groups: teen clients of the shelter, their parents, and the staff who work at the shelter. Results of the creation process indicate that collaborating with key administrators is imperative when developing agency-specific evaluations with the goal of program improvement. Application results indicate that the clients and staff at this particular shelter felt the program was very helpful. Responses included participants' ideas as to what was helpful and what aspects of the program made the experience beneficial. Participants offered positive feedback about the effective aspects of the program, as well as suggestions for improving some weaker aspects of the program. Shelter administrators were pleased with the evaluation process and results and were enthusiastic about applying the results toward program improvement. / Master of Science

This study examined how parents experienced their first child's transition to adolescence. A multiple-case qualitative research design was chosen to examine parents' experiences. Family systems theory and family stress and coping theory provided a theoretical starting point. Participants were recruited who had adolescents between ages 13 and 16 and saw their family as normally stressed, indicated in part by an absence of court involvement, substance abuse issues, school failure, and participation in therapy. Ten families were selected: parents from eight of these families participated in focus groups, and five sets of parents were interviewed in their homes. The grounded theory approach to qualitative inquiry developed by Glaser and Strauss guided data collection and analysis. This study identified a complex array of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual factors involved in parents' experience of this transition. A theoretical model was developed to illustrate how specific components of parents' experiences might be interrelated. The process seemed to be initiated when the parents noticed a physical, social/emotional, or relational change in their teenager. Parents responded to the perceived change through their affect, cognition, and behavior. They interpreted what was happening by processes of evaluation, reorientation, and frame. These three components-perception, response, and interpretation-were seen to interact with elements of past and current family context, such as expectations, family dynamics, family of origin influences, and sociocultural change. The overall process involved parents' attempts to regain family equilibrium at different levels of adolescent autonomy and progress toward anticipated future teen changes in ways that either enhance or diminish family cohesion. / Master of Science

Several assumptions of the indirect reflective model of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) were tested to assess its validity as a measure of adolescents’ satisfaction with life generally and with five important life domains (family, friends, living environment, school, and self perception). We also examined whether adolescents’ perceived mental and physical health status significantly explained their global quality of life (QOL) and whether these relationships were mediated by their satisfaction with the five life domains. The data were taken from a cross-sectional health survey of 8,225 adolescents in 49 schools in British Columbia, Canada. Global QOL was measured using Cantril’s ladder and a single-item rating of the adolescents’ satisfaction with their QOL. Confirmatory factor and factor mixture analyses were used to examine the measurement assumptions of the MSLSS, and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypothesized mediation model. The Pratt index (d) was used to evaluate variable importance. The adolescents did not respond to all MSLSS items in a consistent manner. An abridged 18-item version of the MSLSS was therefore developed by selecting items that were most invariant in the sample. Good model fit was obtained when the abridged MSLSS was used to test the hypothesized mediation model, which explained 76% of the variance in global QOL. Relatively poorer mental health and physical health were significantly associated with lower satisfaction in each of the life domains. Global QOL was predominantly explained by the adolescents’ mental health status (d = 30%) and by their satisfaction with self (d = 42%) and family (d = 20%). Self and family satisfactionwere the predominant mediating variables of the relationships between mental health (45% total mediation) and physical health (68% total mediation) and global QOL.Satisfaction with life domains and perceived physical and mental health can be viewed as conditions that potentially contribute to adolescents’ global QOL. Questions about adolescents’ experiences with important life domains require more attention in population health research so as to target appropriate supportive services for adolescents, particularly those with mental or physical health challenges. / Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research / Canadian Nurses Foundation / Trinity Western University

Research shows that adolescents use places in the natural environment much differently from the general population. Research also shows that, when asked, adolescents express environmental preferences that reflect these differences. These differences in use and preference reflect new design challenges. This paper and design project explores how to begin designing places that address the unique needs and preferences of adolescents. / Master of Landscape Architecture

This study examined the processes associated with bonadaptation and maladaptation among adolescents with a deployed military parent. Specifically, this inquiry explored general themes of adaptation as well as those that are associated with the phenomenon of ambiguous loss. To examine the data this qualitative study used the constant comparative as well as modified analytic induction. Focus groups of 107 adolescents ranging in age from 11 to 15 were used to find five high adjustment adolescents and five low adjustment adolescents. This study found that common themes from each group included parental deployment status and frequency; formal and informal supports; changes in discipline; coping and stress reduction; changes in living arrangements; and contact with the deployed parents. This study found that there were commonalities within the members of the group and differences between the two groups themselves. It was also discovered that both groups exhibited indicators of ambiguous loss but were at different ends of the adjustment continuum. This study attributes this difference to the utilization of formal and informal supports as well as positive meanings attached to the deployment due to perceived benefits of the parent being deployed. / Master of Science

Purpose: This article examines changes in attitude and beverage consumption after a school-wide policy change replacing sweetened beverages in vending machines with 100% juice and bottled water. Methods: Written questionnaires were administered three times to high school students (n = 278) in an ethnically-diverse, southwest Virginia school district. X ² analysis was utilized and test-retest reliability was assessed with intra-class correlation coefficients. Results: Pearson correlation coefficients for reliability between test and re-test displayed a range from r =0.53 to r =0.73. There were no significant differences in demographics (gender and ethnicity) between time periods. X ² analysis revealed students were significantly more likely to choose healthier beverage vending options after one year compared to baseline (P<0.01). Although beverage vending purchases declined to near significance immediately following the change, there were no significant changes observed between baseline and follow-up (P<0.05). X ² analysis revealed no significant (P<0.05) changes in outside purchase patterns. Students also indicated that the top reasons for snack/beverage choices were hunger, taste, and price. Conclusion: This suggests that students purchase what is convenient and available, regardless of choices. Therefore, environmental changes may be beneficial to promote healthier beverage choices among adolescents.</p> / Master of Science

No / Background  Vitiligo is an acquired, idiopathic, and worldwide common depigmentation disorder with an estimated prevalence from 0.1 to 8%. These numbers are based on clinical population studies and field research examining inhabitants of geographically enclosed areas. Our aim was to collect all available data on the prevalence of vitiligo in the general population, paying particular attention to children/adolescent groups and adults. Materials and methods  Screening of available literature and online databases using several key words. Results  We found more than 50 studies that used several methods and subgroups of the general population. The prevalence of vitiligo ranges from 0.06 to 2.28%, whereas this was 0.0–2.16% in children/adolescents populations. Conclusions  The often cited prevalence of 8% could not be confirmed after excluding clinical patient populations. Accordingly, the worldwide prevalence of vitiligo ranges between 0.5 and 2%.

Recent efforts to understand and predict the onset and maintenance of aggression have considered the heterogeneity of this behavior. Dodge (1980) and others, have suggested a distinction in aggression based on two primary subtypes: reactive and proactive aggression. The form, severity and persistence of these aggressive subtypes may depend on an on-going interaction between individual characteristics and environmental characteristics that elicit varying antecedents and consequences (Frick, 1998; Lahey et al., 1999). In particular, there exists some empirical support for the existence of relations among social likeability, attributional style, and particular subtypes of aggression symptomology. However, the exact nature of this relation is unclear. The current study examined two competing models, the mediator and moderator models, to assess the nature of the relations among social likeability, attributional style, and aggression subtypes in a sample of 419 youth in a non-clinical community setting. Results suggest that the external, stable, global attributional style serves to mediate the relation between social likeability and reactive, but not proactive aggression. Implications for assessment and treatment of aggression in adolescents are discussed. / Master of Science

Racial, ethnic and gender disparities have been found among a variety of health variables, but to date no study has comprehensively examined whether similar differences exist between sleep variables such as duration, efficiency and quality, in early adolescence. There is a general consensus among previous literature that adolescence is a time when a decrease in total sleep time and an increase in sleep problems are observed. Previous literature, however, mainly focused on the influence of puberty to explain these changes. the current study examined if differences exist between 1462 Caucasian, Hispanic/Latino, and African American early adolescents (ages 10-14 years) on sleep duration, efficiency and quality. Results showed that adolescent boys reported significantly longer sleep durations, better sleep quality, shorter sleep onset latencies, and later rise times than girls. Results also showed that sixth graders slept longer than seventh and eighth graders, and that seventh graders woke up much earlier than the other two grades. Lastly, results showed that Caucasian students reported longer sleep onset latencies and lower sleep efficiencies than African American students. Trends were observed for boys having greater sleep efficiencies than girls and for Caucasian students sleeping longer than Hispanic students. Based on the differences observed in our sample, introducing sleep education in middle school is discussed.

<p dir="ltr">Adolescence is a key developmental period characterized by increased maladaptive risky behaviors. Two related, but distinct constructs, urgency (the tendency to act rashly in response to strong negative or positive emotions) and emotion dysregulation are important risk factors for engaging in maladaptive risky behaviors. Thus far, research has largely agreed that these two risk factors are highly correlated; however, the causal direction between these constructs is less understood. The goal of the current study is to determine whether urgency predicts emotion dysregulation among adolescents. This project is a secondary data analysis of a larger study designed to test the effectiveness of a school-based intervention for youth at risk of maladaptive risk taking, as compared to a control group of youth enrolled in a health class. The current study utilized data from the control youth (n=544, 49.8% female, M_age=14.22, SD=0.52) to test whether urgency at baseline predicts change in emotion dysregulation over a nine-week period, and whether that relationship differs across boys and girls. Results found that negative, but not positive, urgency significantly predicted emotion dysregulation change (negative urgency: <i>b</i>=0.11, <i>p</i>=0.03; positive urgency: <i>b</i>=0.03, <i>p</i>=0.54). Gender did not moderate either relationship (<i>p</i>’s>0.30). This work provides initial evidence of a temporal relationship between negative urgency and changes in emotion dysregulation. The next step is to determine whether negative urgency imparts risk for malapative behaviors through its effect on emotion dysregulation. This program of research may lead to better identification of effective interventions to decrease negative urgency-based risk-taking and better identify those at risk of developing maladaptive risk-taking.</p>