Background: South Asian girls have reported low levels of physical activity (PA) compared to other Canadian adolescents. Potential explanations include omissions in existing PA measures that don’t capture all types of PA, and factors discouraging PA in this group. Purpose: This study examined the quality and quantity of PA; compared PA participation using two self-report methods; and, examined psychosocial and cultural factors associated with PA in adolescent South Asian girls. Methods: 113 participants were recruited from community sources in Toronto. Data were collected using a structured electronic diary (3 weekdays; 2 weekend days) and a self-administered online questionnaire that included the Leisure Time Exercise questionnaire. Diaries were content analyzed and compared to PA reports in the questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariate regression analyses identified factors associated with PA. Results: Diaries revealed that when a range of PA types were captured, like walking activities and chores, PA levels were similar to representative data for Canadian youth. 92% of respondents reported at least 30 minutes of PA per day across their diary entries. However, 19% did not report any PA at the vigorous intensity level, and PA levels were lowest on weekends. Reports of PA in the diary and questionnaire were inconsistent, with considerably higher levels of PA reported in the questionnaire. Enrolment in physical education, enjoyment, control, fewer barriers, and social provisions were associated with greater PA. Conclusions: Physical activity levels were low, but results did not suggest that South Asian girls are more vulnerable to low levels of activity compared to other Canadian girls. Findings from the diary suggest that PA questionnaires would benefit from including a broader range of activity types with a variety of walking activities, and structured reflections to enhance data quality and minimize the potential for over-reporting. PA levels may be increased through mandatory physical education, curricula that emphasize how girls may engage in vigorous activities outside of classes, and changes to neighbourhood environments that would promote walking.

Background: South Asian girls have reported low levels of physical activity (PA) compared to other Canadian adolescents. Potential explanations include omissions in existing PA measures that don’t capture all types of PA, and factors discouraging PA in this group. Purpose: This study examined the quality and quantity of PA; compared PA participation using two self-report methods; and, examined psychosocial and cultural factors associated with PA in adolescent South Asian girls. Methods: 113 participants were recruited from community sources in Toronto. Data were collected using a structured electronic diary (3 weekdays; 2 weekend days) and a self-administered online questionnaire that included the Leisure Time Exercise questionnaire. Diaries were content analyzed and compared to PA reports in the questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariate regression analyses identified factors associated with PA. Results: Diaries revealed that when a range of PA types were captured, like walking activities and chores, PA levels were similar to representative data for Canadian youth. 92% of respondents reported at least 30 minutes of PA per day across their diary entries. However, 19% did not report any PA at the vigorous intensity level, and PA levels were lowest on weekends. Reports of PA in the diary and questionnaire were inconsistent, with considerably higher levels of PA reported in the questionnaire. Enrolment in physical education, enjoyment, control, fewer barriers, and social provisions were associated with greater PA. Conclusions: Physical activity levels were low, but results did not suggest that South Asian girls are more vulnerable to low levels of activity compared to other Canadian girls. Findings from the diary suggest that PA questionnaires would benefit from including a broader range of activity types with a variety of walking activities, and structured reflections to enhance data quality and minimize the potential for over-reporting. PA levels may be increased through mandatory physical education, curricula that emphasize how girls may engage in vigorous activities outside of classes, and changes to neighbourhood environments that would promote walking.

This thesis focuses mainly on the general ethical considerations of staff and not pre-defined specific ethical problems or dilemmas. The aims of this thesis were: first, to map ethical considerations as described by staff members in their everyday work in child and adolescent psychiatry as well as in adult psychiatry; second, from a normative ethical perspective, examine encounters between staff and patients; and third, to describe staff justification for decisions on coercive care in child and adolescent psychiatry. The material in the three first studies comprised ethical diaries written by staff in 13 inpatient clinics. The fourth study included all the medical records of patients who were admitted to coercive care during one year in child and adolescent psychiatry in Sweden. In a final analysis, combining all the four studies, three staff ideals were identified: being a good carer, respecting the patient’s autonomy and integrity and having good relations with patients and relatives. Staff often felt that the only reasonable way in many situations was to act in a paternalistic way and take responsibility, but they considered it to be problematic. Four main themes were identified as ethical considerations. These were the borders of coercion, the emphasis on order and clarity rather than a more reciprocal relationship with patients, a strong expectation of loyalty within the team, and feelings of powerlessness, mostly in relation to patients. I have identified four challenges for inpatient psychiatry. First, formal and informal coercion in inpatient care raise ethical concerns that also can be emotionally difficult for staff. Second, the professional role and care needs to be redeveloped from providing routinised care to providing more individualised care. Third, staff often worry about how patients manage their life after discharge, indicating that patients need better support. Fourth, staff also need support; they often experience feelings of being alone with their thoughts about ethical difficulties at work. Future research could contribute in the mapping of ethical considerations, in helping to develop, implement and evaluate methods for managing these issues in psychiatric settings, and to develop the normative ethical language so that it is more relevant to the clinic reality.

Two decades of research on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has helped us develop a strong understanding of why obsessions are often followed by the performance of a compulsive act. What we have understood less well is why that act is repeated, even though it often results in an increase, rather than decrease, in discomfort. Emergent research on compulsive checking implicates a number of beliefs—including perceived responsibility, perceived harm, need for certainty, and beliefs about one’s memory— that may influence behavioural parameters (e.g., check duration) of checking episodes. Furthermore, it has also been suggested that the act of compulsive checking may recur in part because of a self-perpetuating mechanism in which checking has paradoxical effects on these beliefs. Finally, some researchers have proposed that attentional focus (e.g., focus on threat) during checking may be related these paradoxical outcomes. At present, these ideas are mostly speculative, in part because there have been so few detailed studies of the actual phenomenology of compulsive rituals. The purpose of the present research was to gather phenomenological data on compulsions as performed by a clinical sample under ecologically valid conditions. Study 1 extended emergent research suggesting that compulsions may persist because the act of checking has a number of ironic effects on beliefs. Individuals with a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxious controls (AC) completed a naturalistic stove task in our laboratory kitchen. Participants were fitted with portable eyetracking equipment and left on their own to boil a kettle, turn the stove off, and check to ensure that the stove is safe before leaving the kitchen. Surrounding the stove were household items that are “threatening” (e.g., matches) or “non-threatening” (e.g., mugs). Ratings of mood, responsibility, harm (severity, probability) and memory confidence were taken pre- and post-task and a portable eyetracker was used to monitor attention throughout the stove task. We examined the relations between behavioural indices (check duration, attentional focus) and pre- and post-task ratings of responsibility, perceived harm, mood, and memory confidence. Although we found that OCD (as compared to AC) participants took significantly longer to leave the kitchen after using the stove, we found no evidence that stronger pre-task ratings of responsibility, perceived harm, or memory confidence were associated with longer check duration. However, we found some evidence of an ironic effect whereby greater check duration was associated with greater perceived harm and decreased certainty about having properly ensured the stove was off. Of note, these ironic effects were not unique to participants with OCD, but were also observed in the AC group. With respect to the eyetracking data, we found minimal evidence linking threat fixations and beliefs in participants with OCD. In contrast, a number of interesting relations emerged in the eyetracking data of our anxious control participants. For AC participants, a greater proportion of time spent looking at the stove was associated with greater post-task sense of responsibility for preventing harm, greater post-task harm estimates, decreased certainty (about having ensured the stove was off), and decreased confidence in memory for the task. In Study 2, individuals with a diagnosis of OCD completed a structured diary of their compulsions as they occurred naturally over a three˗day period. Participants recorded the circumstances leading to each compulsion and reported on the acts involved in the compulsive ritual, the duration and repetitiveness of the ritual, and the criteria used to determine completeness of the ritual. The findings of this study suggest that unsuccessful compulsions (i.e., compulsions in which certainty was not achieved) were associated with a longer duration (trend), more repetitions, a higher standard of evidence, and offered little in the way of distress reduction. These findings are discussed within the theoretical context of cognitive˗behavioural model of obsessive˗compulsive disorder and clinical implications are offered.

Capturing life as it is lived is an important goal in psychology, and diary methods are commonly used for this purpose. They capture events near the time of their occurrence and are less prone to retrospective biases associated with questionnaire, interview and survey methods. However, participants in diary studies must remember to carry the diary with them, and find it convenient to make entries in timely fashion. New approaches, replacing paper diaries with technology (e.g. personal digital assistants), can overcome forgetting to make entries and retrospective filling of data. However, until recently technology had its own problems (e.g. unreliability and cost of devices, the need for training, biases of technical competence, etc.). The research described in this dissertation arose from the anticipation that the rapid, worldwide growth of smartphone ownership would overcome many of these limitations since participant-owned smartphone diaries can eliminate associated costs and facilitate increased rates of compliance. Six diary studies were conducted on two transient cognitive phenomena. Initially, a smartphone app was developed and compared with a paper diary in the study of involuntary autobiographical memories. Although participants in the smartphone-diary condition demonstrated significantly better compliance than those in the paper-diary condition by reliably carrying their smartphones, and promptly completing diary entries in the app, they recorded significantly fewer events than paper diary users. To test that this unexpected finding was not specific to involuntary autobiographical memories, the method was tested with everyday memory failures, and the same unexpected finding was obtained. Further studies manipulated the length of diary-keeping period and demonstrated a diary entry rate reduction effect with longer diary keeping periods, an effect seen in both paper- and participant-owned smartphone-diaries. For involuntary autobiographical memories, the effect was demonstrated by comparing 1-day and 7-day diaries, and also by using a 30-40 minutelong digital audio recording method. With everyday memory failures, the effect was demonstrated by comparing 7-day and 28-day diaries. The audio recording method was used to capture involuntary autobiographical memories while driving. It was also used on a campus walk and compared with a 1-day paper diary within-subjects, finding a higher rate of recording in the shorter period, and consistency of memory counts across two modes of recording. This novel audio-recording method facilitated much more detailed analysis of involuntary memory cues and chaining and enabled the evaluation of potential instances of priming. Finally, a telephone and postal-based diary study of everyday memory failures demonstrated the feasibility of recruitment and measurement of participants remotely, which can be particularly useful with older adults. Taken together, the results of this research make a significant methodological contribution to research on transient everyday cognitive phenomena by showing that (1) care is needed when using participant-owned smartphone diaries, (2) paper diaries may be more reliable than currently given credit, and (3) diary-recording periods can be substantially reduced without compromising the quantity and the quality of data obtained. In addition, results increase our theoretical understanding of two specific phenomena studied in this dissertation: involuntary autobiographical memories and everyday memory failures. The findings indicate that involuntary memories are much more frequent than previously thought, may represent a stable characteristic of a person and, in addition to immediately present cues, can be elicited by internal memory chaining process and more distant priming of events and thoughts. Finally, the absence of age effects in the frequency and nature of recorded everyday memory failures, together with significant negative age effects in laboratory tests of memory and cognition, is a novel finding that has significant implications for research on cognitive ageing.

No description available.

Il presente progetto di ricerca si è focalizzato sul processo di capitalizzazione, ovvero la condivisione di eventi positivi con il/la partner, da cui ci si aspetta una risposta attiva al fine di prolungare ed aumentare i benefici derivanti dall’evento stesso. L’articolazione in tre studi, di carattere quantitativo, ha permesso di approfondire la conoscenza dell’oggetto di ricerca utilizzando diverse metodologie. Il primo studio ha indagato, attraverso un disegno cross-sectional, la struttura della Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts scale (PRCA) e, attraverso un disegno longitudinale, i benefici intrapersonali ed interpersonali che derivano dagli stili di risposta di capitalizzazione nel tempo. Il secondo e il terzo studio, attraverso il diary method, hanno approfondito il processo di capitalizzazione attraverso l’introduzione di due aspetti innovativi nel processo: la differenziazione tra eventi positivi interni ed esterni alla relazione e la distinzione tra modalità di comunicazione più o meno esplicita dell’evento positivo. Nello specifico, il secondo studio si è focalizzato sui primi due elementi del processo di capitalizzazione (gli eventi positivi e i tentativi di capitalizzazione), mentre il terzo studio ha riguardato gli ultimi due elementi del processo (le risposte ai tentativi di capitalizzazione e la percezione di responsività da parte del/della partner). / The present research project focused on capitalization, that is the process through which people share good news with the partner, who in turn responds in an “active” way to maximize the benefits of the event. Three different studies approached this research object through different methodologies. The aims of the first study were to investigate, through a cross-sectional design, the structure of the Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts (PRCA) scale and to examine, through a longitudinal design, the intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits arising from the capitalization responses over time. The second and the third study, through diary methods, attempted to investigate two unexplored aspects of the capitalization process: the differentiation of the type of positive events (internal vs. external to the couple) and the distinction of the type of communication of the event (implicit vs. explicit). Specifically, the second study focused on the first two elements of the capitalization process (positive events and attempts to capitalization), while the third study concerned the last two elements of the process (responses to capitalization attempts and responsiveness).

Irrespective of the great individual variation, people diagnosed with RTT largely rely on support from others to be able to do and participate in activities throughout their lives. This thesis focuses on which activities are done and liked/disliked by girls and women with RTT in Sweden. The overall aim was to describe the everyday lives of female individuals with Rett syndrome. Two studies are included in this thesis. The first is a descriptive study, using secondary data from three earlier questionnaires, encompassing data from 175 participants (girls/women) described by 365 informants (parents/staff). Content analysis was used to analyse the openended questions. In the second study a Time-geographic diary method and the software VISUAL-TimePAcTs computer program, DAILY LIFE 2011 were used. Ten participants (teenagers/young female adults) with RTT and their 63 informants participated in the diary study. The main findings in the first study (I) were that the girls and women with RTT enjoyed activities that included aspects of ‘contact’, ‘sensory impression’ and ‘motion’. The activities most enjoyed over the years were bathing/swimming, listening to music or being outdoors/walking. The parents and staff also liked to do the same activities that the girls or women enjoyed doing, described as sharing their joy. Of the few activities that were reported as being unenjoyable, most were daily care activities. The diary study (II) showed that the most frequently reported activities were hygiene/toilet, moving around indoors, eating and getting dressed. Most time was spent in sleeping, daily care, medical and health care activities and also for travel/transportation. Little time remained for other kinds of activities especially for the young adults. Most time was spent with staff, thereafter with families, and the least time was spent with friends. The participant response that was reported most often during activities was ‘interested’, while ‘opposed’ was the least reported. Responses of ‘opposition’ were primarily seen during caring activities such as toileting, using the breathing mask, stretching, brushing teeth, being woken up, dressing and putting on orthoses. Responses of ‘engagement’ were noted in contexts of socialising, playing and communicating activities with friends or staff. Engagement responses were also reported during activities of ‘motion’ such as changing body position, moving in the water or gymnastics, eating food and snacks, and even when watching/listening to films, books or music. Thus, increased knowledge concerning the importance of activities for girls and women with RTT is essential for their well-being, participation and continued development. Increased knowledge could facilitate the choice of activities and a more varied use of activities. Regardless of age, severity of symptoms or developed skills, it is important that not only basic needs such as sleep, daily care and medical health care activities are fulfilled for individuals with Rett syndrome. It is also essential for them to spend time with friends, family and staff doing enjoyable activities both at home and in other places. / <p>Funding:</p><p>Linnéa and Josef Carlsson’s Foundation, Helsingborg, Sweden and the Folke Bernadotte Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden.</p>

各種行動裝置服務不僅便利了生活，也讓資訊的傳遞更加即時且無界。2012年起，五家媒體藉助行動通訊軟體LINE在台灣的高人氣，每日固定推播四則新聞，總訂戶數至今突破450萬人，儼然成為一個新興的新聞傳播渠道。 本研究以情境理論的觀點，質化的使用者日誌記錄法和深度訪談法為主，理解使用者在不同情境下使用推播新聞的行為，並透過HTML5文字雲分析機，歸納出各家媒體推播內容的樣貌和趨勢。情境分析構面包含接收與閱讀情境下的「實體環境」、「社交環境」、「資訊環境」、「先前狀態」和「時間的影響」等；另再針對使用過程中面臨的「人機互動情境」綜合分析使用者的體驗。 這些情境因素不僅各自影響媒介使用的動機和行為，也會與新聞內容相互加強（或制約）吸引力，端賴哪方拉力（或推力）較強。根據訪談結果，「新聞內容」的影響力似乎又更為關鍵。受訪者普遍認為推播新聞的即時性和重要性偏低，新聞價值未能滿足期待，導致對LINE推播新聞的需要性和依賴性偏低。 未來業者可考慮設立不同的「主題式官方帳號」，提供針對性的內容；或者在目前的官方帳號中，增加一日新聞類型的多元性以滿足更多人的需求，就看媒體如何定位自家官方帳號的角色。此外，在發揮新聞標題創意的同時，仍應與內文保持一致，避免造成期待上的落差。不斷強化內容品質，並考量主要受眾的使用情境，可望改善體驗不佳的問題。 本研究以情境理論的觀點，開啟了「推播新聞」的學術研究基礎，並充實行動新聞領域的實證研究經驗，希望提供未來的研究者和新聞從業人員，一個了解推播新聞使用行為的先例。 / Mobile devices and services facilitate our lives, and also assist in delivering information more freely and immediately. Since 2012, five companies send four pieces of news daily through “LINE”, which is the most popular mobile instant messaging application in Taiwan. Nowadays, LINE becomes an emerging news channel, with over 450 million subscribers in total. This study is mainly based on the context theory, by means of diary method and in-depth interviews, to understand users’ behavior of push notifications news in different contexts, from news receiving aspect, reading aspect and human-computer interaction aspect. Besides, analyzing the news headlines by “HTML5 Text Analyzer” to explore the features of different media. Research found that users’ behavior and attitude influenced not only by contextual factors, but also by the value of content. Moreover, the effect of contextual factors and content would be reinforcing (or restraining) mutually, depends which one influence users’ behavior and attitude more crucially. According to respondents’ feedback, the value of push notification news, such as immediacy and importance, were far from their expectations. News editors may plan to set up more than one official account to reach target audience; or to increase the diversity of daily news by existing accounts, making effort to meet demand of more audience. In addition, the headline should be more concordant with the content of the news. Keep improving the quality of content, taking account of context factors while pushing news, may improve users’ experience.

本文試圖將日程紀錄法的研究典範應用於憂鬱的心理病理研究，聚焦於兩研究問題：（一）探討個體的憂鬱症狀與其日常生活正/負向情感傾向的關係，以及該正/負向情感傾向如何影響其每日的正/負向想法；（二）根據「素質-壓力模式」的觀點，探討個體於日常生活中展現的情感傾向與認知特性，在控制住基準點的憂鬱症狀後，是否仍可顯著預測個體處於壓力狀態的憂鬱症狀。93名大學生完整參與本研究，問卷評估包括基準點的憂鬱症狀、日程紀錄期間的每日正/負向情感與正/負向想法、以及其期中考期間的憂鬱症狀。研究顯示憂鬱個體展現較低的正向情感傾向與較強的負向情感傾向，而個體的正/負向情感傾向與狀態可顯著預測其正/負向想法，且情感傾向與狀態對想法存在顯著的交互作用；另外，個體於日常生活展現的平均負向想法與正向情感傾向，在控制住基準點的症狀後，仍可顯著預測其處於壓力的憂鬱症狀。最後，我們則探討本研究對心理病理與治療的意涵。 / The authors attempted using diary method paradigm to study psychopathology of depression. The study focused on two questions: (1) explore the relationship between individuals’ depressive symptoms and their tendency of positive/ negative affect, and how the tendency of affect impact their daily positive/ negative thoughts; (2) according to the view of diathesis-stress model, explore how the affective tendency and cognitive characteristics exhibited in daily life could predict their depressive symptoms under stress after the initial symptoms are controlled. 93 participants finished all questionnaires, including initial depressive symptoms, daily positive/ negative affect, positive/ negative thoughts, and depressive symptoms under midterm examination. The results showed that depression is related to low positive affect and high negative affect. Individuals’ tendency and state of positive/ negative affect could predict their daily positive/ negative thoughts, and there exist a significant interaction effect between tendency and state to thoughts. Further, individuals’ tendency of positive affect and average negative could predict their depressive symptoms under stress after the initial symptoms are controlled. Finally, the implications for psychopathology and therapy are discussed.