This study compared a parent-report measure of childhood OCD symptoms, the survey form of the Leyton Obsessional Inventory - Parent Version (SLOI-PV), with a youth self-report measure, the survey form of the Leyton Obsessional Inventory - Child Version (SLOI-CV); specifically, the psychometric properties of the scales were examined, along with their efficacy in discriminating youth with OCD symptoms from other clinically-referred and normal youth. Participants were 72 youth-parent pairs. Youth ranged from 9 to 18 years of age; 31 youth were diagnosed with OCD or obsessive-compulsive behaviours (OCB), 11 youth were clinical controls and 30 were normal controls. The psychometric properties of the SLOI-PV and SLOI-CV were adequate and an optimal cut-off score of 15 was found for both scales. The parent-rated scale, the SLOI-PV, was more accurate in classifying the youth into the three groups and more sensitive to OCD symptoms than the SLOI-CV. Implications of these findings are discussed in view of the potential use of the SLOI-PV as a screening tool for identifying childhood OCD in community and clinical populations. / Graduate

This research aims to open up for critical discussion the effects of the discourses employed by mental health professionals in relation to the diagnosis of BPO, with a view of questioning the discursive practices available within a South African context. This discussion will situate identified discourses in relation to the subjects and objects to which it refers in an attempt to identify and interrogate dominant discourses which circulate to oppress and discriminate against female 'others' within the mental health setting. This discussion will serve to challenge mainstream, traditional psychology by questioning the utility of deploying these concepts within a South African context as well as the effects this deployment may have. A discourse analytic methodology is employed to identify the constructions of BPO by five mental health professionals working within a government setting. The analysis aims at interrogating the broader role of the identified discourses in supporting institutions, preserving power relations and transmitting ideological practices. Ultimately the aim of the research is to open up for critical debate, through the example of psychology and psychiatry's treatment of BPO; constituted as 'other', the possibility that there may be deleterious consequences for the wholesale acceptance of traditional psychological understandings by mental health professionals working within a South African context. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Background: Developmental dyslexia is a wide-ranging and persistent neurobiological disorder classified under specific learning disorders. The literature widely recognises the multifactorial nature of developmental dyslexia, specifically the language-related origin. Objectives: The current review systematically identified and synthesised possible language-based risk factors associated with developmental dyslexia in children (age one to three and four to ten years) and determined the level of evidence associated with these risk factors. The review aimed to identify individualised risk factors in children with developmental dyslexia to promote optimal neurodevelopmental outcomes. Method: Four relevant databases were searched from January 2002 until December 2018. A hand search of the included articles’ reference lists was also performed to identify any relevant publication. The language-based risk factors in children with developmental dyslexia in 48 publications were studied. Results: All language components are compromised to some degree in children with developmental dyslexia at specific ages. These results indicate the intricacy of language, but also emphasise that developmental dyslexia should be considered on a continuum and not as an absolute disorder. Only a few studies investigated language-based risk factors in participants five years and younger. Phonological-based risk factors were the most reported language component and comprise of risk factors within phonological awareness, rapid automized naming, and working memory. The second language component entailed morphology. Several inflectional and derivational morphological risk factors, as well as risk factors within syntactic processing, were acknowledged. Compromised receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge, semantic processing, and fluency were identified as risk factors for the language component of semantics. The final component of language entailed pragmatics. Unfortunately, a limited amount of evidence is available in this regard. However, the evidence available confirmed poor linguistic pragmatics as a risk factor in children with developmental dyslexia. Conclusion: These language components are interrelated and should be viewed holistically as risk factors for developmental dyslexia to promote earlier identification. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MA / Unrestricted

The present study examined the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a core behavior modification method on students with severe behavior disorders. A pre/posttest design was implemented and both control and treatment groups were exposed to testing measures. Students in the treatment group were exposed to ACT as well as contingency based classroom management, and a token economy in an attempt to increase grade point average (GPA), days in attendance, and psychological flexibility. Results are discussed regarding the increase in GPA and attendance, and levels of psychological flexibility are also elaborated upon. Limitations, implications, and future research are also discussed.

A diagnostic classification of Borderline subgroups was developed for the purpose of reducing the current ambiguities existing in the range of pathologies between the psychoses and neuroses. This classification is a questionnaire of forty items and is intended to be used in treatment settings as a measure of object relations, i.e., of ego development and arrest. The criteria which define the Borderline subgroups were derived from the normative developmental data of Mahler, Pine, and Bergman (1975). In Experiment I, raters used the Mahler criteria as operational definitions of the developmental stages and sorted 180 items taken from Benjamin's structural Analysis Social Behavior (SASB) into the four Mahler substages. Those items which were reliably sorted eight out of nine times into the same Mahler stage or substage were retained as critical items to be administered in Experiment II to three groups of subjects. These groups consisted of nineteen schizophrenic inpatients, eighteen outpatients, and twenty nonpsychiatric volunteers. These subjects rated each item of the SASB questionnaire on a scale of 0 to 100; means for each type of psychiatric group according to sex were submitted to a repeated measures 2 (sex) X 3 (group) X 4 (Mahler substage) Analysis of Variance.

Recent discussion of proposed changes to the 5th version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders highlighted the struggle to categorize and define the characteristics of persons who present with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). BPD has traditionally been defined as a personality disorder, assuming a distinct trajectory and prognosis that sets it apart from other mood disorder diagnoses. However, early discussion in the development of the DSM-V introduced the possibility of BPD as one of several disorders existing on a shared mood disorder or emotion-regulation disorder spectrum. The final, published DSM-V retained BPD as a personality disorder on a diagnostic spectrum apart from mood or emotion regulation disorders; however, does BPD represent a broader and persistent difficulty with emotion regulation, rather than a disorder of the personality? In the current study, 73 psychiatric inpatients in a state-operated forensic hospital and 428 undergraduate students from a local university were administered the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), as well as the BPD section of the Structured Interview for the Diagnosis of Personality Disorders, DSM-IV version (SIDP-IV). Total and subscale scores on the DERS were correlated with individual symptom ratings from the SIDP-IV Borderline. Results suggest many of the subscales representing different facets of emotion regulation evidenced low to moderate correlations with symptoms of BPD. The subscales of the DERS least associated with symptoms and diagnosis of BPD are those that emphasize cognitive regulation of emotional experiences. Thus, it is likely that BPD would fit well within a conceptualization of emotion regulation disorder. Results also suggest some differences between groups, where more overlap between constructs exist for college students rather than psychiatric inpatients, with the least associated constructs are those that emphasize both cognitive and behavioral components of emotional regulation.

No description available.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are debilitating conditions that often co-occur, with an estimated 41-79% comorbidity rate. A major concern with the co-occurrence of these disorders is the tendency for one to exacerbate the other. Specifically, symptoms related to PTSD are a significant risk factor for the development of AUD, and alcohol abuse worsens PTSD symptoms. This cycle, along with a lack of effective pharmacological treatment options, leads to significant behavioral and physiological deficits. Additionally, remission for comorbid AUD and PTSD is much more difficult to attain due to exacerbated symptomology and a lack of FDA-approved medications. In recent years, cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis, has been a focus of study due to its therapeutic potential. Researchers have demonstrated the anxiolytic and anti-inflammatory effects of CBD in both humans and animals, showing its promise as a novel therapeutic agent in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. The purpose of this study is to investigate the hypothesis that CBD will reduce fear-related behaviors and neuroinflammation in a rat model of comorbid AUD and PTSD. Our AUD/PTSD model utilized restraint stress and chronic intermittent ethanol exposure procedures. To investigate changes in future stress sensitivity all animals were exposed to a contextual fear conditioning paradigm, which was used to train the animals to associate environmental and auditory cues (environment appearance and tone) with an aversive stimulus (mild foot-shock). 30 minutes prior to each conditioning session, rats received an intraperitoneal injection of CBD (20mg/kg) or 0.9% Saline. Once the animals learned to associate the cues with a shock, they were exposed to an extinction learning procedure that involved presentation of the cue alone (no shock). This procedure parallels exposure therapy in humans, allowing for the assessment adaptations to fear learning. The amount of time the rats remain still (freezing) during the tone represents fear-related behavior. Our current results indicate rats with a history of stress and alcohol exposure displayed significantly higher freezing behaviors and this effect was significantly decreased with CBD treatment. This suggests that when CBD is administered during fear learning, it is able to attenuate heightened stress sensitivity associated with AUD/PTSD. To evaluate how CBD mediates the neuroinflammatory response associated with AUD and PTSD, brains from the rats were extracted and analyzed for the inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor a (TNF-a). Specific regions of interest included the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, areas associated with anxiety, memory, and addiction. Neuroinflammation analyses are still ongoing, however it is predicted that rats who received CBD will show a reduction in inflammation in the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Taken together, the current results show promise for CBD to reduce enhanced fear-related behavior associated with comorbid AUD and PTSD.

No description available.

Objectives: We investigated the prevalence of substance use disorders among emerging adults and quantified the extent to which emerging adults, compared to young adults, are at increased odds for substance use disorders. Methods: Data come from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey – Mental Health (CCHS-MH). Respondents were 15–39 years of age (n=9228) and were categorized as: early emerging adults (15-22 years); late emerging adults (23-29 years); and, young adults (30-39 years). Substance use disorders (alcohol or drug abuse/dependence) were measured using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview 3.0. The prevalence of substance use disorders was compared across age groups using design-based χ2 analyses. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed from logistic regression models adjusting for sociodemographic and health covariates. All analyses were weighted to maintain representativeness of the study sample to the Canadian population. Results: The prevalence of alcohol use disorder was 8.0%, 6.6%, and 2.7% for early emerging adults, late emerging adults, and young adults respectively. For drug use disorder, the prevalence was 6.4%, 3.6%, and 1.3%. Compared to young adults, early and late emerging adults were more likely to report substance use disorders (p<0.01). The prevalence of drug use disorder was higher among early versus late emerging adults (χ2=119.8, p=0.01). Among all age groups, males were more likely to report alcohol or drug use disorders (p≤0.01 for all). After covariate adjustment, early and late emerging adults had greater odds of reporting alcohol (OR=3.2, 95% CI=2.2-4.9 and OR=2.4, 95% CI=1.6-3.4, respectively) or drug (OR=4.2, 95% CI=2.5-7.0 and OR=2.5, 95% CI=1.6-4.1, respectively) use disorders compared to young adults. Conclusion: Emerging adulthood represents an important developmental period in which individuals are at increased odds of reporting substance use disorders. This finding has implications for the provision of screening and treatment of substance use disorders as these individuals transition from the pediatric to adult healthcare system. / Thesis / Master of Health Sciences (MSc)