Chronic insomnia is a highly prevalent disorder in general and young adult populations, and contributes a significant economic burden on society. Previous studies have shown healthcare utilization (HCU) is significantly higher for people with insomnia than people without insomnia. One limitation with previous research is accurate measurement of HCU in people with insomnia is difficult due to a high co-morbidity of medical and mental health problems as well as varying operational definitions of insomnia. Assessing HCU in people with insomnia can be improved by applying research diagnostic criteria (RDC) for insomnia, using a population with low rates of co-morbid medical/mental health problems, and measuring HCU with subjective, objective, and predictive methods. The current study found young adults with chronic insomnia had greater HCU than normal sleepers, specifically on number of medications, and chronic disease score (CDS) estimates of total healthcare costs, outpatient costs, and predicted number of primary care visits. The presence of a medical and/or mental health problem acted as a moderating variable between chronic insomnia and HCU. Simple effects testing found young adults with chronic insomnia and a medical/mental health problem had the greatest HCU followed by normal sleepers with a medical/mental health problem, chronic insomnia, and normal sleepers. Exploratory analyses found young adults with chronic insomnia had a greater likelihood of emergency room visits and overnight hospital admissions. More efforts for early identification and intervention of insomnia are necessary to help reduce costs associated with chronic insomnia co-morbid with medical and/or mental health problems.

This dissertation investigates how German young adults use modal particles (MPs) when communicating in online chat forums. Simply stated, MPs help to clarify a speaker’s intent and mood, without having any syntactical function or adding specific semantic content. For many years, MPs were ignored, described as useless fill-words, or even regarded as "Lice in the fur of our language." (Reiners, 1967). During the last three decades though, their usefulness and importance has been recognized. It has long been established that the correct use of MPs in German causes spoken discourse to sound more fluent and warm, while spoken German without the use of MPs appears wooden and cold. Although various areas of MP research have been explored, the use of MPs by young adults has not yet received much attention. In order to provide a first account of how MPs are used by young adults in informal settings, online conversations (chats) were analyzed to determine the frequency of their MP use. Additionally, this research investigates whether gender differences for MP use in young adults exist, and relates the results within the framework of current research in the areas of pragmatics and gender specific language. The analyzed online conversations were collected from the German chat forum ‘meet-teens.de.’ Approx. 2,000 words of chat data, each from 15 male and 15 female young adult users aged between 16 and 21 were collected. The data consists of conversations between five male-male pairs, five female-female pairs, and five male-female pairs. The analyses of the data found that the female participants in this research used significantly more MPs than their male counterparts. Furthermore, the MPs ‘bloß’, ‘halt’, and ‘mal’ were used significantly more frequently by male participants, while the MPs ‘denn’, ‘eben’, and ‘wohl’ were significantly more frequently used by female participants. The analyses also found that female young adults speaking to other females used the MPs ‘denn’, ‘halt’, and ‘mal’ significantly more often than when speaking to their male counterparts, while male young adults, with the exception of the MP ‘bloß’, did not change their use of MPs depending on the gender of their conversational partner.

Abstract Objectives This study investigates the patterns and levels of condom use; the determinants of condom use and of consistency of use among young adults aged 15-24 years in the Africa Centre Demographic Surveillance Area (ACDSA) in 2005. Methodology Secondary data analysis of data from three sources of surveys conducted in ACDSA in 2005 was done. A sample of 4 157 respondents was analyzed. Univariate and multivariate analysis was employed to compare determinants of condom use and of consistency of use. Results Condom use with the most recent partner in the last year was (51.7%). The main determinants of condom use were partner age difference, residence of partner and assets. Having an older partner than a same age partner was associated with less likely to use condoms (AOR=0.71 p=0.03 females, AOR=0.51 p=0.01 males). Those who were not residing with their partners were more likely to use condoms than those residing with their partners (AOR=1.62 p=0.01 females, AOR=1.61 p=0.03 males). Having more than seven assets was associated with increased chances of using condoms than those with less than seven assets (AOR=1.51 p<0.01 females, AOR=1.67 p<0.01 males). The key determinants of consistent condom use were: age, sex and type of relationship. Females were less likely to use condoms consistently (AOR=0.63 p=0.02) and growing older was associated with lower consistent condom use (AOR=0.88 p<0.01 females, AOR=0.90 p<0.01 males). Being in a marital/cohabiting relationship was associated with lower consistent condom use (AOR=0.68 p<0.01 both sexes and AOR=0.64 p=0.01 males) than those in non-marital/non-cohabiting relationship. v Conclusion Condom use differs between sexes and decreases with age probably because condoms are a male determined method, high contraception use, poor negotiation skills for condom use, need for children and formation of more stable relationships. A better socio-economic status increases condom use. Consistent condom use is lower in marital relationships and when the partner is older. This could be because of gender power inequalities in sexual relationships.

Background: By 2005 an estimated 5. 5 million South Africans were living with HIV and the peak prevalence of HIV/AIDS occurs in young people aged 15-24 years. In order to develop prevention strategies aimed at young people, it is important to determine risk behaviours for HIV in this age group. As VCT has been shown to impact on risk behaviours, it is important to determine the accessibility of these services to youth. Aim: This study assessed the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practises (KABP) of young adults, 15-24 years of age attending a private general practise, regarding risks for HIV and accessibility of HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) services. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by a sample of 100 patients attending a general practice located in Athlone. Results: Thirty-six of respondents were male and 64 were female. The age range was 15 to 24 years, with a mean age of 20.2 years. The demographic profile of the study population was typical of a formal urban settlement in a traditionally coloured area. Sixty four percent of respondents reported current or previous sexually activity, of which 89% reported that they had one sexual partner over the preceding three months and 58%, reported not using a condom at their last sexual encounter. The mean age of sexual debut was 16 years. Most respondents could identify safer sexual practices. While 97% of respondents had heard of HIV, only 33% knew someone who had died of HIV/AIDS. Most respondents knew how HIV was transmitted and 74% felt that they had never put themselves at risk of contracting HIV. Seventy five percent of respondents had heard of VCT, and 60% had considered having a test. Knowledge regarding the location of VCT testing sites, methods of testing and waiting period for results was generally poor. Most respondents had a favourable impression of staff in the clinic/CHC setting and would return to these facilities for HIV VCT. However, 71 % reported that they were prepared to pay for a HIV test. Respondents reported that having an HIV test would have a positive effect on sexual behaviour; however, only a third would disclose their HIV test result. Discussion: Respondents had high levels of awareness of HIV prevention strategies but these did not always translate into the adoption of appropriate behaviours. This disparity between awareness of HIV prevention strategies and actual risk taking sexual behaviour could reflect inadequacies in current HIV education programmes. Knowledge regarding most aspects of HIV VCT was inadequate, but there was a high willingness to test for HIV. Respondents indicated that they were prepared to pay for VCT. VCT could be used to engage with young adults and impact on behaviour changes. Further studies may be useful to illustrate the potential of VCT as a prevention strategy and to promote the allocation of more resources for this purpose.

Cyberbullying is one of the major problems of social networking sites, which has been known to have prolonged adverse psychological effects on social network users. Cyberbullying has been discussed a lot in the literature, but little research has been done on cyberbullying and its related factors. This study seeks to examine the factors influencing cyberbullying on Instagram among young adults. Instagram was chosen as a case study for the thesis because research shows that Instagram is the most preferred social networking site among the age cohort (18–30), who are popularly referred to as young adults. An extensive review of the literature was carried out, and six constructs (Instagram Usage, Vulnerability, Peer Pressure, Anonymity, and Instagram Features) were used to examine the influence of cyberbullying among young adults on Instagram. This study draws from the theory of routine activity theory (RAT), which is grounded on the postulation that criminal acts can be easily committed by any individual who has the opportunity. The researcher reviewed the process and deployed a methodological and concept-centric approach to create a comprehensive conceptual model that included key factors. This dissertation is different from most cyberbullying research in the sense that it reviews cyberbullying behaviours from the context in which they occur rather than the intent or motivation of the perpetrator. The model allowed a holistic examination of factors that influenced cyberbullying behaviours on Instagram. Using a survey methodology, over 201 Instagram users who are also students at the University of Cape Town completed an instrument measuring factor influencing cyberbullying. The researcher deployed Smart PLS, a statistical package for the social sciences, to test for reliability, validity and to analyse the entire dataset. The study critically examined the factors that influence cyberbullying among young adults. The results of this dissertation indicated that peer pressure and online vulnerability have a strong significance in cyberbullying behaviours. Surprisingly, Instagram usage had a weak correlation with cyberbullying behaviours. This study contributes significantly to the exciting research on cyberbullying as it helps identify the factors that contribute to cyberbullying behaviours. From this research, cyberbullying interventions or solutions can be accurately developed.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The issue of reentry has become an important topic to criminal justice scholars and to law makers due to the sheer number of incarcerated individuals being released and the rate in which they cycle back to incarceration. Despite the attention reentry issues have received recently in the areas of policy and criminal justice and recommendations offered to ameliorate problems associated with reentry, the landscape of reentry remains largely unchanged in that many prisoners are released from prison and significant numbers of them return (Austin, 2001). Approximately 700,000 inmates were released from prisons and jails to their families and communities in 2005 (Harrison & Beck, 2006). Of those inmates, roughly 1/3rd were young adults aged 24 or younger (Mears & Travis, 2004). The outcomes for young adults (age 18-24) incarcerated at such young ages put them at overwhelming risk of a life course trajectory that includes cycles of future imprisonment and poor life outcomes such as economic hardship, poor mental and physical well being and lower life expectancy (Mears & Travis, 2004; Uggen, 2000; Western, 2002) . This study examined the meanings of formerly incarcerated young adult men and their caregivers made in regard to reentry, caregivers' ability to meet reentry needs, perceptions about reliance on family and the implications of a young adult child "returning home" within the context of release from incarcerative sentencing. This goal was achieved through conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated men between the ages of 18 and 24 and their caregivers for a total of 18 individual interviews that reflect nine young men-caregiver dyads defined as families for this study. This qualitative study was informed using an integration of family life course perspective, symbolic interactionism and ecological theory. The theoretical amalgam provided the ability to examine the life course transitions of families impacted by incarceration, the perceptions and meanings made based upon the experience with incarceration while being imbedded within a socially stigmatized context of having a felony. The findings from this study suggest that upon reentry young adult men and their caregivers experienced ambivalence, happiness yet anxiety in moving forward after incarceration. This ambivalence was a major theme that was found not only in reunification, but in relying on family and in fostering independence. Caregivers were emotionally distressed as they juggled their feelings of wanting to help the young men with meeting the multiple demands placed on the family system with their concerns that he might return to his "old ways." Young men were particularly distressed as they negotiated transitioning from a state of independence (prior to incarceration) to dependence as a prisoner in the criminal justice system, to depending on caregivers upon reentry. The young men in this study reported achieving financial independence from their families prior to incarceration as adolescents through illegal means which gave them adult status in their families. These "off-time" transitions before and after incarceration fueled the ambivalence and ambiguity in the young men-caregiver dyads, specifically in terms of the meanings these families made when thinking about reunification, relying on family and in fostering independence. / Ph. D.