Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Psychosocial functioning, adolescent anxiety'

Student homelessness is unfortunately a prevalent and growing issue nation-wide. Current estimates suggest that over one million youth are homeless in the U.S. at any given time and the prevalence of student homelessness continues to increase each year. Research indicates that homeless youth are at a greater risk for high stress and experiencing adverse life events. In turn, they are even more at risk for related psychological and academic impairments. Many homeless youth are impacted by mental health issues, including high levels of anxiety, stress, and depression. Additionally, youth affected by anxiety and stress often experience significant impairments in their academic and psychological functioning. The current study examined the relationship between anxiety and related psychological and academic functioning was positively or negatively impacted by a youth's coping style. In the current study, psychological functioning was defined as the presence of depressive symptoms while academic functioning includes both a sense of school connectedness and current grade point average. Results showed that coping skills do not impact the relationship between anxious homeless youth and their psychosocial and academic outcomes. However, findings suggest that a greater sense of school connectedness is associated with more positive academic and psychosocial outcomes. The study provides better insight for school personnel, psychologists, and mental health workers when providing services and interventions for homeless youth. Specifically, suggestions for further research and recommendations for fostering and implementing a greater sense of school connectedness within the school system are given.

There has been extensive research on the negative outcomes experienced by homeless youth and the protective role social support plays in typical adolescent development. However, current gaps in the literature are found in regard to potential protective factors for homeless youth, showing a need for further research to examine such possible influencers as social support. Homeless youth are a vulnerable population that live in social and residential instability during a critical time of development. It is imperative that research explores the elements that could serve as potential protective factors to foster resilience and healthy adolescent development for these youths. The current study sought to explore social support as a potential protective factor for homeless youth. By utilizing a social support framework, this study researched the relationships between homeless living status (e.g., living with a relative, non-relative, or no permanent home or caregiver), teacher social support, peer social support, academic achievement and psychosocial distress. This study found that teacher social support had a direct effect on the psychosocial functioning of homeless students. This indicates that higher levels of teacher social support perceived by homeless students within the school environment may have a positive impact on these students' psychosocial outcomes and overall well-being. Limitations and implications of the current study are discussed.

Introduction: South Africa has an HIV-infection rate of 5 million people. Between 1995 and 2005, South Africa is expected to have the highest number of AIDS-related deaths on the African continent, a total of 2.7 million. Many infected individuals are women. However, there is very little research conducted with South African women examining the relationship between HIV-infection and psychological distress. Research conducted in the United States indicates that HIV-infection is associated with increased rates of depression and anxiety. This research project aims to explore the relationship between HIV-infection and psychological functioning in the unique socio-political context of South Africa. In addition, the aim is to begin identifying potential factors that moderate this relationship. Method: A group of HIV-infected Black South African women (N = 104) and a community control sample (N = 144) were recruited from both urban and rural areas in the Gautang Province. These women participated in a one-on-one verbally administered interview assessing for psychological distress and various material, personal, family, and social resource factors. Results: HIV-infection was associated with higher rates of depression, but not anxiety. In addition, women with HIV-infection reported more malnutrition risk, emotion-focused coping, stressful life events, powerlessness in relationships with male partners, HIV-stigma, and healthcare satisfaction, than the non-infected women. Variables that were directly associated with depression and anxiety included nutrition, stressful life events, powerlessness in relationships, family social support, and community agency access. HIV-stigma was also directly associated with depression. Furthermore, health-care access, emotion-focused coping, and family social support moderated the relationship between HIV-status and depression, and stressful life events moderated the relationship between HIV-status and anxiety. Discussion: This research study provides further evidence for the relationship between HIV-status and psychological distress among Black South African women. It also identified potential protective factors that could be directly addressed through community-based interventions in order to enhance the psychological functioning of these women.

Every day, children throughout the United States are given psychological evaluations for many different clinical and psycho-educational purposes. Very little research has attempted to investigate children's responses to the experience of having intellectual and achievement tests administered. The goal of the current research was to explore the effect a psycho-educational evaluation has on children in areas of self-concept and anxiety. Dependent variables consisted of pre- and post-test measures of anxiety and self-concept. A total of 75 children in the 4th 5th and 6th grades were recruited after referral for evaluation and possible placement in the Talented and Gifted Program or Special Education. This study employed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), t-tests, multiple regression analysis, and correlational analysis. Findings included initial evidence that children endorsed decreased anxiety after psycho-educational assessments rather than increased anxiety, suggesting that fear of unknown situations may be more anxiety provoking than the actual situation itself, potentially beneficial findings for psychology and psychometric professionals who evaluate children daily. Students endorsement of academic self-concept significantly predicted anxiety after a psycho-educational evaluation, indicating that students who feel capable in academic areas may endorse less anxiety after an evaluation than students who do not feel academically capable. Finally, negative verbal interaction with parents significantly predicted lower general self-concept scores, providing evidence that the manner in which parents verbally relate to their children may have significant impact for the mental health of children.

Parent and child readiness to change have been identified as emerging areas informing pediatric obesity interventions. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of child and parent readiness to change in obese youth by examining how these constructs are related to demographic variables, as well as to psychosocial functioning, in a sample of obese youth presenting for weight- management treatment. A secondary aim was to examine consistency between parent and child readiness to change. Two hundred twenty-eight 7- to 17-year-old children and their parents participated during the child’s initial assessment at a multidisciplinary weight-management clinic. Demographic variables included in analyses were child Body Mass Index, parent Body Mass Index, child age, child gender, child race, and family income. Children completed measures of quality of life, depression, social anxiety, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and readiness to change. Parents completed assessments of children’s quality of life, children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and parents’ own readiness to change. The child’s Body Mass Index was significantly related to both parent and child readiness to change. There was also a significant positive relation between child readiness to change and the child’s own report of social anxiety symptoms, as well as a curvilinear relation with internalizing symptoms, such as depression. In addition to the child’s Body Mass Index, parent readiness to change was positively related to the child’s age and was higher in African American parents than in European American parents. Race moderated the relation between parent readiness to change and health-related quality of life, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing problems. Parents and children were discordant in their ratings of readiness to change, with parents tending to report higher levels; the child’s Body Mass Index moderated the relation between parent and child report of readiness to change. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

This document proposes a study designed to investigate the association between executive function abilities and social anxiety in a group of adolescent survivors of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) who were treated with chemotherapy for central nervous system prophylaxis. The proposed study is also designed to evaluate a possible interaction effect between executive function abilities and social skills in their impact on social anxiety in this population. The report provides detailed background information describing ALL and available treatments for the disease. It also reviews the literature on both acute and late effects of chemotherapy, with particular attention placed on understanding both neurocognitive and psychosocial effects in the context of adolescent development. The proposed project involves collecting parent and teacher reports to measure the constructs of Executive Function and Social Skills. Parent measures may be completed in English or Spanish. Self-reports of Social Anxiety symptoms in the adolescent survivor sample will also be collected. Simultaneous regression analyses will be used to analyze the influence of executive function abilities on social anxiety. Sequential multiple regression analyses will then be conducted to check for differences in the magnitude of the relationship between executive function abilities and social anxiety with varying levels of social skills. Significant results would inform the development of targeted interventions. For example, if it is determined that executive function abilities are indeed associated with social anxiety symptoms, existing programs focused on neurocognitive remediation could begin to monitor participants for anxiety and provide preventative therapeutic intervention. Additionally, if social skills is confirmed as a moderator, evidence-based interventions targeting the development of social skills in the survivor population would be warranted as well.<br>text

In this project, three issues, still little explored, about children’s and adolescents’ selfrepresentations were analysed: 1) their association with experiences of exposure to interparental destructive conflict; 2) their construction in the context of child and adolescent maltreatment; and, 3) their associations with children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial functioning in the context of these adverse family experiences. Two cross-sectional studies were carried out. In the first one, based on the emotional security theory, the mediating role of children’s and adolescents’ emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship and of their perception about their relationship with both parents in associations between interparental conflict and their domain-specific self-representations was analysed. Both mediational pathways were supported. The second study focused on testing the "LookingGlass Self Hypothesis" (LGSH), that is, the mediating role of reflected appraisals in associations between significant others’ actual appraisals and self-representations, in the context of child/adolescent maltreatment, considering the moderating role of parent-child communication in this process. Findings supported the LGSH in all dimensions evaluated. In each study, the mediating role of self-representations in associations between these adverse family experiences and children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial functioning was also analysed. Findings emphasized the specific and differentiated role of several selfrepresentation dimensions as intervening mechanisms in those associations. These studies thus reinforce the importance of relational experiences with significant others, namely parents/caregivers, on children’s and adolescents’ self-representations, and highlight the specific and differentiated role of different self-representation dimensions in their psychosocial functioning, bearing important implications for both research and practice.<br>Neste projeto foram analisados três aspetos, ainda pouco explorados, acerca das autorepresentações de crianças e adolescentes: 1) a sua relação com a exposição ao conflito interparental destrutivo; 2) a sua construção no contexto do mau trato/negligência parental; e, 3) as suas associações com o funcionamento psicossocial das crianças/adolescentes no contexto destas experiências familiares. Para tal, foram realizados dois estudos transversais. No primeiro, com base na teoria da segurança emocional, analisou-se o papel mediador da insegurança emocional das crianças/adolescentes na relação interparental, e da sua percepção acerca da relação com ambos os pais, na relação entre o conflito interparental e as suas autorepresentações. Os resultados suportaram o papel mediador destes dois processos nessa relação. No segundo estudo, testou-se a “Looking-Glass Self Hypothesis” (LGSH), isto é, a relação entre as hetero-representações de outros significativos e as auto-representações através das meta-representações, no contexto do mau trato/negligência, tendo-se em conta o papel moderador da comunicação pais-filhos nesse processo. A LGSH foi suportada em todas as dimensões avaliadas. Em cada estudo foi ainda analisado o papel mediador das autorepresentações na relação entre estas experiências familiares adversas e o funcionamento psicossocial das crianças/adolescentes. Os resultados salientaram o papel específico e diferenciado de várias dimensões de auto-representações como mecanismos intervenientes nessa relação. Estes estudos reforçam assim a importância das experiências relacionais com outros significativos, nomeadamente com os pais/cuidadores, nas auto-representações das crianças e adolescentes, bem como a especificidade do papel de diferentes dimensões das auto-representações no seu funcionamento psicossocial, com importantes implicações para a investigação e intervenção

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a new intervention method, Technology Assisted Therapy for Separation Anxiety (TTSA), on the psychosocial functioning and quality of life of persons with intellectual and visual disability who experience separation anxiety and exhibit challenging behaviour. A pre-experimental within group design was used with randomised multiple baselines and staggered intervention start points. The data was collected at an institution in the Netherlands that provides long-term care and residence for persons with intellectual disability and visual impairment. Six participants took part in this study. This research was informed by Bowlby‟s attachment theory, which conceptualises the tendency of human beings to forge strong emotional bonds with others and explains how the disturbance of this bond might lead to various forms of emotional distress and personality disturbances. The interplay of separation anxiety and challenging behaviour with respect to the formation of attachment relationships provides the specific theoretical context in which this study is grounded. The results indicate that both the separation anxiety experienced and the challenging behaviour exhibited by the participants decreased significantly after the implementation of TTSA. Their psychosocial functioning and quality of life also increased significantly. This study demonstrates the first successful application of TTSA to treat separation anxiety and challenging behaviour in persons with intellectual and visual disability. TTSA therefore has the potential to be a valid intervention to address these disorders.<br>MA (Research Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015