Suchergebnisse

The authors examined the predictive ability of parentification (i.e., when parental roles and responsibilities are abdicated by parents and carried out by children and adolescents) and ethnic identity on various psychological health factors in college students. Scores from five measures were used to test a conceptual two-factor model in which parentification and ethnic identity predict psychological health; participants were 157 Black Americans and 157 White Americans attending a large public southern university. The measures included the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (Babor, Higgins-Biddle, Saunders, and Monteiro, 2001), the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Steer, and Brown, 1996), the Eating Attitudes Test (Gamer, Olmsted, Bohr, and Garfinkel, 1982), the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992), and the Parentification Inventory (Hooper, 2009). No evidence of a significant difference in mean parentification scores between Black American and White American college student participants was found. However, results from differential item function analyses on individual Parentification Inventory items uncovered some significant differences between the two groups. Results from bivariate correlations uncovered slight differences in the significant associations between predictor variables and outcome variables. In addition, multivariate regression analyses revealed slight differences in study variables' ability to predict psychological health. Parentification and ethnic identity explained some of the variability in depressive symptoms in both samples. Additionally, parentification and ethnic identity explained some of the variability in disordered eating symptoms in the Black American sample but not in the White American sample. Implications for culturally tailored practice and directions for future culturally focused research are discussed.

Gender is ever present in education preparation, school materials, curriculum, and school systems. To improve our knowledge about different facets of gender and the extent to which the depiction of gender has changed over time in picture books, there is a need to dig beneath the surface of questions about gender representation in picture books. Given that in-service teachers have proximity to approximately 75 million K-12 students, how in-service teachers think about gender, gender representation, and their own experiences with gender socialization have important implications on how K-12 students think, act, and feel about gender. In this study, we focused on teachers' responses to a semester-long assignment about the selection and review of picture books. Specifically, we captured teachers' perceptions on gendered images evidenced in picture books and to what extent there are changes (i.e., economical, emotional, physical, political, and social) in the central character throughout the book. We also explored if perceived changes were different based on the gender of the characters. Teachers reported four types of changes among the characters in the picture book. Emotionally changes in the books' central characters emerged as the most commonly reported change among our participants.

Refugees who settle in Western countries exhibit a high rate of mental health issues, which are often related to experiences throughout the pre-displacement, displacement, and post-displacement processes. Early detection of mental health symptoms could increase positive outcomes in this vulnerable population. The rates and predictors of positive screenings for mental health symptoms were examined among a large sample of refugees, individuals with special immigrant visas, and parolees/entrants (N = 8149) from diverse nationalities. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine if demographic factors and witnessing/experiencing violence predicted positive screenings. On a smaller subset of the sample, we calculated referral acceptance rate by country of origin. Refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan were most likely to exhibit a positive screening for mental health symptoms. Refugees from Sudan, Iraq, and Syria reported the highest rate of experiencing violence, whereas those from Iraq, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo reported the highest rate of witnessing violence. Both witnessing and experiencing violence predicted positive Refugee Health Screener-15 (RHS-15) scores. Further, higher age and female gender predicted positive RHS-15 scores, though neither demographic variable was correlated with accepting a referral for mental health services. The findings from this study can help to identify characteristics that may be associated with risk for mental health symptoms among a refugee population.

Little is known about how patient and primary care physician characteristics are associated with quality of depression care. The authors conducted structured interviews of 404 randomly selected primary care physicians after their interaction with CD-ROM vignettes of actors portraying depressed patients. Vignettes varied along the dimensions of medical comorbidity, attributions regarding the cause of depression, style, race/ethnicity, and gender. Results show that physicians showed wide variation in treatment decisions; for example, most did not inquire about suicidal ideation, and most did not state that they would inform the patient that there can be a delay before an antidepressant is therapeutic. Several physician characteristics were significantly associated with management decisions. Notably, physician age was inversely correlated with a number of quality-of-care measures. In conclusion, quality of care varies among primary care physicians and appears to be associated with physician characteristics to a greater extent than patient characteristics.