Teen Childbearing and Depression: Do Pregnancy Attitudes Matter?

The relationship between teen childbearing and depression has been extensively studied; however, little is known about how young women's own attitudes toward becoming pregnant shape this association. This study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to investigate whether the relationship between teen childbearing and adult depression is moderated by adolescent attitudes toward becoming pregnant. The results showed that although, on average, women who had first births between ages 16 and 19 experienced no more depressive symptoms in adulthood than women who had first births at age 20 or older, the relationship between teen childbearing and adult depression varied significantly based on adolescent pregnancy attitudes. When they had negative adolescent attitudes toward getting pregnant, teen mothers had similar levels of depression as adult mothers, but when they had positive adolescent pregnancy attitudes, teen mothers actually had fewer depressive symptoms than women with adult first births.     

Conscription of children in armed conflict—a form of child abuse. A study of 19 former child soldiers

Armed combat in childhood is a form of child abuse. It may lead to serious consequences, including post‐traumatic stress disorder. The inherent emotional abuse and acts or omissions by caregivers may cause behavioural, cognitive, emotional or mental disorder in the child. Nineteen former child soldiers were interviewed in a rehabilitation centre using a standard questionnaire. Reasons for recruitment included: volunteered (18), hatred of enemy (revenge) (5), virtue of being a freedom fighter (martyrdom) (9), as a means of supporting their family (economic) (3). One child was abducted, 7 joined for fear of the ‘enemy’ abducting them, and in 5 a family member was killed by ‘enemy’ or own group. The children were involved in manual labour (15), guard duty (15), front‐line fighting (7), bomb manufacture (5), setting sea/land mines (5) and radio and communication (2). Fifteen were trained in firearms and 14 in self‐destruction. Twelve children attempted to or did run away and 11 refused to obey orders or argued. This led to various punishments, including kitchen duty, beatings, imprisonment, blackmail or death threats. A majority of the children felt sad and emotionally upset when they remembered their mother and family. Children's involvement in war, whatever the ‘justifications’ may be, should always be considered as forced, as they cannot truly comprehend their action in war. The responsibility must be taken by the adult caregivers. The following definition of the abuse of children in armed conflict is proposed: ‘The involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in armed conflict they do not truly comprehend, to which they are unable to give informed consent, and which adversely affects the child's right to unhindered growth and identity as a child’. Firm international agreement on guidelines for the lower age limit of recruitment of children into armed forces is required. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Work–life Conflict and Work Pressure in Ireland

Recent rapid economic growth in Ireland has been accompanied by a strong surge in the number of women in employment, and this has led to a significant increase in the proportion of dual‐earner families. These changes have brought the issue of reconciliation between work and care commitments to the fore. Flexible working arrangements in firms have been identified as one important means of balancing work and other commitments. In this article we investigate the relationship between four flexible working arrangements; flexitime, part‐time hours, working from home and job sharing, and two key employee outcomes; work pressure and work–life conflict, using data from the first national survey of employees in Ireland in 2003. Our results show that while part‐time work and flexitime tend to reduce work pressure and work–life conflict, working from home is associated with greater levels of both work pressure and work–life conflict. We conclude that it is important to distinguish between flexible working arrangements to discover their potential for reducing work pressure and work–life conflict.     

Continuity of Mental Health Care Across Military Transitions

Multiple deployments, a prominent characteristic of operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn, have been linked to increased risk for various mental health conditions. It is also well known that military transitions, such as a change of duty station or discharge, are an inevitable part of military life. While military transitions can be stressful for any service member or veteran, those with mental health conditions face additional challenges. Transition stress can exacerbate a mental health condition that in turn hinders ability to manage the transition, resulting in a cycle of stress. As a result, those receiving mental health care while transitioning often experience difficulty continuing treatment post-transition. This article describes a unique and innovative transition coaching program designed to address this emerging issue.     

论澳大利亚任务型翻译教学

澳大利亚极具潜力的翻译市场,使澳洲高校形成了完整而规范的专业翻译教学体系。个案分析表明,澳大利亚翻译教学主要基于任务型教学模式,这一模式的特点以学生为中心,开发其自主学习和研究翻译的能力。此外,在课程设置上,澳大利亚翻译教学重视理论和实践的并重。     

Neuroticism,locus of control,type A behaviour pattern and occupational stress

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between individual differences in personality and susceptibility to stress in the workplace. Stress in lecturers employed by a computer training organization was assessed by means of self-report and measurement of salivary cortisol output during lecturing and non-lecturing weeks. Neuroticism, Type A behaviour pattern and locus of control were measured. Self-reported stress was found to be much greater during lecturing weeks, but cortisol levels were unaffected by working conditions. There was a significant positive correlation between neuroticism and locus of control and a negative correlation between locus of control and Type A behaviour pattern that approached significance. Multiple regression was employed to explore relations between personality and stress. Subjects with lower neuroticism scores yielded a bigger increase in reported stress, in the lecturing compared with the non-lecturing week, than subjects with high neuroticism scores. Type B subjects showed a progressive decrease in cortisol over the working week while Type A counterparts showed a resurgence of cortisol towards the end of the week. Finally, Type B subjects having an internal locus of control showed a faster decline in cortisol level during the lecturing week than the other subjects. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the importance simultaneously incorporating a variety of individual differences in personality dimensions and stress indices in research designs.     

The Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS)

SUMMARY

The Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS; Bride, Robinson, Yegidis, & Figley, 2004) is an easy to administer 17-itemself-report measure of secondary trauma. Bride et al. (2004) reported a measure of three domains of traumatic stress specifically associated with secondary exposure to trauma: intrusion, avoidance, and arousal. The STSS was reported to have high levels of internal consistency reliability and indicated evidence of convergent, discriminant, and factorial validity. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reliability and validity of the STSS with a national, random sample of mental health social workers. To assess the fit of the data to the three-factor structure proposed by Bride et al., a confirmatory factor analysis was performed on data from 275 social workers who indicated exposure to client trauma. The model fit the data adequately although high factor intercorrelations strongly suggest a unidimensional scale. Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis of a unidimensional scale and a second order factor analysis yielded similar results. Findings indicate the need for further scale validation. Challenges remain for measuring and distinctly differentiating between secondary trauma symptoms of arousal, avoidance, and intrusion. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Parenting a child with Autism Spectrum disorder: parental work context

This research contributes to the literature on work-related factors for parents raising a child with a disability. Specifically, we used questionnaire methodology to compare two parent families raising a child with Autism Spectrum (AS) with similar families raising ‘typical’ children. Our findings suggested that parents raising a child with AS self-report higher parenting stress and more mental health symptomatology, as well as lower overall job satisfaction, less satisfaction with supervisors and less workplace contentment. In addition, our findings suggested that parents raising a child with a disability self-report similarly to parents raising ‘typical’ children with respect to work interest, commitment and quality, as well as time missed. In conclusion, our results appear to suggested that despite increased parental stress related to parenting a child with AS, with respect to several work-related factors, there are more similarities than differences among these parenting groups.     

The State of Sleep Among College Students at a Large Public University

Abstract

Objective: Data about college student sleep were collected and used to develop an education campaign to improve sleep. Participants: On-campus residents at a large state university were surveyed on 4 occasions, October 2005 to April 2007. Sample size was 675 to 1,823 students. Fall 2005 mean age = 18.5 years, SD = 1.03 (range 18–30) years. Initial survey included 935 males and 1,859 females (2005–2006). Matched pairs data (2006–2007) included 91 males and 107 females. Twenty-six males and 22 females participated in interviews. Methods: A survey administered online included the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, along with an 8-question in-person interview. Results: Poor sleep interacted with academics and mental health, and an education campaign positively affected student sleep. Conclusions: Teaching students how to effectively manage sleep can improve their well-being. Sleep may also be a gateway topic for health care professionals to address sensitive health issues such as depression.     

Parameter estimation in nonlinear regression models 1

Fisher information contained in record values, inter-record times and their concomitants from a sample of fixed size is derived in general and explicit expressions are deduced for some specific known bivariate classes of distributions. A comparison between fixed sampling and inverse sampling schemes with equal number of records and concomitants is also carried out. We also consider parameter estimation based on bivariate records and a small simulation study is done.