New regression model with four regression structures and computational aspects

A new general class of exponentiated sinh Cauchy regression models for location, scale, and shape parameters is introduced and studied. It may be applied to censored data and used more effectively in survival analysis when compared with the usual models. For censored data, we employ a frequentist analysis for the parameters of the proposed model. Further, for different parameter settings, sample sizes, and censoring percentages, various simulations are performed. The extended regression model is very useful for the analysis of real data and could give more adequate fits than other special regression models.     

Equal Parenting when Families Break Apart: Alternating Residence and the Best Interests of the Child in Sweden

Shared, or alternating, residence for children when their parents separate is increasingly common. Sweden adopted a new policy in 1998 (modified in 2006) which gave courts the mandate to order 50/50 alternating residence against the will of one parent. Since then, the 50/50 alternating residence has become the legal norm in Sweden in cases of disputed custody. In this article, we ask how Swedish policymakers reasoned in relation to the potentially conflicting values of equal parenting post‐separation and the interests of children. More specifically, we investigate how they addressed some of the most common objections to court‐ordered alternating residence. We found that all three issues were discussed extensively during the policy‐making process, but that, in the end, none of them was seen as contradictory to the goal of promoting more equal parenting roles post‐separation through the introduction of court‐ordered alternating residence. This policy outcome, we argue, should be seen in light of Sweden's long‐standing commitment to strengthening the role of fathers in the care of children.     

Differential Health and Social Needs of Older Adults Waitlisted for Public Housing or Housing Choice Vouchers

Affordable housing is an important form of income security for low-income older persons. This article describes characteristics of older persons waitlisted for either public housing or a housing choice voucher (HCV; previously Section 8) in Portland, Oregon. 358 persons (32% response rate) completed a mailed survey with questions about demographics, health and housing status, food insecurity, and preference for housing with services. Findings indicate that many waitlisted older persons experienced homelessness or housing instability, poor health, high hospital use, and food insecurity. Public housing applicants were significantly more likely to report lower incomes, homelessness, and food insecurity than HCV applicants. We conclude with policy implications for housing and health agencies that serve low-income older persons.     

Effects of a multimodal exercise program in pedal dexterity and balance: study with Portuguese older adults of different contexts

This study investigated the effects of a multimodal exercise program (MEP) on pedal dexterity and balance in two groups of older adult participants (65–92 years of age) from a psychiatric hospital center (HC), a residential care home (RCH), and a daily living center (DLC). The experimental group (EG) trained three times per week for 12 months, and the control group (CG) maintained their normal activities. The Mini-Mental State Examination and the Modified Baecke Questionnaire, as well as the Pedal Dexterity and the Tinetti tests, were applied to all subjects before and after the experimental protocol. Furthermore, the foot preference was controlled using the Lateral Preference Questionnaire proposed by Coren [10]. In the EG, the results from the Pedal Dexterity test showed that both males and females from the RCH and DLC improved their performances after the MEP. In the HC, the males slightly decreased their performance with both feet, contrarily to females. Both males and females from the CG decreased their pedal dexterity performance, namely, with the non-preferred foot. Concerning the Tinetti test, the EG of both males and females from the HC, the RCH (males were better than females regarding the gender factor), and the DLC improved their balance after the MEP. In the CG, no significant effects or interactions were found for any of the context groups.     

Differences in Perceptions of Child Sexual Abuse Based on Perpetrator Age and Respondent Gender

Child sexual abuse changes the lives of countless children. Child sexual abuse victims experience short and long term negative outcomes that affect their daily functioning. In this study, undergraduate students' perceptions of CSA were obtained using vignettes with an adult or child perpetrator and a general questionnaire. Results indicated participants receiving the child-on-child vignette were less likely to rate the vignette as abuse, saw the abuse as less severe, and assigned less blame to the perpetrator than participants reading the adult-on-child vignette. On a general questionnaire, male participants saw child-on-child abuse as less severe and more encouraged by society than did female participants. The information can be utilized by professionals in treatment planning and preventing revictimization at disclosure.     

Assembling life history narratives from quantitative longitudinal panel data: What’s the story for families using social work?

Abstract

Embedded within quantitative longitudinal panel or cohort studies is narrative potential that is arguably untapped but might enrich our understanding of individual and social lives across time. This paper discusses a methodology to assemble the life history narratives of families using social work by drawing on quantitative data from the British Household Panel Survey. It explores whether this person-centred approach helps us to understand the counter-intuitive results of a parallel multivariate analyses, which suggest that families using social work fare worse than similar others over time. Our findings are tentative, due to the experimental use of this narrative method and the limits of social work information in the data-set. Nonetheless, the life histories presented bring to light complexities, diversity and the non-linear pathways between families’ needs, support and outcomes that the aggregates obscure. We conclude that reconstructing families’ lives in this way, especially in the absence of complementary longitudinal qualitative data, affords the wider opportunity to interrogate and better understand the findings of quantitative longitudinal studies.     

Family Instability and the Transition to Adulthood

Children's experience of repeated family structure change has a robust association with compromised development across the early life course. Implicit in prior research is the expectation that disparities in cognition and behavior accumulate through childhood and adolescence to influence the transition to adulthood. The authors assessed the association of early and later family structure instability with events in the transition to adulthood up to age 24 using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 8,841).They found that early and later family instability are associated with low rates of college completion, early union formation and childbearing, and an early entry into the labor force. The associations are explained by family structure, delinquency, and academic performance in adolescence.     

A Rapid Review of Sexual Wellbeing Definitions and Measures: Should We Now Include Sexual Wellbeing Freedom?

An increasing number of studies refer to sexual wellbeing and/or seek to measure it, and the term appears across various policy documents, including sexual health frameworks in the UK. We conducted a rapid review to determine how sexual wellbeing has been defined, qualitatively explored and quantitatively measured. Eligible studies selected for inclusion from OVID Medline, PsychInfo, PubMed, Embase, CINAHL were: in English language, published after 2007, were peer-reviewed full articles, focused on sexual wellbeing (or proxies for, e.g. satisfaction, function), and quantitatively or qualitatively assessed sexual wellbeing. We included studies with participants aged 16–65. Given study heterogeneity, our synthesis and findings are reported using a narrative approach. We identified 162 papers, of which 10 offered a definition of sexual wellbeing. Drawing upon a socio-ecological model, we categorised the 59 dimensions we identified from studies under three main domains: cognitive-affect (31 dimensions); inter-personal (22 dimensions); and socio-cultural (6 dimensions). Only 11 papers were categorised under the socio-cultural domain, commonly focusing on gender inequalities or stigma. We discuss the importance of conceptualising sexual wellbeing as individually experienced but socially and structurally influenced, including assessing sexual wellbeing freedom: a person’s freedom to achieve sexual wellbeing, or their real opportunities and liberties.     

Losing Ann: Countertransference Aspects of Altering the Frame with a Long Term Patient Facing Atypical Dementia

This paper chronicles the journey of a long term, suicidally depressed patient’s struggle of growth and survival, only to be struck down by a form of Dementia: Lewy Body Disorder. Focus of the paper highlights the myriad complications and struggles that developed in the countertransference as therapist, patient, family, and medical caregivers, try to ascertain: What is psychological and regressive? What is neuro-degenerative? How can the therapist cope with this confusion while maintaining the frame? The paper highlights how the frame as we know it, is altered to meet the medical and psychological crisis presented and how that alteration impacts the treatment and the therapist’s changing perception of what the work is about.