Predicting Follow‐up Outcomes in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: The Role of Change in Trust,Relationship‐Specific Attachment,and Emotional Engagement

Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), an evidence‐based couple therapy (Johnson, Hunsley, Greenberg, & Schindler, 1999), strives to foster lasting change through the creation of secure attachment bonds in distressed couples. Although studies have demonstrated lasting change in follow‐up (Wiebe et al., in press), research is needed to investigate predictors of long‐term outcomes. Our goal was to investigate predictors of long‐term outcomes in relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction was assessed across 24 months in a sample of 32 couples who received an average of 21 EFT sessions. Decreases in attachment avoidance were most predictive of higher relationship satisfaction across follow‐up. These findings support the theoretical assumption that EFT helps couples foster lasting change in relationship satisfaction through the facilitation of secure attachment bonds.     

Development and Evaluation of a Web-Based Clinician Training Program for a Family-Focused Depression Preventive Intervention

This study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility, and satisfaction associated with a newly developed online clinician training program for the Family Talk preventive intervention, both alone and together with a redesigned, shortened, face-to-face component. Fifty-eight predominately in-home therapy clinicians participated in the study. Results indicated that clinician participants found the online training to be enjoyable and comprehensive, and they reported that the most beneficial training package involved the combination of web-based and in-person training. This combined training could efficiently cover necessary didactic material online while also delivering important clinical skill practice and in-person discussion. Exceptions, limitations, and important future research questions are discussed.     

Process evaluation of an environmental walking and healthy eating pilot in small rural worksites

Small Steps are Easier Together (SS) was a pilot environmental intervention in small rural worksites in Upstate New York in collaboration with Extension educators. Worksite leaders teamed with co-workers to select and implement environmental changes to increase walking steps over individual baseline and to choose healthy eating options over 10 weeks. Participants were 226 primarily white, women employees in 5 sites. A mixed methods process evaluation, conducted to identify determinants of intervention effectiveness and to explain differences in outcomes across worksites, included surveys, self-reports of walking and eating, interviews, focus groups, and an intervention log. The evaluation assessed reach, characteristics of recruited participants, dose delivered, dose received, and context and compared sites on walking and eating outcomes. Emergent elements of participant-reported dose received included: active leadership, visible environmental changes, critical mass of participants, public display of accomplishments, accountability to co-workers, and group decision making. Participants at sites with high reach and dose were significantly more likely than sites with low reach and dose to achieve intervention goals. Although this small pilot needs replication, these findings describe how these evaluation methods can be applied and analyzed in an environmental intervention and provide information on trends in the data.     

Postural Position Constrains Multimodal Object Exploration in Infants

Recent research has revealed the important role of multimodal object exploration in infants' cognitive and social development. Yet, the real‐time effects of postural position on infants' object exploration have been largely ignored. In the current study, 5‐ to 7‐month‐old infants (N = 29) handled objects while placed in supported sitting, supine, and prone postures, and their spontaneous exploratory behaviors were observed. Infants produced more manual, oral, and visual exploration in sitting compared to lying supine and prone. Moreover, while sitting, infants more often coupled manual exploration with mouthing and visual examination. Infants' opportunities for learning from object exploration are embedded within a real‐time postural context that constrains the quantity and quality of exploratory behavior.     

Forcible,Drug-Facilitated,and Incapacitated Rape and Sexual Assault Among Undergraduate Women

Abstract

Objective: To examine the prevalence of drug-related sexual assaults, identify the frequency of assaults that occur following voluntary versus involuntary drug or alcohol consumption, and identify contextual correlates of drug-related assaults. Participants: College-student females (n = 314). Methods: Volunteers reported experiences with forcible and drug-related sexual assaults in the spring semester of 2004. Follow-up queries regarding the most severe drug-related assaults determined whether the assaults followed voluntary or involuntary alcohol or drug consumption. Results: 29.6% (n = 93) of the respondents reported a drug-related sexual assault or rape; 5.4% (n = 17) reported a forcible sexual assault or rape. Voluntary incapacitation preceded 84.6% of drug-related assaults and involuntary incapacitation preceded 15.4% of drug-related assaults. The majority of drug-related assaults (96.1%) involved alcohol consumption prior to assault. Conclusions: Drug-related sexual assaults on college campuses are more frequent than are forcible assaults and are most frequently preceded by voluntary alcohol consumption.     

Construction and Validation of an Observational Scale of Neighborhood Characteristics

This paper reports the development and validation of the Neighborhood Observation Scale, a 41 item measure of neighborhood physical appearance, social appearance, safety, and amenities. Three independent ratings were collected on each of 244 neighborhoods in 132 census block groups in five South Carolina counties, for a total of 732 observations. Inter-rater reliability analysis showed 92.6% agreement among at least two raters and an intraclass correlation of .54, indicating acceptable reliability. Exploratory factor analysis extracted eight factors for neighborhood physical appearance, school/park/public space physical appearance, neighborhood social appearance, indicated social engagement, observed social engagement, park/public space social engagement, resident watchfulness, and neighborhood safety risk. A follow-up confirmatory factor analysis supported the eight factor structure. Reliability analysis produced alpha coefficients ranging from .55 to .94 for the eight factors, indicating reliability for use as sub-scales. Convergent validity was determined by generally acceptable correlations of the factor sub-scales with measures of neighborhood distress, rates of child maltreatment and ICD-9-CM coded child injuries, and resident perceptions of neighboring, collective efficacy, reciprocal helping, and children’s safety in the home. Implications for research and policy and program development are discussed.