Clinically Significant Effects of Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Spouse Caregivers' Mental Health and Cognitive Functioning: A Pilot Study

The objective of this pilot study was to investigate whether group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in caregiver mood, burden, and cognition. We screened 97 caregivers in Toronto, Canada, of whom 25 with DSM-IV disorders began the 13-week CBT intervention, and 12 completed therapy and the 3-month follow-up. Each caregiver experienced clinically significant improvement on at least 2 of the following outcomes: diagnostic criteria, mood, attention, memory, and caregiver burden. Despite effectiveness, the challenges of recruiting distressed caregivers for therapy suggest that CBT might be most useful as part of a stepped care model of treatment.     

Playing the Recording Once or Twice: Effects on Listening Test Performances

Much debate surrounds the issue of whether allowing candidates to listen to recordings twice is more desirable in language tests than offering just one opportunity. Using regression models, this study investigates, analyses and interconnects both item difficulty and stimulus length in relation to the frequency of stimulus presentation and its effect on test results. The study involved 1,266 eighth-grade learners with perceived A2/B1 level in English as a first foreign language. The final discussion seeks to offer explanations for the results that clearly indicate the advantages of listening once; likewise, potential implications for listening tests and classroom practice are raised.     

Personzentrierte Beratung minderj?hriger Frauen in der Schwangerschaft und im Schwangerschaftskonflikt

Pregnancy and conflicts related to pregnancy are exceptional situations for women especially for under aged women. Usually young people have not gained any experience yet neither with pregnancy nor with decision taking act. Person-centred consultation for under aged women during pregnancy offers the possibility to get in contact with them, share empathy, offer recognition and unconditional positive regard and act genuinely as a concerned person at the same time. Thereby person-centred-consultation can adjust, the mainly to adult women addressed abortion consultation, to teenagers?? needs and help them take a sound decision and elaborate future plans as parent or after a possible abortion. (German law guarantees consultation during pregnancy and affords consultation before going through abortion.)     

Changing American home life: trends in domestic leisure and storage among middle-class families

This study of middle-class American families draws on ethnography and urban economic history, focusing on patterns of leisure time and household consumption and clutter. We trace how residential life evolved historically from cramped urban quarters into contemporary middle-class residences and examine how busy working families use house spaces. Our ethnographic sample consists of 24 Los Angeles families in which both parents work full time, have young children, and own their homes. Formal datasets include systematically timed family uses of home spaces, a large digital archive of photographs, and family-narrated video home tours. This analysis highlights a salient home-storage crisis, a marked shift in the uses of yards and garages, and the dissolution of outdoor leisure for busy working parents. The UCLA Center on Everyday Lives of Families (CELF) is generously supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program on the Workplace, Workforce, and Working Families. Anthony Graesch assisted with the tables. Additional information about CELF can be found at www.celf.ucla.edu.     

Estimation of the mean quality-adjusted survival using a multistate model for the sojourn times

In clinical trials, it may be of interest taking into account physical and emotional well-being in addition to survival when comparing treatments. Quality-adjusted survival time has the advantage of incorporating information about both survival time and quality-of-life. In this paper, we discuss the estimation of the expected value of the quality-adjusted survival, based on multistate models for the sojourn times in health states. Semiparametric and parametric (with exponential distribution) approaches are considered. A simulation study is presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed estimator and the jackknife resampling method is used to compute bias and variance of the estimator.     

The Influence of Facial Emotion Displays, Gender, and Ethnicity on Judgments of Dominance and Affiliation

Facial expressions of emotions convey not only information about emotional states but also about interpersonal intentions. The present study investigated whether factors known to influence the decoding of emotional expressions—the gender and ethnicity of the stimulus person as well as the intensity of the expression—would also influence attributions of interpersonal intentions. For this, 145 men and women rated emotional facial expressions posed by both Caucasian and Japanese male and female stimulus persons on perceived dominance and affiliation. The results showed that the sex and the ethnicity of the encoder influenced observers' ratings of dominance and affiliation. For anger displays only, this influence was mediated by expectations regarding how likely it is that a particular encoder group would display anger. Further, affiliation ratings were equally influenced by low intensity and by high intensity expressions, whereas only fairly intense emotional expressions affected attributions of dominance.     

Identification of outliers in a one-way random effects model

We distinguish between three types of outliers in a one-way random effects model. These are formally described in terms of their position relative to the main part of the observations. We propose simple rules for identifying such outliers and give an example which involves median-based statistics.     

Public relations in Portugal. An analysis of the profession through the undergraduate curriculum

Higher education in public relations in Portugal has been expanding in recent years. The purpose of this research is to analyse undergraduate public relations programmes in Portugal within the Bologna Treaty reform. After having compared public relations curricula and defined the main features, an empirical research was applied in order to determine the opinion of public relations educators and practitioners about the ideal undergraduate plan of studies in public relations.     

Best practices for physical activity programs and behavior counseling in older adult populations

Physical activity offers one of the greatest opportunities for people to extend years of active independent life and reduce functional limitations. The article identifies key practices for promoting physical activity in older adults, with a focus on those with chronic disease or low fitness and those with low levels of physical activity. Key practices identified: (a) A multidimensional activity program that includes endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility training is optimal for health and functional benefits; (b) principles of behavior change including social support, self-efficacy, active choices, health contracts, assurances of safety, and positive reinforcement enhance adherence; (c) manage risk by beginning at low intensity but gradually increasing to moderate physical activity, which has a better risk:benefit ratio and should be the goal for older adults; (d) an emergency procedure plan is prudent for community-based programs; and (e) monitoring aerobic intensity is important for progression and motivation. Selected content review of physical activity programming from major organizations and institutions is provided.