PREDICTING MARITAL SUCCESS FOR PREMARITAL COUPLE TYPES BASED ON PREPARE

Recent studies have shown that group differences in marital stability and satisfaction can be predicted based on premarital relationship quality. There is also a growing literature indicating that there are distinct types of relationships, both premaritally and developmentally over time. This study examined the relationship between the four premarital types (Vitalized, Harmonious, Traditional, and Conflicted) identified by Fowers and Olson (1992) and relationship outcome over a 3-year period with 393 couples. A substantial relationship was found, with conflicted couples being the most likely to separate or divorce. Vitalized couples had the highest levels of satisfaction, followed by Harmonious, Traditional, and Conflicted couples. Traditional couples were less likely to have divorced than Harmonious couples, even though Harmonious couples had higher premarital relationship satisfaction scores.     

Enrich marital inventory: a discriminant validity and cross-validation assessment

To assess the validity and clinical utility of the marital inventory ENRICH, a discriminant validity study was conducted using a national sample of 5039 married couples. The sample was randomly split in order to form a cross-validation group. ENRICH is a multidimensional scale and two types of analysis were conducted to assess the value of these various scales. Results from discriminant analysis indicated that using either the individual scores or couples' scores, happily married couples could be discriminated from unhappily married couples with 85–95% accuracy. These results were cross-validated with a second sample. Using regression analysis, it was clearly demonstrated that background factors account for little of the variance in discriminating happy from unhappily married couples compared to their relationship dynamics, i.e., scale scores. All ENRICH scales except equalitarian roles proved significant, indicating the validity of a multidimensional inventory.     

Connecting and Strengthening Young Aboriginal Men: A Family Wellbeing Pilot Study

A significant proportion of young people in Australia are currently not being engaged in school and other social systems. This article presents the results of a mixed-methods study of a pilot Family Wellbeing intervention designed to enhance the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) of young Aboriginal men and improve engagement in education, employment, and other social participation. A questionnaire incorporating the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and respondent self-assessment SEWB questions was administered to program participants pre and post intervention (N = 30) and qualitative data were collected from program organisers (N = 6). The results suggest that the Family Wellbeing intervention has the capacity to make a marked contribution to the SEWB of young Aboriginal men; participants experienced strong improvement in capacity to manage relationships, engagement in education and employment, and mental and physical health. The factors that enabled the program to be adapted to the target group and setting are documented.     

Appropriating Care and Hijacking Desire: Thought and Praxis in Human Services Under 21st Century Capitalism

In this article, we trace the rise of neoliberalism and its impacts on the historical role of human services within the academy and the community. We ask whether we can re-think and re-envision a 21st century academy rooted in the material actualities of daily living and connected in very real ways to the struggles of those Human Services was designed to serve. Finally, we propose that Human Services could have a significant role to play in developing new modes of value that could lead to new modes of thought and new avenues of praxis.     

Early socialization of hostile attribution bias: The roles of parental attributions,parental discipline,and child attributes

The goal of this study was to examine child and parent predictors of children's hostile attribution bias (HAB) with a particular focus on exploring the associations between parents’ early attribution of child misbehavior and children's HAB in the transition to school age. Participants were 241 children (118 girls) of middle‐income families who were at risk for school‐age conduct problems. Multi‐method, multi‐informant data were collected on maternal attributions of child misbehavior, parental use of corporal punishment, and child attributes (i.e., verbal IQ, effortful control, theory of mind, and emotional understanding) at 3 years, and child HAB in ambiguous situations at 6 years. Results indicated that mothers’ internal explanations for children's misconduct may either reduce or increase children's later HAB depending on the specific content of attributions, such that mothers’ belief that children misbehave because of their internal state (i.e., emotional state or temperament) was associated with lower levels of child HAB, whereas attributing power‐based motives (i.e., manipulative, controlling intentions) in children was associated with higher levels of HAB. The findings are discussed with respect to appreciating the complexity of parents’ explanations for children's behavior, and considering parental cognition as a potential target for early identification and prevention of child HAB and related problems.     

Preliminary evaluation of contingent meals and telephone use to improve evidence-supported family therapy session attendance in mothers referred by Child Protective Services for substance abuse

Persons referred by Child Protective Services (CPS) for substance abuse evidence high rates of nonattendance to therapy sessions, taxing systems of care and exacerbating outcomes. This study examined the influence of two telephone-based incentive programs on therapy session attendance in mothers who were referred by CPS for substance abuse. After baseline therapy session attendance was established in an evidence-based clinic that incorporated a telephone engagement intervention (Phase I), participants were provided free cellular telephones with limited minutes and permitted to order free meals delivered by the therapist during upcoming sessions (Phase II). The third phase was similar to Phase II, but participants were provided unlimited minutes. Results indicated that participants’ attendance was significantly improved when meals and cellular telephone minutes were contingent on attendance. Although the percentage of sessions attended by participants during Phase III was higher than Phase II, unlimited minutes and meals did not significantly enhance attendance relative to limited minutes and meals. Session attendance for significant others of these participants was significantly higher during Phase III as compared with Phase I. Session attendance of significant others was statistically similar between Phase I and II and between Phase II and Phase III. Study implications and recommendations for future research and practice are discussed in light of the findings.     

Ideals and Reality: Perceptions of Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships Among Foster Youth

Exploring romantic relationships is a hallmark of adolescence. As dating relationships are often new during this development trajectory, learning how to be in a relationship (e.g., learning healthy communication skills, etc.) is necessary to facilitate positive partnerships during the transition to adulthood. However, foster youth are a group routinely overlooked within the literature on developing positive and healthy relationships. This formative, exploratory study utilizes focus groups and in-depth interviews to understand foster youth perceptions of healthy and unhealthy dating relationships through a social learning theory lens. Findings explore foster youth perceptions of ideal relationships, the realities of their lived relational experiences, as well as the lessons learned that they would like to impart on future generations of foster youth. Implications for research, practice, and policy (e.g., the need for communication skill building, comprehensive sex and relationship education, as well as screenings for dating violence) are also explored.     

Benefits and costs associated with mutual-help community-based recovery homes: The Oxford House model

We used data from a randomized controlled study of Oxford House (OH), a self-run, self-supporting recovery home, to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the program. Following substance abuse treatment, individuals that were assigned to an OH condition (n = 68) were compared to individuals assigned to a usual care condition (n = 61). Economic cost measures were derived from length of stay at an Oxford House residence, and derived from self-reported measures of inpatient and outpatient treatment utilization. Economic benefit measures were derived from self-reported information on monthly income, days participating in illegal activities, binary responses of alcohol and drug use, and incarceration. Results suggest that OH compared quite favorably to usual care: the net benefit of an OH stay was estimated to be roughly $29,000 per person on average. Bootstrapped standard errors suggested that the net benefit was statistically significant. Costs were incrementally higher under OH, but the benefits in terms of reduced illegal activity, incarceration and substance use substantially outweighed the costs. The positive net benefit for Oxford House is primarily driven by a large difference in illegal activity between OH and usual care participants. Using sensitivity analyses, under more conservative assumptions we still arrived at a net benefit favorable to OH of $17,830 per person.     

Missing item imputation for quality-of-life instruments with application to asthma quality-of-life questionnaires

There has been increasing use of quality-of-life (QoL) instruments in drug development. Missing item values often occur in QoL data. A common approach to solve this problem is to impute the missing values before scoring. Several imputation procedures, such as imputing with the most correlated item and imputing with a row/column model or an item response model, have been proposed. We examine these procedures using data from two clinical trials, in which the original asthma quality-of-life questionnaire (AQLQ) and the miniAQLQ were used. We propose two modifications to existing procedures: truncating the imputed values to eliminate outliers and using the proportional odds model as the item response model for imputation. We also propose a novel imputation method based on a semi-parametric beta regression so that the imputed value is always in the correct range and illustrate how this approach can easily be implemented in commonly used statistical software. To compare these approaches, we deleted 5% of item values in the data according to three different missingness mechanisms, imputed them using these approaches and compared the imputed values with the true values. Our comparison showed that the row/column-model-based imputation with truncation generally performed better, whereas our new approach had better performance under a number scenarios.