outh in detention are at an increased risk for psychiatric disorders compared with youth in the general population. Hispanic youth have particularly pressing mental health needs in detention and as they age. Studies examining psychiatric disorders among Hispanic youth in detention do not differentiate by ethnicity; rather they consider Hispanics...
Background: Evidence supporting a bidirectional relationship between depression and recurrent cardiovascular disease (CVD) appears strong, but there remains a need to better characterize the role of depression in CVD risk and cardiovascular health (CVH) promotion, especially in the context of comorbid risk factors such as cigarette smoking. In the present...
Evidence-Based Behavioral Practice (EBBP) is a transdisciplinary systematic approach that emphasizes the use of best evidence in combination with clinical expertise, as well as patient preferences and values, to make clinically-informed decisions about care and treatment (Spring, 2007). Despite numerous benefits and strong policy support of EBBP, findings indicate that...
As type 2 diabetes requires complex self-management behaviors to avoid long-term complications, it is crucial that practitioners understand the psychosocial factors that may affect diabetic patients’ chronic disease self-management. Previous literature has identified depression and sleep disturbance as salient psychosocial factors that may impede self-management behaviors and lead to less...
Substance abuse is one of the most critical public health problems affecting juvenile detainees. Previous research suggests that a significant proportion of juvenile detainees with substance use disorders do not receive treatment prior to or during detention. Using data from the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a large-scale longitudinal study of juvenile...
Background: More than 81 percent of African-American women are overweight or obese. In addition to being heavier than Whites, African-Americans have a harder time losing weight and are less likely to engage in physical activity. A growing body of literature suggests several barriers to physical activity that prevent African-American women...
Attendance among families in child psychotherapy is a significant issue in the delivery of mental health services, and a greater understanding of the factors contributing to attrition is needed before interventions can be developed, or modified, to improve engagement. The present study examined relationships between parent cognitions, which included treatment...
Despite its prevalence, cost, and association with high risk for negative outcomes, there is a lack of empirically-based procedures for effective treatment of dual diagnosis in adolescents. The present study attempts to address the need for research informing effective treatment of this population. Strengths have been found to predict positive...
Child psychology research has helped to identify how symptoms and deficits, or psychiatric needs impact the human experience, immediately and across development. Recent investigations indicate that strengths, both those possessed by the individual, and those present in her environment, exert short- and long-term protective influence that buffers the impact of...
Youth with comorbid depression and conduct disorder (CD) in the juvenile justice system are a particularly vulnerable population. Comorbidity of depression and CD, as well as juvenile justice involvement, is associated independently with impairment and negative outcomes. Nevertheless, service provision to this high-need population is especially lacking. The purpose of...
AIMS: This study investigated the longitudinal effects of internal and external housing quality problems on child mental health outcomes, as measured by child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The study also aimed to elucidate the mechanisms through which housing quality problems affect child mental health by testing the mediating effects...
Neurocognitive dysfunction, while common among those with schizophrenia, is thought to be exacerbated in violent individuals with schizophrenia and contribute to the commission of violent acts. Few studies have compared performance on neurocognitive measures between violent and nonviolent schizophrenia samples. Better understanding neurocognitive dysfunction in violent individuals with schizophrenia could...
The National Institute of Mental Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality convened an expert panel to identify the top research priorities in the field of behavioral intervention technology (BIT) research. The panel determined that if BIT research is to evolve in an effective way to reach and...
Background: The tripartite model (Clark & Watson, 1991) has been used to represent the substrates of general distress in both depression and anxiety (Negative affectivity [NA]), while also characterizing specific features of decreased positive affectivity (PA) in depression and increased physiological hyperarousal (PH) in anxiety. Core affect characterizes affect by...
Depression in children and adolescents is a prevalent, recurrent, and frequently chronic disorder, representing a considerable public health burden (Birmaher, Ryan, Williamson, Brent, & Kaufman, 2005; Costello et al., 2002). Consequently, an understanding of the disorder is critical for future intervention and prevention efforts. Previous research attempting to clarify family...
Substance use and substance use disorder (SUD) may be variables that influence the course of HIV/AIDS risk behaviors as youth age. To our knowledge, no prospective longitudinal study has examined the association between categories of substance use disorders including alcohol use disorder alone, marijuana use disorder alone, comorbid drug use...
Patients with the Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) clinical syndrome have diverse forms of neuropathology, one of which is the cellular and molecular abnormalities of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), at post mortem autopsy. Structural anatomical differences might aid in ante mortem differential diagnosis of neuropathology. The studies in this dissertation investigated one...