Counseling Psychology Commons^™

Inferential Style, School Teachers, And Depressive Symptoms In College Students., Caroline M. Pittard, Patrick Pössel, Timothy Lau

Faculty Scholarship

Depressive symptoms affect around half of students at some point during college. According to the hopelessness theory of depression, making negative inferences about stressful events is a vulnerability for developing depression. Negative and socio-emotional teaching behavior can be stressors that are associated with depression in school students. First-time college freshmen completed the Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ), Teaching Behavior Questionnaire (TBQ), and Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). While completing the TBQ, participants reported on a teacher from prior education to college. Multiple regression analysis found significant effects of the independent variables (four teaching behavior types, inferential style, and interactions …

Associations Between Teacher-Reported School Climate And Depressive Symptoms In Australian Adolescents : A 5-Year Longitudinal Study., Patrick Pössel, Christopher Rakes, Kathleen Moritz Rudasill, Michael G. Sawyer, Susan H. Spence, Jeanie Sheffield

Faculty Scholarship

Adolescent depression is serious and common. As adolescents spend approximately 15,000 h in school, this setting is a logical place to seek etiological factors. Research suggests there are negative associations between school climate and adolescent depressive symptoms. However, such studies typically use student reports of both climate and depressive symptoms; this is problematic because common method variance results when the same individual provides information on all variables, contributing to overestimations of associations between depressive symptoms and school climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the association between teacher-reported school climate and adolescent-reported depressive symptoms. Thus, 2545 Australian …

Influences Of Self-Construals And Personality Styles On International Students' Depressive Symptoms., Yu-Yun Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The literature suggested that personality styles (i.e., sociotropy and autonomy; Beck, 1983) are vulnerability factors that could – in interaction with stress - trigger mental health concerns. Culturally influenced self-construals (Kashima, Yamaguchi, Kim, Choi, Gelfand, & Yuki, 1995; Markus & Kitayama, 1991) also detect how individuals function in a sociocultural context. While the number of international students in the U.S. increased over the past decades, their reported mental health concerns warrant more attention. This study explored relationships among self-construals, personality styles, domain-specific stressful life events, and depressive symptoms among international students in the U.S. Participants were 579 international students (identified …

Teaching Behavior Questionnaire : Verifying Factor Structure And Investigating Depressive Symptoms In Catholic Middle And High Schools., Caroline M. Pittard, Patrick Pössel, Rosamond J. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Teaching behavior impacts student psychopathology. This study explored the associations between teaching behavior types and depressive symptoms in students. The Teaching Behavior Questionnaire (TBQ) and the Center for Epidemiological Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D) were completed by 763 middle and 976 high school students from private Catholic schools. In the middle school sample, a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the four-factor structure of the TBQ previously found in public high schools. As predicted, a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) analysis with the high school sample found that only the Negative Teaching Behavior scale of the TBQ was positively related to CES-D …

Do Depressive Symptoms Mediate The Relationship Between Hopelessness And Diurnal Cortisol Rhythm?, Patrick Pössel, Amanda M. Mitchell, Elaine Sjögren, Margareta Kristenson

Faculty Scholarship

Purpose: Research has revealed a well-established relationship of depressive symptoms and hopelessness with a variety of physical illnesses that are associated with a dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis. The purpose of this study was to test if depressive symptoms mediate the relationship between hopelessness and cortisol, a measure of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis. Methods: Hopelessness, depressive symptoms, and diurnal cortisol rhythm were measured in 257 adults (128 women and 129 men; age range: 20-74 years) in this cross-sectional study. To test the hypothesis, two linear regression analyses and asymmetrical confidence intervals around the regression weights were conducted. A second set of analyses was …

Do Depressive Symptoms Predict The Incidence Of Myocardial Infarction Independent Of Hopelessness?, Patrick Pössel, Amanda M. Mitchell, Kimmo Ronkainen, George A. Kaplan, Jussi Kauhanen, Maarit Valtonen

Faculty Scholarship

Depression and hopelessness predict myocardial infarction (MI), but it is unclear whether depression and hopelessness are independent predictors of MI incidents. Hopelessness, depression, and MI incidence rate 18 years later were measured in 2005 men. Cox regressions were conducted with hopelessness and depression serving as individual predictors of MI. Another Cox model examined whether the two predictors predict MI when adjusting for each other. Depression and hopelessness predicted MI in independent regressions but when adjusting for each other, hopelessness, but not depression, predicted MI incidents. Thus, these results suggest that depression and hopelessness are not independent predictors of MI.

Hopelessness The ‘Active Ingredient’? : Associations Of Hopelessness And Depressive Symptoms With Interleukin-6., Amanda M. Mitchell, Patrick Pössel, Elaine Sjögren, Margareta Kristenson

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: Previous research has revealed a relationship of depressive symptoms and hopelessness with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) which are associated with elevated levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6). The objective of this study was to explore whether depressive symptoms and hopelessness are independent predictors of IL-6 levels. Method: Hopelessness, depressive symptoms, and IL-6 were measured in 45 Swedish adults (26 women and 19 men; age range: 31-65 years). Two separated linear regressions were conducted with hopelessness and depressive symptoms serving as individual predictors of IL-6. Another regression analysis examined whether the two predictors predict IL-6 when controlling for each other. The regression coefficients …

A Longitudinal Study Of Cortical Eeg Activity In Adolescents., Patrick Pössel, Hanna Lo, Anna Fritz, Simone Seemann

Faculty Scholarship

Background: The objective of this study is to test Davidson’s, and Heller and Nitschke’s models stating cortical activity in adolescents to be a marker for increased risk for depression.

Methods: Alpha activity was measured in 80 adolescents from medial-frontal (F3/4), lateral-frontal (F7/8), and medial-parietal (P3/4) electrodes, as well as self-reported depression and anxiety twice within 12 months. Stepwise hierarchical regression analyses with anxiety as covariate were calculated with alpha asymmetry as predicting variable and depression as target variable and vice versa.

Results: Independent of whether anxiety was used as covariate or not, frontal and parietal alpha asymmetry predict depression, but …

Impact Of Comorbidity In Prevention Of Adolescent Depressive Symptoms., Patrick Pössel, Simone Seemann, Martin Hautzinger

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the well-known relevance of comorbidity, few studies have examined the impact of comorbid anxiety or externalizing symptoms on the prevention of depressive symptoms in adolescents. To replicate earlier positive effects of a cognitive-behavioral prevention program of depressive symptoms and to test the hypothesis that the prevention program would be less effective in adolescents with comorbid anxiety and externalizing symptoms, a study was conducted involving 301 8th-grade students, randomly divided into an intervention group and a non-intervention control group. The randomized design included baseline, post-intervention, and 6-month follow-up. The prevention program included 10 sessions held in a regular school setting. …