Digital Commons Network^™

Comparison Of Sport Competitive Anxiety Levels Of Saudi Arabian National Team Athletes With And Without Disabilities In Competitions, Hassan Ahmad Halawani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety in sport is complex and can lead to a number of undesirable consequences such as burnout, performance difficulties, interpersonal problems, and injury. The purpose of this study was to compare whether significant differences existed in the levels of somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption between individuals of the Saudi Arabian national team with and without disabilities in competitions. In addition, differences in somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption were examined between athletes in an individual or team sport. The Sport Anxiety Sale (SAS-2, Smith et. al, 2006) was employed to measure the subscales of somatic anxiety, worry, and consternation …

A Study Of The Link Between Partial Sleep Deprivation And Obesity, Jennifer Pacheco

Honors College Theses

Obesity has become a major health problem with increasing prevalence and is related to multiple medical consequences, such as increased risk for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer (Hasler et al., 2004). Due to the limited availability of effective treatment of weight problems, it is necessary to identify potential risk factors for obesity. One factor that has received increased attention is chronic partial sleep deprivation (<7 hours of sleep a night). The decrease in average sleep duration over the past three to four decades has occurred simultaneously with the increase in the prevalence of obesity. Chronic partial sleep deprivation could be a possible risk factor for obesity, but current understanding of the processes linking sleep deprivation to obesity is incomplete. The research will focus on examining the possible pathways through which partial sleep deprivation contributes to the development of obesity: alterations in metabolic pathways and waking behavior, including eating behavior and physical inactivity. The hypothesis behind the proposed study is that increasing sleep duration in obese individuals who experience partial sleep deprivation will lead to a decreased BMI. Research addressing the possible pathways and targeting the amount of sleep will benefit individuals in preventing and/or treating obesity.

Obstacles To Dieting Behavior, Shahram Heshmat

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Despite documented short term success, dieting has a very low success rates, most dieters regain their weight back within 3-5 years. The question is why do people fail to stick to their goal for eating a healthy diet in order to lose weight? One possible answer is that people have self-control problems in the form of a present-biased preference. From a prior perspective, they want to behave relatively patiently, but as the moment of action approaches, they want to behave relatively impatiently. The essay presents some insights from behavioral economics to explain why people fail to maintain healthy behavior.

Love Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry, But What About Malpractice? A Look At Verbal And Nonverbal Factors Affecting Perceptions Of Apologies In A Medical Malpractice Case, Sarah Thimsen

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Apologies are part of daily life and occur in a variety of contexts. A large body of literature on the effects of apologies indicated that apologies have a positive effect – those receiving apologies have more positive views of the transgressor (e.g., Bornstein, Rung, & Miller, 2002; Goei, Roberty, Meyer, & Carlyle, 1997; Robbennolt, 2003; Sitkin & Beis, 1993; Takaku, 2000). An area of emerging research in the realm of apologies is in the area of medical malpractice. The research presented here sought to expand on the field of apologies, specifically by examining the effects of an apology in a …

The Delivery System Design Of A Community Mental Health Center And Provision Of Quality: Cardiometabolic Screening For Persons With A Severe Mental Illness Prescribed Atypical Antipsychotic Medication, Dawn Marie Vanderhoef

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Background: Persons with a severe mental illness (SMI) prematurely lose up to 25 years of life when compared to the general population. This patient population has increased morbidity and mortality due to higher than normal rates of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Treatment of SMI often includes the use of atypical antipsychotic (AA) medication which has been associated with the development of cardiometabolic illnesses. In response to the higher rates of co-morbid, chronic physical illness, monitoring guidelines for cardiometabolic illness have been published. Despite these guidelines, screening rates for cardiometabolic illness in this population remain low. Neither community mental …

Using Negative Feedback To Guide Behavior: Impairments On The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test Relates To Psychosis, Sally Barney

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There is increasing controversy regarding the distinction between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as separate diagnostic categories because these disorders share many features in common. These and other findings suggest that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia may be better conceptualized along a continuum or within more homogeneous subsets of affective, psychotic, and mixed symptomatology.

Dopamine dysregulation has been found in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, particularly those that experience psychosis during the acute phases of their bipolar illness. Dopamine has been found to play a role in reward and reward learning. Recently, research has found that individuals with schizophrenia experience deficits in reward …

Descriptive Experience Sampling Interactive Multi-Media Training Tool For Subjunctification And Illustrative Interviews, Stacy Lynne Reger

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Modern experience sampling methods attempt to understand the phenomenology of inner experience through a variety of methods, including questionnaires, diaries, and verbalization of ongoing cognitive processes. The goal of such studies is to minimize potential roadblocks to accessing inner experience, such as retrospective recall, memory failures, and bias. The current project focuses on one such method, Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES). DES is an idiographic, exploratory, and ecologically valid method of studying inner experience. In this method, participants wear a beeper with an earphone that emits a random beep. When the beep sounds, the participant is to write down notes about …

The Stress Coping Skills Of Undergraduate Collegiate Aviators, Jennifer Kirschner, John P. Young, Richard Fanjoy, Donald Petrin

Aviation Technology Graduate Student Publications

An important human factors research interest area is error reduction. Although pilots placed in highly stressful situations have an increased chance of making errors, they use coping skills to lower their stress level and reduce the likelihood of errors. Typically, coping skills are conceptually separated into three types: active coping skills change the situation to make it inherently less stressful, emotion-focused coping skills use discussion or thinking about the situation in a different way to diminish the negative emotional reaction associated with the stressful situation, and avoidant coping skills allow one to mentally and/or physically disengage through the use of …

Evaluating The Sustained Psychological Benefits Of On-Site Employee Health Programs, Stephen Spencer Clancy

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The present study was conducted to explore whether employee wellness programs actually promote long term changes in participating employees’ psychological health. Forty four participants were included in the final sample from a large southeastern organization currently offering three different structured wellness programs to its employees. A semi-longitudinal study design was implemented involving three data points over a 5 month time frame. Analyses were conducted to examine factors impacting participation in the programs and the changes those programs have on employees’ perceived levels of stress, psychological well-being, job-satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Results suggest that participation in these programs does result improved …

An Investigation Of The Role Of Experiential Avoidance In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Meaghan M. Lewis

Honors Theses

Experiential avoidance is a construct that researchers have proposed as a possible mediating factor between psychopathology and a prior history of traumatic events. Among the traumatic events investigated in the research literature, experiential avoidance has demonstrated correlations with prior experiences of sexual victimization. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and PTSD symptoms have also been linked with incidence of sexual victimization and engaging in experiential avoidance. Another variable commonly associated with this construct is problematic alcohol consumption. The present study presumed that women with a history of sexual victimization would report high PTSD symptoms, a stronger likelihood of partaking in problem drinking, …

Using Tag To Increase Play Skills, Melissa A. Boggs

Honors Theses

TAG (Teaching with Acoustical Guidance) involves using auditory stimuli as a reinforcer for correct behavior or correct components of a behavior chain. Theoretically, TAG is an effective reinforcer because a click (the auditory stimuli) is paired with back up reinforcers (tangible reinforcers and social praise) and consequently becomes a conditioned reinforcer. The current study assesses the effectiveness of TAG in structured playtime activities in a child diagnosed with autism. The behaviors measured include a receptive identification procedure, an imitative drawing procedure and a paperclip drop procedure. Each of these responses required multiple behaviors to be completed with the paperclip drop …

Activity Choice And Extinction Intervention For Escape Maintained Behavior, Ali M. Markowitz

Honors Theses

Tantrums and non-compliant problem behaviors challenge children diagnosed with autism’s progress in early childhood special education classrooms by interfering with the child’s learning opportunities. Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder causing abnormal or impaired development in social interactions and communication (DSM-IV, 1994). This paper looks at a single case on a preschool aged child diagnosed with autism exhibiting tantrums and problem behaviors. These tantrums and non-compliant problem behaviors included kicking, scratching, screaming, hitting, flopping on to the floor or eloping (leaving the table, chair or work area). One study conducted showed that activity choice intervention decreases the occurrence of problem …

Adolescent Decision Making And Risk Behavior: A Neurobiological Approach, Jennifer M. Wolff

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this study, the neurobiological theory of adolescent decision making and risk taking and the dual-process decision making theory were tested in a sample of college students. Participants responded to questions in a survey about decision making style, socio-emotional processes, cognitive control processes, and deviant peers. The goals of the research were to test the relation between decision making processes (intuitive and deliberative) and risk behaviors, to test the potential overlap between intuitive and deliberative decision making as described in the more traditional dual-process models and the socio-emotional and cognitive control systems of the neurobiological model, and to extend the …

Adjusting For Confounding By Neighborhood Using A Proportional Odds Model And Complex Survey Data, Babette A. Brumback, Amy B. Dailey, Hao W. Zheng

Health Sciences Faculty Publications

In social epidemiology, an individual's neighborhood is considered to be an important determinant of health behaviors, mediators, and outcomes. Consequently, when investigating health disparities, researchers may wish to adjust for confounding by unmeasured neighborhood factors, such as local availability of health facilities or cultural predispositions. With a simple random sample and a binary outcome, a conditional logistic regression analysis that treats individuals within a neighborhood as a matched set is a natural method to use. The authors present a generalization of this method for ordinal outcomes and complex sampling designs. The method is based on a proportional odds model and …

Methamphetamine-Associated Psychosis, Kathleen M. Grant, Tricia D. Le Van, Sandra M. Wells, Ming Li, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Howard E. Gendelman, Gustavo Carlo, Rick A. Bevins

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Methamphetamine (METH) is a frequent drug of abuse in U.S. populations and commonly associated with psychosis. This may be a factor in frequent criminal justice referrals and lengthy treatment required by METH users. Persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations are the most consistent symptoms of METH-associated psychosis (MAP). MAP has largely been studied in Asian populations and risk factors have varied across studies. Duration, frequency and amount of use as well as sexual abuse, family history, other substance use, and co-occurring personality and mood disorders are risk factors for MAP. MAP may be unique with its long duration of psychosis and …

Data Sharing In Neuroimaging Research, Jean-Baptiste Poline, Janis L. Breeze, Satrajit Ghosh, Krzysztof Gorgolewski, Yaroslav O. Halchenko

Dartmouth Scholarship

Significant resources around the world have been invested in neuroimaging studies of brain function and disease. Easier access to this large body of work should have profound impact on research in cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry, leading to advances in the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric and neurological disease. A trend toward increased sharing of neuroimaging data has emerged in recent years. Nevertheless, a number of barriers continue to impede momentum. Many researchers and institutions remain uncertain about how to share data or lack the tools and expertise to participate in data sharing. The use of electronic data capture (EDC) methods …

Early Intervention Of Psychosis And Re! Ections For Programmes In India, Amresh Srivastava

Data and Test Instruments

Mental illness is perhaps the most common and most debilitating among non-communicable diseases. Schizophrenia, for example, normally occurs before the age of 25, affect the most productive years of life. The World Economic Forum graphically illustrates that mental illnesses will be a major contributor to the erosion of gross domestic product over the next 20 years. The developed world has established programs that have proven to be clinically and economically effective and sustainable.[1] Early intervention has played an important role in demonstrating that outcome can be improved if patients are treated in the early phase of illness. It is believed …

Family Psychoeducation In Clinical High Risk And First- Episode Psychosis, William R. Mcfarlane, Sarah Lynch, Ryan P. Melton

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

Seventy percent of those who will have an episode of psychosis will have done so by age 25. Data from clinical trials of intervention during the clinical high risk period of psychosis have determined that the mean age is in mid-adolescence, 16-18 years of age. For those reasons, early intervention inherently involves adolescents, and by extension their parents and other family members and supports. Regarding the type of intervention, it is relevant that the current empirically-derived standard of treatment for schizophrenia, as concluded by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research survey of the treatment outcome literature, includes family …

A Critical Examination Of The Construct Of Perfectionism And Its Relationship To Mental Health In Asian And African Americans Using A Cross-Cultural Framework, Patricia Marten Dibartolo, María José Rendón

Psychology: Faculty Publications

Although the bulk of the research literature on the construct of perfectionism and its relationship to mental health in the last 20 years has focused predominantly on Caucasian American samples, researchers are paying increasing attention to understanding perfectionism's dimensions across ethnicities. Given this momentum, the purpose of this paper is to use a cross-cultural framework to review published studies assessing perfectionism in members of an ethnic minority group living in the United States. Research to date has focused exclusively on Asian and African American samples and we organize our review by separating this literature into those studies that use level …

Evidence-Based Medicine Versus Personalized Medicine: Are They Enemies?, Jose De Leon

Psychiatry Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Water Pipe Smoking Amongst The University And College Students Of Karachi, Pakistan, Shehla Batool Jaffri, Aisha Yousuf, Waris Qidwai

Department of Family Medicine

Background:

An extensive literature search revealed that water pipe smoking is an emerging health risk and deserves the attention of health professionals. This study was therefore undertaken to determine the frequency of water pipe smoking among students in college and universities of Pakistan and to assess the practices, knowledge and attitude towards water pipe smoking among them.

Method:

A cross sectional survey was conducted in the College and Universities of Karachi, Pakistan from April 2009 to October 2009. Students were selected through non probability sampling and given self administered questionnaire after the informed consent.

Result:

A total …

Motivation And Loss Aversion In The Health Savings Account Paradigm, Michael Holtje

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This investigation examined the role of “loss aversion” and consumers’ motivational orientations in the context of healthcare purchasing under the individual account paradigm and the defined benefit (insurance) paradigm. Specifically, this dissertation investigated (1) whether Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) encourage more prudent health care spending compared to traditional health insurance plans and (2) the impact of individuals' motivational preferences (either towards “gains” or towards “losses”) between decision tasks under each type of health plan.

Three experiments varied the type of healthcare plan that consumers had and the manner in which they received information (either as a “gain” or “loss”). The …

Teaching Language To Children With Developmental Disabilities Using Combined Direct Reinforcement And Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing, Brighid Helene Fronapfel-Sonderegger

Dissertations

Several researchers have used stimulus-stimulus pairing (the pairing of speech sounds with established reinforcers) to increase the frequency of specific vocalizations in children with disabilities. However, only a few addressed the utility of stimulus-stimulus pairing to increase functional language, and none combined stimulus-stimulus pairing and direct reinforcement. The present study combined stimulus-stimulus pairing and direct reinforcement to successfully teach 2 to 10 functional mands in 21–49 7-minute sessions with four children with developmental disabilities with low verbal repertoires. Following mand training, two children were taught 10 tacts for pictures using the combined direct reinforcement and stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure in a …

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Thinnest Of Them All?, Ann Marie O'Brien

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Societal standards of feminine beauty are presented in all forms of popular culture, thus bombarding women with images that portray what our society considers to be the “ideal body type.” These images, as seen on the cover of magazines, in popular films and in all forms of web and print advertising, are consistently depicted and easily described with one word: skinny. The regular use of unnatural, unhealthy and unrealistic models sends the implicit message that in order for a woman to be beautiful, she must attain this ultra-thin physique. Such adulation of these images encourages women to sacrifice their health …

Research Brief: "Military Training And Personality Trait Development: Does The Military Make The Man, Or Does The Man Make The Military?", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about whether students who join the military in Germany have a difference in personality compared to those who do not, and whether military service changes service members' personalities. In practice and policy, policymakers should consider how military experience affects service members' long-term health and well-being. Suggestions for future research include also studying female service members and expanding the sample to other countries to see whether the same effects occur in other countries' military personnel.

Does Emotional Memory Enhancement Assist The Memory-Impaired?, Lucas S. Broster, Lee X. Blonder, Yang Jiang

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

We review recent work on emotional memory enhancement in older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer dementia (AD) and evaluate the viability of incorporating emotional components into cognitive rehabilitation for these groups. First, we identify converging evidence regarding the effects of emotional valence on working memory in healthy aging. Second, we introduce work that suggests a more complex role for emotional memory enhancement in aging and identify a model capable of unifying disparate research findings. Third, we survey the neuroimaging literature for evidence of a special role for the amygdala in MCI and early AD in …

The American Psychiatric Association’S Guideline For Major Depressive Disorder: A Commentary, Lisa Cosgrove, Allen F. Shaughnessy, Emily E. Wheeler, Kirsten E. Austad, Irving Kirsch, Harold J. Bursztajn

Counseling, School Psychology & Sport Faculty Publication Series

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) published a new guideline for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) which will undoubtedly be used by many practitioners to guide clinical decision-making. In fact, it is non-psychiatrist clinicians who prescribe the majority of antidepressants (AD). We review the APA’s most recent guideline on MDD and report on our observations.

Drug Dosage Individualization Based On A Random-Effects Linear Model, Francisco J. Diaz, Myladis R. Cogollo, Edoardo Spina, Vincenza Santoro, Diego M. Rendon, Jose De Leon

Psychiatry Faculty Publications

This article investigates drug dosage individualization when the patient population can be described with a random-effects linear model of a continuous pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic response. Specifically, we show through both decision-theoretic arguments and simulations that a published clinical algorithm may produce better individualized dosages than some traditional methods of therapeutic drug monitoring. Since empirical evidence suggests that the linear model may adequately describe drugs and patient populations, and linear models are easier to handle than the nonlinear models traditionally used in population pharmacokinetics, our results highlight the potential applicability of linear mixed models to dosage computations and personalized medicine.

A Comparison Of Dsm-Iv And Dsm-5 Panel Members’ Financial Associations With Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists, Lisa Cosgrove, Sheldon Krimsky

Counseling, School Psychology & Sport Faculty Publication Series

All medical subspecialties have been subject to increased scrutiny about the ways by which their financial associations with industry, such as pharmaceutical companies, may influence, or give the appearance of influencing, recommendations in review articles and clinical practice guidelines. Psychiatry has been at the epicenter of these concerns, in part because of high-profile cases involving ghostwriting and failure to report industry-related income, and studies highlighting conflicts of interest in promoting psychotropic drugs. The revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), scheduled for publication in May 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), has created a firestorm of controversy …

Recommendations For The Use Of Common Outcome Measures In Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Research, Stephen R. Mccauley, Elisabeth A. Wilde, Vicki A. Anderson, Gary Bedell, Sue R. Beers, Thomas F. Campbell, Sandra B. Chapman, Linda Ewing-Cobbs, Joan P. Gerring, Gerard A. Gioia, Harvey S. Levin, Linda J. Michaud, Mary R. Prasad, Bonnie R. Swaine, Lyn S. Turkstra, Shari L. Wade, Keith O. Yeates

Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Faculty Publications

This article addresses the need for age-relevant outcome measures for traumatic brain injury (TBI) research and summarizes the recommendations by the inter-agency Pediatric TBI Outcomes Workgroup. The Pediatric Workgroup's recommendations address primary clinical research objectives including characterizing course of recovery from TBI, prediction of later outcome, measurement of treatment effects, and comparison of outcomes across studies. Consistent with other Common Data Elements (CDE) Workgroups, the Pediatric TBI Outcomes Workgroup adopted the standard three-tier system in its selection of measures. In the first tier, core measures included valid, robust, and widely applicable outcome measures with proven utility in pediatric TBI from …