Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

Psychological Well-Being In Childhood And Cardiometabolic Risk In Middle Adulthood: Findings From The 1958 British Birth Cohort, Julia K. Boehm, Farah Qureshi, Laura D. Kubzansky

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Childhood adversity is linked to poor cardiometabolic outcomes, but less is known about positive childhood factors. Using data from 4,007 members of the 1958 British Birth Cohort, we investigated whether children with greater psychological well-being had lower adulthood cardiometabolic risk. At age 11, participants wrote essays about their future. Two judges rated each essay for nine psychological well-being items (Finn’s r = .82–.91), which were combined into a standardized overall score (Cronbach’s α = .91). When participants reached age 45, nurses assessed their blood pressure, heart rate, lipids, glycosylated hemoglobin, fibrinogen, and C-reactive protein, which were standardized and summed for …

Effects Of Chronic Stress On Safety Processing And Physiology In The Medial Prefrontal-Amygdala-Basal Forebrain Circuit, Itamar S. Grunfeld

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chronic stress increases generalization of fear to non-threatening cues, a key symptom in numerous psychiatric mood disorders. However, the mechanisms through which stress impacts safety learning remain poorly understood. To probe the relationship between stress and safety learning, this dissertation employed multiple behaviors, in conjunction with in-vivo multisite physiology during explicit safety and fear discrimination learning. In Chapter 1, I outline the role of chronic stress in driving neurological adaptations that result in generalized fear and highlight how this occurs because of impaired safety cue encoding. In Chapter 2, I show that chronic stress in the form of social defeat …

Preexisting Sexual Trauma And The Impacts On Psychological Well-Being Of College Students, Victoria Johnson

Dissertations

Childhood sexual abuse appears to be a taboo topic with a long history of being left out of the discussion regarding mental health in adulthood despite the varied and devastating consequences. The overall lack of research on this topic, especially regarding the college student population, can be considered a barrier to treatment for those individuals. The current literature review attempts to fill the research gap by discussing the epidemiology, prevalence, and description of preexisting sexual trauma in college students. The potential negative effects of preexisting sexual trauma and how they occur with college students were explored to highlight how pervasive …

Utility Of The Motivation To Change Lifestyle And Health Behaviors For Dementia Risk Reduction Scale (Mclhb-Drr) Based On A North American Sample, Angelina E. Witbeck

Dissertations

As the population ages, the prevalence rates of dementia continue to increase. Without a cure or promising treatment for dementia, the best course of lowering the prevalence rates of dementia is through preventative measures. Through an electronic survey, the study utilized the MCLHB-DRR scale to determine whether (1) gender, age, educational background, and socioeconomic status will impact the motivational factors to change lifestyle and health behaviors to reduce the risk of developing dementia and (2) direct experiences with individuals that have a dementia diagnosis are likely to impact one's motivational factors to change lifestyle and health behaviors to reduce the …

A Description Of Impostor Phenomenon In Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesiologists, Jeffrey R. Darna

Dissertations

Background: Imposter Phenomenon (IP) is an evolving, multidimensional construct defined as self-perceived intellectual phoniness and professional ineptitude frequently experienced by individuals working in high performance or competitive environments. IP consequences include psychological distress, role under-optimization, and professional paralysis. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesiologists (CRNAs) are at risk for impostorism; however, IP presence, intensity, and career effects are unknown.

Purpose: The study measured IP in CRNAs and determined the relationship between IP and select sociodemographic and practice variables.

Methods:

Design: A descriptive, cross-sectional correlation design measured IP using an Internet-based survey from a random sample of 170 members of the American …

A Qualitative Study On Nurse Facilitators Of Mind-Body Skills Groups, Paula D. Blake-Beckford

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), founded by Dr. James Gordon, provides communities with evidence-based Mind-Body Skills Groups (MBSGs) that foster self-care, self-awareness, and self-expression. MBSGs range from 8 to 12-week series on various mind-body practices wherein group members meet, practice, and reflect on the impact of mind-body skills in their lives. Research has demonstrated that participants in MBSGs have positive outcomes. Healthcare professionals (HCPs), especially nurses, gain resiliency from MBSGs. As facilitators of MBSGs, nurses develop essential skills transferable to clinical and educational settings. MBSGs are therapeutic for adult participants with chronic stress. Prior to this thesis, only one …

Moving Through Loss: The Experience Of Ambiguous Loss With Hospitalized Children, The Development Of A Method, Peyton Edington

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The current method examined the effects of ambiguous loss with medical transplant patients in a pediatric hospital by utilizing a dance/movement therapy intervention. The development of this method was based on ambiguous loss theory with a dance/movement therapy approach. The explored literature identified central themes of ambiguous loss, such as resilience. These themes were connected to the practice of dance/movement therapy, such as embodiment. With this connection, the intervention was developed and implemented with participants. The central themes that emerged from the intervention were change, loss, meaning-making, and hope. One child and two adolescents were participants in this intervention, and …

Using Animal As Metaphor In Drama Therapy With Psychiatric Patients In An Intensive Outpatient Program Group Therapy Session: An Intervention, Juliana Fort

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Drama therapy may be uniquely suited to help people with mental illness who have negative beliefs about what it means to be mentally ill. It focuses on helping the individual expand their sense of what a person with mental illness can be, as well as their awareness of the other roles they may play in their lives. In the current study, the author developed a drama therapy intervention for psychiatric patients in an intensive outpatient program (IOP). The intervention uses pre-made cards that depict images of various animals. During the intervention, the participants were asked to discuss how they handle …

Healing Our Connection With Nature: An Expressive Arts Community Engagement Project, Meghan Mccrillis

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

A community engagement project was created and implemented, comprised of two events for which the author facilitated nature-based expressive arts experiences to explore the integration of nature and expressive arts therapy. The events were offered to two different groups of community members, one for nature-curious adults held outdoors on the trails of a local conservation trust, and another for young children at a local library. The healing impact of nature connection and nature connection experiences are explored through a literature review, event methods, and the author’s personal experiences of the project via artmaking. The results include an emphasis on nature …

Can Hope Be Primed In Chronic Pain? A Clinical Application Of Health Priming, Brenda Stockdale

Educational Studies Dissertations

ABSTRACT

It is recognized that nonintentional, automatic processing shapes physical health and well-being in critical ways. Conditioning––or priming––has been shown to influence attitude, beliefs, agency, behavior, and medical outcomes. Although expectations and beliefs correlate strongly with physical health, research in clinical application is needed, and studies on hope, as related to agency, in chronic pain are rare. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether, in a chronic pain sample (N = 154), hope could be primed via a Pain Neuroscience Educational (PNE) tutorial. A pre- and post-test intervention study consisting of two randomized parallel groups was designed …

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

Intercorrelations Between Essentialist Beliefs And The Social Identities Of Religion, Political Affiliation, And Nationality, Truman Deree

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In this study, I investigated the relationships between political identity, religious identity, and national identity, as well as related attitudes about essentialism. I hypothesized that having essentialist attitudes about one identity group will correlate with having essentialist attitudes about other identities. I also predicted that the more important an identity is to one’s sense of self, the more likely they will be to hold essentialist attitudes about that identity. Finally, I predicted that having a Republican identity positively correlates with essentialist views of one’s national identity. In this paper, I discuss the theoretical basis, as well as the method, sampling …

A Life Lived With Schizophrenia: When Mother’S Love Is Kept In The Dark Exploring Maternal Communication And Attachment Organization In Families With Schizophrenia, Myrsini Stefanidou Marini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, research into the transgenerational transmission of attachment styles has shown that a mother’sattachment style often predicts the attachment style of her infant. Fearsome parental behavior has been found to predict disorganized attachment in infants, which is further associated with a range of mental health disturbances in adolescence. Furthermore, regular patterns of disturbed communication between mother and child have also been found to lead to ‘schizophrenic’ thinking and behavior in the child’s life. While acknowledging that genetic and other biological factors contribute to the emergence of schizophrenia, this study focused on disorganized attachment and disturbed communication between mother …

Effects Of Music Exposure On Autobiographical Memory In Alzheimer's Patients: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Gregory Vance

Honors Theses

The progression of Alzheimer’s disease is primarily characterized by a loss of memory concerning past events, as well as a lack in ability to create new memories. While this spans across many subsets of memory, such as recognition, recall, and autobiographical memory, there seems to be a lesser impact on musical memory in those with Alzheimer’s. Multiple studies have suggested that exposure to music and introduction of music therapy can even improve other aspects of memory in Alzheimer’s patients. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to examine the relationship between music exposure and autobiographical memory specifically. A pool of electronic …

The Role Of Corticothalamic Projections (Prelimbic Cortex To Nucleus Reuniens) In Working Memory, Phillip Kumpf, Paul C. Kumpf, S. D. Dunn, Evan Ciacciarelli, T. Gohar, Timothy Sloand, Mark Niedringhaus, Elizabeth West

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Working memory (WM) is the ability to store information for short periods of time and is used to execute tasks

WM has been understood to work via the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and dorsal hippocampus (dHPC), but they do not directly project to each other

The nucleus reuniens of the thalamus (Re) is a “middle man” between the mPFC and dHPC

There are projections between the prelimbic cortex (PrL) and Re that may be used during WM

To test the connection of the PrL to Re, a delayed nonmatch to position (DNMTP) task was performed

Neuronal Activity Within The Ventral Tegmental Area Is Correlated With Cocaine-Seeking Behavior In Male, But Not Female, Rats, Colton D. Spencer, Nicole M. Hinds, Ireneusz D. Wojtas, Desta M. Pulley, Daniel Manvich

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

The objective of this study was to begin to determine the neurobiological underpinnings of psychosocial stress-induced cocaine seeking. Social defeat stress, achieved using the well-established resident-intruder procedure, is an ecologically-valid psychosocial stressor in rodents that may more closely recapitulate those psychosocial experiences that elicit cocaine craving and relapse in human cocaine users. Our laboratory has developed a model of psychosocial stress-induced relapse in rats in which extinguished cocaine seeking is reinstated by re-exposure to a discrete cue that signals impending social defeat stress. We previously reported that an individual rat’s predilection towards the display of active coping behaviors during prior …

An Interesting Case Of Factitious Disorder Superimposed On Self: Factitious Disorder Vs Somatic Symptom Disorder, Michaela Margolis, Logan Noone, Jessica Baaklini

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Factitious disorder superimposed on self (FDIS) was first described in 1951by Richard Asher, who associated the disorder with Baron Munchhausen, who narrated unrealistic and exaggerated stories about his life.

Suspicion for FDIS should be raised when patients with atypical presentations of medical disorders seek excessive use of healthcare services despite ongoing lack of clinical evidence. Patients with FDIS often demand hospitalization for their symptoms, leading to unnecessary tests and treatments. These patients show signs of pathological lying, deceitfulness, are obstinate with medical staff, and display erratic behavior. When medical investigation does not support their symptoms, patients often develop new “symptoms” …

Seizure To Drug Induced Schizophrenia: A Rare Case Of Keppra-Induced Psychosis, Shadi Shams, Riddhima Issar, Nardin El-Shammaa, Munaza Khan

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Levetiracetam is a broad-spectrum antiseizure medication and is approved as adjunctive therapy to treat focal-onset seizures in children and adults with epilepsy. Levetiracetam has a wide margin of safety and patient-friendly pharmacokinetics that distinguish it from other currently available antiepileptic drugs.

Most common side effects are fatigue, somnolence, dizziness, and upper respiratory infection. Neuropsychiatric symptoms are reported. Psychotic symptoms, paranoid ideation, hallucinations, and behavioral problems may occur in adult and pediatric patients. Among all adverse effects, the rate of psychosis is very low and ranges from less than 1% to 1.4%. A retrospective study showed that this rate is higher …

Impact Of Body Mass Index And Body Fat Percentage On Subjective Weight Status, Kelly Staples, Adarsh Gupta

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

• In the United States, the prevalence of obesity in adults is 42.4% of the population
• Body mass index (BMI) is the most frequently used tool to screen and assess for obesity
• BMI fails to account for body composition and body fat percentage (BFP)
• The objective of our study is to assess for understanding of BMI, BFP, and how these two measures are related to self-perception of body mass.
• Findings showed positive correlations between BMI, gender, and perception of body figure

The Effects Of Wearing A Mask On An Exercise Regimen, Ryan Gericke, Adarsh Gupta

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Implementation of masks has impacted everyone worldwide

Properly wearing a mask requires covering both mouth and nose, putting a barrier between air and lungs

Exercise relies on cardiopulmonary function, so this barrier could potentially exacerbate the already altered physiology due to exercise alone

It is predicted that the addition of a mask will have negative implications on physiology

If there is evidence that people do not work out as effectively while wearing a mask, it would be important to find other ways to keep people physically active

The Brain Scan As Ideograph, Paige Welsh

English (MA) Theses

Medical imaging devices have enabled doctors to render images of the brain without cutting into the body. These images are colloquially called “brain scans.” Through journalism and mass dissemination online, brain scans have become an example of Michael Calvin McGee’s “ideograph,” a language term that subtly takes on outsized political and symbolic meaning to enforce state power. In conversation with theories of new materialism, I situate the brain scan as an ideograph within Jenny Edbauer’s model of rhetorical ecologies. The rhetorical force of the brain scan comes out of a collision between René Descarte’s mind/body dualism, the medical model of …

Examining The Veteran Experience Following Separation From Service: A Review Of Literature, Seth Cobb

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Transitioning from servicemember to civilian is a complex process that many Americans undergo each year. This manuscript examines the psychosocial challenges that servicemembers encounter in their transition to civilian life. In contemporary data, there are numerous explorations of the barrier’s veterans face. However, there are far fewer analyses of why these barriers manifest and how to treat and prevent them. This review seeks to unveil a greater understanding of these barriers, resulting in more transparent exploration of their origins, meaning, and resolution.

Caregiver-Child Conversations About Sex In African American Women, Hannah King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using grounded theory methods, this study examines the experience of African American women during their caregiver-child conversations about sex and the impacts of the conversations on their sexual attitudes. The process of these conversations begins with an unplanned topic and progresses further to identify six essential themes of these conversations: gender differences, race and religion, protective/emphasis on protection, lack of knowledge, withholding knowledge, and sex negativity/shame. African American women’s description of the process included feelings of shame and negativity towards their sexuality. Caregivers promoted positive messages about sex by having open conversations that advocated for equality between the genders, empower …

Adolescent Dating Violence: Attachment Style And Parents' Unhealthy Marital Relationship As Possible Predictors, Karli Spann

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study tests whether insecure attachment style and parents’ modeling of unhealthy relationships predict adolescent dating violence (ADV) victimization. Also tested was the possible moderating role of secure attachment on the relation between parental modeling of unhealthy relationships and ADV victimization. It was hypothesized that insecure attachment and parental modeling of unhealthy relationships would individually be associated with increased ADV victimization, and secure attachment would attenuate the predicted positive association between parental modeling of unhealthy relationships and ADV victimization. Participants were adolescents (N = 152, M age = 15.61 years, SD = 1.086, 74.3% girls), who completed a survey …

Implications For Global And Local Visual Processing In Individuals With Learning Disabilities, Riya Mody

Psychology Student Papers and Posters

Visual processing in humans is done by integrating and updating multiple streams of global and local sensory input. When this is not done smoothly, it becomes difficult to see the “big picture”, which has been found to have implications on emotion recognition, social skills, and conversation skills in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other learning disabilities. Previous research in this field has aimed to direct ASD patients toward normative processing of the global features by developing and evaluating a filter which is intended to decrease local interference, or the prioritization of local details. This work attempts to utilize …

Children Of Divorce Parents Group Manual, Sheyenne Hokit

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Divorce is something that is, unfortunately, becoming a commonality for a lot of children, and due to the complexity of divorce, many children struggle when trying to understand divorce and how it affects them. Some effects of divorce are various emotional and behavioral issues such as increased anger and decreased emotion regulation. Social, health, and academic concerns were also found. Counseling interventions like narrative therapy, emotion-focused family therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and play therapy were found to be effective with this population (Hirschfeld & Wittenborn, 2016, Thomas & Gibbons, 2009). The identified interventions provide peer-based social support, education on the misconceptions …

An Exploration Of Psychological Trauma And Positive Adaptation In Adults With Congenital Heart Disease During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Liza Morton Dr, Calum Calderwood, Nicola Cogan, Claire Murphy, Evan Nix, Jacek Kolacz Dr

Patient Experience Journal

The growing population of adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) often have lifelong experience of dealing with potentially traumatic health crises and medical uncertainty whilst facing increased vulnerability to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The COVID-19 pandemic presents additional challenges for this population including increased risk of health complications, shielding and strict social distancing, changes to medical care provision and social stigma. Despite such challenges, adults with CHD have the potential to also experience positive changes, yet little is known as to what helps cultivate positive adaptation and post-traumatic growth (PTG) within this context. The current study comprised a cross-sectional, anonymous, …

Understanding Factors Associated With Clinician Confidence To Identify And Treat Ptsd And Complex Ptsd, Parad Meier

Counseling and Psychology Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This dissertation explores mental health clinicians’ experiences and self-identified confidence to identify and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD. PTSD is a highly prevalent mental health condition that impacts an estimated 24.4 million individuals in the United States (PTSD United, 2019). Complex PTSD has just emerged for the first time with official diagnostic criteria in the publication of the ICD-11 in 2019 for use beginning in January 2022 (WHO, 2019). There is very little existing research that considers the experience or confidence of clinicians who work with clients who have PTSD and Complex PTSD, which is troubling …

Free Will Without Consciousness?, Liad Mudrik, Inbal Gur Arie, Yoni Amir, Yarden Shir, Pamela Hieronymi, Uri Maoz, Timothy O'Connor, Aaron Schurger, Manuel Vargas, Tillman Vierkant, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Adina Roskies

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Findings demonstrating decision-related neural activity preceding volitional actions have dominated the discussion about how science can inform the free will debate. These discussions have largely ignored studies suggesting that decisions might be influenced or biased by various unconscious processes. If these effects are indeed real, do they render subjects’ decisions less free or even unfree? Here, we argue that, while unconscious influences on decision-making do not threaten the existence of free will in general, they provide important information about limitations on freedom in specific circumstances. We demonstrate that aspects of this long-lasting controversy are empirically testable and provide insight into …

Professional Quality Of Life In Respiratory Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Study Of The Prevalence And Predictors For Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, And Secondary Traumatic Stress, Sarah Pehlke

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Background: Research on professional quality of life (QOL) variables in healthcare providers proliferated following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that caregiving careers have positive and negative effects (Beck, 2011). Insufficient research describes these effects in respiratory therapists (RTs), a group of healthcare practitioners who often work in high-stress situations and provide care to high-acuity patient populations.

Purpose: This study evaluated the prevalence and predictors of professional QOL factors, compassion satisfaction (CS), burnout, and secondary traumatic stress (STS), in staff RTs in the United States.

Methods: RTs were invited to participate in a cross-sectional survey evaluating demographics, workplace …