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Parental Burnout: An Investigation of Burnout in Parents of Children with Misophonia
No full textParental burnout is a relatively new construct that has been explored among various parent populations. The current study examined parental burnout in the context of parenting a child with misophonia. Specifically, the current study investigated the relationship between parental burnout and (1) the severity of children’s misophonia symptoms, (2) family accommodation, and (3) parental psychopathology. A sample of 48 youths and their parents participated in a treatment trial for misophonia, completing self-report questionnaires at baseline and post-treatment. Results indicated that family accommodation and parental worry symptoms were both significantly associated with parental burnout at baseline. Neither children’s misophonia severity, nor parental depressive, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive symptoms, were associated with parental burnout at baseline. Additionally, changes in misophonia severity from pre- to post-treatment were not correlated with changes in parental burnout. Changes in parental burnout from pre- to post-treatment were also not correlated with any parental psychiatric symptoms. These findings provide evidence that parents who accommodate their children’s symptoms and who experience greater worry may also experience higher parental burnout. Psychoeducation should be provided to parents about these relationships, in an effort to reduce the likelihood that parents of youth with misophonia become burnt out. This research also highlights the importance of developing interventions to reduce parental burnout
Mind-Body Connection, Self-Esteem, and Social Support as Predictors of Recovery From Anorexia Nervosa
No full textEating disorders (EDs) remain difficult to treat and anorexia nervosa (AN) is the most lethal psychiatric disorder. There is not a standardized definition of ED recovery among researchers or practitioners, but a holistic approach that evaluates physical, psychological, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of recovery is recommended. Social support and self-esteem have been established as factors that contribute to the development, maintenance, and recovery from EDs. Mind-body connection is an understudied variable in relation to ED recovery, but emerging research has linked improvements in mind-body connection to improvements in body image, body satisfaction, and decreased ED pathology. This study explored the relationships among self-esteem, social support, mind-body connection, and eating disorder recovery in 137 women aged 18 to 39 with a diagnosis of AN. Correlational analyses were run to examine the relationship between all variables and several hierarchical regression analyses were run to determine if additional variance in recovery would be explained with the addition of a mind-body connection measure. Results indicated that body dissociation, but not body awareness, was correlated with recovery and mind-body connection did not add to the variance in ED recovery. Implications, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed
Saints in Caesar’s Household: Spirituality’s Impact on Self Perceptions of Leaders in Public Institutions
No full textThe current global environment is full of what appears to be relentless crises causing the urgent need for new models for effective leadership in the public sector. Not only do leaders require explicit skills in responding to the complexity of concerns but operating in this environment demands leaders who have a reservoir from which to nourish and nurture themselves. Spirituality is one such reservoir. A major emphasis of the literature on spirituality in the workplace has been on spirituality’s positive impact on organizational reality, management processes, and leadership. However, as important a role as spirituality can play, its place in the workplace may be in danger because of postmodernism, which cultivates the belief that religion has failed humanity. This phenomenological study sought to understand how public sector leaders with a Christian spirituality express their spirituality at work and how the anti-religion sentiments of postmodernism may hinder full expression. The findings of this study were framed within van Dierendonck’s conceptual model of servant leadership. The data in this study were obtained through interviews with public administrators in the New York City metropolitan area, a focus group of retired and former public administrators, and a review of websites and relevant documents. The researcher presented six findings: Christian ethos, prayer to do the right thing, prayer, community, and bible scripture to build resiliency, protected class in practice, directly addressing moral dilemmas, and servant leadership
The Impact of Tenure Status on the Perception of Shared Governance in Higher Education
No full textCurrent literature shows a trend away from hiring faculty on a tenure line and instead hiring full-time non-tenure track faculty. Full-time non-tenure track faculty are becoming the majority base of the full-time faculty. It is unclear how this new majority of full-time non-tenure track faculty perceive shared governance at their respective institutions. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between shared governance and tenure. Understanding the impact of a faculty’s tenure status on the faculty’s perceptions of shared governance will be quite important given the current hiring shift that is happening in higher education. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Committee T developed and approved a survey called the Indicators of Shared Governance (IOSG). This survey helps to assess how universities compare to the national standards for shared governance in higher education (ISOG, 2001). This committee’s survey was modified and used in this study to assess the state of shared governance based on faculty status at the universities that were selected. The survey was sent to the top 20 colleges/universities that met the criteria and were ranked in the US News and World Reports Best Regional Universities North Rankings. This study had 291 participants that were split into two groupings, Tenure/Tenure Track (TT) and Full-Time Non-Tenure Track Faculty (FTNTTF). The FTNTTF group only had 14 respondents from the survey. This study found that regardless of tenure status, both groups of faculty (tenured and non-tenured) shared similar views on all questions. Regardless of the tenure status, each question showed that the views of the tenured/tenure track (TT) group and that of the full-time non-tenure-track faculty (FTNTTF) group had consistent understanding of shared governance across each area. There were no statically significant differences between the groups on any of the four research questions
Boredom–Not So Boring: An Investigation of Trait Boredom’s Relationship With Impairment and Psychopathology in Children
No full textTrait boredom—which represents the tendency to perceive life as boring and experience boredom frequently and/or intensely—is a robust predictor of functional impairment and psychopathology and particularly connected to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, trait boredom has not been studied in children under the age of 10 years, who may be more vulnerable to experiencing episodes of boredom and have a high prevalence of ADHD. Moreover, initial evidence indicates that difficulties tolerating boredom may strengthen trait boredom’s associations with deleterious outcomes, although this has received limited attention. Thus, the goal of this investigation was to elucidate the relationships among trait boredom, boredom intolerance, functional impairment, and psychopathology in youth ages 6.0–9.9 years. Aim 1 focused on a community sample of school-age children and served as a natural first step in illuminating the putative role of boredom in adverse outcomes in this age range. Aim 2 focused on youth with clinically elevated ADHD symptoms and served to assess boredom’s clinical relevance in this population. The study involved collection of cross-sectional parent-report data through an online participant crowdsourcing platform. Findings showed that after controlling for demographic covariates, trait boredom positively predicted functional impairment, internalizing disorder symptoms, and disruptive behavior disorder symptoms in the community sample of youth. Further, those with clinically elevated ADHD symptoms had higher levels of trait boredom compared to those without, and trait boredom positively predicted functional impairment and psychiatric symptoms in youth with clinically elevated ADHD symptoms, even after controlling for demographic covariates and core symptoms of ADHD. Although boredom intolerance did not moderate trait boredom’s associations with impairment and psychopathology, it was positively correlated with many of the variables, independently and positively predicted functional impairment and psychiatric symptoms in several exploratory regression analyses, and was higher in those with clinically elevated ADHD symptoms compared to those without. Results from the present investigation suggest that trait boredom and boredom intolerance are associated with morbidity at a young age and should be considered in prevention and intervention efforts
Associations Between Neighborhood Context and Mental Health Among Youth of Color: Sleep as a Moderator
No full textMental health is a crucial aspect of an adolescent of color’s well-being. There are contextual factors and bio-physiological factors that may be related to mental health in adolescence. Informed by various theoretical frameworks, the current study aims to explore the association between neighborhood walkability and neighborhood disadvantage with anxiety and depression in youth of color, while also assessing the moderating influences of sleep in this relationship. The present study is a secondary analysis of data drawn from the Adolescent Sleep Study. Participants were 9th-grade high school students (T1: N = 350) recruited from five high schools in New York. Measures of neighborhood walkability, neighborhood disadvantage, sleep quality, sleep duration, sleep hygiene, depression, and anxiety were assessed. The results suggest that highly walkable neighborhoods were associated with higher levels of depression in adolescents of color with poor sleep quality (compared to adolescents with good sleep quality). This finding highlights the importance of situational factors when assessing neighborhood walkability in relation to mental health outcomes such as depression as the quality of adolescents’ walks in New York City may explain the results. Future studies should consider both objective and subjective measures of the neighborhood context when exploring its association with adolescent mental health and sleep
Robust Demographically-Adjusted Normative Data for Unsupervised, Self-Administration of the Cogstate Brief Battery
No full textExisting normative data for the Cogstate Brief Battery (CBB) are non-robust, non-regression-based, and only adjust for age. The aims of the present study were to examine the effects of age, gender, education, and ethnocultural group on individual subtests of the unsupervised, self-administration of the CBB; to develop robust, demographically-adjusted normative data for the CBB; and to compare participants’ rates of impairment based on the new robust, demographically-adjusted CBB normative data versus the existing, non-robust, age-adjusted CBB normative data. A sample of 14,920 ethnoculturally diverse, cognitively unimpaired, community-dwelling adult participants completed the unsupervised, self-administered CBB through their participation in the longitudinal Brain Health Registry study. Results revealed significant independent effects of age, gender, education, and ethnocultural group on performance for all four CBB subtests, with the exception of gender not demonstrating an independent effect on performance on the One Card Learning (visual learning) subtest. Following development and application of robust, demographically-adjusted normative equations, demographic variables showed minimal, nonsignificant effects on all robust CBB T-scores and T-score composites. In comparison to impairment rates based on robust CBB T-scores, impairment rates based on non-robust, age-adjusted CBB z-scores showed significantly different rates of impairment in at least four CBB outcome measures for each individual demographic group. The present study offers potential for increasing the clinical utility of a remotely administered, brief cognitive test battery. The advantages of remote cognitive assessment, including increased access, repeated screening, cost efficiency, large-scale research potential, and increased generalizability, cannot be overstated. Prior to this study, U.S.-based normative data on the CBB did not exist, let alone robust, demographically-adjusted normative equations specifically for the self-administration format of the CBB. As such, this study represents an important methodological step forward by allowing users of the CBB to administer the battery for both research and clinical purposes. Importantly, users of demographically-adjusted norms are advised to consider the sociocultural makeup of the normative samples they are applying to patient data whenever possible, and to thoroughly assess the sociocultural context from which their patients present, all to assist in making clinical interpretations that account for the whole person
Identification of Potential Therapeutics for the Treatment of β-Thalassemia
No full text1 in 100,000 people globally are suffering from severe β-thalassemia and an estimated 1.5 percent of the world\u27s population (80 to 90 million people) is a carrier of a β-thalassemia-causing mutation (Cao and Galanello 2010 and De Sanctis et al. 2017). A common cause of β-thalassemia are mutations in the HBB gene that interfere with the normal splicing of the beta hemoglobin transcript (Thein 2013). The IVSI-6 T\u3eC HBB, prevalent in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern populations, and the more severe IVSI-5 G\u3eC HBB mutation, prevalent in South Asian populations, weaken the normal (wild-type) intron 1 5’ splice donor site in HBB and activate three nearby cryptic sites (+12, -16, -38). The HbE-causing mutation, prevalent in the Southeast Asian population and found in half of all patients with clinically significant β-thalassemia, increases the utilization of the cryptic -16 splice site in exon 1 of HBB pre-mRNA (Galanello and Origa 2010). The findings presented in this study provide evidence that the splicing pattern generated by HBB bearing the IVSI-6 HBB, IVSI-5 HBB, and HbE causing mutation can be modulated by commonly consumed chemical compounds. Carnosol, a phenolic diterpene found in rosemary, reduces the production of the correctly spliced transcript generated by the HBB gene bearing mutations that activate the -16 cryptic splice site in exon 1. These data suggest patients bearing the IVSI-6 HBB, IVSI-5 HBB, or HbE causing mutations may benefit from avoiding carnosol-containing foods. Spironolactone (a commonly prescribed FDA-approved drug) and its metabolites facilitate production of the correctly spliced transcripts generated by HBB bearing mutations that activate the -16 cryptic splice site in exon 1. Subsequently, spironolactone enhances the production of the β-hemoglobin protein. Spironolactone and its metabolites may be therapeutic for patients carrying these mutations. The findings generated in this study support ongoing screening efforts aimed at identifying splice-altering compounds that may impact the health of individuals bearing splice-altering mutations in HBB
The Politics of the Northern Ireland Question: From the Good Friday Agreement to Brexit
No full textThe Northern Ireland question still remains unanswered in 21st century politics in the British Isles. While the 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely brought an end to the decades long sectarian conflict known as the Troubles, the ethno-national debate still heavily underscores the region’s politics. After the Agreement, a period of normalization of the Irish-British-Northern Irish relationship began guided by the Agreement’s new system of government. However, the Brexit referendum of 2016 posed a new challenge for Northern Ireland and Ireland as the possibility of a return to a hard border between the two regions threatened decades of fragile peacebuilding. The challenge remains for the two jurisdictions to make sense of Northern Ireland’s new status outside of the European Union
Combating the Climate Crisis: Anishinaabe Philosophy and Environmental Justice
No full textThe climate crisis is considered one of humans\u27 most detrimental issues today. Although there is a struggle to find solutions, many have been and continue to be at the forefront of the environmental movement, specifically Indigenous communities. The Anishinaabe people, in particular, have philosophies centered around environmental care. They view the environment as something deserving of honor and respect. Although these ideas have allowed them to have a respectful relationship with their local ecosystems, the United States government has ignored these ideas from the early stages of the environmental movement. With this, there is also an extensive history of harmful government actions toward Indigenous people in which they are put at risk by the climate crisis. By considering their ways of living which have proven to work for ages, and the philosophies these ideas stem from, we can amplify the voices of Indigenous people and help combat the climate crisis. In Chapter 1, I will explain climate change and its effects, including the current issues we see in government and an introduction to Anishinaabe hardships in relation to the climate crisis. Chapter 2 will focus on the environmental and cultural history of the Anishinaabe people and their background in sustainable practices. Chapter 3 will focus on Anishinaabe storytelling and how these ideas are put into practice. Chapter 4 will go in depth on environmental injustices faced by Indigenous people and those more specifically affecting the Anishinaabe, as well as their place in the environmental movement historically. Finally, Chapter 5 will discuss possible solutions in detail to increase protections for Indigenous communities and make conscious efforts to decrease the effects of climate change while keeping the Anishinaabe and their ideas in mind