The authors investigated mediators hypothesized to account for the effects of 2 eating disorder prevention programs using data from 355 adolescent girls who were randomized to a dissonance or a ...healthy weight intervention or an active control condition. The dissonance intervention produced significant reductions in outcomes (body dissatisfaction, dieting, negative affect, bulimic symptoms) and the mediator (thin-ideal internalization), change in the mediator correlated with change in outcomes and usually occurred before change in outcomes, and intervention effects became significantly weaker when change in the mediator was partialed, providing support for the hypothesized mediators and this new approach to testing mediation in randomized trials. Findings provide somewhat less support for the hypothesis that change in healthy eating and exercise would mediate the healthy weight intervention effects.
Aim
The aim of this study was to examine over a 12‐month post‐intervention period whether the participation of community‐living individuals with mental illness in cognitive behavioral group therapy ...for recovery of self‐esteem (CBGTRS) resulted in improved outcomes.
Methods
This was a non‐randomized controlled trial. The participants were persons with mental illness who resided in communities in the Chugoku region of Japan. In total, 41 were assigned to an experimental group (CBGTRS intervention, 12 group sessions), and 21 to a control group. Outcome indices (self‐esteem, moods, cognition, subjective well‐being, psychiatric symptoms) were measured for the experimental group prior to intervention (T0), immediately post‐intervention (T1), and at 3 (T2) and 12 (T3) months post‐intervention. The control group was measured at the same intervals.
Results
For the experimental group, self‐esteem scores at T1, T2, and T3 were significantly higher than at T0. Moods and cognition scores remained significantly low until T2. Scores for Inadequate Mental Mastery in the subjective well‐being index had not decreased by T3. Confidence in Coping remained significantly high until T2. Psychiatric symptoms scores at T0, T1, T2, and T3 were significantly lower than at T0. The means and standard errors for self‐esteem and Inadequate Mental Mastery increased until T3, and those for Tension‐Anxiety, Depression‐Dejection, and Confusion decreased until T2.
Conclusion
From within‐group trends and between‐group differences in self‐esteem, we conclude that CBGTRS may have a relatively long‐term effect on self‐esteem recovery. T2 is the turning point for moods and cognition; thus, follow‐up is needed 3 months following the initial program.
The 'Healthy Primary School of the Future' (HPSF) aims to integrate health and well-being within the whole school system. This study examined the two-year effects of HPSF on children's dietary and ...physical activity (PA) behaviours at school and at home and investigated whether child characteristics or the home context moderated these effects. This study (
= 1676 children) has a quasi-experimental design with four intervention schools, i.e., two full HPSF (focus: nutrition and PA), two partial HPSF (focus: PA), and four control schools. Measurements consisted of accelerometry (Actigraph GT3X+) and questionnaires. Favourable effects on children's dietary and PA behaviours at school were found in the full HPSF; in the partial HPSF, only on PA behaviours. Children in the full HPSF did not compensate at home for the improved health behaviours at school, while in the partial HPSF, the children became less active at home. In both the full and partial HPSF, less favourable effects at school were found for younger children. At home, less favourable effects were found for children with a lower socioeconomic status. Overall, the effect of the full HPSF on children's dietary and PA behaviours was larger and more equally beneficial for all children than that of the partial HPSF.
This paper revisits intervention effects in Mandarin Chinese
-questions. I present new data showing that the ability for quantifiers to induce intervention hinges upon their monotonicity and their ...ability to be interpreted as topics. I then develop a semantic account that correlates topicality with monotone properties. Furthermore, I propose that
-questions in Chinese are idiosyncratic in that
directly merges at a high scope position that stays above a propositional argument. Combining the semantic idiosyncrasies of
-questions with the wide scope behaviors of topicality, I conclude that my account explains a wide range of intervention phenomena in terms of interpretation failure.
Objective
The study aim was to examine the hand function (hand strength and dexterity) and intervention effects of training in adults with Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS).
Methods
Six adults with PWS ...(two females; mean age 26.14 years) underwent hand muscle strength and dexterity training for 3 months (2 hours per week). The following hand function tests were performed pre- and post-intervention: (1) hand grip, lateral pinch, and tip pinch hand strength tests, (2) the Box and Block test (BBT) for gross manual dexterity and (3) the Purdue Pegboard test for finger dexterity.
Results
Before treatment, all subjects showed lower hand grip, lateral pinch, tip pinch strength, and poorer manual/finger dexterity relative to healthy adults. After training, hand function scores improved on many test items, but only the left hand tip pinch and the right hand BBT performance showed significant improvements.
Conclusions
All subjects showed lower hand strength and poorer manual/finger dexterity compared with healthy adults; this should be considered during physical training programs. Owing to limitations in the intervention intensity and possible subject behavioral deficits, further research is needed to clarify the effects of this intervention on hand function in PWS patients.
Burkina Faso conducted its first nationally representative household malaria survey in 2010/2011. The survey collected among others, information on malaria interventions, treatment choices and ...malaria parasite prevalence in children aged 6-59 months.
In this study, Bayesian geostatistical models were employed to assess the effects of health interventions related to insecticide-treated bed nets (ITN), indoor residual spray (IRS), artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) coverage associated with childhood malaria parasite risk at national and sub-national level, after taking into account geographical disparities of climatic/environmental and socio-economic factors. Several ITN coverage measures were calculated and Bayesian variable selection was used to identify the most important ones. Parasitaemia risk depicting spatial patterns of infections were estimated.
The results show that the predicted population-adjusted parasitaemia risk ranges from 4.04 % in Kadiogo province to 82 % in Kompienga province. The effect of ITN coverage was not important at national level; however ITNs have an important protective effect in Ouagadougou as well as in three districts in the western part of the country with high parasitaemia prevalence and low to moderate coverage. There is a large variation in ACT coverage between the districts. Although at national level the ACT effects on parasitaemia risk was not important, at sub-national level 18 districts around Ouagadougou deliver effective treatment.
The produced maps show great variations in parasitaemia risk across the country and identify the districts where interventions are being effective. These outputs are valuable tools that can help improve malaria control in Burkina Faso.
Adolescent friendships that promote problem behavior are often chosen in middle school. The current study examines the unintended impact of a randomized school-based intervention on the selection of ...friends in middle school, as well as on observations of deviant talk with friends 5 years later. Participants included 998 middle school students (526 boys and 472 girls) recruited at the onset of middle school (age 11–12 years) from three public middle schools participating in the Family Check-up model intervention. The current study focuses only on the effects of the SHAPe curriculum—one level of the Family Check-up model—on friendship choices. Participants nominated friends and completed measures of deviant peer affiliation. Approximately half of the sample (
n
= 500) was randomly assigned to the intervention, and the other half (
n
= 498) comprised the control group within each school. The results indicate that the SHAPe curriculum affected friend selection within school 1 but not within schools 2 or 3. The effects of friend selection in school 1 translated into reductions in observed deviancy training 5 years later (age 16–17 years). By coupling longitudinal social network analysis with a randomized intervention study, the current findings provide initial evidence that a randomized public middle school intervention can disrupt the formation of deviant peer groups and diminish levels of adolescent deviance 5 years later.
This paper develops and defends a semantic/syntactic analysis of a curious set of negative gradable predicates in the Tlingit language, and shows that the analysis has some important consequences ...concerning the range of crosslinguistic variation in degree constructions. In Tlingit, certain negative gradable predicates are formed by negating a positive root and then applying an additional morphological operation: e.g. k'éi 'good', tlél uk'é 'not good', tlél ushké 'bad'. I show that (i) the negation in forms like tlél ushké 'bad' is VP-external, clausal negation, and is not an incorporated negation like English un-; and (ii) the meaning of these forms is indeed that of a gradable negative predicate, rather than the propositional negation of the positive predicate (cf. tlél uk'é 'not good'). Under the proposed analysis, the additional morphological operation observed in these forms is the reflex of a special degree relativizer, one that must undergo movement to Spec-NegP. In addition, Tlingit differs from English and other languages in that degree operators—like POS and comparative operators—can be attached high in the clause, above sentential negation. In addition to capturing various facts concerning these negative predicates, the proposed analysis raises some novel puzzles concerning intervention effects in the movement of degree operators, and provides support for the view that negative predicates like bad are morphosyntactically derived from positive predicates like good.
The present study examined to what extent adolescent females in residential care with a substantiated history of sexual abuse can benefit from a cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) targeting ...disruptive and delinquent behaviors. In total, 104 adolescent females in the treatment group and 78 adolescent females in the comparison group were included in the evaluative design. Latent growth models (LGM) were performed to model change in adolescent females’ conduct and anger problems. In the short term, 3 months after the treatment, adolescent females with sexual abuse experiences receiving CBT showed stronger declines in trait anger and anger expression compared with the other groups. Furthermore, in the long term, 18 months after admission, this group of females showed larger declines in proclivity for trading sex compared with the other groups. Results are discussed in the light of the “what works” literature for effective interventions.