ABSTRACT A recent general population study demonstrated specificity of association between partic... more ABSTRACT A recent general population study demonstrated specificity of association between particular forms of childhood adversity and particular psychotic experiences. This study sought to test the stability of this specificity in an adverse adult environment context using data from the Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity among Prisoners in England and Wales. Multivariate analysis showed that specific adversities predicted specific psychotic experiences. Bullying produced the highest odds ratio for paranoia (OR = 1.99), which was also predicted by being raised in institutional care (OR = 1.49). Sexual abuse produced the highest odds ratio for hallucinations (OR = 2.37). Sexual abuse and bullying produced the highest increased odds ratios for experiencing co-occurring paranoia and hallucinations (OR = 2.80) and (OR = 2.42), respectively.
Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that... more Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that may result in psychological trauma. A current debate in the field is whether adoption provides a pathway to healing for traumatised children, helping them to recover from past psychological harm, or creates trauma for children through the very nature of being an adopted child. Objective: This study aimed to use longitudinal data pertaining to children who had been adopted from care to examine the relationship between being adopted from care and psychological trauma. Participants and setting: Seventeen adopted children had been interviewed in their adoptive homes during the third wave of the Care Pathways and Outcomes study (McSherry et al., 2013), when they were aged between nine and 14 years old. Ten of these children were selected for specific consideration in this article. Checklists for early adversities and psychological trauma were used to support the creation of case studies that highlighted the extent of psychological trauma in the children's lives. Results: The adopted children either experienced possible pre-care psychological trauma, with the impact of this reducing over time, in utero developmental harm due to their mother's alcohol misuse during pregnancy, inherited an intellectual disability, with the resultant difficulties superseding any concern regarding possible pre-care psychological trauma, or possible psychological trauma when moving from an established foster placement to adoption. Recommendations for policy and practice are provided.
Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that... more Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that may result in psychological trauma. A current debate in the field is whether adoption provides a pathway to healing for traumatised children, helping them to recover from past psychological harm, or creates trauma for children through the very nature of being an adopted child. Objective: This study aimed to use longitudinal data pertaining to children who had been adopted from care to examine the relationship between being adopted from care and psychological trauma. Participants and setting: Seventeen adopted children had been interviewed in their adoptive homes during the third wave of the Care Pathways and Outcomes study (McSherry et al., 2013), when they were aged between nine and 14 years old. Ten of these children were selected for specific consideration in this article. Checklists for early adversities and psychological trauma were used to support the creation of case studies that highlighted the extent of psychological trauma in the children's lives. Results: The adopted children either experienced possible pre-care psychological trauma, with the impact of this reducing over time, in utero developmental harm due to their mother's alcohol misuse during pregnancy, inherited an intellectual disability, with the resultant difficulties superseding any concern regarding possible pre-care psychological trauma, or possible psychological trauma when moving from an established foster placement to adoption. Recommendations for policy and practice are provided.
Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those wit... more Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those with other life-limiting conditions, particularly at end of life (EoL). Aims: To understand the best way to examine pain in people with dementia. Methods: A systematic review of tools to assess pain in patients with dementia near the end of life; PubMed, Medline, Embase, EBSCO Host, CINAHL Plus, Web of Science, Psycinfo, PsycArticles and Scopus were searched. Findings: A total of 15 articles were identified, which were qualitatively synthesised. Conclusion: There are a range of pain assessment tools that are appropriate for use in people with dementia, but all 15 studies used a formal tool. A more robust approach is needed to improve the quality of research for measurement and management of pain in this population.
Background: There is very little work on the role of positive or benevolent childhood experiences... more Background: There is very little work on the role of positive or benevolent childhood experiences and how such events might offer protection from the insidious effects of adverse experiences in childhood or later in life. Objectives: We set out to test, using latent variable modelling, whether adverse and benevolent childhood experiences could be best described as a single continuum or two correlated constructs. We also modelled the relationship between adverse and benevolent childhood experiences and ICD-11 PTSD and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) symptoms and explored if these associations were indirect via psychological trauma. Methods: Data were collected from a trauma-exposed sample (N = 275) attending a specialist trauma care centre in the UK. Participants completed measures of childhood adverse and benevolent experiences, traumatic exposure, and PTSD and CPTSD symptoms. Results: Findings suggested that adverse childhood experiences operate only indirectly on PTSD and CPTSD symptoms through lifetime trauma exposure, and with a stronger effect for PTSD. Benevolent childhood experiences directly predicted only CPTSD symptoms. Conclusions: Benevolent and traumatic experiences seem to form unique associations with PTSD and CPTSD symptoms. Future research is needed to explore how benevolent experiences can be integrated within existing psychological interventions to maximise recovery from traumatic stress. Experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia en Trastorno de Estrés Postraumático (TEPT) y Tept Complejo (TEPTC): implicancias para terapias centradas en el trauma Objetivos: Nos propusimos evaluar, usando un modelo de variables latentes, si experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia podrían ser mejor descritas como un continuo simple o bien como dos constructos correlacionados. También modelamos la relación entre experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia y síntomas de TEPT y TEPT complejo (TEPTc) según la CIE-11 y exploramos si estas asociaciones eran indirectas a través del trauma psicológico. Métodos: Los datos fueron obtenidos de una muestra expuesta a trauma (N=275) que acudía a un centro especializado en trauma en el Reino Unido. Los participantes completaron mediciones sobre experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia, exposición a trauma, y síntomas de TEPT y TEPTc. Resultados: Los hallazgos sugirieron que las experiencias adversas en la infancia operan sólo indirectamente en síntomas de TEPT y TEPTc a lo largo de exposición a trauma en la vida, con un importante efecto para TEPT. Las experiencias benignas en la infancia predijeron directamente sólo síntomas de TEPTc. Conclusiones: Las experiencias adversas y benignas parecen formar asociaciones particulares con síntomas de TEPT y TEPTc. Se requieren investigaciones futuras para explorar cómo las experiencias benignas pueden ser integradas en intervenciones psicológicas existentes para optimizar la recuperación de estrés traumático.
Snyder and colleagues (1994, 2000) pioneered the development of hope in terms of promoting goal-d... more Snyder and colleagues (1994, 2000) pioneered the development of hope in terms of promoting goal-directed thinking, whereby the individual can find routes to goals (pathways thinking), and motivation to use them (agency thinking) (Snyder et al., 2002). As individuals learn to be more hopeful, they may be more able to make commitments, set goals, and work towards attaining them (Shorey et al., 2003). Research shows that hope exists uniquely beyond optimism and positive thinking (Feldman & Kubota, 2015). Since the creation of hope theory, there has been a growing body of research evaluating its role in wellbeing. Low hope is significantly related to negative outcomes: psychological distress (Snyder, LaPointe, Crowson, & Early, 1998); depressive symptoms (Kwon, 2000), poorer academic achievement; disengaged coping styles (Folkman, 2010) and tendencies to engage in self-doubt and negative rumination (Snyder, 1999). Low-hope and negative rumination has been linked to anxiety (Michael, 2000), low emotional regulation (ER), low selfesteem and low social support satisfaction in children and adolescents (Merkaš & Brajša-Žganec, 2011). Those higher in hopeful thinking show positive associations with perceived competence and self-efficacy (Davidson, Feldman, Margalit & 2012), increased confidence (Snyder, 2000), lower emotional distress (Gilman, Dooley, & Florell, 2006), greater use of engaged coping styles (Chang & DeSimone, 2001), and positive coping abilities such as problem solving (Snyder, 2000). Nevertheless, there remains some mixed reports, as a meta-analysis by Weis and Speridakos (2011) found no conclusive evidence that hope enhancement strategies alleviate psychological distress, although Klausner and colleagues (2002) found a hope-based intervention for older adults diagnosed with depression resulted in significant improvements on all measured outcomes (hope, anxiety, and family interactions). Using college students, Brown and colleagues (1999), found they experienced increases in levels of hope, academic performances and self-esteem on completion of a hope-based programme. There is a lack of longitudinal research on the impact of hope interventions (Ciarrochi, Heaven, & Davies, 2007), however one post-primary school study showed that students who had received a hope intervention showed significant increases in levels of hope, self-worth and life satisfaction up to 18 months after completion (Marques, Lopez, & Pais-Ribeiro, 2011). Considering relatively weak evidence base on the effectiveness of hope-based interventions in pre and early adolescent children (not just those at risk), a purposeful theoretically sound intervention was considered necessary. Further there are no curriculum-based programmes which explicitly teach children to develop an innate conceptualisation of hope and goal setting
Where are all the males? Gender-specific typologies of childhood adversity based on a large commu... more Where are all the males? Gender-specific typologies of childhood adversity based on a large community sample.
Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches fills an important gap in mental heal... more Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches fills an important gap in mental health literature, namely research focused on the psychological treatments of psychosis (eg cognitive‐behavior therapy, psychodynamic therapy, family therapy) and the psycho‐ ...
International Journal of Palliative Nursing, Apr 2, 2021
Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those wit... more Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those with other life-limiting conditions, particularly at end of life (EOL). Aims: To understand the best way to examine pain for this population. Methods: A systematic review of tools to assess pain in patients with dementia near the end of life. We searched PubMed; (Ovid) Medline; (Ovid) Embase; (EBSCO Host) CINAHL Plus; (ISI) Web of Science; (Ovid) Psycinfo; (Ovid) PsycArticles; and Scopus. Findings: Fifteen articles were identified which were synthesised qualitatively. Conclusion: There are a range of pain assessment tools which are appropriate for use for this population but fifteen studies used a formal tool. To improve the quality of research for measurement and management of pain in this population, a more robust approach is needed.
Excessive worry can negatively influence one’s developmental trajectories. In the past 70 years, ... more Excessive worry can negatively influence one’s developmental trajectories. In the past 70 years, there have been studies aimed towards documenting and analysing concerns or ‘worries’ of teen and preteen individuals. There have been many quantitative and qualitative approaches established, suggesting different themes of contextual adolescent worry. With the hopes of future clinical utility, it is important to parse through these studies and gather what is currently known about what teens and preteens worry about and what is the state of methods used to gather that knowledge. Studies were searched for using Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases and selected on systematic criteria. Data regarding the country in which the study took place, participants, methods of collection, worry themes and conclusions and limitations were extracted. Data were synthesised in a narrative fashion. It was concluded that currently available methods of measuring themes of ado...
ABSTRACT A recent general population study demonstrated specificity of association between partic... more ABSTRACT A recent general population study demonstrated specificity of association between particular forms of childhood adversity and particular psychotic experiences. This study sought to test the stability of this specificity in an adverse adult environment context using data from the Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity among Prisoners in England and Wales. Multivariate analysis showed that specific adversities predicted specific psychotic experiences. Bullying produced the highest odds ratio for paranoia (OR = 1.99), which was also predicted by being raised in institutional care (OR = 1.49). Sexual abuse produced the highest odds ratio for hallucinations (OR = 2.37). Sexual abuse and bullying produced the highest increased odds ratios for experiencing co-occurring paranoia and hallucinations (OR = 2.80) and (OR = 2.42), respectively.
Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that... more Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that may result in psychological trauma. A current debate in the field is whether adoption provides a pathway to healing for traumatised children, helping them to recover from past psychological harm, or creates trauma for children through the very nature of being an adopted child. Objective: This study aimed to use longitudinal data pertaining to children who had been adopted from care to examine the relationship between being adopted from care and psychological trauma. Participants and setting: Seventeen adopted children had been interviewed in their adoptive homes during the third wave of the Care Pathways and Outcomes study (McSherry et al., 2013), when they were aged between nine and 14 years old. Ten of these children were selected for specific consideration in this article. Checklists for early adversities and psychological trauma were used to support the creation of case studies that highlighted the extent of psychological trauma in the children's lives. Results: The adopted children either experienced possible pre-care psychological trauma, with the impact of this reducing over time, in utero developmental harm due to their mother's alcohol misuse during pregnancy, inherited an intellectual disability, with the resultant difficulties superseding any concern regarding possible pre-care psychological trauma, or possible psychological trauma when moving from an established foster placement to adoption. Recommendations for policy and practice are provided.
Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that... more Children who have been adopted from care are very likely to have experienced early adversity that may result in psychological trauma. A current debate in the field is whether adoption provides a pathway to healing for traumatised children, helping them to recover from past psychological harm, or creates trauma for children through the very nature of being an adopted child. Objective: This study aimed to use longitudinal data pertaining to children who had been adopted from care to examine the relationship between being adopted from care and psychological trauma. Participants and setting: Seventeen adopted children had been interviewed in their adoptive homes during the third wave of the Care Pathways and Outcomes study (McSherry et al., 2013), when they were aged between nine and 14 years old. Ten of these children were selected for specific consideration in this article. Checklists for early adversities and psychological trauma were used to support the creation of case studies that highlighted the extent of psychological trauma in the children's lives. Results: The adopted children either experienced possible pre-care psychological trauma, with the impact of this reducing over time, in utero developmental harm due to their mother's alcohol misuse during pregnancy, inherited an intellectual disability, with the resultant difficulties superseding any concern regarding possible pre-care psychological trauma, or possible psychological trauma when moving from an established foster placement to adoption. Recommendations for policy and practice are provided.
Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those wit... more Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those with other life-limiting conditions, particularly at end of life (EoL). Aims: To understand the best way to examine pain in people with dementia. Methods: A systematic review of tools to assess pain in patients with dementia near the end of life; PubMed, Medline, Embase, EBSCO Host, CINAHL Plus, Web of Science, Psycinfo, PsycArticles and Scopus were searched. Findings: A total of 15 articles were identified, which were qualitatively synthesised. Conclusion: There are a range of pain assessment tools that are appropriate for use in people with dementia, but all 15 studies used a formal tool. A more robust approach is needed to improve the quality of research for measurement and management of pain in this population.
Background: There is very little work on the role of positive or benevolent childhood experiences... more Background: There is very little work on the role of positive or benevolent childhood experiences and how such events might offer protection from the insidious effects of adverse experiences in childhood or later in life. Objectives: We set out to test, using latent variable modelling, whether adverse and benevolent childhood experiences could be best described as a single continuum or two correlated constructs. We also modelled the relationship between adverse and benevolent childhood experiences and ICD-11 PTSD and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) symptoms and explored if these associations were indirect via psychological trauma. Methods: Data were collected from a trauma-exposed sample (N = 275) attending a specialist trauma care centre in the UK. Participants completed measures of childhood adverse and benevolent experiences, traumatic exposure, and PTSD and CPTSD symptoms. Results: Findings suggested that adverse childhood experiences operate only indirectly on PTSD and CPTSD symptoms through lifetime trauma exposure, and with a stronger effect for PTSD. Benevolent childhood experiences directly predicted only CPTSD symptoms. Conclusions: Benevolent and traumatic experiences seem to form unique associations with PTSD and CPTSD symptoms. Future research is needed to explore how benevolent experiences can be integrated within existing psychological interventions to maximise recovery from traumatic stress. Experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia en Trastorno de Estrés Postraumático (TEPT) y Tept Complejo (TEPTC): implicancias para terapias centradas en el trauma Objetivos: Nos propusimos evaluar, usando un modelo de variables latentes, si experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia podrían ser mejor descritas como un continuo simple o bien como dos constructos correlacionados. También modelamos la relación entre experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia y síntomas de TEPT y TEPT complejo (TEPTc) según la CIE-11 y exploramos si estas asociaciones eran indirectas a través del trauma psicológico. Métodos: Los datos fueron obtenidos de una muestra expuesta a trauma (N=275) que acudía a un centro especializado en trauma en el Reino Unido. Los participantes completaron mediciones sobre experiencias adversas y benignas en la infancia, exposición a trauma, y síntomas de TEPT y TEPTc. Resultados: Los hallazgos sugirieron que las experiencias adversas en la infancia operan sólo indirectamente en síntomas de TEPT y TEPTc a lo largo de exposición a trauma en la vida, con un importante efecto para TEPT. Las experiencias benignas en la infancia predijeron directamente sólo síntomas de TEPTc. Conclusiones: Las experiencias adversas y benignas parecen formar asociaciones particulares con síntomas de TEPT y TEPTc. Se requieren investigaciones futuras para explorar cómo las experiencias benignas pueden ser integradas en intervenciones psicológicas existentes para optimizar la recuperación de estrés traumático.
Snyder and colleagues (1994, 2000) pioneered the development of hope in terms of promoting goal-d... more Snyder and colleagues (1994, 2000) pioneered the development of hope in terms of promoting goal-directed thinking, whereby the individual can find routes to goals (pathways thinking), and motivation to use them (agency thinking) (Snyder et al., 2002). As individuals learn to be more hopeful, they may be more able to make commitments, set goals, and work towards attaining them (Shorey et al., 2003). Research shows that hope exists uniquely beyond optimism and positive thinking (Feldman & Kubota, 2015). Since the creation of hope theory, there has been a growing body of research evaluating its role in wellbeing. Low hope is significantly related to negative outcomes: psychological distress (Snyder, LaPointe, Crowson, & Early, 1998); depressive symptoms (Kwon, 2000), poorer academic achievement; disengaged coping styles (Folkman, 2010) and tendencies to engage in self-doubt and negative rumination (Snyder, 1999). Low-hope and negative rumination has been linked to anxiety (Michael, 2000), low emotional regulation (ER), low selfesteem and low social support satisfaction in children and adolescents (Merkaš & Brajša-Žganec, 2011). Those higher in hopeful thinking show positive associations with perceived competence and self-efficacy (Davidson, Feldman, Margalit & 2012), increased confidence (Snyder, 2000), lower emotional distress (Gilman, Dooley, & Florell, 2006), greater use of engaged coping styles (Chang & DeSimone, 2001), and positive coping abilities such as problem solving (Snyder, 2000). Nevertheless, there remains some mixed reports, as a meta-analysis by Weis and Speridakos (2011) found no conclusive evidence that hope enhancement strategies alleviate psychological distress, although Klausner and colleagues (2002) found a hope-based intervention for older adults diagnosed with depression resulted in significant improvements on all measured outcomes (hope, anxiety, and family interactions). Using college students, Brown and colleagues (1999), found they experienced increases in levels of hope, academic performances and self-esteem on completion of a hope-based programme. There is a lack of longitudinal research on the impact of hope interventions (Ciarrochi, Heaven, & Davies, 2007), however one post-primary school study showed that students who had received a hope intervention showed significant increases in levels of hope, self-worth and life satisfaction up to 18 months after completion (Marques, Lopez, & Pais-Ribeiro, 2011). Considering relatively weak evidence base on the effectiveness of hope-based interventions in pre and early adolescent children (not just those at risk), a purposeful theoretically sound intervention was considered necessary. Further there are no curriculum-based programmes which explicitly teach children to develop an innate conceptualisation of hope and goal setting
Where are all the males? Gender-specific typologies of childhood adversity based on a large commu... more Where are all the males? Gender-specific typologies of childhood adversity based on a large community sample.
Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches fills an important gap in mental heal... more Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches fills an important gap in mental health literature, namely research focused on the psychological treatments of psychosis (eg cognitive‐behavior therapy, psychodynamic therapy, family therapy) and the psycho‐ ...
International Journal of Palliative Nursing, Apr 2, 2021
Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those wit... more Background: People with dementia may not receive the same quality of palliative care as those with other life-limiting conditions, particularly at end of life (EOL). Aims: To understand the best way to examine pain for this population. Methods: A systematic review of tools to assess pain in patients with dementia near the end of life. We searched PubMed; (Ovid) Medline; (Ovid) Embase; (EBSCO Host) CINAHL Plus; (ISI) Web of Science; (Ovid) Psycinfo; (Ovid) PsycArticles; and Scopus. Findings: Fifteen articles were identified which were synthesised qualitatively. Conclusion: There are a range of pain assessment tools which are appropriate for use for this population but fifteen studies used a formal tool. To improve the quality of research for measurement and management of pain in this population, a more robust approach is needed.
Excessive worry can negatively influence one’s developmental trajectories. In the past 70 years, ... more Excessive worry can negatively influence one’s developmental trajectories. In the past 70 years, there have been studies aimed towards documenting and analysing concerns or ‘worries’ of teen and preteen individuals. There have been many quantitative and qualitative approaches established, suggesting different themes of contextual adolescent worry. With the hopes of future clinical utility, it is important to parse through these studies and gather what is currently known about what teens and preteens worry about and what is the state of methods used to gather that knowledge. Studies were searched for using Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases and selected on systematic criteria. Data regarding the country in which the study took place, participants, methods of collection, worry themes and conclusions and limitations were extracted. Data were synthesised in a narrative fashion. It was concluded that currently available methods of measuring themes of ado...
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Papers by Grainne McAnee