Family Psychosocial Environment Research Articles

Character strengths as a link between family psychosocial environment and depression symptoms among Chinese adolescents

AbstractThe present study examined how perceived interparental conflict and parental attachment combined with character strengths contributed to depression symptoms among Chinese adolescents. A total of 978 adolescents (Mage = 13.71 years, SD = 0.57; 470 girls) completed a battery of questionnaires. The results indicated that adolescents' perceived interparental conflict could directly affect adolescents' depression symptoms and indirectly via parental attachment. More importantly, parental attachment and global character strengths, particularly teamwork and spirit and faith, played serial multiple mediating roles in the relationship between perceived interparental conflict and adolescents' depression symptoms. Our findings provided strengths‐based perspectives to promote adolescents' mental health.

The Art and Science of the Psychosocial Assessment: Impact on Physical Abuse Evaluations in the Emergency Department Setting

When a child presents to the emergency department with injuries concerning for abuse, a complete evaluation must look beyond the patient's physical exam to identify potential sources of harm as well as protective factors in the family's psychosocial environment. Here we discuss a structured, evidence-based assessment tool designed by our research team for use in its complete form by social workers (when available), or in its abbreviated form by licensed independent practitioners. Even amidst the controlled chaos of the acute care setting, providers can utilize trauma-informed communication strategies to effectively and efficiently elicit an unbiased narrative of relevant historical information and key psychosocial risk factors in the patient's home environment. Without understanding the contributory role of each component to the child's overall risk of abusive injury, it remains difficult to address the root cause of the problem, and the door is thus left open for ongoing harm.

Family Environments and Children's Executive Function: The Mediating Role of Children's Affective State and Stress

ABSTRACTThere is increasing evidence that inadequate family environments (family material environment and family psychosocial environment) are not only social problems but also factors contributing to adverse neurocognitive outcomes. In the present study, the authors investigated the relationship among family environments, children's naturalistic affective state, self-reported stress, and executive functions in a sample of 157 Chinese families. These findings revealed that in inadequate family material environments, reduced children's cognitive flexibility is associated with increased naturalistic negative affectivity and self-reported stress. In addition, naturalistic negative affectivity mediated the association between family expressiveness and children's cognitive flexibility. The authors used a structural equation model to examine the mediation model hypothesis, and the results confirmed the mediating roles of naturalistic negative affectivity and self-reported stress between family environments and the cognitive flexibility of Chinese children. These findings indicate the importance of reducing stress and negative emotional state for improving cognitive functions in children of low socioeconomic status.

Family Environment and Its Correlation with Anxiety and Depression: A Study on Heart Patients

This research paper deals with the Family Environment and its Correlation with Anxiety and Depression level among persons with Heart Disease. There had been a number of researches that investigated that ischemic heart disease patients who suffer significant anxiety have close to a 5-fold increased risk of experiencing frequent angina and those with depression have more than a 3-fold increased risk for these episodes. This observed link between psychiatric symptoms and angina underlines the importance of treating anxiety and depression in cardiac patients, according to study co author Dr Mark D Sullivan (University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle). To gather the needed data, Hamilton Anxiety Scale and Becks Depression Inventory were used. As stated from literatures, for people with heart dysfunction, depression and anxiety can increase the risk of an adverse cardiac event such as a heart attack or blood clots. For people who do not have heart disease, depression and anxiety can also increase the risk of a heart attack and development of coronary artery disease. Researchers have also emphasized on the role of family psychosocial environment and its positive association with the Coronary Heart Disease risk.

Childhood Environment and Mental Wellbeing at Age 60-64 Years: Prospective Evidence from the MRC National Survey of Health and Development.

BackgroundMental wellbeing, conceptualised as positive affect, life satisfaction and realisation of needs that contribute to psychological growth, captures more than the absence of mental ill health. Several nations now aim to monitor and improve mental wellbeing. Whilst many studies document associations between adverse childhood experiences and mental disorders in adulthood, possible links between childhood experiences and adult mental wellbeing have so far received less attention.MethodsUsing data from 1976 men and women in the MRC National Survey for Health and Development, we investigated prospective associations between childhood socioeconomic and psychosocial environments and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, designed to capture both hedonic and eudaimonic facets of wellbeing, at age 60-64.ResultsWhilst there was no evidence that childhood socioeconomic circumstances were related to later wellbeing independently of other childhood experiences, elements of childrearing and parenting, parental health and adjustment, and childhood illness were related. More advantaged socioeconomic position was associated with greater wellbeing but this did not explain the links between these childhood exposures and adult wellbeing, suggesting alternative explanatory pathways should be considered.ConclusionsChildhood illness and family psychosocial environment are associated with mental wellbeing in early older age, with effects sizes that are larger or comparable to socioeconomic circumstances in adulthood. Initiatives to improve the nation’s mental wellbeing that include programmes targeted to supporting families and children may additionally have benefits that continue into older age.

Childhood family psychosocial environment and carotid intima media thickness: The CARDIA study

Little is known about whether the childhood family psychosocial environment (characterized by cold, unaffectionate interactions, conflict, aggression, neglect and/or low nurturance) affects coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. Objectives were to evaluate associations of childhood family psychosocial environment with carotid intima media thickness (IMT), a subclinical measure of atherosclerosis. The study population included 2659 CARDIA study participants, aged 37–52 years. Childhood family psychosocial environment was measured using a risky family questionnaire via self-report. Carotid IMT was calculated using the average of 20 measurements of mean common carotid, bulb and internal carotid IMT, assessed using high-resolution B-mode ultrasound images. Utilizing linear regression analyses adjusted for age, a 1-unit (range 0–21) increase in risky family score was associated with 0.0036 (95% CI: 0.0006,0.0066 mm) and 0.0020 (95% CI: 0.0002,0.0038) mm increase in mean IMT in white males and females, respectively. Formal mediation analyses and covariate adjustments suggested childhood socioeconomic position and smoking may be important mechanisms in white males and females, as well as education and depressive symptomatology in white males. No associations were found in black participants. Formal statistical tests for interaction between risky family score and sex, and between risky family score and race/ethnicity, demonstrated borderline evidence of interactions for both sex (p = 0.12) and race/ethnicity (p = 0.14) with risky family score for associations with mean IMT. In conclusion, childhood family psychosocial environment was positively associated with IMT in white participants, with little evidence of association in black participants. Mechanisms in white participants may include potential negative impacts of socioeconomic constraints on parenting quality, potentially influencing offspring's cardiovascular risk factors (e.g. smoking), socioeconomic position (e.g. education), and/or psychosocial functioning (e.g. depression), which may in turn lead to atherosclerotic processes. Borderline racial/ethnic differences in findings should be replicated, but add to literature exploring race/ethnicity-specific associations of parenting approaches with health outcomes.

Childhood Family Psychosocial Environment and Coronary Heart Disease Risk

Little is known about whether the childhood family psychosocial environment affects coronary heart disease (CHD). Study objectives were to evaluate associations of childhood family psychosocial environment (termed "risky families"; characterized by cold, unaffectionate interactions, conflict, aggression, neglect, and/or low nurturance) with calculated risk for CHD. Study participants included 3554 participants of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study, aged 33 to 45 years. Childhood family psychosocial environment was measured using a risky family questionnaire via self-report. Ten-year CHD risk was calculated using the validated Framingham risk algorithm. In a multivariable-adjusted regression analysis adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, and childhood socioeconomic position, a 1-unit (range, 0-21) increase in risky family score was associated with 1.0% (95% confidence interval = 0.4%-1.7%) and 1.0% (95% confidence interval = 0.2%-1.8%) higher CHD risk in women and men, respectively. Multiple mediation analyses suggested significant indirect effects of education, income, depressive symptomatology, and anger-out expression in women and education in men, indicating that these may be mediating mechanisms between childhood psychosocial environment and CHD risk. Of the modifiable Framingham algorithm components, smoking (in women and men) and high-density lipoprotein (in women) were the factors most strongly associated with risky family score. Childhood family psychosocial environment was positively associated with the calculated 10-year CHD risk. Mechanisms may include the potential negative impact of childhood family psychosocial environment on later-life socioeconomic position (e.g., education in men and women) and/or psychosocial functioning (e.g., depression and anger-out expression in women), which may in turn lead to higher CHD risk, particularly through smoking (in men and women) and low level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (in women).

Family and School Psychosocial Environment (FSPE): Development of a brief questionnaire measuring perceived psychosocial environments in children/siblings

The aim of the study was to develop a short Swedish standardized, factor analyzed and cross-validated, family and school psychosocial environment questionnaire (FSPE). The study was based on 244 Swedish girls and boys, 10-19 years old, who filled in the FSPE. Maximum likelihood factor analysis, promax rotation, yielded six primary factors, based on absolute ratings. Since the factors were somewhat correlated, two broader secondary factors, with satisfactory reliabilities, were also included in the form, named Warmth, support and openness from parents, siblings and peers, and Family conflicts and school discipline, respectively. Means and standard deviations for girls and boys showed sex differences in most of the factors. Because the children participated anonymously they could report about spanking without negative consequences. Indeed, 8.1% of the children had been spanked by their parents. Based on relative ratings, two factors were identified, covering environmental questions about "more than, the same as or less than" a sibling. Only 6.6% of the children rated their environment exactly the same on the Family Psychosocial Environment (FPE) factors, compared to a sibling within the family. Thus the majority reported environmental differences. Further research is proposed to evaluate such differences and relations to personality, genotype-environment correlation and genetic mediation.

Adolescent dietary patterns are associated with lifestyle and family psycho-social factors

Dietary intake during adolescence contributes to lifelong eating habits and the development of early risk factors for disease in adulthood. Few studies have examined the dietary patterns of adolescents and the social and environmental factors that may affect them during this life stage. The present study describes dietary patterns in a cohort of adolescents and examines their associations with socio-economic factors, as well as parental and adolescent risk factor behaviours. A semi-quantitative FFQ was used to assess study adolescents' usual dietary intake over the previous year. Information was collected on family functioning and various socio-economic and risk factor variables via questionnaire. Adolescents visited the study clinic for anthropometric measurements. The Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort Study (Raine Study), Perth, Western Australia. Adolescents (n 1631) aged 14 years from a pregnancy cohort study. Factor analysis identified two distinct dietary patterns that differed predominantly in fat and sugar intakes. The 'Western' pattern consisted of high intakes of take-away foods, soft drinks, confectionery, French fries, refined grains, full-fat dairy products and processed meats. The 'healthy' pattern included high intakes of whole grains, fruit, vegetables, legumes and fish. ANOVA showed that the 'Western' dietary pattern was positively associated with greater television viewing and having a parent who smoked, and was inversely associated with family income. The 'healthy' pattern was positively associated with female gender, greater maternal education, better family functioning and being in a two-parent family, and was inversely associated with television viewing. The study suggests that both lifestyle factors and family psycho-social environment are related to dietary patterns in Australian adolescents.

Longevity following the experience of parental divorce

An archival prospective design was used to study mediating and moderating variables for the association between parental divorce and increased mortality risk, using a sub-group ( n = 1183 ) of individuals from the US Terman Life Cycle Study covering the period 1921–2000. In childhood, both socioeconomic status (SES) and family psychosocial environment were related to parental divorce but did little to explain its effects. The higher mortality risk associated with experiencing parental divorce was ameliorated among individuals (especially men) who achieved a sense of personal satisfaction by mid-life. Behaviorally, smoking was the strongest mediator of the divorce-mortality link. This study extends previous work on the long-term effects of parental divorce and reveals some reasons why the stress of parental divorce in childhood need not necessarily lead to negative later-life outcomes.

Chronic musculoskeletal pain and functional status in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis: an empirical model

An empirical model is proposed and tested on variables hypothesized to influence functional status in 23 children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain. Child psychological adjustment, family psychosocial environment, chronic musculoskeletal pain, and disease activity were entered into multiple regression analyses to statistically predict 4 functional status criterion variables: activities of daily living (ADL), activities involvement, school functioning, and social functioning. Predictor variable relationships were found for all 4 functional status criterion variables, suggesting initial support for this empirical model of functional status in children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain.

An Empirical Assessment of the Effects of Cancer on Family Role Functioning

The initial results of a longitudinal study of 54 cancer patients and their families are reported. This study focused on the impact of cancer on the family's reallocation of roles and on the psychosocial environment by applying a developmental model to the analysis of roles in the family throughout its life cycle. Major factors that were examined included marital communication, the family's method of assigning roles before the onset of cancer and its pattern of reallocating roles, and the family's stage in the family life cycle. It was hypothesized that these factors would influence the performance of roles by other family members and the family's psychosocial environment at the time of hospitalization. The results indicated that the spouses' communication patterns strongly influenced how well roles were enacted, thc amount of role strain and role conflict, and the level of cohesion and conflict in the family. The method that the family used for reassigning roles also significantly influenced how well rol...