An analysis of multiple misplaced parental social contingencies.
(1/1186)
This study analyzed the training of a mother to modify five subclasses of her attention to her young child's noncompliance with instructions, and also displayed the changes in her child's behavior correlated with these events. Training in four subclasses consisted of teaching the mother to withhold various forms of social attention to her daughter's undesired behavior; training in the fifth subclass involved introduction of a brief room-timeout procedure for noncompliance. The effectiveness of the parent-training procedure, consisting of initial instructions and daily feedback, was demonstrated through a multiple-baseline design across the five subclasses of parent behavior. Sequential decreased in the first three subclasses of the mother's social attention to undesired child behavior resulted in incomplete improvements in some child responses; however, a decrease in the fourth subclass resulted in a significant increase in undesired child behavior. Complete remediation of all child behaviors was achieved following the training of a timeout procedure for noncompliance. Postchecks conducted up to 16 weeks later showed that these effects were durable. (+info)
Mothering to death.
(2/1186)
Three families are described in which the healthy only child was, from early childhood, put to bed and treated as if ill, dependent, and incapable. This abnormal mothering continued for 28, 45, and 48 years, respectively, and the children died as disabled adults. In each case, the three mothers evaded medical, educational, and social services. The origins of their behaviour are examined, and the links with more common forms of separation anxiety, school refusal, and perceived and factitious illness are discussed. (+info)
Acute childhood diarrhoea and maternal time allocation in the northern central Sierra of Peru.
(3/1186)
Interventions to improve child health depend, at least implicitly, on changing maternal knowledge and behaviour and a reallocation of maternal time. There have been few studies, however, of the time cost involved in the adoption of new health technologies and even fewer that examine changes in maternal activities in response to child illness. The present study examines maternal daytime activities and investigates changes that occur when children are ill. We examine the impact of acute childhood diarrhoea episodes on the activity patterns of the mother/caretaker in this setting. The results show that mothers alter their usual activity patterns only slightly in response to acute diarrhoea episodes in their children. They continue to perform the same variety of activities as when the children are healthy, although they are more likely to perform them with the child 'carried' on their back. There is some indication that diarrhoea perceived to be more severe did result in the mother acting as caretaker more frequently. These findings have important implications for health interventions that depend on changing the amount of maternal or caretaker time spent for child health technologies, but the implications may vary depending on the reasons for the observed lack of changes in caretaker activities. (+info)
Like mother, like daughter: familial patterns of overweight are mediated by mothers' dietary disinhibition.
(4/1186)
BACKGROUND: Obese parents are more likely to have obese children. Parents provide both the genes and eating environment for their children and familial patterns of adiposity are the result of gene-environment interactions. Environmental factors are implicated in the rapid increases in prevalence of childhood overweight that have occurred in the past 2 decades. Examination of aspects of the family environment may provide insight into increases in childhood overweight over time. OBJECTIVE: We examined parental characteristics associated with overweight and eating behaviors in preschool children. DESIGN: Seventy-five preschool children and their parents were recruited from local daycare centers. Information was obtained on parents' body mass indexes (BMIs), dietary restraint, and dietary disinhibition. A behavioral index of disinhibited eating in children was used to measure children's eating when given free access to palatable snack foods in the absence of hunger. Children's weight-for-height values were also calculated. RESULTS: Maternal dietary disinhibition (R2 = 0.35, P < 0.01) and maternal BMI (R2 = 0.19, P < 0.05) positively predicted daughters' overweight. Maternal disinhibition (R2 = 0.35, P < 0.05) mediated the relation between mothers' BMI and daughters' overweight when both maternal disinhibition and maternal BMI were used to predict daughters' overweight. Furthermore, when both mothers' disinhibition and daughters' free access intakes were used to predict daughters' overweight, mothers' disinhibition (P < 0.05) showed independent prediction. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that familial influences on child overweight differ according to parent and child sex. Also, these results suggest that mothers' dietary disinhibition mediates familial similarities in degree of overweight for mothers and daughters. (+info)
Age and gender variation in the impact of household structure on elderly mortality.
(5/1186)
BACKGROUND: There is little information about the impact of household structure and composition on elderly mortality in developing countries. This study examines the impact of relationship to head of household, and the presence of co-resident spouses and sons on elderly mortality in rural Bangladesh with a particular focus on age and gender differences. METHODS: A total of 9365 individuals aged > or = 60 at baseline (5128 males and 4237 females) in the Matlab Surveillance area in rural Bangladesh were followed for a period of 8 years (1974-1982) with all predictors (the presence of a spouse, one or more co-resident adult sons, relationship to head of household, household economic status, age and disability status) being measured at the beginning of follow-up. Cox proportional hazard models were used in the analysis. RESULTS: Being the head of household had a significant impact on reducing elderly mortality for both men and women. The presence of a spouse reduced mortality for all elderly men but had a significant beneficial impact only on women whose husbands were heads of households. Finally the presence of one or more co-resident adult sons reduced mortality for elderly women but not for elderly men. For all three of the above predictors there was a decline in effect with the age of the elderly. CONCLUSIONS: Relationship to head of household and the presence of spouses and sons have powerful impacts on reducing mortality for elderly men and women in rural Bangladesh with the effects varying significantly by gender and age. Furthermore, individual rather than joint access to material resources is an important determinant of elderly mortality. (+info)
A comparison of correlates of cigarette smoking behavior between Jiangxi province, China and Japanese high school students.
(6/1186)
We conducted surveys on cigarette smoking among junior and senior high school students in Jiangxi province, China and throughout Japan using the same anonymous, self-administered questionnaire in order to compare correlates of adolescent smoking between the two areas. Cross-sectional surveys were used to measure smoking behavior and correlates in two samples of 57,566 Japanese students and 11,836 Jiangxi students. The correlate on smoking with the highest relative risk was friend's smoking in both sexes in each area. The magnitude of the relative risk was bigger for Japanese students. The relative risk of the variable that a student doesn't think cigarette smoking harms his/her health was higher among Jiangxi students than among Japanese students. Mother's smoking and sister's smoking were significantly related to smoking experiment of Japanese students. In Japan, important measures are to support students getting coping techniques against peer pressure and to elevate concern toward adolescent smoking among family members and society. In Jiangxi, the anti-smoking education to teach students to correctly recognize the harm of smoking to their health is more important. (+info)
Rational service planning in pediatric primary care: continuity and change in psychopathology among children enrolled in pediatric practices.
(7/1186)
OBJECTIVE: To examine the stability of the occurrence of psychiatric disorders in a nonpsychiatric sample of young children. METHOD: There were 510 children ages 2-5 years enrolled through pediatric practices, with 391 children participating in the second wave, and 344 in the third wave of data collection 42-48 months later. The assessment battery administered at each wave yielded best-estimate consensus DSM-III-R diagnoses and dimensional assessments of psychopathology. RESULTS: The prevalence of disruptive disorders (DDs) decreased, while emotional disorders (EDs), other disorders, and comorbid DD increased. The DDs were associated with lower family cohesion, more maternal negative affect, stressful life events, and male gender. Comorbid DDs were associated with increasing age and family cohesion. Older children, lower family cohesion, and maternal negative affect were associated with EDs. Time trends for the dimensional assessment of psychopathology was similar to DSM-III-R disorders, but correlates differed. CONCLUSIONS: We discuss implications for service planning in pediatric primary care. (+info)
Behavioral screening in well-child care: validation of the Toddler Behavior Screening Inventory.
(8/1186)
OBJECTIVE: To provide additional normative and validity data on the TBSI, especially to examine differences in clinical and nonclinical samples. METHODS: The sample included 312 nonclinical and 50 clinical mothers of toddlers. Clinical participants consisted of mothers of toddlers who had been referred for outpatient psychological services. Mothers completed the TBSI, a 40-item behavioral screening measure for children 12 to 41 months old. The measure assesses frequency in which the behaviors occur and whether the mothers perceived the behaviors as problematic. In addition to the TBSI, mothers also completed several measures of maternal distress and social support. RESULTS: The findings support the reliability and validity of the TBSL. In addition, the study found that TBSI scores effectively discriminated clinical from nonclinical participants. CONCLUSIONS: The TBSI is a promising behavioral screening instrument that can be easily incorporated into a medical practice. (+info)