Religiousness, Current Substance Use, and Early Risk Indicators for Substance Abuse in Nursing Students

Nursing students have been targeted by the American Nurses' Association (ANA) for efforts focused on the prevention of substance abuse. This study surveyed 241 nursing students enrolled in their first year of nursing courses at seven faith-based colleges and universities. The purposes were to investigate the prevalence of current substance use and the number of early risk indicators for substance abuse and dependence among nursing students, and to examine the relationships among religiousness, current substance use, and early risk indicators for substance abuse. Efinger's Alcohol Risk Survey, the CAGE Questionnaire, and the Intrinsic/Extrinsic-Revised Scale were used to collect data. Twenty-four percent of respondents reported current substance use, 15% scored in the probable abuse/dependence category: those who were more religious tended to have lower prevalence rates of substance use as well as fewer numbers of early risk indicators.     

Interrelationships of Violence and Psychiatric Symptoms in Women with Substance Use Disorders

Women's issues of violence, mental health problems, and substance abuse have been noted to cooccur, but few studies have examined the interrelationship among the three. A chart review of 198 women (primarily African American) at an inner city substance abuse treatment center was performed to collect data related to physical and sexual abuse experiences before and after age 13. There were significant associations among all forms of physical and sexual abuse before and after age 13 and most of the types of substances abused and almost all of the presenting mental health problems, but most of the independent relationships became nonsignificant in multivariate analyses. However, the experience of both physical and sexual assault increased the risk of suicide attempts by a factor of 6.04. Physical assault was a borderline (p = .07) predictor of depression, while sedative use was significantly predictive of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts.     

Facilitating Self-Management of Substance Use Disorders with Online Counseling: The Intervention and Study Design

This paper describes a pilot study using online counseling for court-involved parents who have been charged with child abuse and neglect related to substance use. All families resided in the medically underserved area of Newark, New Jersey and were recruited from halfway houses and the Family Court. The sample consisted of 30 participants randomly assigned to control (n = 15) and experimental (n = 15) groups. Of the participants, 83% were Black, 13% were White, and 3% were Hispanic. The control group had access to usual face-to-face treatment at a local treatment center where typical court-ordered offenders were referred. Usual face-to-face treatment often involved being wait-listed for periods of months even for a detox bed. The experimental group had immediate access to the online counseling intervention. The online counseling software and the live counseling components of the intervention were developed with a stages of change theoretical framework. Preliminary findings show promise for the feasibility of online interventions for underserved populations.     

Child Exposure to Marital Conflict and Child Coping Responses as Predictors of Child Adjustment

This study examined the influence of children's exposure to marital conflict and children's coping responses to marital conflict on child adjustment. Forty-three mother–child dyads and 38 of the children's teachers participated in this investigation. Preadolescent children reported the marital conflict they witnessed, their coping responses to marital conflict, and their feelings of depression and global self-worth, while mothers reported their marital conflict and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and teachers reported children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the contribution of demographic, marital conflict, and child coping variables to the prediction of child adjustment. The results indicated that aggressive marital conflict was predictive of children's feelings of low self-worth, mother's reports of child externalizing behavior problems, and teacher's reports of child internalizing behavior problems. Moreover, child coping factors contributed unique variances to the prediction of child reports of child depression and teacher reports of child externalizing behavior problems after marital conflict and demographic variables were considered.     

Factors related to anxiety and depression in women with breast cancer and their husbands: role of alexithymia and family functioning

Goals of work The purpose of this study was to explore alexithymia, family functioning, and other factors that might affect anxiety and depression levels in women with breast cancer and in their husbands. Patients and methods A cross-sectional study was undertaken in 46 postsurgical ambulatory women with breast cancer and their husbands. Documented informed consent for the study was obtained from each subject. All subjects completed the Zung self-rating anxiety scale (SAS), the Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS), the 20-item Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-20), and the family assessment device (FAD). Main results Multiple regression analysis revealed that a high degree of alexithymia in patients correlated with a high degree of patient anxiety. Patient perceptions of inappropriate affective responsiveness among family members correlated with a high degree of depression. Among husbands, a high degree of anxiety was correlated with their own high level of alexithymia or low level of education, and with the occurrence of adjuvant therapy in their wives. Husband perceptions of inappropriate sharing of roles among family members, their own low education level, and a large number of family members correlated with high degrees of depression among them. Conclusions The present study revealed that alexithymia and family functioning are associated with anxiety and depression, respectively, in both women with breast cancer and in their husbands. Individual traits such as alexithymia and family functioning should be taken into account when we intervene to treat anxiety and depression in breast cancer patients and their husbands.