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- Creators: Arizona State University
- Creators: College of Health Solutions
Description
The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether five select scales of the MMPI-A (F, Scale 2, A-dep, A-lse, and A-aln) are predictive of a diagnosis of a major depressive episode according to the current DSM-IV-TR criteria. Participants were 90 girls and 58 boys in a clinical psychiatric setting. The study examined two separate hypotheses across the five scales. The first set of hypotheses tested whether a significant T-score on each of the five scales would predict a diagnosis of a major depressive episode in clinical adolescents. The second set of hypotheses attempted to step away from the constraints of diagnostic and statistical cut-off criteria and evaluated the ability of discrete T-scores of the MMPI-A in predicting the number of symptoms of a major depressive episode in clinical adolescents. Results indicated that none of the five scales were predictive of a diagnosis of a major depressive disorder in clinical adolescents. All but one scale (Scale 2) was significant in its ability to predict the number of depressive symptoms in clinical adolescents. Implications of this study include the need for a better diagnostic criteria for adolescent depression as well as re-evaluating the cut-off criteria of scales on the MMPI-A. Directions for future research are also discussed.
ContributorsPham, Tuyen T (Author) / Claiborn, Charles D. (Thesis advisor) / Homer, Judith (Committee member) / Gerkin, Richard D. (Committee member) / Fair, Christine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
Eating disorders are complex psychiatric illnesses often resulting in severe disturbances in eating behaviors and body-image related thoughts. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, nearly 30 million Americans have an eating disorder at a given time (2017). There are various types of eating disorders, the most common being anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge-eating disorder (BED). Moreover, eating disorders are diagnosed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
This review paper analyzes the current research on eating disorders. Some potential causes of eating disorders include the media, familial influence, and peers (Hogan & Strasburger, 2008). Also, college students are a high-risk population for eating disorders, with athletes and nutrition-related students being more high-risk than others (Arnett, 2004). The potential warning signs of an eating disorder may include (but are not limited to) weight fluctuations, excessive exercise, avoidance of food/functions with food, skipping meals, and evidence of disordered eating behaviors (such as purging) (2017). Moreover, acute medical complications may include amenorrhea (in females), dizziness, dry skin, brittle nails, unhealthy gums and teeth, lanugo, hair loss, muscle weakness, stomach cramps, poor wound healing (2017). Chronic complications of eating disorder behaviors may include osteoporosis, infertility, poor oral health, and cardiovascular abnormalities (2017). Furthermore, this paper also outlines how I have spread awareness of the topic at Arizona State University.
This review paper analyzes the current research on eating disorders. Some potential causes of eating disorders include the media, familial influence, and peers (Hogan & Strasburger, 2008). Also, college students are a high-risk population for eating disorders, with athletes and nutrition-related students being more high-risk than others (Arnett, 2004). The potential warning signs of an eating disorder may include (but are not limited to) weight fluctuations, excessive exercise, avoidance of food/functions with food, skipping meals, and evidence of disordered eating behaviors (such as purging) (2017). Moreover, acute medical complications may include amenorrhea (in females), dizziness, dry skin, brittle nails, unhealthy gums and teeth, lanugo, hair loss, muscle weakness, stomach cramps, poor wound healing (2017). Chronic complications of eating disorder behaviors may include osteoporosis, infertility, poor oral health, and cardiovascular abnormalities (2017). Furthermore, this paper also outlines how I have spread awareness of the topic at Arizona State University.
ContributorsDaryanani, Anita Sonu (Author) / Kniskern, Megan (Thesis director) / Vargas, Jenna (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Individual control of sensitive health information is a matter of great concern to patients, practitioners, insurers and policymakers. Federal and state law generally supports consent approaches that allow patients to share all or none of their health data. However, research demonstrates that patients prefer more detailed control of their personal data sharing. In particular, little is known about data sharing preferences of patients with behavioral health conditions (BHCs). This study will explore the technical feasibility of supporting patient-driven, consent-based data access through a preliminary analysis of data collected from the My Data Choices e-consent tool. Through these findings, this research seeks to inform stakeholders about the clinical, ethical, policy, and regulatory implications of broader consent choices.
ContributorsKaing, Tina C. (Author) / Grando, Maria Adela (Thesis director) / Murcko, Anita (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
The goal of this thesis was to create a resource addressing non-course-specific (NCS) student needs that College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (CISA) faculty can provide to their students when appropriate. Students attend faculty office hours for a variety of reasons, and not all are academic in nature. Data was collected in order to determine which resources were lacking in addressing these needs. Student need was identified through a 13-item survey regarding faculty perception of NCS student needs, including the primary reason for office hour visitation and the primary sources of stress, academic advising, and time management complaints from their students. Additionally, feedback was collected regarding faculty perception of available resources and likelihood of utilizing a new resource. Throughout the Downtown, Tempe, and Polytechnic campuses, 24 faculty responded. It was found that work stress, familial stress, academic advising requests, and students comments of being overwhelmed were the primary NCS student needs as perceived by faculty. Additionally, the majority of faculty reported not feeling fully equipped to address these needs. This information was used to create a resource compiling a list of University and off-campus tools that students can access to address these needs. The resource combined data from faculty and from the literature to address general and specific issues of stress, academic advising, feeling ‘off,’ and recovery and was created a double-sided handout to be used electronically or for print. It is currently available for faculty use. With further research, this resource could be expanded or refined to address the needs of a larger population of students in different colleges or on different campuses. Eventually, this could be used as a University-wide tool.
ContributorsMcAnally, Kaylyn Marie (Author) / Chisum, Jack (Thesis director) / Lisenbee, Cayle (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Latinx sexual minority adults experience diverse types of discrimination, including heterosexism and ethnic/racial discrimination, which may contribute to worse physical health. Yet little research has examined how intersectional forms of discrimination, for example, discrimination within another marginalized community contribute to physical health. Greater experiences of discrimination can lead to greater psychological distress which may then exacerbate physical symptoms. It was hypothesized that the association between intersecting forms of discrimination and physical symptom severity would be mediated by psychological distress. Participants (N = 369) identified as Latinx/Hispanic/Latino and as a sexual or gender minority. Data were collected via a self-report web-based survey. Using structural equation modeling, this study tested two theory-informed structure equation models (SEM) proposing pathways between perceived general and within-group discrimination (i.e., Model 1 = racism and racism within LGBTQ+ community; Model 2 = heterosexism and heterosexism within ethnic/racial community), psychological distress (i.e., anxiety and depression), and physical symptom severity. Both structural models demonstrated good fit to the data. As hypothesized, heterosexist discrimination (β = .184, p = .007) and racist discrimination (β = .284, p = .001) significantly predicted higher physical symptom severity in their respective models. Depression symptoms significantly mediated the association between ethnic/racial discrimination and physical symptom severity (β = .189, p = .003). Similarly, greater frequency of heterosexism within one’s ethnic/racial community was indirectly related with worse physical symptoms severity via depression (β = .200, p = .002). No other indirect effects were significant. Findings from this study support that Latinx sexual minority adults may be at risk for discrimination from outside and within their own minority groups which has detrimental effects on health. Noteworthy, depressive symptoms appeared to mediate the effects of heterosexism in one’s ethnic/racial group on physical symptoms. These results highlight how overlapping forms of stigma have differential effects on health via psychological distress. These findings have important clinical and scientific implications in understanding how overlapping forms of discrimination affect health among Latinx sexual minority adults.
ContributorsRenteria, Roberto (Author) / Capielo Rosario, Cristalís (Thesis advisor) / Cerezo, Alison (Committee member) / Dillon, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The traditional model of assessing and treating behavioral health (BH) and physical health (PH) in silos is inadequate for supporting whole-person health and wellness. The integration of BH and PH may result in better care quality, patient-provider experiences, outcomes, and reduced costs. Cross-organizational health data sharing between BH and PH providers is critical to patients with BH conditions (BHCs). In the last few decades, many initiatives -including health information exchange organizations- have facilitated cross-organizational health data sharing. The current challenge is affording meaningful consent and ensuring patient privacy, two of the core requirements for advancing the adoption and use of health information technology (HIT) in the US. The Office of the National Coordinator for HIT (ONC) recommends that patients should be given granular control beyond the “share all” or “share none” approach widely used currently in consent practices. But there is no consensus on the variables relevant to promote granularity in data sharing to honor privacy satisfaction for patients. As a result, existing granular data sharing (GDS) studies use ad-hoc and non-standardized approaches to implement or investigate patient data sharing preferences. Novel informatics methods were proposed and piloted to support patient-driven GDS and to validate the suitability and applicability of such methods in clinical environments. The hypotheses were: H1) the variables recommended by the ONC are relevant to support GDS; H2) there is diversity in medical record sharing preferences of individuals with BHCs; and H3) the most frequently used sensitive data taxonomy captures sensitive data sharing preferences of patients with BHCs. Findings validated the study hypotheses by proposing an innovative standards-based GDS framework, validating the framework with the design and pilot testing of a clinical decision support system with 209 patients with BHCs, validating with patients the adequacy of the most frequently used sensitive data taxonomy, and systematically exploring data privacy views and data sharing perceptions of patients with BHCs. This research built the foundations for a new generation of future data segmentation methods and tools that advances the vision of the ONC of creating standards-based, interoperable models to share sensitive health information in compliance with patients’ data privacy preferences.
ContributorsKarway, George K (Author) / Grando, Adela Maria (Thesis advisor) / Murcko, Anita C (Committee member) / Franczak, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Young adult collegiate women, particularly students with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization, report a myriad of adverse mental health and academic difficulties. Practicing yoga has demonstrated promising findings among adults as a healing modality in the aftermath of interpersonal violence victimization and traumatization. Less known are the associations between collegiate women’s yoga participation and their mental health, body connection, and academic well-being examined through a yoga feminist- trauma conceptual framework. Among young adult collegiate women, this study examined (1) associations amongst socio-demographics, mental health service use, IPV types, and yoga participation (2) the strength and direction of associations on measures of ACEs, mental health, body connection, and academic well-being, (3) whether yoga participation predicted students’ mental health, body connection, and academic well-being after controlling for confounding variables, including ACEs and IPV victimization, and (4) whether socio-demographics, mental health service use, ACEs, and IPV types predicted yoga participation. This study was observational, cross-sectional, and gathered self-report quantitative data. Eligible participants were current collegiate women enrolled at an urban, public university in the southwestern United States who were 18 to 24 years of age. The main sub-sample (n = 93) included students who were ever in an intimate relationship and practiced yoga within the past year. IRB approval was obtained. Findings demonstrated that yoga participation was not a significant predictor of students’ mental health, body connection, or academic well-being. Socio-demographics, mental health service use, ACEs, and IPV did not predict yoga participation. However, women with greater ACEs fared worse on measures of mental health (i.e., depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms), and women with experiences of IPV harassment reported greater post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Further, employed women reported fewer depression symptoms and were less likely to experience emotional IPV. Lastly, students with greater body connection (more awareness) fared better academically. This research supports prior literature on the adverse mental health outcomes among young adult collegiate women with histories of interpersonal violence. Further examination is warranted into employment and body connection, particularly related to yoga, as protective factors of students' health, safety, and academic well-being.
ContributorsKappas Mazzio, Andrea Alexa (Author) / Messing, Jill T (Thesis advisor) / Mendoza, Natasha (Committee member) / Huberty, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Exploring the Relationship Between Depression and Graduate School Among Life Sciences Ph.D. Students
Description
Depression is one of the top mental health concerns among biology graduate students and has contributed to the “graduate student mental health crisis” declared in 2018. Prominent science outlets have called for interventions to improve graduate student mental health, but few studies have examined the relationship between depression and graduate school among life sciences Ph.D. students. In this coupled set of qualitative interview studies, 50 life sciences Ph.D. students from 28 institutions across the United States were interviewed. The first study explored how research and teaching affect depression in Ph.D. students and how depression in turn also affects students’ experiences in graduate school. Using inductive coding, four overarching aspects of graduate school that influenced student depression were highlighted, (1) structure in teaching and research, (2) positive and negative reinforcement, (3) success and failure, and (4) social support and isolation. The second study explored depression as a concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) by examining (1) to what extent and why graduate students revealed their depression to faculty advisors, graduate students, and undergraduate researchers, and (2) the consequences or benefits that they perceive are associated with revealing one’s depression through a hybrid approach of deductive and inductive coding. Graduate students most commonly revealed their depression to other graduate students; however, most were reluctant to share their depression with undergraduate researchers. These qualitative interview studies provide insights into creating more inclusive life science graduate programs for students with depression.
ContributorsWiesenthal, Nicholas John (Author) / Cooper, Katelyn M (Thesis advisor) / Brownell, Sara E (Committee member) / Maienschein, Jane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
As recent government administrations prioritized the criminalization and deportation of immigrants, Latinx are in danger of being targeted by police. Thus, it is important to investigate and assess Latinx views of the police in the US in order to create safe communities and reduce crime. To date, no instrument has captured Latinx perceptions of police beyond the frequency of past experience and global perception of the treatment of the general public. Therefore, creating a psychometrically supported measure that captures the unique perceptions of police among the Latinx population is necessary. The current study aims to psychometrically validate the Latinx Perceptions of Police Scale (LPOPS) (e.g., evidence of validity and reliability via confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency, convergent and concurrent validity, mean differences among groups, and measurement invariance testing). The study’s final analytic sample included 248 individuals self-identified as Latinx using an online survey. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three-factor model of the LPOPS with a Cronbach’s alpha above 0.85. The LPOPS contains 19 items and three subscales: Police Views of Latinx, Anxiety of Interacting with Police Officers, and Fear of Police Abuse. Results from the Pearson bivariate analysis provided evidence of convergent validity as there were associations between the LPOPS subscales, past measures of view of police (e.g., Perception of Police Scale, Police and Law Enforcement Scale), and other psychological constructs (e.g., anxiety, depression, stress, discrimination). Further, results of the multi-group confirmatory analysis indicated that the LPOPS could be used among (race; skin-tone). Lastly, participants who reported darker skin tones reported higher mean scores on the Anxiety of Interacting with Police Officers and Fear of Police Abuse subscales. By further validating a scale that captures perceptions of police among Latinx in a quantitative way, researchers can begin exploring its association with various mental health outcomes.
ContributorsAltamirano, Elizabeth (Author) / Dillon, Frank (Thesis advisor) / Capielo, Cristalis (Committee member) / Vargas, Edward D. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The purpose of this study was to (a) embed nature and mindfulness into university course curriculum to determine the influence they have on students’ health and well-being, (b) examine students’ perspectives of mindfulness in the natural environment, and (c) to determine what students identify as the impacts of integrating nature and mindfulness into the university curriculum. This study was unique from previous studies. Several mindfulness practices were introduced so participants could explore and evaluate what worked for them and what did not. The research was conducted in two Environmental Education Certificate courses at Arizona State University: The Ecology and History of the Sonoran Desert (SCN 301) and Nature Journaling (SCN 309). This action research (MMAR) study included a participant pool of thirty-two students: sixteen from the in-person SCN 301 courses and sixteen from the online SCN 309 courses. Students participated in four activities requiring them to sit in a location, engage in mindfulness, and observe nature. These activities are identified as “sit spots” in this study. The four sit spots included two indoor and two outdoor sit spots. Students participated in a one-minute breathing meditation, a 54321 mindfulness technique, and a self-administered, non-clinical Mindfulness-based Art Therapy (MBAT) component during these sit spots.
Qualitative and quantitative data was collected via the pre- and post-Nature Relatedness Scale (NR) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Quantitative data was also collected during the Activity Survey (AS). Qualitative data consisted of open-ended questions in the AS, class discussion, researcher observations and notes, and students’ reflections. All analyzed data was synthesized to produce the findings in this study.
The findings suggest that integrating mindfulness and nature into university positively influenced students' mental health and well-being. Students reported decreased stress and anxiety while increasing focus, attention, and academic performance. Mindfulness and nature cultivate a more mindful and meaningful way of connecting with oneself, individuals, and nature. Mindfulness and nature also were linked to learning by producing academic benefits. The results of this study inform my local practice and set the foundations to produce results in a larger educational context.
ContributorsSchuster, Cyna (Author) / Koyama, Jill (Thesis advisor) / Walters, Molina (Committee member) / Henriksen, Danah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023