Matching Items (4)
Filtering by

Clear all filters

133078-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Frequent flyers are students who make repeated, unplanned visits to the school nurse, mostly presenting with somatic symptoms like headaches, stomachaches, and musculoskeletal pain. Somatic symptoms are characteristic of pediatric anxiety symptoms and disorders, but the relation between anxiety symptoms and frequent flyer status never has been systematically examined. This

Frequent flyers are students who make repeated, unplanned visits to the school nurse, mostly presenting with somatic symptoms like headaches, stomachaches, and musculoskeletal pain. Somatic symptoms are characteristic of pediatric anxiety symptoms and disorders, but the relation between anxiety symptoms and frequent flyer status never has been systematically examined. This study employs data corresponding to 209 students in the 4th and 5th grade (Mage = 9.51, 43.5% girls, 50.9% 51.2% Caucasian, 23.9% Hispanic/Latino) to examine the relation between students' visits to the school nurse (frequent flyer status) and anxiety, including possible variations by children's socio-demographic characteristics, including sex and race/ethnicity. Findings showed statistically significant relations between anxiety and an increased number of nurse visits. A relation between anxiety and sex leading to increased nurse visits was not statistically significant. The statistical model testing race/ethnicity and anxiety in relation to increased nurse visits was found to be significant but driven solely by anxiety. Implications for this study include reframing how frequent flyers are viewed by teachers and addressing possible anxiety in these students.
ContributorsCarnesi, Elizabeth Dora (Author) / Pina, Armando (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Stoll, Ryan (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
155878-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
The purpose of this study was to examine if certain child demographics and risk modifiers of the child (i.e., anxiety sensitivity, depressive symptoms, anxiety control, and social competence) predict program response to a Child Anxiety Indicated Prevention and Early Intervention protocol (Pina, Zerr, Villalta, & Gonzales, 2012). This anxiety protocol

The purpose of this study was to examine if certain child demographics and risk modifiers of the child (i.e., anxiety sensitivity, depressive symptoms, anxiety control, and social competence) predict program response to a Child Anxiety Indicated Prevention and Early Intervention protocol (Pina, Zerr, Villalta, & Gonzales, 2012). This anxiety protocol focused on cognitive behavioral techniques (e.g., systematic and gradual exposure) that used culturally responsive implementation strategies (Pina, Villalta, & Zerr, 2009). The current study aims to investigate specific predictors of program response to this anxiety protocol. First, it was of interest to determine if child demographics and risk modifiers of the child at baseline would predict program response to the early anxiety intervention protocol. Second, it was of interest to see if an interaction with one of the four risk modifiers at baseline and sex or protocol condition would predict program response to the early anxiety intervention protocol. This study included 88 youth (59.14% Hispanic/Latino and 40.9% Caucasian) who were recruited through referrals from public schools and randomized to one of two protocol conditions (i.e., child-only or the child-plus-parent protocol), which had varying levels of mothers’ participation within the Child Anxiety Indicated Prevention and Early Intervention protocol (Pina et al., 2012). Participants ranged from 6 to 17 years of age (M = 10.36, SD = 2.73), and 48.9% were boys. The four risk modifiers were assessed using the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman, Fleisig, Rabian, & Peterson, 1991), Children's Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1981), Anxiety Control Questionnaire for Children-Short Form (ACQ-C-S; Weems, 2005), and Social Competence scale from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Resorla, 2001). Program response was measured by pre-to-posttest changes in anxiety outcomes. Regarding the first aim, each of the four risk modifiers was related to pre-to-posttest changes in program response outcomes. Regarding the second aim for interactions between each of the four focal predictors, sex and protocol condition emerged as moderators. These results have potential implications for clinicians and researchers interested in understanding why some children might experience more or less change when participating in an early intervention protocol for anxiety.
ContributorsWynne, Henry (Author) / Pina, Armando (Thesis advisor) / Luthar, Suniya (Committee member) / Enders, Craig (Committee member) / Wolchik, Sharlene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
147526-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

Pediatric anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and while pharmacological intervention seems to be an effective treatment, the validity of reported adverse side effects remains unclear. <br/><br/>Objective: To analyze the nature of evidence regarding adverse side effects in the pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders. <br/><br/>Approach: A search using Google Scholar,

Pediatric anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and while pharmacological intervention seems to be an effective treatment, the validity of reported adverse side effects remains unclear. <br/><br/>Objective: To analyze the nature of evidence regarding adverse side effects in the pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders. <br/><br/>Approach: A search using Google Scholar, PubMed, and PsychInfo was conducted for meta-analyses of pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders as well as randomized controlled trials. The focus was on adverse events.<br/><br/>Results and Conclusion: Reportings of a limited number of adverse events were found among resources available to clinician and patient informed sources to inform pharmacological treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders. Only a small fraction of adverse side effects were found in the research literature. This finding raises concerns about making informed decisions to treat pediatric anxiety disorders with pharmacotherapy.

ContributorsMartin, Mark (Co-author) / Reyes, Trevin (Co-author) / Whooley, Max (Co-author) / Pina, Armando (Thesis director) / Benoit, Renee (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
157565-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) hold tremendous potential for addressing chronic health conditions. Smartphones are now the most popular form of computing, and the ubiquitous “always with us, always on” nature of mobile technology makes them amenable to interventions aimed and managing chronic disease. Several challenges exist, however, such as

Mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) hold tremendous potential for addressing chronic health conditions. Smartphones are now the most popular form of computing, and the ubiquitous “always with us, always on” nature of mobile technology makes them amenable to interventions aimed and managing chronic disease. Several challenges exist, however, such as the difficulty in determining mHealth effects due to the rapidly changing nature of the technology and the challenges presented to existing methods of evaluation, and the ability to ensure end users consistently use the technology in order to achieve the desired effects. The latter challenge is in adherence, defined as the extent to which a patient conducts the activities defined in a clinical protocol (i.e. an intervention plan). Further, higher levels of adherence should lead to greater effects of the intervention (the greater fidelity to the protocol, the more benefit one should receive from the protocol). mHealth has limitations in these areas; the ability to have patients sustainably adhere to a protocol, and the ability to drive intervention effect sizes. My research considers personalized interventions, a new approach of study in the mHealth community, as a potential remedy to these limitations. Specifically, in the context of a pediatric preventative anxiety protocol, I introduce algorithms to drive greater levels of adherence and greater effect sizes by incorporating per-patient (personalized) information. These algorithms have been implemented within an existing mHealth app for middle school that has been successfully deployed in a school in the Phoenix Arizona metropolitan area. The number of users is small (n=3) so a case-by-case analysis of app usage is presented. In addition simulated user behaviors based on models of adherence and effects sizes over time are presented as a means to demonstrate the potential impact of personalized deployments on a larger scale.
ContributorsSingal, Vishakha (Author) / Gary, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Pina, Armando (Committee member) / Lindquist, Timothy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019