A problem shared is a problem halved

Study highlights the power of positive relationships for girls' mental health

2012-10-10

(Press-News.org) The experience of being bullied is particularly detrimental to the psychological health of school girls who don't have social support from either adults or peers, according to a new study by Dr. Martin Guhn and colleagues from the University of British Columbia in Canada. In contrast, social support from adults or peers (or both) appears to lessen the negative consequences of bullying in this group, namely anxiety and depression. The work is published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies.

Guhn and his team looked at whether the combination of high levels of bullying and low levels of adult as well as peer support have a multiplicative negative effect on children's well-being.

A total of 3,026 ten-year-old school children from 72 schools in Vancouver, Canada, took part in the study and completed questionnaires, which assessed their satisfaction with life, their self-esteem, and their levels of anxiety and depression. The authors looked at whether the ratings for these factors differed, according to the quality of the children's relationships with both adults and their peers and how often they felt victimized.

Overall, girls were more likely to report positive relationships with both adults and peers, higher satisfaction with life, higher self-esteem as well as higher anxiety levels. There were no differences between boys' and girls' reported levels of bullying and depression. However, as many as 1 in 7 girls and 1 in 6 boys felt victimized several times a week, with verbal and social victimization more commonly reported than physical bullying; cyber bullying appeared to be relatively low.

The authors also found that positive relationships with adults and peers were strongly linked to life satisfaction and self-esteem, whereas bullying was strongly linked to depressive symptoms and anxiety. In addition, victimization was particularly strongly linked to low life satisfaction, low self-esteem and more depressive symptoms in girls who reported low levels of social support from adults as well as from peers.

The authors conclude: "Our findings have implications for promoting children's well-being in school and community contexts, supporting interventions that foster relationship-building skills and simultaneously reduce victimization. In other words, children need more than the absence of risk factors to experience good mental health and well-being."

### Reference Guhn M et al (2012). A population study of victimization, relationships, and well-being in middle childhood. Journal of Happiness Studies; DOI 10.1007/s10902-012-9393-8

The full-text article is available to journalists on request.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Research reveals more about spatial memory problems associated with Alzheimer's

2012-10-10

Researchers at Western University have created a mouse model that reproduces some of the chemical changes in the brain that occur with Alzheimer's, shedding new light on this devastating disease. Marco Prado, Vania Prado and their colleagues at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry's Robarts Research Institute, looked at changes related to a neurotransmitter or chemical messenger, named acetylcholine (ACh), and the kinds of memory problems associated with it. The research is now published online by PNAS. The researchers, including first author Amanda Martyn, ...

Photonic gels are colorful sensors

2012-10-10

HOUSTON – (Oct. 10, 2012) – Materials scientists at Rice University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created very thin color-changing films that may serve as part of inexpensive sensors for food spoilage or security, multiband optical elements in laser-driven systems and even as part of high-contrast displays. The new work led by Rice materials scientist Ned Thomas combines polymers into a unique, self-assembled metamaterial that, when exposed to ions in a solution or in the environment, changes color depending on the ions' ability to infiltrate ...

Criteria used to diagnose sports head injuries found to be inconsistent

2012-10-10

In recent years it has become clear that athletes who experience repeated impacts to the head may be at risk of potentially serious neurological and psychiatric problems. But a study of sports programs at three major universities, published in the October 2 Journal of Neurosurgery, finds that the way the injury commonly called concussion is usually diagnosed – largely based on athletes' subjective symptoms – varies greatly and may not be the best way to determine who is at risk for future problems. In addition, the way the term concussion is used in sports injuries may ...

High toll of mental illness and addictions must be addressed

2012-10-10

October 10, 2012 (Toronto) – Mental illnesses and addictions take more of a toll on the health of Ontarians than cancer or infectious diseases, according to a new report by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Public Health Ontario – yet this burden could be reduced with treatment, say scientists from Canada's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). "The majority of people with mental illness or addiction aren't receiving treatment, even though effective interventions are available," says report co-author Dr. Paul Kurdyak, Chief of General and Health ...

RNA-based therapy brings new hope for an incurable blood cancer

2012-10-10

Three thousand new cases of Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL), a form of blood cancer, appear in the United States each year. With a median survival span of only five to seven years, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, this disease is devastating, and new therapies are sorely needed. One of the characteristics that defines MCL is heightened activity in the gene CCND1, which leads to the aggressive over-production of Cyclin D1, a protein that controls the proliferation of cells, explains Prof. Dan Peer of Tel Aviv University's Department of Cell Research and Immunology. ...

Squeezing ovarian cancer cells to predict metastatic potential

2012-10-10

New Georgia Tech research shows that cell stiffness could be a valuable clue for doctors as they search for and treat cancerous cells before they're able to spread. The findings, which are published in the journal PLoS One, found that highly metastatic ovarian cancer cells are several times softer than less metastatic ovarian cancer cells. Assistant Professor Todd Sulchek and Ph.D. student Wenwei Xu used a process called atomic force microscopy (AFM) to study the mechanical properties of various ovarian cell lines. A soft mechanical probe "tapped" healthy, malignant and ...

Effectiveness of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in Peru

2012-10-10

In this week's PLOS Medicine, Anna Borquez from Imperial College London and an international group of authors developed a mathematical model representing the HIV epidemic among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transwomen in Lima, Peru as a test-case for the effectiveness of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The model was used to investigate the population-level impact, cost, and cost-effectiveness of PrEP under a range of different scenarios. The authors found that strategic PrEP intervention could be a cost-effective addition to existing HIV prevention strategies ...

Most pregnancy-related infections are caused by four treatable conditions

2012-10-10

In low-and-middle income countries, pregnancy-related infections are a major cause of maternal death, can also be fatal to unborn and newborn babies, and are mostly caused by four types of conditions that are treatable and preventable, according to a review by US researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The authors, led by Michael Gravett and a team of investigators from the University of Washington in Seattle, PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), and GAPPS (Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth, Seattle Children's) reviewed ...

Vigorous physical activity may increase risk of bleeding for children with hemophilia

2012-10-10

CHICAGO – In children and adolescents with hemophilia, vigorous physical activity was associated with an elevated risk of bleeding, although it appears the absolute increase in risk may be small, according to a study in the October 10 issue of JAMA. Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder that, if untreated, causes recurrent bleeding into joints. "Vigorous physical activity is thought to increase risk of bleeds in children with hemophilia, but the magnitude of the risk is unknown," according to background information in the article. Information about risks associated with ...

Rates of procedures such as angioplasty lower in states with public reporting of outcomes

2012-10-10

CHICAGO – In an analysis that included nearly 100,000 Medicare patients who had experienced a heart attack, the use of a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries) was lower for patients treated in states with public reporting of PCI outcomes compared with patients treated in states without public reporting, with these differences being particularly large in the highest-risk patients, according to a study in the October 10 issue of JAMA. However, the researchers found that there ...

A problem shared is a problem halved

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: