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Biomedical subjects

Adrian B Kelly

Publications and source records attributed to Adrian B Kelly.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

The HYP program-targeted motivational interviewing for adolescent violations of school tobacco policy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of a short-term tobacco-focused intervention for high school students referred by school administrators because of tobacco use. METHOD: A sample of 56 adolescents (66% male, mean age 15 years) was recruited through referrals from three state high schools. Participants were randomly assigned to a one-hour motivational interview (MI) session or to standard care (advice/education). The two groups were followed up at one, three, and six-month intervals. RESULTS: The MI intervention resulted in significant short-term reductions in quantity and frequency of smoking relative to standard care, however, effects were not maintained at 3- and 6-month follow-up. Improvements in refusal self-efficacy were significant relative to standard care. CONCLUSION: For adolescents who are established smokers and at high risk of other problems, motivational interviewing was associated with modest short-term gains relative to standard care.

Adolescent↗

Adolescent tobacco-related associative memory: A cross-sectional and contextual analysis.

Tobacco use is prevalent in adolescents, and understanding factors that contribute to its uptake and early development remains a critical public health priority. Implicit drug-related memory associations (DMAs) are predictive of drug use in older samples, but such models have little application to adolescent tobacco use. Moreover, extant research on memory associations yields little information on contextual factors that may be instrumental in the development of DMAs. The present study examined (a) the degree to which tobacco-related memory associations (TMAs) were associated with concurrent tobacco use and (b) the extent to which TMAs mediated the association of peer and self-use. A sample of 210 Australian high school students was recruited. Participants completed TMA tasks and behavioral checklists designed to obscure the tobacco-related focus of the study. Results showed that TMAs were associated with peer use, and TMAs predicted self-use. We found no evidence that TMAs mediated the association of peer and self-use. Future research might examine the emotive valence of implicit nodes and drinking behavior. The results have implications for testing the efficacy of consciousness-raising interventions for adolescents at risk of tobacco experimentation or regular use.

Adolescent↗

Alcohol-related associative strength and drinking behaviours: concurrent and prospective relationships.

The first part of this research assessed the longitudinal relationships between alcohol-related associative strength and alcohol use measured at two time-points, 6 months apart. Cross-lagged results support the utility of alcohol-related associative strength to predict drinking behaviours prospectively and vice versa. These results remained after competing explanations of previous use, autocorrelations between memory measures, sensation seeking and background variables of age and gender were accounted for. Findings offer further evidence for an implicit cognitions approach to drinking processes. In the second part of our study, cross-sectional analysis investigated potential mediating mechanisms in the relation of associative strength to quantity and frequency dimensions of drinking. Mediational models provide preliminary evidence that implicit memory processes may have differential effects on quantity and frequency dimensions of drinking behaviours. The results point to the possibility that increasing awareness of implicit alcohol-related associations may have utility in interventions for young adults.

Adolescent↗

The association of alcohol and family problems in a remote indigenous Australian community.

While a large proportion of Aboriginal Australians do not consume alcohol, those who do frequently show severe alcohol problems. In European-derived samples, heavy alcohol use is associated with relationship distress, conflict, and violence. Because Aboriginal groups commonly have very different family structures, values, and obligations to European-derived families, the association of family and alcohol problems in Aboriginal Australians may be different from European-derived families. This self-report study is the first known published empirical study of family and alcohol problems among Aboriginal Australians. It involved 99 people from a remote community in the far North of Australia. The aims were to explore the association of family conflict, family cohesion, family independence, alcohol problems, and alcohol-related expectancies. Compared to those without alcohol problems, people with alcohol problems reported more family conflict and women with alcohol problems reported high family independence. Expectancies of negative affect change mediated the association of alcohol problems and family conflict. Family cohesion was unrelated to alcohol or family problems. Implications for detection of and interventions for alcohol and family problems are discussed.

Adult↗

Reaching adolescents who drink harmfully: Fitting intervention to developmental reality.

Alcohol use usually starts in early adolescence. While the greater proportion of young people develop adaptive patterns of drinking, many drink at harmful levels and may be at risk for future alcohol-related problems. Findings from the empirical literature suggest that universal prevention programs may delay onset of drinking among low-risk baseline abstainers; however, there is little evidence supporting their utility for at-risk adolescents. Further research is needed on how risk and protective factors interact to determine substance use trajectory, and intervention outcomes that take substance use trajectories into account may capture change more effectively than the use of absolute measures of substance use. Indicated prevention programs may benefit from modulations that account for adolescent individuation and identity formation. It is argued that motivational interviewing within a harm reduction framework is well suited to adolescents.

Adolescent↗

Family functioning, alcohol expectancies and alcohol-related problems in a remote aboriginal Australian community: a preliminary psychometric validation study.

While a large proportion of Aboriginal Australians do not consume alcohol, those who do frequently show severe alcohol problems, and alcohol problems are associated with family conflict and violence. The aims were to examine the internal coherence and reliability of measures of family and alcohol measures for indigenous Australians in remote communities. This study involved 99 indigenous people from a remote North Queensland community. Questions were drawn from established questionnaires and administered verbally. Principle components factor analysis revealed three coherent and reliable measures of family conflict, independence, and cohesion. Expectancies of affective change had sound internal reliability for drinkers, and covaried with alcohol problems in the expected direction. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test had two distinct factors relating to consumption and problems, but quantity/frequency measures may have limited reliability due to the common practice among drinkers of sharing alcohol. These measures should facilitate the detection and initial assessment of alcohol and family problems, and may be useful for evaluating change in future interventions that target family and alcohol problems.

Adolescent↗

Accessibility of alcohol-related attitudes: a cross-lag panel model with young adults.

BACKGROUND: In the alcohol literature, most cognition research has focused on alcohol expectancies. Overall scores on alcohol expectancy questionnaires predict longitudinal changes in drinking behavior. However, the association between expectancy subscale scores and drinking behavior is inconsistent and modest. Attitudinal information may vary in accessibility (i.e., the ease or speed with which attitudinal information is evaluated), and more accessible (i.e., faster) attitudinal evaluations may predict heavier alcohol consumption. An alternative hypothesis arising from response competition theory is that heavy drinkers will show slow attitudinal evaluations, given that heavy drinkers frequently show mixed, inconsistent, or opposing alcohol-related beliefs. In this study we examined the degree to which speed of processing of alcohol-related evaluative judgments longitudinally predicted alcohol consumption in university students. METHODS: Response latencies for alcohol- and non-alcohol-related attitudinal inquiries and measures of alcohol use were administered at two intervals 4 months apart. RESULTS: The key findings were that response times for tension reduction and cognitive impairment items at time 1 positively predicted alcohol consumption at time 2. These results held after we accounted for autocorrelation in drinking and individual variability in reactivity. CONCLUSION: For items relating to tension reduction, response times fit a response competition hypothesis better than the attitude accessibility hypothesis.

Adolescent↗

Couple communication and female problem drinking: a behavioral observation study.

Couples with alcohol and relationship problems often report poor communication, yet little is known about the communication of maritally distressed couples in which the woman abuses alcohol (MDWA couples). Compared with maritally distressed couples without alcohol problems (MDNA) and couples with neither problem (NDNA), MDWA couples showed a distinctive pattern of negative communication. Similar to MDNA men, MDWA men spoke negatively to their partners but listened positively to their partners much like NDNA men. MDWA women listened negatively, much as MDNA women did, but spoke positively, like NDNA women did. The interactions of MDWA couples can be characterized as a male-demand-female-withdraw pattern, which is a gender reversal of the female-demand-male-withdraw pattern often observed in MDNA couples.

Adult↗

Expectations of the effects of drinking on couple relationship functioning: an assessment of women in distressed relationships who consume alcohol at harmful levels.

Based on a cognitive-social learning model of alcohol use, it was hypothesised that women with both alcohol and relationship problems would endorse more positive expectations of the effects of alcohol consumption on their relationship and would report lower relational efficacy than women without relationship or alcohol problems. Measures of relationship-referent alcohol expectancies and relational efficacy were completed by 174 married women with both alcohol and relationship problems (n = 20), alcohol problems alone (n = 26), relationship problems alone (n = 30), or neither problem (n = 98). Women without either alcohol or relationship problems strongly rejected expectations of enhanced relationship functioning (e.g., enhanced intimacy, increased emotional expression) following alcohol consumption, whereas women with both alcohol and relationship problems were ambivalent about these positive expectations. Women with both problems also reported lower relational efficacy than the other groups of women. Negative expectations about the effect of alcohol consumption on relationships in women with low relational efficacy may inhibit harmful drinking.

Affect↗