Biomedical subjects

T N Sullivan

Publications and source records attributed to T N Sullivan.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Development and evaluation of school-based violence prevention programs.

Discusses key issues in developing and evaluating school-based violence prevention interventions. Schools provide a natural setting for implementing programs directed at teaching youth attitudes, knowledge, and skills to reduce their involvement in violence. Although multitudes of these programs exist, few have been rigorously evaluated. Developers of violence prevention programs need to pay particular attention to the type of violence being addressed, the target population, relevant risk and protective factors, and the target of the intervention. Conducting sound evaluations of such programs requires careful attention to the unit of randomization, treatment conditions, outcome measures, timing of data collection, and potential moderator variables. Efforts to develop effective prevention programs can be greatly facilitated by adopting an action-research strategy in which evaluation findings provide a basis for continual program refinement.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Structure of the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory Self-Restraint scale and its relation to problem behaviors in adolescence.

The authors examined the structure of the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI) Self-Restraint scale in derivation (n = 1,286) and cross-validation (n = 1,154) samples of mostly African American 6th graders in 3 urban schools. Four models were compared: (a) a 1-factor model; (b) a hierarchical model in which factors representing Impulse Control, Suppression of Aggression, Responsibility, and Consideration of Others were subsumed by a higher order factor; (c) a model that represented these 4 factors as correlated but distinct constructs; and (d) a model that excluded Consideration of Others from the higher order factor. Consistent support was found for the last model based on confirmatory factor analyses and latent-variable analyses examining the relations among self-restraint scales, drug use, delinquency, and aggression. These findings have implications for using the WAI, particularly in studies of adolescent problem behaviors.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Identification and impact of risk and protective factors for drug use among urban African American adolescents.

Identified 10 risk and 12 protective factors associated with drug use among African American 8th graders (N = 994) in an urban school system. Regression analyses identified 7 risk and 7 protective factors with minimal overlap. The total number of risk factors was significantly related to the prevalence of use for cigarettes, beer or wine, liquor, marijuana, and a composite measure of drug use. The Protective Factor Index (PFI) was a significant moderator of the relation between risk and use of beer or wine, liquor, marijuana, and the composite measure. Longitudinal analyses of data on 650 students across the transition from middle to high school indicated that the sum of risk factors predicted changes in all drug use categories except the composite. The PFI significantly predicted changes in beer or wine, liquor, and composite drug use over this 1-year period. It also moderated risk for cigarette use, but not for other drugs. Results replicated prior studies and highlighted the importance of protective factors such as adaptive functioning in school and family influences.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Schedule-induced masseter EMG in facial pain subjects vs. no-pain controls.

Empirical reports suggest that oral habits (e.g., teeth clenching) may be behavioral mediators linking stress to muscle hyperreactivity and the development of facial pain. Another report suggests that excessive behavioral adjuncts develop in conjunction with fixed-time stimulus presentation. The present study assessed the extent to which the oral habits exhibited by facial pain patients are schedule-induced. Subjects with Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD) symptomatology (n = 15) and pain-free controls (n = 15) participated in a 4-phase experiment (adaptation, baseline, task, recovery) designed to elicit schedule-induced behaviors. Self-report of oral habits and negative affect were recorded after each phase. Objective measures of oral habits were obtained via behavioral observation and masseter EMG recordings. Results revealed that negative arousal significantly increased during the fixed-time (FT) task and was also associated with increased oral habits among the TMD subjects. Moreover, 40% of the TMD subjects and none of the controls exhibited a pattern of EMG elevations in the early part of the inter-stimulus interval that met a strict criteria for scheduled-induced behavior per se. Taken together, these results suggest that the TMD subjects were engaging in schedule-induced oral habits. The adjunctive behavior literature seems to provide a plausible explanation as to how oral habits develop and are maintained in TMD patients, despite their painful consequences.

Adult↗