Two areas of recent research on parenting are examined: (i) Parenting problems in families with parental psychopathology, and (ii) parenting problems when children have psychiatric disorders. Review of literature showed that parental, as well as child, psychopathology represents major stressors for a family and substantially impacts parenting abilities. Two main dimensions of dysfunctional parenting occur in families with child or parental psychopathology: (i) Parental negativity, and (ii) various forms of ineffective discipline practices. For parents, the level of parental social functioning and responsiveness may be more crucial for parenting skills than psychiatric symptoms per se. For children, the impact of dysfunctional parenting seems to be non-specific for child outcome, related to both internalizing and externalizing disorders. However, evidence does point to links among parental negative, affectionless control and depression/anxiety in children, whereas inconsistent, disruptive parenting with insufficient monitoring is more characteristic of parents with conduct-disordered children.

Background: Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) studies concerning children and adolescents are a growing field of research. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) is considered as a promising HRQOL instrument with the availability of age appropriate versions and parallel forms for both child and parents. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Norwegian translation of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) 4.0 generic core scale in a sample of healthy young adolescents.

Significant differences found between children treated for ALL and their control group for the PedsQL Psychosocial Health Scale may indicate that the complex illness-treatment experience can make children more vulnerable with regard to psychosocial sequels, in spite of otherwise satisfactory physical and intellectual functioning. Follow-up programs that target the psychosocial health of children in remission from ALL should be implemented.

Children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: mental health, psychosocial adjustment and parental functioningThe objective of this study is to assess the mental health and psychosocial adjustment of children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), and parental functioning compared to healthy controls. A cross-sectional study of 40 children treated for ALL (mean age 11.8 years, range 8.5-15.4) and healthy controls (n = 42) (mean age 11.8 years, range 8.11-15.0) were assessed by the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Youth Self-Report (YSR) and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The parent's own mental health was assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30). Children treated for ALL showed on average significantly more symptoms as measured by the CBCL Total Behaviour Score for mother's report (P = 0.005), and for father's report (P = 0.004) compared with healthy children. Fathers reported more anxiety (P = 0.03) and depression (P = 0.02) as measured by the GHQ-30 compared with healthy controls. Children in remission from ALL showed on average significantly more problems regarding mental health and psychosocial adjustment, as reported by their parents, compared with healthy controls. Adequate rehabilitation and follow-up programmes should be implemented for children in remission from ALL. The results indicate the need to pay attention to the mental health of fathers during the rehabilitation phase.

Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet -NTNU Sissel GravåsNorges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet -NTNU Palavras-chave: Lidando com emoções, sentimento de raiva, sentimento de tristeza Resumo O presente estudo focaliza respostas de crianças sobre como parar o sentimento de tristeza e raiva, o que implica explorar estratégias de alterações de humor, i.e., pensamentos sobre como regular as emoções. Foi perguntado a crianças brasileiras e norueguesas de 5, 7 e 9 anos de idade como a tristeza e a raiva podiam cessar em 4 diferentes contextos para cada emoção. Os resultados mostram que as estratégias de regulação das emoções (RE) variavam em função do contexto e da idade; que as crianças brasileiras usaram mais a interação social e as crianças norueguesas recorreram mais às estratégias cognitivas para raiva, mas não para tristeza. Não foi observada uma diferença clara na estratégia de RE para tristeza e raiva. AbstractChildren trying to deal with emotions of anger and sadness The present study focus on children's cognitions of how to stop feeling sad and angry, which implies an exploration of their meta mood strategies, i.e. thoughts about how to regulate emotions. It was asking 5, 7, and 9-year-old Brazilian and Norwegian children how sadness and anger could be stopped in 4 different contexts for each emotion. The results showed

Results from 240 students (120 each from Brazil and Norway) on the 15-item revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) show higher endorsement of the ecological paradigm from the Brazilians; suggestions are that this relates to cultural variables rather than to technological development variables. There is no consistent relationship between scores on the NEP and scores from tests of justice based and care based morality, gender roles, or cultural orientation. Alphas, inter-item correlations, and factor analysis show much variation between the samples, but the relative ranking of items show very high agreement.

Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is today considered an important assessment measurement, but still only a few measures assess HRQOL outcomes for children and adolescents. One of them is the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL). This correlation study explored the associations between depressive symptoms in young adolescents and the PedsQL scores when controlling for known risk factors. An adolescent sample (n=425) completed a battery of measures including the PedsQL Norwegian version, the Short Mood and Feeling Questionnaire (SMFQ), the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for children (SPAI-C), and the occurrence of Stressful Life Events (SLE). The results showed a mild to moderate correlation between the measures PedsQL, SMFQ, SPAI-C and SLE. The presence of depressive symptoms significantly predicted the PedsQL scores for the adolescence, and explained 17% of the variance in outcome for the PedsQL Total Scale. The findings suggest that the PedsQL is an adequate assessment instrument regarding depressive symptoms in young adolescents, and can be useful in both clinical practice and further research as an assessment measure regarding children's mental health.

Prevalence estimates of psychiatric disorder in 10-yr-old rural Norwegian children were based on responses to symptom checklists for parents and teachers. The parents' index showed highest validity, and was used as a basis for prevalence estimates. Properties of the index were shown to be sample specific, and a validity test should consequently always be administered to representative subsamples in psychiatric epidemiological studies based on symptom checklists. Prevalence of functional problems of a primarily psychological nature was calculated by proportional extrapolations from the validity test results. The prevalence rate for the total sample was 5%, and corrected prevalence when emigrants were excluded was 4.6%.