Currently, many societies are placing a greater onus on academic achievement–resulting in higher levels of stress being observed among adolescent students. Stress can have detrimental repercussions on adolescents’ health and is also associated with anxiety and depression. However, since less is known about how high stress levels affect school engagement, this study examined the interplay of perceived stress and school engagement in a large sample of seventh and eighth grade students (N = 1088; MAge = 13.7) in secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. Based on self-determination theory (SDT), this study also examined if perceived autonomy, relatedness, and competence mediated the association between stress and school engagement in order to identify possible strategies for intervention and prevention. Latent structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test for the associations between stress, self-determination, and school engagement. Results showed that self-determination acted as a full mediator in the negative association between stress and school engagement. These results suggest that supporting students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence could be an effective starting point for prevention and intervention of stress and its negative association with school engagement. Consequently, SDT has strong implications for both school psychologists as well as teachers.
This study suggests that acceptance can reliably be assessed with the section "Acceptance of Alzheimer's disease screenings" of the German PRISM-PC questionnaire. Furthermore, the majority of elderly German adults would like to be screened for Alzheimer's disease regularly, which might be an effective starting point in order to implement routine dementia screenings. As the sample is a convenience sample of (relatively) healthy older adults, generalizability of these results is limited.
ObjectiveDespite numerous investigations, the question whether all bona fide treatments of depression are equally efficacious in adults has not been sufficiently answered.MethodWe applied two different meta-analytical techniques (conventional meta-analysis and mixed treatment comparisons). Overall, 53 studies with 3,965 patients, which directly compared two or more bona fide psychotherapies in a randomized trial, were included. Meta-analyses were conducted regarding five different types of outcome measures. Additionally, the influence of possible moderators was examined.ResultsDirect comparisons of cognitive behavior therapy, behavior activation therapy, psychodynamic therapy, interpersonal therapy, and supportive therapies versus all other respective treatments indicated that at the end of treatment all treatments but supportive therapies were equally efficacious whereas there was some evidence that supportive therapies were somewhat less efficacious than all other treatments according to patient self-ratings and clinical significance. At follow-up no significant differences were present. Age, gender, comorbid mental disorders, and length of therapy session were found to moderate efficacy. Cognitive behavior therapy was superior in studies where therapy sessions lasted 90 minutes or longer, behavior activation therapy was more efficacious when therapy sessions lasted less than 90 minutes. Mixed treatment comparisons indicated no statistically significant differences in treatment efficacy but some interesting trends.ConclusionsThis study suggests that there might be differential effects of bona fide psychotherapies which should be examined in detail.
The ICD-10 symptom rating (ISR) is a self-rating instrument that is based on ICD-10 syndromes. Can previous findings concerning its validity be replicated in a non-clinical sample? N=428 study participants - mainly students - completed the ISR and the SCL-90-R in an online survey. The assumed factorial structure was replicated with a good model fit. The correlations between the content-related scales of the two instruments ranged from r=0.60 to r=0.85. Study participants indicated that they did not find completing the ISR stressful. These results indicate good validity and applicability of the ISR.
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