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Objective To identify academic factors pertaining to college students, calendar timing, and particular moments that are uniquely associated with elevated likelihood of prescription stimulant misuse (intentions and actual behavior) in daily life. Participants: Participants were 297 freshmen and sophomores at a large public university in the United States in 2017-2019. Methods: Participants completed survey measures during lab visits and ecological momentary assessment procedures in daily life. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel models that accounted for the nested data and demographic covariates. Results: Student, calendar-based, and momentary academic factors were uniquely associated with stimulant misuse intentions in daily life. Real-time academic events, beyond the proportion of academic events experienced, emerged as a robust predictor of misuse behavior. Within-person links between real-time momentary predictors and misuse behavior were moderated by finals week timing. Conclusions: Findings offer implications for prevention and intervention strategies for college students at risk for prescription drug misuse.

Background: Guided by a family systems perspective, this study investigated whether breastfeeding plays a role in the quality of the mother-father intimate relationship over the course of child development., Methods: Using a prospective, longitudinal design, and data drawn from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n=986 couples), the present study examined the predictive role of breastfeeding in the first 3 years of life (for up to 4 months and for 5 months or longer, relative to never breastfeeding) in maternal and paternal trajectories of intimate relationship quality. The outcome variable of interest was emotional intimacy, rated by mothers and fathers when children were 54 months of age, in grades 1, 3, 5, and 6, and 15 years of age., Results: Multivariate hierarchical linear modeling, which appropriately handled dyadic data and accounted for effects of demographic covariates and earlier relationship quality, indicated that breastfeeding uniquely predicted increases in mothers' (but not fathers') marital quality levels over time. There was no difference in the strength of the positive associations for shorter versus longer breastfeeding duration. The findings suggest that improved intimate relationship quality may be another psychosocial benefit experienced by breastfeeding mothers., Conclusion: The findings underscore the importance of considering breastfeeding in the context of intimate relationships and may be of interest to women weighing the decision to breastfeed, their partners, and healthcare providers.

The longitudinal course and quality of intimate relationships were tested in relation to maternal depressive symptoms in a sample of 1,275 families from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Assessments of mothers' intimate relationship status, intimate relationship quality, and depressive symptoms were obtained on 11 occasions from the birth of a child through age 15. Consistent with predictions, results from hierarchical linear models indicated that maternal depressive symptoms over time were associated with a lower probability of being married and lower levels of relationship quality. The strength of the association between relationship quality and depression was stronger than the linkage between relationship course and depression. Sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., mother age, child gender, ethnicity) were more predictive of trajectories of relationship course than relationship quality. Findings are discussed in terms of efforts to prevent and treat the longitudinal interplay between poor intimate relationship functioning and partners' psychopathology and its implications for the overall health and well-being of parents, couples, and children.