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Children with dyslexia are at elevated risk of internalizing (emotional) and externalizing (behavioural) problems. Clever Kids is a nine‐week socioemotional well‐being programme developed specifically for upper primary school children with dyslexia. In a small randomized‐controlled trial, we tested the feasibility, efficacy, and acceptability of the Clever Kids programme. 'Forty children (Mage = 10.45 years, 65% male) with clinically diagnosed dyslexia too part in the study. Children were randomized to either attend Clever Kids (n = 20) or to a wait‐list control condition (n = 20). Coping skills, self‐esteem, resilience, emotion regulation, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms were measured at pre‐programme, post‐programme, and at three‐month follow‐up. Recruitment and retention rates indicate high feasibility for further evaluation of the programme. There was a significant interaction between intervention condition and time for non‐productive coping [F(2, 76) = 4.29, p = 0.017, f2 = 0.11]. Children who attended Clever Kids significantly reduced their use of non‐productive coping strategies, and this was maintained at three‐month follow‐up assessment. For all other outcomes, the interactions between intervention condition and time were non‐significant. The programme appears acceptable to children with dyslexia and their families, but may be improved by further reducing the number of activities involving reading and writing. Clever Kids improved the coping skills of children with dyslexia; however, a larger trial is needed to replicate this finding and investigate whether programme attendance is associated with additional improvements in children's socioemotional well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Social Cognitive Theory, the anticipated consequences of a behavior (outcome expectancies), coupled with our belief in our ability to successfully perform the behavior (self-efficacy), determine the likelihood of engagement in a behavior. We explored whether the relationship between nonsuicidal self-injury outcome expectancies and self-injury was moderated by self-efficacy to resist nonsuicidal self-injury. Participants: Five hundred and sixteen college students aged 18–26 years (M = 20.60, SD = 1.86). Methods: Self-report measures were completed online. Results: The relationship between expecting self-injury would result in pain or emotion regulation and engaging in self-injury was moderated by a belief in the ability to resist self-injury. People who had never self-injured were more likely to believe that self-injury would cause physical pain and believe they could resist self-injury. A belief in the ability to resist self-injury countered expectations that self-injury would result in emotion regulation. Conclusion: Results may inform college-based prevention and intervention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extended theory of planned behaviour including psychological distress was used to predict blood glucose monitoring in young adults with type 1 diabetes. Participants completed two surveys, a week apart (n = 167). Attitudes and perceived behavioural control were significantly associated with intention but subjective norm was not. Intention predicted blood glucose monitoring at T2. Higher scores in psychological distress significantly predicted poorer blood glucose monitoring at T2 but did not moderate the intention–behaviour relationship. Findings demonstrate some concerns with the theory of planned behaviour to predict self-care behaviour, yet highlight the importance of addressing psychological distress in diabetes self-management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated whether rumination and self-compassion moderate and/or mediate the relationships between negative affect and both non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide ideation. Undergraduate university students (n = 415) completed well-validated measures of negative affect, rumination, self-compassion, NSSI, and suicide ideation. Neither rumination nor self-compassion moderated associations between negative affect and NSSI and suicide ideation. However, both rumination and self-compassion mediated associations between negative affect and lifetime history of NSSI and suicide ideation. Self-compassion additionally mediated the association between negative affect and both 12-month NSSI and suicide ideation. The salience of self-compassion, particularly in predicting recent NSSI and suicide ideation, offers promise for early intervention initiatives focusing on less judgmental or self-critical means of self-relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently proposed cognitive‐emotional model of nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) draws on emotion regulation models and social cognitive theory to understand the onset, maintenance, and cessation of NSSI. We tested the prediction of the model that the relationship between emotional reactivity and NSSI is moderated by specific cognitions about self‐injury (i.e., self‐efficacy to resist NSSI, NSSI outcome expectancies), emotion regulation, and rumination. A sample of 647 university students aged 17–25 years (M = 19.92, SD = 1.78) completed self‐report measures of the constructs of interest. As expected, we found that emotional reactivity was positively related to NSSI, particularly for people who had weak self‐efficacy to resist NSSI. However, emotional reactivity was negatively related to NSSI for people who were more likely to use expressive suppression to regulate emotion. Implications for the theoretical understanding of NSSI are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although declining in all other age groups, AIDS-related deaths among adolescents are increasing. In the context of HIV, mental health problems are associated with negative health outcomes, including non-adherence to life-saving ART. For effective programming it is essential to identify factors associated with psychological outcomes in this population. Adopting a socioecological perspective, we aimed to identify correlates of internalising and externalising symptoms in a large, representative sample of South African adolescents living with HIV. HIV-positive adolescents (n = 1060), who received care in public health facilities in South Africa's Eastern Cape, completed measures of internalising and externalising symptoms. Hypothesised correlates included HIV and health-related factors (physical health, mode of infection, medication sideeffects, disclosure, stigma), health-service related factors (negative interactions with clinic staff, clinic support group), interpersonal factors (abuse, bullying victimisation, social support), parenting-related factors (orphanhood, positive parenting, parental monitoring, parent communication), as well as individual and demographic-related factors (self-efficacy, age, gender, urban/rural location, poverty). Correlates operating across a variety of contexts were identified. Bullying victimisation, self-efficacy, and positive parenting may be particularly salient intervention targets as they were associated with better outcomes on most or all mental health measures, can be addressed without directly targeting adolescents living with HIV (reducing the chances of accidental exposure and stigma), and are associated with better adolescent mental health in South Africa more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study tested whether emotion regulation and rumination moderated and/or mediated the relationship between accumulated adverse life experience and psychological distress in adolescence. In class, Australian high school students (n = 2637, 12–18 years, 68% female) from 41 schools completed well‐validated measures of adverse life experience, emotion regulation, rumination and psychological distress, and were followed up 1 year later (n = 1973, 75% retention rate). Adjusting for age, gender and baseline psychological distress, adverse life experience predicted psychological distress 1 year later. Expressive suppression and rumination were positively associated with psychological distress. Cognitive reappraisal was negatively associated with psychological distress and moderated the relationship between adverse life experience and psychological distress. This relationship was also partially mediated by cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression and rumination. Promoting cognitive reappraisal and minimizing expressive suppression and rumination may be useful strategies to improve mental health for adolescents who have experienced adverse life events. Future research should examine whether adolescents who have experienced adverse life events can be trained in effective emotion regulation strategies and whether this training can prevent development of psychological maladjustment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about risk and protective factors for emotional and physical child abuse in South Africa. Existing research has focused largely on sexual abuse and relied on recollections of childhood abuse from university and high-school students or data from criminal reports. The objective of this study was to establish risk and protective factors for severe physical and emotional abuse amongst a large cross-sectional community sample of South African youth. Confidential self-report questionnaires were completed by children aged 13-19 (n = 603, 47.9% female) with local interviewers in deprived areas of South Africa. Standardised measures of abuse, hypothesised risk factors and socio-demographic variables were used. Factors associated with severe physical and emotional child abuse were experience of family conflict ( p = 0.003), unequal food distribution ( p < 0.014), inconsistent discipline ( p = 0.012), number of caregiver changes ( p = 0.022), living with a step-parent ( p = 0.034), caregiver disability ( p = 0.004), food insecurity ( p = 0.006), bullying ( p < 0.001), acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related stigma ( p < 0.001), sexual abuse ( p = 0.003), school non-attendance ( p = 0.006) and non-achievement ( p = 0.015). These identified risk and protective factors at community, school, caregiver and household levels have the potential to affect the risk of abuse for children in South Africa, and may be valuable fields for future intervention efforts. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages Risk and protective factors for physical and emotional child abuse have not been thoroughly studied in South Africa., Risk and protective factors for child abuse in South Africa include poverty, AIDS-related stigma, bullying, school non-attendance and achievement, sexual abuse, caregiver disability, inconsistent discipline, family conflict and living with a step-parent., Future research should focus on longitudinal data to establish causality and to examine the relationship between child abuse and caregiver AIDS sickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent systematic review of studies in the developing world has critically examined linkages from familial HIV/AIDS and associated factors such as poverty and child mental health to negative child educational outcomes. In line with several recommendations in the review, the current study modelled relationships between familial HIV/AIDS, poverty, child internalising problems, gender and four educational outcomes: non-enrolment at school, non-attendance, deficits in grade progression and concentration problems. Path analyses reveal no direct associations between familial HIV/AIDS and any of the educational outcomes. Instead, HIV/AIDS-orphanhood or caregiver HIV/AIDS-sickness impacted indirectly on educational outcomes via the poverty and internalising problems that they occasioned. This has implications for evidence-based policy inferences. For instance, by addressing such intervening variables generally, rather than by seeking to target families affected by HIV/AIDS, interventions could avoid exacerbating stigmatisation, while having a more direct and stronger impact on children's educational outcomes. This analytic approach also suggests that future research should seek to identify causal paths, and may include other intervening variables related to poverty (such as child housework and caring responsibilities) or to child mental health (such as stigma and abuse), that are linked to both familial HIV/AIDS and educational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Families affected by HIV/AIDS in the developing world experience higher risks of psychosocial problems than nonaffected families. Positive parenting behavior may buffer against the negative impact of child AIDS-orphanhood and caregiver AIDS-sickness on child well-being. Although there is substantial literature regarding the predictors of parenting behavior in Western populations, there is insufficient evidence on HIV/AIDS as a risk factor for poor parenting in low- and middle-income countries. This paper examines the relationship between HIV/AIDS and positive parenting by comparing HIV/AIDS-affected and nonaffected caregiver-child dyads (n=2477) from a cross-sectional survey in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (27.7% AIDS-ill caregivers; 7.4% child AIDS-orphanhood). Multiple mediation analyses tested an ecological model with poverty, caregiver depression, perceived social support, and child behavior problems as potential mediators of the association of HIV/AIDS with positive parenting. Results indicate that familial HIV/AIDS's association to reduced positive parenting was consistent with mediation by poverty, caregiver depression, and child behavior problems. Parenting interventions that situate positive parenting within a wider ecological framework by improving child behavior problems and caregiver depression may buffer against risks for poor child mental and physical health outcomes in families affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This pilot study examined relationships between neuroticism, appraisal, and coping in a sample of undergraduate students (N = 77) prior to sitting university exams. Results replicated previous findings that neuroticism is significantly correlated with avoidance coping and maladaptive forms of emotion focused coping (such as emotional venting), whilst overcoming the limitations of dispositional coping measures and minimizing the time-lags associated with retrospective coping measurement. Results also offered partial support for the goodness of fit hypothesis; however, stress and controllability appraisals did not mediate the relationships between neuroticism and either avoidance coping or emotional venting. Limitations of using university exams as a stressor are identified and it is concluded that laboratory tasks, in which controllability can be experimentally manipulated, are likely to be useful in determining whether or not stressor appraisals mediate the relationship between neuroticism and coping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) on improving the quality of life in adolescents engaging in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Methods and Materials: The research method was quasi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test control group design. The statistical population of the present study included 16 to 18-year-old high school students (both boys and girls) in Sari. From this population, 100 individuals were selected through convenience sampling, and among them, 28 individuals who obtained the highest scores on the Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Questionnaire (NSSI) were selected based on inclusion criteria and were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group (each group consisting of 14 individuals). The experimental group received group CBT over 12 sessions of 90 minutes each, while the control group received no intervention until the post-test phase. The tools used in this study included the Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Questionnaire (Klonsky & Glenn, 2011) and the Quality of Life Questionnaire (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992). The data obtained in the pre-test and post-test phases were analyzed using covariance analysis with SPSS-22 software. Findings: The results showed that CBT led to an increase in the quality of life of adolescents. Conclusion: The findings provide evidence that CBT is a suitable method for increasing the quality of life in adolescents engaging in non-suicidal self-injury and can lead to the enhancement of their mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of consumers' growing dependence on their smartphones, this article investigates the nature of the relationship that consumers form with their smartphone and its underlying mechanisms. We propose that in addition to obvious functional benefits, consumers in fact derive emotional benefits from their smartphone—in particular, feelings of psychological comfort and, if needed, actual stress relief. In other words, in a sense, smartphones are not unlike adult pacifiers. This psychological comfort arises from a unique combination of properties that turn smartphones into a reassuring presence for their owners: the portability of the device, its personal nature, the subjective sense of privacy experienced while on the device, and the haptic gratification it affords. Results from one large-scale field study and three laboratory experiments support the proposed underlying mechanisms and document downstream consequences of the psychological comfort that smartphones provide. The findings show, for example, that (a) in moments of stress, consumers exhibit a greater tendency to seek out their smartphone (study 2); and (b) engaging with one's smartphone provides greater stress relief than engaging in the same activity with a comparable device such as one's laptop (study 3) or a similar smartphone belonging to someone else (study 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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