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Placing children in foster care who, for various reasons, cannot stay in their biological family (either for a short period of time or permanently) is a measure to improve the safety and well-being of these children. Due to their often negative prior experiences, foster children are at increased risk for mental illness and developmental disabilities. To counteract these risk factors, foster parents are of enormous importance, as they can provide a safe and nurturing environment for the children. However, foster parents' handling of possible behavioral problems or/and emotional stress of the foster children is often associated with conflicts and requires individually adapted pedagogical measures in the foster family. The multitude of demanding tasks that foster parents are confronted with are generally not perceived as burdensome. When foster parents reach their limits in their efforts to meet the needs of foster children and are confronted with stresses they have no or insufficient resources of their own to cope with, this can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed, high levels of despair and fear of failure. The emotional overload of foster parents is one of the strongest predictors of a change in foster child placement. In turn, switching to new foster parents brings instability to foster children and can negatively impact the foster child's development and mental health. To create the safe, stable, and well-functioning environment that children in foster care need, foster parents must be adequately prepared, continuously supported, and actively empowered. To date, there is a lack of easily accessible opportunities for foster parents to receive such preparation, self-care, and support. The project GemeinsamStark (StrongerTogether) is dedicated to the question of how foster parents can be supported through interactive new technologies in the diverse challenges of everyday foster parenting. The researchers of the collaborative project are therefore developing an innovative app that offers flexible, interactive, and digital guidance, background information, and instant help options. To ensure that the app meets the needs of (prospective) foster parents, foster parents' assessment and feedback will be continuously integrated (at every step of the research project) into the development of the app. The goal of the current study is to identify in detail the needs of foster parents using an online questionnaire as well as qualitative focus groups and online interviews. In doing so, the "GemeinsamStark" app is intended to set minimum standards for the placement and care of foster children and provide ongoing support for foster families in their everyday lives.

The objective of this study is the adaptation of the Dickman’s Impulsivity Inventory (DII) (Dickman, 1990) to the German language, as well as the analysis of its psychometric properties. The DII is a self-report questionnaire that captures two dimensions of impulsive behavior: functional impulsivity and dysfunctional impulsivity. Dysfunctional impulsivity refers to the tendency to act without foresight in situations in which it is not beneficial. In contrast, functional impulsivity refers to the tendency to make quick decisions in situations when it is beneficial. These two dimensions of impulsivity seem to be unrelated and have been differentially associated with various types of behaviors. For example, dysfunctional impulsivity has been shown to be related to smoking behavior (Pitts & Leventhal, 2012) and pathological gambling (Maccallum, Blaszczynski, Ladouceur, & Nower, 2007), whereas functional impulsivity has been shown to be related to greater perceptual processing speed (Dickman, 1990). Certain kind sports may also benefit from functional impulsiveness, where one has to make quick decisions but at the same time has to maintain a high level of concentration (González-Hernández, Díaz, & Gómez-López, 2019). The goal of the present study is to translate the DII into the German language, to validate the German translation, and to investigate the relationship between functional and dysfunctional impulsivity to various health- and lifestyle-related behaviors. First, a translation (English to German and back to English) and adaptation process will be performed according to international guidelines. Second, the validation process will be performed through a sample of at least 400 healthy participants. The study is designed as an online questionnaire survey, has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Hospital RWTH Aachen and comprises a time frame of approx. 10 minutes. Additionally to the DII we will ask all participants to fill in questionnaires reading impulsivity, drinking, smoking and exercising behavior as well as sociodemographic aspects, allowing us to analyze psychometric properties of the German version.

Developing or ameliorating behavioral paradigms regarding aggression and risk taking in the context of impulsivity is crucial for research and of particular importance as both personality traits affect behavior in everyday life in health and psychiatric diseases. Further investigation is needed to correctly differentiate and analyze the different facets and dimensions of these complex behaviors. However, this is only realizable with the development of refined tasks designed specifically to measure these aspects. The objective of the present study is the identification of the behavioral and psychophysiological correlates of aggression and impulsivity (risk taking) by modifying respectively the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) and the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). Additionally, potential gender differences will be analyzed to study aggression and impulsivity in different populations. While the BART examines risky decision making in the context of a loss and gain frame, the proactive TAP focuses on the detection of proactive aggression in a reaction time task. The study is of great interest as, to our knowledge, it is the first study to investigate proactive aggression with a visual paradigm and the influence of framing effects on decision making in a healthy population.

Importance Functional neuroimaging is a valuable tool for understanding how patients with chronic pain respond to painful stimuli. However, past studies have reported heterogenous results, highlighting opportunities for a quantitative meta-analysis to integrate existing data and delineate consistent associations across studies.Objective To identify differential brain responses to noxious stimuli in patients with chronic pain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while adhering to current best practices for neuroimaging meta-analyses.Data Sources All fMRI experiments published from January 1, 1990, to May 28, 2019, were identified in a literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, and SCOPUS.Study Selection Experiments comparing brain responses to noxious stimuli in fMRI between patients and controls were selected if they reported whole-brain results, included at least 10 patients and 10 healthy control participants, and used adequate statistical thresholding (voxel-height P

Body image disturbance is a core symptom of eating disorders (EDs) and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). There is first evidence that females’ body image differs depending on sexual orientation, with heterosexual women (HEW) appearing to show more body image disturbance symptoms than homosexual women (HOW). Such disparities might be moderated by everyday discrimination experiences and involvement with the lesbian community. However, to date, there has been no comprehensive assessment of a broad range of body image facets such as drive for thinness, leanness, and muscularity; body avoidance; body checking and body dissatisfaction; and ED and BDD pathology as well as moderating factors. Moreover, studies have often neglected bisexual women (BIW). A total of N = 617 women (n = 180 HOW, n = 322 HEW, n = 115 BIW) completed an online survey assessing the various facets of body image, ED and BDD pathology, discrimination experiences, and involvement with the lesbian community. Significant group differences were found regarding drive for leanness and thinness, body checking, investment behavior, and body ideal (all p.05). In all groups, discrimination experiences were positively related to ED and BDD pathology and to body image disturbance (all p < .05); however, discrimination was significantly correlated with more body image facets in HEW than in HOW or BIW. Involvement with the lesbian community was positively correlated with a larger ideal body size in HOW (p < .05) and negatively correlated with drive for muscularity in BIW (p < .05). Despite the group differences in several body image facets, we found no consistent evidence of increased vulnerability to body image disturbance or associated pathology depending on sexual orientation. However, in HEW, discrimination experience might pose a risk factor for the development of body image–related pathology and single facets of body image disturbance.