Browsing by discipline "Psykologi"

Purpose. Adolescent obesity is a worldwide problem. Many interventions have been created to interfere with the problem, but few of them pays attention to their possible negative impacts on adolescents' body image and weight control behavior. This study aimed to examine if sport participation affects adolescents' likelihood of feeling over- or underweight. Attempts to lose weight and gain weight were also examined. Methods. Participants were a nationally representative sample (n=4614) of American adolescents aged 12–20 participating in the first part of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. 2399 girls and 2215 boys were examined. Sports were football, baseball/softball, cheerleading/dance, soccer, track, ice hockey, basketball, volleyball, field hockey, wrestling, tennis, swimming and other sport. Questionnaires and interviews were used for data collection. Results and conclusions. Sport participation did not increase adolescents' likelihood of feeling over- or underweight when their actual weight was controlled. After controlling for actual and perceived weight, sport participation did not increase their likelihood of trying to lose weight either. Attempts to gain weight were more common in boys participating in football, baseball/softball, track and basketball. The study encourages to prevent adolescent overweight and obesity by improving facilities for sport participation. Weight gaining behavior of boys participating in sports should be further examined.

Objectives – Ageing is progressing worldwide. Cognitive decline and dementia are highly associated with age and have significant economic impacts. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the major cause of dementia. In Finland the 'baby boomer' generation (born 1945-1949) shall already during the 2020s increase the amount of the very old substantially. The CERAD (The Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease) neuropsychological battery (nb) is used as an evaluation tool for dementia. In Finland, CERAD-nb was introduced in 1999 and has been used in primary health care as a screening instrument to detect memory deficits. The continuum would benefit of updated clinical dementia/MCI assessment tools, norms and methodologies for the larger scale cognitive screening as the amount of the very old is soon growing remarkably. The main focus of this study is the overall performance of general population on selected CERAD-nb variables and how it fits to previously established Finnish cut-off scores. Materials and Methods – The study data is derived from the Finnish nationwide Health 2011 health examination survey (Health 2011), which was carried out in 2011. The study population consisted of a sample (n=4544) of Finnish subjects aged from 30 to 100 years belonging to either the lowest, middle or highest education class. Because of health-related factors possibly affecting cognitive performance, medical exclusion criteria were used and due to the high prevalence of dementia at older age, a cognitive status-screening test was used for subjects aged 55 and over. The final sample size was 4174 subjects. A weighted variable was used and thus the statistical analyses (weighted n=3389) prepared are estimations of population quantities. The sample underwent a CERAD-nb investigation for variables Verbal Fluency Animal Category (VFA), Word List Memory (WLM), Word List Recall (WLR) and Word List Savings (WLS) as a part of a wider Health 2011 examination procedure. Results – The total effect size of demographic variables was largest and clearest in WLM (30%) and WLR (27%) and the independent effect size of age (11% in both) was noticeable, as well. The results showed a continuous downward slope by advancing age steps: in the age groups 30-54 years, 55-64 years, 65-74 years and ≥75 years in WLM, in age groups 30-49, 50-54 years, 55-64 years, 65-74 years and ≥75 years in WLR, in age groups 30-49 years, 50-69 years, 70-74 years and ≥75 years in VFA, and finally the mildest effect in WLS in the group ≥55 with only age groups of 55-74 years and ≥75 years showing a decline. Education had the largest independent effect (5%) in VFA and WLM. The highest education class differed (p < .001) from other education classes for all variables. Gender had only a mild effect, largest in WLM (3%) and women mainly performing better. In total 25% (854 subjects) fell below the previously established cut-off scores. To the group <55 years belonged 26% (221 subjects) of those and 74% (633 subjects) to the group ≥75, of which 59% were in the lowest education class, 52% men and 32% were 75 years and over. Conclusions – Significant differences in performance between the age and education groups and minor differences between genders are found. Proposals for new normative scores for VFA, WLM, WLR and WLS are presented in Appendices. Indications of differences in the education-age-gender synergetic effect are found in affected variables for performance falling below the previously established cut-off scores. Most importantly, a clear indication for need of an update of the national normative and cut-off scores of the whole CERAD-nb for the age 55 is found.

Goals. Violence is a significant problem in society, thus it is important to recognize its predisposing factors. Psychopathy has been identified as one of the factors that significantly increases the risk for violent behaviour. The core characteristics of psychopathy include manipulation, the absence of feelings of remorse and guiltiness, as well as the inability for empathy. Other factors that may increase the risk of violent behaviour have also been identified, but it is unclear whether these factors retain their effects regardless of the level of psychopathy. In order to prevent the violent behaviour in psychopathic adolescents it is important to identify the factors that increase the risk of violent behaviour and alter the association between psychopathy and violence. The factors regarding family, such as monitoring and the quality of relationship between the parent and the child, have been surveyed to some extent. Some of the results are promising. Neither the socioeconomic status nor performance in school has been surveyed before but it is possible that these factors decrease the risk of violent behaviour. The goal for this study is to examine whether monitoring, good parent-child relationship, good socioeconomic status and good school performance decrease the risk of violent behaviour regardless of the level of psychopathy. In addition, the study examines whether these factors alter the association between psychopathy and violence. Methods. The survey sample is a part of Juvenile Delinquency in Finland 2012 –dataset which is a nationally representative self-report survey. The sample consists of 4855 ninth grade students who completed the survey anonymously online during a school day. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the study questions. Results and conclusions. Monitoring, good parent-child relationship, and good school performance was discovered to reduce the risk of violent behaviour regardless the level of psychopathy. In addition, these factors as well as socioeconomic status altered the association between psychopathy and violence. According to the results the association between psychopathy and violence is weaker in the case of good socioeconomic status than in low socioeconomic status. This result is promising and can indicate that with financial wealth a psychopathic adolescent is less likely to utilize violence to achieve their goals. Furthermore, the results concerning monitoring, good parent-child relationship and good school performance give hope to the notion that these factors may reduce the risk of violence even in adolescents with psychopathic traits. However, more research is needed to make solid conclusions.

Background: Depression is one of the most prevalent disabling mental disorders worldwide. Its relation to the personality of the patient has been a topic of interest both in history and modern research. Understanding the relationship between personality traits and depression will help to develop suitable models of treatment for depression. The Five-Factor Personality Model (FFM, a.k.a. Big Five) is one of the most established scientific personality models, with its traits, namely neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness. Connection between neuroticism and depression as well as between extraversion and depression is well known in modern scholarship, but no unambiguous results of connections between other traits and depression exist. High neuroticism seems to function as a risk factor that has a strong connection with Major Depression Episodes, but the moderating effects of the other personality traits are to be studied more deeply. In addition, there have been diverse results whether sex/gender has or has not a trait-independent role in predicting the severity of depression. Aims: Thus, the present study strives for answering the following questions: 1. What is the correlation between individual five-factor personality traits and depression? 2. How does neuroticism trait function as a risk factor for depression? 3. How does sex/gender covariate with the depression? Methods: The data of the present study has been obtained from The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study (Lasten Sepelvaltimotautien Riskitekijät, LASERI). The project has begun in 1980 and its 27-year follow-up was performed in 2007, when five-factor personality traits and depression score were measured as well. Personality traits and the depression score from 1,714 of the original 3,596 subjects were measured with NEO-FFI-M and BDI II. The participants were divided into four groups on the basis of the median values of neuroticism and extraversion traits. Results and conclusions: High neuroticism has a strong connection with depression, but high extraversion has a moderate opposite influence. No connection between the other traits and depression was found. Women tend to have higher scores of depression than men, but the sex influence is mediated by higher neuroticism among women. Further research is needed on possible trait-independent gender influence. Cross-sectional studies based on population data bring forth valuable information about links between gender, personality and depression, but they do not permit possible changes in personality or causal relations to be studied. Therefore, more profound research in longitudinal paradigm is needed.

Aim. Attenuated positive psychotic symptoms, such as perceptual abnormalities and delusional ideas, are rather common in the general population not suffering from psychotic disorders. These psychotic-like experiences, or PLE, are usually transient and may be a common part of development of adolescents. However, there is also evidence that PLE may indicate a vulnerability to psychosis as well as other varied psychopathology, and a connection to need for care. There also seems to be differences between experiences in their impact. The current study aimed to investigate whether different types of PLE predicted further psychiatric treatment trajectories, or seeking outpatient treatment, in a seven-year follow-up using a psychiatric adolescent sample. Methods. The current study utilized a sample from the Helsinki Prodromal Study, a prospective study on psychosis risk. The sample (N=731) included adolescents aged 15–18, who had been referred to psychiatric care for the first time. The Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ), a self-report measure to assess psychosis risk symptoms, was administered to examine positive, negative, disorganized, and general symptoms of the participants at their first or second visit to the psychiatric unit. The outcome variable was a dichotomous measure of outpatient treatment starting after the completion of the PQ and assessed every year for seven consecutive years. Multilevel logistic regressions were carried out to investigate the predictive power of separate PLE and other psychosis risk symptoms. In addition, an area under the receiver operator characteristics curve was conducted to examine how the PQ total score distinguished between help-seekers and non-help-seekers in the second year of follow-up. Findings and conclusions. Of the nine psychosis risk factors that were assessed, eight predicted outpatient treatment over the follow-up, while Magical Thinking did not. There were no significant interactions between time and PLE, so these associations did not fluctuate over time. The PQ total score did not manifest as a reliable method for distinction of help-seekers in the second year of follow-up. However, these findings indicate that assessing PLE in clinical adolescent settings could help in predicting the further need for care.

Psychotic symptoms are known to be associated with deficits in social functions. Previous research has shown that lower social functioning and less social support is associated with both psychotic disorders and subclinical psychotic symptoms. Social capital, however, has barely been studied in relation to psychotic symptoms. Also, few studies have investigated whether the associations of social factors differ between different psychotic symptoms and no study has examined social functioning, social support and social capital in the same study. The aim of the current study is to investigate whether social functioning, social support and social capital have differing associations to different psychotic symptoms and to the prevalence of a psychotic disorder. The data of this study was the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2007, a representative community sample of over 16-year-olds living in private households in England (n = 7 403). Psychotic symptoms were assessed with the Psychosis Screening Questionnaire (PSQ) and consisted of hallucinations, paranoia, (hypo-)mania, thought interference and strange experience. Social functioning was assessed with the Social Functioning Questionnaire (SFQ). Assessment of social support consisted of two sections: social network size assessed with the Interview Measure of Social Relationships (IMRS) and perceived social support assessed with the Health and Lifestyle Survey. Social capital also consisted of two sections: social cohesion and trust, and social participation. The associations of the social variables to different psychotic symptoms and to a psychotic disorder were analyzed using logistic regression, entering social functioning, social support and social capital stepwise as predictors. Social functioning was independently associated with every psychotic symptom as well as with the prevalence of a psychotic disorder. For hallucinations, (hypo-)mania and thought interference lower social functioning was the only predictor. For social support only social network size was found to have associations: smaller social network was independently associated with psychotic disorder and paranoia. For social capital only social cohesion and trust was associated with two of the psychotic symptoms: lower levels on social cohesion and trust were independently associated with strange experience and paranoia. Paranoia was the only symptom to be independently associated with all the social variables. The results show that different psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorder differ in the social factors they are associated with. Further research should investigate how these differences develop, and what part do other factors, for example negative symptoms, social cognition and neurocognition, play in the association between social factors and psychotic symptoms.

Objectives. The etiology of juvenile delinquency has been widely researched and several risk factors considering individual traits, parents or parenthood, and other environmental factors have been well established. There has been growing interest in the role of psychopathic traits on young offendings and recent evidence suggests that intensity of psychopathic traits enhances the risk of criminal behaviour in youth. However, the studies investigating the role of psychopathic traits as a predictor of criminal behaviour in youth are methodologically restricted and the effects of risk factors or moderating variables have not been considered comprehensively. The aims of this research were to examine the association between psychopathic traits and criminal behaviour in youth, and to study if risk factors strengthen this association. Methods. This sample consisted of 4855 Finnish students on the ninth grade of upper comprehensive school. Criminal behaviour was measured as the amount of forbidden actions conducted during the past year. Psychopathic traits were studied as a dimensional variable and it was measured with a validated self-report questionnaire for psychopathy (APSD-SR). Linear regressions were used to examine the association between psychopathic traits and juvenile delinquency. Nine different risk factors and cumulativity of risks were controlled for the analyses. Linear regression was also used to examine the moderating effects of risk factors and their cumulativity to the association between psychopathic traits and criminal behaviour. Results and conclusions. Most adolescents reported at least some psychopathic traits. The intensity of psychopathic traits, well established risk factors and the cumulativity of risk factors were all associated with greater amount of criminal behaviour. The association between psychopathic traits and criminal behaviour was enhanced by those risk factors that can be considered to provide antisocial models or opportunities for criminal behaviour. Antisocial peers were the most significant risk factor for criminal behaviour and it strongly enhanced the association between psychopathic traits and criminal behaviour. Overall, the results emphasize the importance of interventions for antisocial peer groups to prevent juvenile delinquency.

Objective Pregnancy disorders are health problems that arise during the pregnancy, such as pre-eclampsia, gestational hypertension, obesity, overweight and gestational diabetes. Pregnancy disorders can effect on both mother’s and baby’s health and therefore pregnancy disorders can influence on mother-child interaction and on how mothers perceive their parenting. The parenting sense of competence assesses parental perceptions on efficacy and satisfaction in parenthood. The aim of the current study was to examine the relation between pregnancy disorders and parental competence and whether specific factors concerning parenthood have an effect on the relation. Methods The data of this thesis came from the PREDO-study. The sample consisted of 999 mothers who had pregnancy disorder (case mothers) and 1466 mothers who didn’t have any pregnancy disorder (control mothers). All mothers that were included in this study assessed their parental competence with the Parenting Sense of Competence (PSOC) scale. The relation between pregnancy disorders and the PSOC scales (parental efficacy and parental satisfaction) were analysed using regression analyses in three different models. The models were adjusted for child’s age as PSOC was assessed, child’s gender, gestational age and birth weight, mother’s education, whether the mother had also older children already or not, mother’s smoking and drinking during pregnancy and whether another parent lives at the same household. Results and conclusions It was found that only pre-eclampsia predicted lower satisfaction in parenthood, however the difference in satisfaction was small. Results remained the same when adjusted for potential confounders. This study was one of the first studies to examine connections between pregnancy disorders in disorder groups and parental competence. More research about relation between pregnancy disorders and parenthood altogether is needed.

Arvot ovat elämää ohjaavia tavoitteita, joiden on todettu olevan yhteydessä useisiin erilaisiin muuttujiin, ja niillä on ennustettu mielekkäästi monenlaista käyttäytymistä. Schwartzin arvoteoriasta on tullut arvotutkimuksen valtavirtaa, ja se on saanut mittavaa tukea maailmanlaajuisesti. Ottaen huomioon, kuinka keskeinen asema arvoilla on ihmisten elämässä, on arvotutkimusta kuitenkin tehty suhteellisen vähän. Yksi syy siihen saattaa olla yleisimmin käytettyjen arvomittareiden pituus. Täten on tarvetta lyhyelle mittarille, joka voidaan lisätä laajojenkin tutkimuksien yhteyteen. Short Schwartz’s Value Surveylla (SSVS) on alustavaa näyttöä hyvästä reliabiliteetista ja validiteetista, mutta tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus on uudelleenvalidoida SSVS edustavalla otoksella, määrittää sille suomalaiset normit ja tarjota uutta tutkimustietoa arvojen ja muiden muuttujien, tässä tapauksessa koetun rikollisuuden määrän, yhteydestä. Tutkimuksen aineisto on kansallisesti edustava otos, ja se koostui 1245:stä 18-87 -vuotiaasta henkilöstä. Tuloksia verrattiin European Social Survey 7 -aineistoon, joka on niin ikään kansallisesti edustava otos, mutta jossa arvoja mitataan pidemmällä arvomittarilla, Portrait Values Questionnairella (PVQ-21). Faktorianalyysilla löydettiin SSVS:n arvorakenteesta teorian mukainen kaksiulotteinen malli, joka koostui itsensä ylittämisen ja säilyttämisen arvoulottuvuuksista. Lisäksi arvotyyppien arvorakenne vastasi pääosin Schwartzin teoriaa. SSVS:llä mitatut arvot olivat myös yhteydessä useisiin validiteettikriteereihin, joita odotettiin aiempien tutkimuksien perusteella, ja yhteydet olivat samanlaisia kuin PVQ-21:llä. Lopuksi esitettiin vielä uutta tietoa arvojen yhteyksistä: molemmat arvoulottuvuudet vaikuttivat koettuun rikollisuuden määrän kasvuun. Arvoulottuvuuksille lasketut painokertoimet ja normit mahdollistavat vastaisuudessa tuloksien vertailun sekä yksilö- että ryhmätasolla. Tutkimuksen perusteella tutkijat voivat jatkossa entistä luottavaisemmin mielin integroida arvot osaksi myös sellaisia tutkimuksia, joissa ei ole mahdollista käyttää normaalimittaisia kyselyitä.

Objectives: Specific language impairment (SLI) is a developmental language disorder characterised by deficits in linguistic cognitive abilities. There's still evidence that SLI-children have also deficits in non-linguistic cognitive abilities (e.g. executive functions, processing speed). Parent-child interaction is crucial to a child's development. A parent's ability to support their child in the zone of proximal development is an important feature of positive parent-child interaction. Indeed, parent-child interaction is central to the rehabilitation of SLI. Prior research on the interaction of SLI-children and their parents has focused on the association between linguistic deficits and interaction. The aim of this study was to examine how the SLI-child's non-linguistic cognitive abilities are associated with parent behaviours during parent-child interaction, and to the parent-child relationship. Methods: The sample was part of Helsinki Longitudinal SLI study and consisted of 85 parent-child dyads. All children had been diagnosed with SLI and were 3–6 years of age. Parent-child dyads were videotaped in three different situations: drawing, free play and puzzle-making. Erickson's parenthood scales were used to evaluate parent behaviour. The parent-child relationship was evaluated by using Erickson's interaction scales and Mutual Responsive Orientation Scale. Children's non-linguistic abilities were assessed with neuropsychological tests, WPPSI-III and NEPSY-II. Associations were examined using linear and logistic regression analyses. Results: There were a negative association between the SLI-child's processing speed and the sensitivity and timing of parent's instructions. Other SLI-child's non-linguistic cognitive abilities were not associated with parent behaviours. The SLI-child's non-linguistic cognitive abilities were not associated with the parent-child relationship. Conclusions: Parents give more sensitive and well-timed instructions when the SLI-child's speed of information processing is slower. This suggests that parents may adapt their behaviour to the SLI-child's processing speed. Further research is needed to clarify why parents give more sensitive and well-timed instructions to SLI-children with slower processing speeds.