Category: Week 4 (Page 1 of 2)

The article I chose is “Negative consequences from heavy social networking in adolescents: The mediating role of fear of missing out.” This article explores the effects of SNS (social networking sites) on Latin American youth. The participants were from 17 different Latin American countries, totalling 5280 social media users in total. The data was collected through an online questionnaire. The ages of the participants were 16-18, and participants were in secondary school.

The questionnaire included questions from the self-report Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. This has 14 question with 4 alternative answers and is used to assess depression in teens. Fear of Missing Out was assessed using the Spanish translation of the FOMO scale, this included ten questions that could be ranked on a scale of 1 to 5. The questionnaire was hosted online and the participants were guaranteed confidentiality and had given  informed consent. The statistical standard procedures were performed by using SPSS 21.0 for Windows. Pearson correlations were calculated to test for zero-order relationships between two variables. The structural equation model analysis was computed with MPLUS 6.12.  Because the proportion of female participants was much higher than that of males, and because women scored higher on SNI, the model was tested separately for both genders, using mean structure analysis. The findings illustrate that in the case of males, depression showed no effect on negative consequences, which were also not mediated by FOMO and SNI. In contrast, in the case of females, psychopathological symptoms were still significant predictors of negative consequences.

This study tested if alcohol use reasons affect the intensity of adolescent drinking. The data was obtained through surveys from “a representative sample of approximately 15,000 12th grade students.” Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data pooled from these surveys and the results showed that most students reported “drinking to have a good time” as their reason for intoxication.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=80d8916c-3f27-44d2-8a9d-b89afb973f7f%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=2017-42078-001&db=pdh

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) accounts for 50% of all trauma-related deaths.  Neural stem/progenitor cells have been shown to mediate motor and cognitive functional recovery when transplanted intracerebrally after TBI.  In this study, the researchers hypothesized that the transplanted neural stem cells would remain near the area of injury and improve motor and cognitive functional recovery.

The researchers used a controlled cortical impact (CCI) device to administer an injury to the brain of the rats.  The CCI device is incredibly useful because of its ability to make a consistent wound on the rats involved in the study.  Seven days after the injury, the rats were then injected with 40,000 neural stem cells (NSCs) at ten different sites, for a total of 400,000 NSCs per animal.  Behavioral testing was used to analyze the effectiveness of the treatment with the use of a neurological severity score, a rotarod, a balance beam, a Morris water maze, and a foot fault.

They found that 1.4-1.9% of the infused cells stayed in the neural tissue 48 hours and 2 weeks post-injection.  It was confirmed that the NSCs were nestin positive, which is a protein found mostly in neurons when they are implicated in the radical growth of the axon.  Rotatod motor testing revealed significant increases in maximal speed among NSC-treated rats compared with the saline controls at day 4.  The other motor, as well as early and late cognitive evaluations revealed no significant differences compared to the saline controls.  Most of the data of this experiment is displayed in graphs to show the difference between the sham rats, the NSC rats, and the saline solution rats.  The “differences in behavioral testing were assessed by repeated measures analysis of variance with post-hoc Tukey-Kramer analysis.  All data are shown as mean +/- SEM.”  The Tukey-Kramer method is a single-step multiple comparison procedure and statistical test.  It is used to find means that are significantly different from each other.

Harting, Sloan, Jimenez, Baumgartner, & Cox. (2009). Subacute Neural Stem Cell Therapy for Traumatic Brain Injury. Journal of Surgical Research, 153(2), 188-194.

Palma, Lídia, et al. “Dietary Water Affects Human Skin Hydration and Biomechanics.”Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Dove Medical Press, 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4529263/.

In this article, subjects were grouped according to their water intake with the purpose of determining whether the amount of water consumed by the individuals would affect their skin moisture and physiology.

They collected this information after 4 weeks of conducting the experimental portion and measured 5 anatomical parts: the face, arm, leg, BMI, and blood pressure all in an environment without added heat.Researchers found by the end of it the more water drunk, the more naturally moisturized the skin was, and the less of it they drank, the more of a physiological change they found as opposed to those who were drinking more. “Similar results were previously reported in individuals with dry skin, leading the authors to suggest that increasing the dietary water intake would affect the skin the same way as a topical moisturizer (Palma, 2015).

This research was based on college students’ stresses and coping strategies. This paper focused on mental stress rather than physical stress. Researchers came up with four possible hypotheses for the reason college students were stressed. The four hypotheses were as followed: there is a positive correlation between study conditions and mental stresses of college students, there is a positive correlation between employment situations and mental stresses of college students, there is a positive correlation between economic conditions and mental stresses of college students, and there is a positive correlation between persona factors and mental stresses of college students.

Researchers used questionnaires, specifically SPSS to make mean test and variance analysis to validate the hypotheses. A survey was given among 800 college students in Chuangchun University of Science and Technology. 734 copies were valid. A T critical value analysis was done on the sample information and a K value of 1.93 was calculated. This meant the confidence level was 95% on the sample. Questionnaire consisted of 20 questions asking about study conditions, employment situations, economic conditions and personal factors.

There are four variables that cause mental stresses and personal factors included three aspects. Average and standard deviation was tested for each aspect. Average value represented the degree of correlation between each variable and stresses of college students. Hypotheses were verified based on the table given in the article. Mean value for the 734 college students was larger than 3.1 meaning mental stresses of college students have positive correlations with the four factors (study, employment, economic and personal). Employment mean value was 4.33 showing it is more significant. Mean value for study conditions changes with environment and competition. Economic stress may cause different stress for different people. There are different aspects for personal factors based on standard deviation. All four aspects have large standard deviation and are important.

Citation

Ji, Hong, and Lei Zhang. “Research on College Students’ Stresses and Coping Strategies.” Asian Social Science, www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/view/12451. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.

The study entitled, “Skipping Breakfast is Correlated with Obesity,” as the name suggests, sought to see whether there was any correlation between the timing of meals and weight gain on Japanese people. The research was conducted using several data set and analysis techniques. Researchers obtained data from 766 residents of Toon City, all of whom were aged between 30 and 79. Between 2011 and 2013, these participants underwent rigorous medical examinations. The first medical examination included physical measurements, such as height, weight, blood pressure, and BMI. There were also several questionnaires: one on lifestyle (for ex., whether they exercised), food frequency, meal timing (whether or not the participant followed a strict pattern of eating meals), and METs (which are units representing the intensity of physical activity). Several statistical tests were performed as well, such as the chi-squared and ANOVA tests to compare the results. Their results were then tabulated. The results showed that the BMI and waist circumference were larger for subjects who ate dinner less than 3 hours before going to be bed than those who ate dinner more than 3 hours before going to bed. Also, the multiple linear regression analysis showed that skipping breakfast affected BMI and waist circumference, while eating dinner less than 3 hours before bedtime influenced BMI only. Lastly, the chi-squared test revealed that there was a statistical difference in eating habits between those who ate dinner less than 3 hrs and more than 3 hours before bedtime. 

Watanabe, Yoko, et al. “Skipping Breakfast Is Correlated with Obesity.” Journal of Rural Medicine, vol. 9, no. 2, 2014, pp. 51–58., doi:10.2185/jrm.2887. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310153/

In this experiment, researchers distributed questionnaires to one hundred first-year student attending Massey University. Ranging from ages 18 to 33, the participants all had left home and were permanently residing on campus. These students answered questions used from the Dundee Relocation Inventory, which measured homesickness, previous mobility and family functioning among various demographics.  In the first section, questions were designed to assess the feelings students held towards their home, security, family and general satisfaction, In the second section, the students answered questions about the functionality of their family. In the final section, the students were asked about the amount of times they had moved prior to attending college.
Through the experiment, the researchers collected the questionnaires and determined that there was a high level of family cohesion reported by the students as well as a high level of homesickness. Around 31% of participants had experienced homesickness, with 11% reporting familial functionality. In addition, it was concluded that previous mobility had no effect on disclosed mobility. In comparing the levels of homesickness, it was also found that there was no significant difference between genders and races, with age being the only demographic variable that had an effect on homesickness – 32.4% of participants under 19 and 27.8 % of students over the age of 19. This data thus suggests that familial cohesion as well as age were the most reliable indicators for homesickness.
In analyzing the acquired data, it was deduced that family cohesion accounted for 18% of the levels of homesickness in college students. As expected, there was a significant relationship between the levels of homesickness in students and their reported familial cohesion and age.

Flett, Ross. “FAMILY COHESION AND AGE AS DETERMINANTS OF HOMESICKNESS IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.” Social Behavior and Personality: an International Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, 1998, pp. 195–202.

Non-monosexual and sexual minority women (SMW) report higher rates of mental health issues over heterosexual women.  Non-monosexual women are women who either have partners of various genders/sex or women who have never had a partner of the same sex, but it was more broadly defined in this study– being based on reported sexual attraction, sexual behavior, etc.  This study used mixed-methods to distinguish common characteristics of non-monosexual women and SMWs and if they exhibit mental health patterns identical to anxiety and depression.

The participants of this study consisted of English-speaking women over the age of 18, transitioning into parenthood and identified as heterosexual or considered a sexual minority.  The participants were given an online survey during the third trimester of their pregnancy.  The survey used eight standardized instruments to test for identifiable characteristics of SMWs and non-SMWs and mental health patterns.  One of the standardized instruments was the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, which assessed the prominence of the five domains of sexual orientation (attraction, behaviour, fantasy, emotional preference and social preference), in which the participants had to rate on a scale of one to seven scale for “other sex only” to “same sex only”.  Other standardized instruments tested for “openness” or “concealment” of the participant’s sexual identity to others, centrality to a sexual identity, and connectedness to the LGBTQ community.  The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was used for the women to self-report how they felt immediately before or after giving birth and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory measured for levels of anxiety and emotional consistency.

The data was studied using bivariate analysis.  Variables that were associated with one or more mental health outcomes were used in latent class analysis for non-monosexual participants.  Qualitatively, the researchers conducted interviews to identify relevant words and themes used by the different groups of women and to observe their behaviors.  Common themes identified in the interviews were either relevant to the minority stress framework or themes relevant to women’s sexual identity development across the lifespan that may be particular to or uniquely experienced by non-monosexual women. Current and past five years partner gender, lack of LGBTQ community connection, and low centrality of sexual minority identity were associated with anxiety symptoms. Latent class analysis revealed significantly higher levels of anxiety symptoms among non- monosexual women partnered with men relative to those partnered with women.

Citation: Ross, L. E., Manley, M. H., Goldberg, A. E., Januwalla, A., Williams, K., & Flanders, C. E. (2017). Characterizing non-monosexual women at risk for poor mental health outcomes: a mixed methods study. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 108(3), e296+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_ccny&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA505130591&asid=f31a0cf078fa912ebeefa3bc80cd5c05

In the article, “Public Pre-K and Test Taking for the NYC Gifted-and-Talented Programs: Forging a Path to Equity,” the researchers studied what factors led to the discrepancies involved with students taking the gifted and talented test. The researchers noticed that there was a substantial difference in the number of students who took the test as the majority of students were White and wanted to further investigate. To do this, they used NYC DOE enrollment records of elementary school students in 2009. They collected data that included students’ addresses, demographic data, whether a student was an English Language Learner or in special education classes. By using their addresses, they were able to analyze census data to describe neighborhoods where students lived. Their sample included 69,960 students who took the test and obtained a spot in one of the programs. With this information, they analyzed the data and broke it down into percentages. They later performed statistical analyses to address the main goals of their research. Using the statistical data, they found that almost all the factors they tested for influenced whether or not a student would take the test like the neighborhood they lived in. However, the strongest predictor was whether or not they attended a public Pre-kindergarten program.

S. D., S. (2016). Public Pre-K and Test-Taking for the NYC Gifted and Talented Programs: Forging a Path to Equity. Education Week, 35(24), 5.