Arne Vikan

Parenting Related to Child and Parental Psychopathology: A Descriptive Review of the Literature

Two areas of recent research on parenting are examined: (i) Parenting problems in families with parental psychopathology, and (ii) parenting problems when children have psychiatric disorders. Review of literature showed that parental, as well as child, psychopathology represents major stressors for a family and substantially impacts parenting abilities. Two main dimensions of dysfunctional parenting occur in families with child or parental psychopathology: (i) Parental negativity, and (ii) various forms of ineffective discipline practices. For parents, the level of parental social functioning and responsiveness may be more crucial for parenting skills than psychiatric symptoms per se. For children, the impact of dysfunctional parenting seems to be non-specific for child outcome, related to both internalizing and externalizing disorders. However, evidence does point to links among parental negative, affectionless control and depression/anxiety in children, whereas inconsistent, disruptive parenting with insufficient monitoring is more characteristic of parents with conduct-disordered children.

Measuring health-related quality of life in young adolescents: Reliability and validity in the Norwegian version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 (PedsQL) generic core scales

BackgroundHealth-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) studies concerning children and adolescents are a growing field of research. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) is considered as a promising HRQOL instrument with the availability of age appropriate versions and parallel forms for both child and parents. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Norwegian translation of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) 4.0 generic core scale in a sample of healthy young adolescents.MethodsA cross-sectional study of 425 healthy young adolescents and 237 of their caregivers participating as a proxy. Reliability was assessed by Cronbachs alpha. Construct validity was assessed using exploratory factor analysis and by exploring the intercorrelations between and among the four PedsQL subscales for adolescents and their parents.ResultsAll the self-report scales and proxy-report scales showed satisfactory reliability with Cronbachs alpha varying between 0.77 and 0.88. Factor analysis showed results comparable with the original version, except for the Physical Health scale. On average, monotrait-multimethod correlations were higher than multitrait-multimethod correlations. Sex differences were noted on the emotional functioning subscale, girls reported lower HRQOL than boys.ConclusionThe Norwegian PedsQL is a valid and reliable generic pediatric health-related Quality of Life measurement that can be recommended for self-reports and proxy-reports for children in the age groups ranging from 13–15 years.

Endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm A Comparison of Two Brazilian Samples and One Norwegian Sample

Results from 240 students (120 each from Brazil and Norway) on the 15-item revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) show higher endorsement of the ecological paradigm from the Brazilians; suggestions are that this relates to cultural variables rather than to technological development variables. There is no consistent relationship between scores on the NEP and scores from tests of justice based and care based morality, gender roles, or cultural orientation. Alphas, inter-item correlations, and factor analysis show much variation between the samples, but the relative ranking of items show very high agreement.

Health‐related quality of life and intellectual functioning in children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Aim: To evaluate the health‐related quality of life (HRQOL) and intellectual functioning of children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

Children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: mental health, psychosocial adjustment and parental functioning

Children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: mental health, psychosocial adjustment and parental functioningThe objective of this study is to assess the mental health and psychosocial adjustment of children in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), and parental functioning compared to healthy controls. A cross-sectional study of 40 children treated for ALL (mean age 11.8 years, range 8.5-15.4) and healthy controls (n = 42) (mean age 11.8 years, range 8.11-15.0) were assessed by the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Youth Self-Report (YSR) and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The parents own mental health was assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30). Children treated for ALL showed on average significantly more symptoms as measured by the CBCL Total Behaviour Score for mothers report (P = 0.005), and for fathers report (P = 0.004) compared with healthy children. Fathers reported more anxiety (P = 0.03) and depression (P = 0.02) as measured by the GHQ-30 compared with healthy controls. Children in remission from ALL showed on average significantly more problems regarding mental health and psychosocial adjustment, as reported by their parents, compared with healthy controls. Adequate rehabilitation and follow-up programmes should be implemented for children in remission from ALL. The results indicate the need to pay attention to the mental health of fathers during the rehabilitation phase.

The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) 4.0 as an assessment measure for depressive symptoms: A correlational study with young adolescents

Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is today considered an important assessment measurement, but still only a few measures assess HRQOL outcomes for children and adolescents. One of them is the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™). This correlation study explored the associations between depressive symptoms in young adolescents and the PedsQL scores when controlling for known risk factors. An adolescent sample (n=425) completed a battery of measures including the PedsQL™ Norwegian version, the Short Mood and Feeling Questionnaire (SMFQ), the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for children (SPAI-C), and the occurrence of Stressful Life Events (SLE). The results showed a mild to moderate correlation between the measures PedsQL, SMFQ, SPAI-C and SLE. The presence of depressive symptoms significantly predicted the PedsQL scores for the adolescence, and explained 17% of the variance in outcome for the PedsQL Total Scale. The findings suggest that the PedsQL™ is an adequate assessment instrument regarding depressive symptoms in young adolescents, and can be useful in both clinical practice and further research as an assessment measure regarding childrens mental health.

Note on a Cross-cultural Test of Gilligan's Ethic of Care.

One hundred and twenty students from both Brazil and Norway were tested with Skoes Ethic of Care Interview (ECI), which is a test of Gilligans hypothesized gender‐related ethic of care. Subjects were also tested with Bems Sex Role Inventory and Triandiss Test of Cultural Orientations. The ECI was shown to be related neither to gender nor to sex‐role concepts, and lower ECI scores from the Brazilian sample could be related to their higher collectivism scores on Triandiss test. The results suggest that Gilligans ethic of care, as tested by the ECI, is not gender‐related and may be culture specific.

Tentativa de crianças em lidar com as emoções de raiva e tristeza

ResumoO presente estudo focaliza respostas de criancas sobre comoparar o sentimento de tristeza e raiva, o que implica explorarestrategias de alteracoes de humor, i.e., pensamentos sobrecomo regular as emocoes. Foi perguntado a criancas brasilei-ras e norueguesas de 5, 7 e 9 anos de idade como a tristeza e araiva podiam cessar em 4 diferentes contextos para cada emo-cao. Os resultados mostram que as estrategias de regulacaodas emocoes (RE) variavam em funcao do contexto e da idade;que as criancas brasileiras usaram mais a interacao social e ascriancas norueguesas recorreram mais as estrategias cognitivaspara raiva, mas nao para tristeza. Nao foi observada umadiferenca clara na estrategia de RE para tristeza e raiva.AbstractChildren trying to deal with emotions of anger and sadnessThe present study focus on children’s cognitions of how tostop feeling sad and angry, which implies an exploration oftheir meta mood strategies, i.e. thoughts about how to regulateemotions. It was asking 5, 7, and 9-year-old Brazilian andNorwegian children how sadness and anger could be stoppedin 4 different contexts for each emotion. The results showed

Five to seven year old children’s strategies for regulating anger, sadness, and fear

83 children from kindergarten and primary school were asked to tell what they would do to stop being angry, sad, or frightened. Their proposals were conceived as emotion regulation strategies, and the great majority both of five and seven year old children’s responses (80.5 % and 88.1 %, respectively) could be classified into one of four categories. The most frequent regulation strategy category was social interaction (e.g. “being with someone”), which comprised about 40 % of responses in both age groups. Strategy frequencies did not sustain an expectation based on differential emotions theory that results should show variation with emotion type.

Orientação social, papel sexual e julgamento moral: uma comparação entre duas amostras brasileiras e uma norueguesa

Thirty female and 30 male university students each from Joao Pessoa and Porto Alegre were compared to a comparable Norwegian sample of 60 female and 60 male students. Except for a suggestion of differences in women’s cultural orientation, comparisons on Gibbs’ test of justice morality, the ECI test for ethic of care, Bem’s sex role inventory, and Triandis’ test for cultural orientations showed that all differences were between the Norwegian sample and the Brazilian samples as a unit. Brazilians showed a differentiation of sex roles, which was not shown in Norwegians, and higher scores on the collectivism cultural orientation. Norwegians showed higher scores ECI, which might be because of a culture bias in the test. No difference was shown for individualism cultural orientation, and on Gibbs’ test. Men scored higher on the total individualism measure, and women on vertical collectivism. JP women scored as more hedonistic and individual than the PA women, who scores as more traditional than the JP women.