Thalia Dragonas

The effects of psychosocial factors on the emotional well-being of women during pregnancy: A cross-cultural study of britain and greece

The effects of life events, social support and the emotional well-being of partner on the emotional well-being of the mother during pregnancy was examined within the cultural contexts of Britain and Greece. It was proposed that social support, impact of life events and relationship of the mother with her partner would be affected by the different social structures of each culture and would influence emotional well-being. A sample of 200 Greek and 156 British mothers and their partners completed questionnaires which included a life event inventory, measure of social support and measure of emotional well-being (Crown-Crisp Experiential Index). Greek mothers were found to score significantly higher on measures of depression, anxiety and somaticism, experience more stressful life events (most relating to family issues) and report feeling less supported than British mothers. Life events, particularly those relating to family stresses were found to predict poor emotional well-being among Greek mothers. For British mothers, social support was the strongest predictor of emotional well-being. Findings were discussed in the light of differences in social structure and it was suggested that future research might focus on the disruption of established social support structures rather than the differences in availability of social support per se when considering maternal emotional well-being.

The European Early Promotion Project: Description of the Service and Evaluation Study

This chapter describes an innovative cross-cultural method of working with families to promote the psychosocial well-being of children and to prevent the development of psychological and social problems. It also presents a study designed to evaluate the effects of the service. Primary health care workers in five countries from Northern, Central and Southern Europe were trained to conduct promotional interviews with all prospective mothers in their area one month before and one month after birth. They were also taught to work with mothers identified as in need of support as a parent, by using a specific counselling model to try to prevent the onset of child mental health difficulties. Effects of the intervention on childrens psychological development and family adaptation were evaluated at two years of age in comparison with matched groups not receiving the intervention, using a set of questionnaires, interviews and observation methods. The total sample of the study at the initial assessment was 824 families, of which 705 (85.6%) were retained for the outcome assessment.

Assessing Quality Day Care: The Child Care Facility Schedule

The Child Care Facility Schedule (CCFS) represents an effort to develop a measure to assess quality child care. Initially 80 criteria, covering 8 areas considered important for attaining quality, were defined. These were subsequently tested in three different cultural contexts: Athens (Greece), Manila (Philippines), and Ibadan (Nigeria). Reliability studies were conducted in Athens and Ibadan, and a validity study was carried out in Athens. Concurrent validity was established by comparing the CCFS scores with those obtained from an unstructured observation by an observer unfamiliar with the content of the Schedule. Criterion validity was examined by comparing the CCFS scores with those derived from another well-established measure. Factor and cluster analyses were used as a means for establishing construct validity. A general quality factor that tapped the contribution of the caretakers to quality was revealed, and a shorter 43-item version was recommended. The CCFS appears to identify differences among the various types of day care centres, and can be used for self-evaluation by the personnel of day care centres.

Early Mental Health Promotion in Children Through Primary Health Care Services: A Multi‐Centre Implementation

The paper presents results from the implementation and evaluation of a EU/WHO multi‐centre programme on the promotion of childrens psychosocial development through primary health care services. The aims of the study were to develop methods for use by primary health care workers in their contact with families on issues pertaining to healthy psychosocial development in the first two years of life, to develop a training programme for primary health care workers to implement in their contact with the families, to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme and to promote the implementation of the developed intervention techniques through the network of primary health care services.

Educating the Muslim minority in Western Thrace

Abstract A large-scale, interdisciplinary Project for Reform in the Education of Muslim Children (PEM) in Western Thrace, Greece, was implemented during the years 1977–2004. Although PEM was a specifically educational project entailing teaching Greek as a second language, development of educational materials, teacher training and academic outcome, it was bound to involve identity issues and directly or indirectly embrace the entire Thracian community. A historical and socio-political background is provided in order for the reader to understand the way power is negotiated between majority and minority and the controversies that characterize educational policy and instructional practices in such a context of ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity.

National Identity among a Neighboring Quartet: The Case of Greeks, Turks, Israelis, and Palestinians

Impressive similarities and telling differences characterize the representations of national identity among adolescents from four neighboring countries that are geographically interwoven and also have in common bilateral, long-dated histories of conflictual relationships--Greece, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. (The Israeli sample includes a separate subsample of Palestinians living in Israel.) Ethnocentrism, European integration, and attitudes towards immigration, as measured by student reponses to the Youth and History survey, are the components of national identification examined. All five groups are highly ethnocentric in relation to the rest of the students completing the survey. Greek students incorporate European cooperation in their ethnocentric conception; for Turkish, Palestinian, and Israeli-Palestinian youths, European cooperation is associated with democracy, while for Israelis it has strong humanitarian connotations. Finally, Turkish youths seem to have the most stringent criteria for conditional immigration. These results are placed within a wider theoretical context of the socio-psychological dimensions of national identity.

The Sociocultural Context of the European Early Promotion Project

This chapter describes the socio-cultural settings and the relevant health care services within which the European Early Promotion Project was conducted, in order to render the interpretation of study results more meaningful and to justify cross-cultural differences. Greece, Cyprus and Serbia are characterised by lower social expenditure, welfare provision and higher poverty rates than the UK and, especially, Finland, the latter having achieved an advanced welfare provision system. Large differences also exist among participating countries in child mental health and primary care services. Finland and the UK have made the biggest advances in promotional work with families, while Greece, Cyprus and Serbia present, to a smaller or larger degree, deficiencies in their health service infrastructure and in their ability to follow social, economic and scientific advances in the area of maternal and child well-being.

Role of early developmental factors in susceptibility to disease

Early developmental factors implicated in subsequent infant and child development are presented. The orientation adopted emphasizes both the interplay between constitutional and environmental factors and the mutual interaction between the child and its environment. The present paper concentrates on pre- and perinatal factors and maternal psychopathology affecting mainly the early mother-child interaction and, in turn, child developmental outcome.

Greek women's attitudes toward pregnancy, labor, and infant: Their significance for intervention

Greek womens needs, attitudes, and experiences during the months immediately prior to and subsequent to the birth of their infants were evaluated. Themes considered were womens feelings and attitudes toward pregnancy, labor and the expected infant; breast feeding; emotional and practical needs; experiences from perinatal care and relationships with medical care personnel and with the family; perceptions of physical and emotional stress; and their relationships with infant and partner. Findings showed, among others, that women emphasized a desire for more personal care — more time, continuity of care, information about their pregnancy, and less distance from the doctor. Moreover, they expressed their need for emotional support. Anxiety was found to be a central feature of womens feelings during labor and delivery. The same anxiety was related to efforts to deal with infant crying, attempts to console the infant, and concern for picking the baby up. Understanding maternal attitudes provides guidelines for designing an intervention program that would integrate emotional and cognitive factors.

Educational activism across the divide: empowering youths and their communities

ABSTRACT This paper tells the story of the Creative Youth Workshops (CYWs), a social space for youths, members of the minority/Muslim and the majority/Christian society, in jointly constructing alternative possibilities of living positively together in the conflict-ridden social environment of Thrace, a North Eastern Greek province bordering Bulgaria and Turkey. The CYWs constitute a sub-project within the overall frame of a comprehensive intervention inside and outside the classroom, called ‘Education of Muslim Minority Children’.