Associations between mental health & substance use treatment and alcohol use progression and recovery among US women drinkers.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use has profound public health impact on women; however, modifiable factors that may influence alcohol use progression/recovery, including health service utilization, are understudied in women. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between mental health (MH) and substance use (SU) treatment with alcohol use progression and recovery among women who currently use alcohol or have in the past. METHODS: This study is a secondary data analysis of prospective data from waves 1 (2001-2002) and 2 (2004-2005) of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; a US-nationally representative sample of adults). The analytic sample was limited to women who reported past or current alcohol use at wave 1 (N = 15,515). Latent transition analysis (LTA) examined whether receiving SU/MH treatment in the year prior to wave 1 was associated with transitioning between three empirically-derived stages of alcohol involvement (no, moderate, and severe problems classes), between Waves 1 and 2 adjusting for possible confounders using propensity score weight. RESULTS: Compared to White female drinkers, female drinkers who were from Black, Hispanic, or other races were less likely to receive SU/MH treatment (p-values ≤. 001). SU/MH treatment in the year prior to wave 1 was associated with transitioning from the moderate problems class to the no problems class between Waves 1 and 2 (p-value = .04). CONCLUSION: Receipt of SU or MH treatment among women, was associated with a higher likelihood of remission from moderate alcohol use problems to no problems over time. Future research, including investigation into treatment characteristics (e.g., frequency, duration, type) should further explore why women initially experiencing severe alcohol use problems did not experience similar remission.

Developmental cascades from early childhood attachment security to adolescent level of personality functioning among high-risk youth.

This study examines associations between early childhood attachment security and adolescent personality functioning in a high-risk sample within a developmental psychopathology framework. Data from 2,268 children (1165 male; 1103 female) and caregivers participating in Future of Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCWS) were used to examine (1) effects of genetic polymorphisms of the serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) and dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) genes and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on attachment security and emotional and behavioral dysregulation in early childhood and (2) longitudinal associations and transactional relationships among attachment security, dysregulation, negative parenting attitudes and behaviors, social competence, and adolescent personality functioning. Results revealed that ACEs predicted attachment security over and above sex or the genetic risk, and gene × environment interactions did not increment prediction. Results of cascade models showed that greater early childhood attachment security predicted higher adolescent level of personality functioning via pathways through intermediary variables. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Simulating Local Biases in Visual Attention in Neurocognitive Performance.

Typical visual perception includes an attention bias toward right hemisphere mediated global, holistic cortical processing. An atypically local, detail-oriented focus of attention is characteristic of left hemisphere processing and is often observed in patients whose field of attention is restricted by certain types of neurocognitive impairment. We designed the present pair of studies to induce a local attentional focus to observe its consequences on neurocognitive measures of visuospatial processing. In Experiment I, participants wore glasses mimicking simultanagnosia, a disorder of visual attention, to induce a narrowed, atypical attentional style while they completed visual neuropsychological tasks. This simulation impaired participants' capacities to visually synthesize and efficiently reproduce Complex Figure stimuli as measured with the Boston Qualitative Scoring System (BQSS), and it induced an atypical attentional style on Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) responses. In Experiment II, participants wore glasses designed to provoke differential hemispheric activation, also hypothesized to influence style of visual attention; but this manipulation did not influence neurocognitive task performance. We discuss implications for the interpretation of BQSS and R-PAS scores and offer directions for future research.

Correspondence of Maximum and Typical Performance Measures of Cognitive Processing.

We examined associations among cognitive processing measures that varied on a continuum from maximum to typical performance tasks in the context of an ego depletion study. Our intent was to replicate and extend the findings of Charek, Meyer, and Mihura, which showed that ego depletion had an expected effect on selected scores from the Rorschach inkblot task. We hypothesized that Rorschach variables indicative of cognitive sophistication would correlate with neuropsychological measures of cognitive ability and that Rorschach variables theoretically unassociated with cognitive processing would not correlate with those criterion measures. These hypotheses were supported, providing evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. We also hypothesized ego depletion effects on all measures; however, none were evident. Methodological considerations and implications of the findings are discussed.

Stimulus Characteristics in Picture Story Exercise Cards and Their Effects on the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Rating Method.

This study examined the effects of stimulus characteristics from the Picture Story Exercise (PSE; Smith, 1992) on the quality of social cognition and object relational functions as expressed in narrative responses. A nonclinical sample of 140 adults told stories to five PSE cards. Three trained raters scored the narratives using the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Rating Method (SCORS-G; Stein & Slavin-Mulford, 2018). Data were then analyzed to determine the extent to which different PSE cards elicited more pathological or more adaptive ratings on the 8 SCORS-G dimensions. Results showed that different cards produced reliable and significant differences in ratings on different SCORS-G dimensions. These results extend findings of previous research (Siefert et al., 2016; Stein et al., 2014) that used the SCORS-G with Thematic Apperception Test (Murray, 1943) cards to a unique and previously unexplored stimulus set. The implications of these findings on the use and interpretation of the PSE and SCORS-G are discussed.

Development and preliminary validation of a brief behavioral measure of psychotic propensity.

Extensive research demonstrates that the dimensional assessment of psychotic manifestations is a primary strength of the Rorschach inkblot task, which provides an in vivo sample of problem-solving behavior and normative standards concerning the logic and coherence of thought processes and the typicality of perceptual representations. This article presents foundational research for the Thought and Perception Assessment System (TPAS), a Rorschach-based system designed to assess solely for disordered thinking and perceptual aberrations using either the standard 10-card set of inkblots or alternative 3-, 4-, and 5-card short forms. Using data from three patient samples (ns = 61, 93, and 133) and one nonpatient sample (n = 118), we document the equivalence of mean scores across the full and short-form card sets. We also document satisfactory interrater reliability and validity for the full and short forms, as well as strong part-whole reliability coefficients between the short forms and the full form. Consistent with psychometric theory and the principle of aggregation, each type of coefficient decreased as a function of decreasing the number of cards. We discuss implications and future applications in research and clinical assessment.