Mindful Eating, Body Weight, and Psychological Well-Being in Adolescence.

Background: This study investigated the relationships among psychological well-being, mindful eating, and weight in adolescents. Methods: Data of this cross-sectional study were collected from students of three high schools. Various questionnaires regarding mindful eating, eating behavior, emotion regulation, self-esteem, coping, body attitude, depression, and anxiety were given. BMI percentile was calculated and four groups were detemined. Hacettepe University Non-Inventional Clinical Researches Review Board approved the study (GO 18/1116). Results: Among 401 participants (59.1% girls), 16 adolescents (4.0%) were underweight, 295 (73.6%) were normal, 62 (15.5%) were overweight, and 28 (7.0%) were obese. Emotional and external eating were more common in girls. Restrictive eating was distinguishing between all adolescents, except ones with obesity and overweight. Adolescents with obesity perceived themselves as the least self-confident, attractive, and healthy, while the opposites were true for adolescents with normal weight. The groups that differed mostly from each other were normal weight and overweight. Conclusions: The psychological well-being of being overweight should not be underestimated. Emotional and external eating were correlated with low mindful eating, and gender differences were found in different aspects of mindful eating types. Calorie information and healthy eating interventions may be beneficial in boys, while interventions targeting to understand physical and emotional states may be beneficial in girls during the treatment of disordered eating behaviors.

Psychiatric Morbidity Among a School Sample of Syrian Refugee Children in Turkey: A Cross-Sectional, Semistructured, Standardized Interview-Based Study.

Now in its eighth year, the Syrian civil war has caused displacement of more than half the population before the war and is viewed as the single largest contributing factor to many of the worsening global trends of children living in areas affected by conflict.1.

The understanding of risk factors for eating disorders in male adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to describe the medical, psychiatric, and cultural features of adolescent males with an eating disorder (ED). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective evaluation took place at Hacettepe University, Ihsan Dogramaci Children's Hospital, Ankara, Turkey, and covered a 4-year period between 2010 and 2013. Sixty adolescents were diagnosed with an ED during this period, 47 (78.3%) were females and 13 were males (21.7%) male. All 13 male patients who met full criteria for an ED according to the DSM criteria were included. Medical and psychiatric records of male patients treated for an ED were re-evaluated. RESULTS: The most striking finding of the study was that the female to male ratio became 3.6:1, with the increasing number of male adolescents with an ED. In our study, medical findings and complications of males with ED were similar to those seen in females. However, the most predominant gender difference was the co occurrence of a comorbid physical or mental illness. CONCLUSION: It is imperative to raise awareness of EDs in males. Although the medical findings of the study suggest that male and female adolescents with EDs are clinically similar to each other, the understanding of certain gender-specific risk factors shown in our study, such as a medical illness and/or obesity and co-morbid psychiatric diagnosis, are essential in raising suspicion. Further studies that especially evaluate cultural and social factors that affect parenting styles for boys are important in addessing possible risk factors for the development of EDs in males within different societies.

Child and adolescent mental health policy: promise to provision.

Mental health policy enables the translation of the knowledge base of 'how' to help children and families into the actual 'provision' of help. Amid competing pressures to leave the allocation of services to the market, policy is required to define needs, select priorities, match resources with need, and to measure what has been accomplished. Crafting policy requires balancing contrasting goals and approaches, here spelled out. Public mental health policy can be compared to other forms of continuous quality improvement (CQI).

Executive dysfunction in Turkish children at high risk for schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: To explore different aspects of executive function (i.e. sequencing, set shifting and mental flexibility) in children who are at high risk for schizophrenia by comparing them with normal controls. METHOD: The high risk (HR) group consisted of 30 children whose parents were diagnosed as schizophrenia. As the control group (CG) 30 children, whose parents did not meet any DSM IV diagnostic criteria for any psychiatric disorder, participated. They were age and sex matched with the HR group. For the evaluation of different domains of cognitive functions Wechsler intelligence scale for children-revised (WISC-R), and a group of neuropsychological tests, including Trail Making A-B Tests, Color Form Test, and Progressive Figures Test were administered. Behavioral problems were assessed using Hacettepe Adjustment Scale. RESULTS: The subjects in the high risk group had significantly lower scores on Trail Making A-B, Color Form, Progressive Figures Tests, as well as subtests and scores of WISC-R (Information, Comprehension, Similarities, Picture Completion, Block Design, Object Assembly and Coding subtests, Verbal, Performance and Full Scale IQ scores). There is no significant difference between the two groups in the frequency and severity of behavioral problems. CONCLUSION: Children of parents with schizophrenia displayed significantly greater number of difficulties in several areas of executive function, such as sequencing, set shifting, and mental flexibility, when compared to their controls.

Cooperative learning: a new application of problem-based learning in mental health training.

Interaction in problem-based learning (PBL) tutorials is not necessarily cooperative, which may account for variation in learning outcomes. Therefore, a cooperative assessment structure was introduced in a PBL course and the difference examined between this method and individual, lecture-based learning in mental health training. Experimental student groups gained more knowledge between pre- and post-test than did control groups, and the experimental students who scored low on the pre-test made the greatest gains. Groups that reported greater cooperation tended to have higher achievement scores. Experimental students felt that cooperation helped them learn but it also took more time and was sometimes chaotic.

Psychiatric symptoms of adolescents with physical complaints admitted to an adolescence unit.

SUMMARY: The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychiatric symptoms among adolescents who were seen in the outpatient clinic for their physical complaints. Two hundred and ninety adolescent outpatients (154 males and 136 females) between 13 and 17 years of age (mean 14.3+/-1.2) are included in this study. Patients with known psychiatric disorders, mental retardation, organic brain diseases, or chronic organic problems were excluded. The Brief Symptom Inventory, which measures the psychiatric symptoms under the categories of anxiety, depression, negative self, somatization, and hostility, was given to all subjects. Symptoms of urinary and cardiovascular systems were related to hostility. Patients with obesity, hirsutism, problems of external genitalia, enuresis nocturna, abdominal pain, chest pain, and lack of weight gain showed psychiatric symptoms at pathological levels. Hostility symptom was found to be high in all groups.