Examines the influence of social support, university comfort, and self-beliefs on the persistence decisions of African American (N=98) undergraduates attending a predominantly White university. Each construct predicted persistence, with university comfort and social support the strongest predictors. A positive perception of the university…

A study examined the stability of and relationships among the maternal attitudes of mothers of 35 cocaine-exposed infants and ratings of infant temperament. Of the infant and maternal variables, only infant temperament was found to be a significant predictor of maternal global attitudes at 6 months of age. (Author/CR)

A study of 259 women found those who report abuse in childhood dissociate more than nonabused women, although they do not experience more perceptual distortions. Duration of abuse, age of onset of abuse, number of perpetrators, and relationship of perpetrators to victim predicted difficulties in many aspects of reality testing. (Author/CR)

Of 150 American Indian nursing students in a tribal college, 38 completed the program. Completers were significantly older and had higher Test of Adult Basic Education math and language scores. High school grade point average and number of dependents were not significant predictors of completion. (Contains 25 references.) (SK)

Investigates risk factors for current suicidality in clients diagnosed with schizophrenia (N=223). Results indicate that severity of depressive symptoms most strongly correlated with degree of suicidality. Younger age and recent traumatic stress each significantly predicted suicidality independent of depressive symptoms. Suggests that the…

Examines drinking patterns of female college students and evaluates the contributions of age, sorority membership, emotional pain, and peer acceptance on both frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption. Results indicate that sorority membership and emotional pain were significant predictors of frequency of alcohol consumption; and age, sorority…

This study compared adolescents on a continuum of risk of school dropout: adolescents in the mainstream program (low risk); in an at-risk program (medium risk); and in an alternative evening program for dropouts (high risk). The researcher wanted to determine what factors predict school dropout, with particular attention given to family and social…

Purpose: Although persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) require increasingly more assistance with activities of daily living as their disease progresses, the caregiving environment has received little attention as a source of predictors of their survival time. We report here on a study to determine whether variation in survival time of persons…

The aim of this essay is to build a bridge between two intersecting areas of research, social indicators research on the one hand and health-related quality of life research on the other. The first substantive section of the paper introduces key concepts and definitions in the social indicators research tradition, e.g., social indicators,…

Using path analysis and hierarchical linear modeling, the authors evaluated the associations between both partners' level of depression and anxiety, as measured by Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) content scales, and both partners' level of marital satisfaction among married couples (N = 774) that participated in the MMPI…

A model linking children's peer acceptance in the classroom to academic performance via academic self-concept and internalizing symptoms was tested in a longitudinal study. A sample of 248 children was followed from 4th to 6th grade, with data collected from different informants in each year of the study to reduce respondent bias. A path analysis…

Tympanic membrane (TM) temperature asymmetry has been proposed as a phenotypic marker of vulnerability to negative emotionality in children. Little is known about the stability of TM temperatures or how readily one can obtain a reliable index of the phenotype. TM temperatures were collected from 3- to 5-year-old children (N=73) over 5 months…

A study of three hundred undergraduates enrolled in a general education course at a large midwestern state university revealed, as expected, a strong negative correlation between absences and final grades. Although the complex equation for academic success involves many more variables than attendance alone, some of which are also considered in…

The author analyzed quantitative data from an NIMH-funded longitudinal study of 322 women with persistent severe mental illness (SMI) and qualitative data from semistructured interviews with 82 of the women who ever lost custody of a child. The purpose was to test the hypothesis, derived from human ecology theory, that individual and environmental…

The study examined the relationships between stress and coping strategies among 283 college students. Participants completed questionnaires relating to their stress perceptions, actual academic loads and their coping strategies. The main objective was to explore the effect of stress perceptions on coping behavior while accounting for objective…