September 2010

Events

• ATEC Nova Scotia Teachers Association - School engagement and resilience

  This event will be held October 22, 2010 in Nova Scotia. Micheal Unger will make a keynote address. Details are available from: bil@ns.sympatico.ca

• Healing and Treating Trauma, Addictions & Related Disorders Conference

  This four-day conference is scheduled for Richmond, British Columbia, November 16–19, 2010. It will present invaluable information suitable for therapists, counsellors, mental health workers, social workers, psychiatric nurses, physicians, family therapists, rehabilitation/vocation counsellors and all other mental health professionals. Key topics covered will include: multiple addictions, trauma, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, eroticized rage/anger, relationships, borderline personality disorder, dual disorders, cybersex, emotional self-regulation, dissociation and healing, EMDR: Trauma Power Tool, mindfulness and other topics.

• Call for proposals - Resilience: new intervention perspectives on rehabilitationCe lien ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre

  This event will be held April 27- 28 2011 in Montreal, Quebec. The objectives are: to understand the practical significance of the concept of resilience applied to rehabilitation or to other areas; develop knowledge on approaches, methods and techniques to integrate the concept of resilience in rehabilitation and to other areas of intervention; consider organizational or management practices that could support the process of resilience for the user of health services or his family; develop links on provincial, national and international levels among researchers, professionals and users in order to develop research projects and interventions that include resilience. Call for proposals must be sent by September 26, 2010 at the latest at: ColloqueResilience@ssss.gouv.qc.ca

News

• Research on psychological impact of shooting at Dawson college sheds light on post-traumatic disorders

  A research team from the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital presented the results of its three-year study, a world first, into the 2006 Dawson College shooting to the Government of Quebec’s Ministry of Public Security. The incidence of psychosocial trauma caused by a school shooting far outnumbers physical cases. Close to 1,000 students and employees attending or working at the College at the time of the tragedy were involved in this groundbreaking study.

• Victimized children in disasters more likely to have mental health issues

  A new national study not only has confirmed that children who have been exposed to disasters from earthquakes to fires are more prone to emotional problems, but many of those children may already have been experiencing maltreatment, domestic abuse or peer violence that could exacerbate those issues.

• Childhood Abuse, Adversity May Shorten Life, Weaken Immune Response Among The Elderly

  The emotional pains we suffer in childhood can lead to weakened immune systems later in life, according to a new study. Based on this new research, the amount of this immune impairment even enhances that caused by the stress of caregiving later in life.

• Study finds high rates of posttraumatic stress symptoms in a US national sample of children referred to child welfare

  Children and adolescents coming into contact with the child welfare system may be at increased risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The present study used the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (a nationally representative survey of child maltreatment investigations) to determine the national prevalence of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms in children referred to child welfare services in the United States due to alleged maltreatment.

• Mothers Abused By Partners See Decline In Mental Health Even After Relationship Ends

  Even after leaving a violent or controlling relationship, the mental health of mothers may actually get worse before it gets better, a new study suggests. Researchers found that in the two years after the end of an abusive relationship, mothers showed poorer mental health, became more depressed and maintained high levels of anxiety. In those areas, they were no better off than women who stayed in abusive relationships.

Publications

• Downloadable Versions of Conference Papers and Powerpoint Presentations

  This page includes downloadable versions of conference Papers and Powerpoint Presentations from Pathways to Resilience II: The Social Ecology of Resilience, an event held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 7-10, 2010.

• Determinants of resilience to cigarette smoking among young Australians at risk: an exploratory study

  Numerous researchers studied risk factors associated with smoking uptake, however, few examined protective factors associated with smoking resilience. This study therefore aims to explore determinants of smoking resilience among young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are at risk of smoking.

• Supporting resilience in foster families: a model for program design that supports recruitment, retention, and satisfaction of foster families who care for infants with prenatal substance exposure

  The aim of this qualitative research study, conducted in British Columbia, Canada, was to identify the process of becoming a foster family and providing family foster caregiving within the context of caring for infants with prenatal drug and alcohol exposure. The study identified a process for foster families developing expertise in this field, and the article describes three main phases (preparing to foster, living as a foster family, and ending the fostering role) and the steps within each of these three phases experienced by foster families, and the application of a resiliency framework to the foster care model to indicate how adaptations to the work and function of relationships within the system may help to strengthen the support of foster families, potentially resulting in improved retention and satisfaction.

• L’usage de substances psychoactives chez les jeunes Québécois : conséquences et facteurs associés

  This is the second part of the status report on the consumption of psychoactive substances (APS) among young Quebecers. The first part, published in 2009, profiled epidemiological SPA consumption among young people 10-24 years (Gagnon, 2009). The second component will update the knowledge about the consequences that may be related to the use of SPA in youth and the factors that can explain their use. A third and final part will be published later and will discuss best practices in prevention.

• Resilient Adolescent Adjustment among Girls: Buffers of Childhood Peer Rejection and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

  Considerable evidence suggests that the risk factors of childhood peer rejection and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—alone or together—predict a wide range of future adjustment problems (Barkley, 2002; Parker & Asher, 1987). Crucially, some children avoid these negative outcomes, yet there is a gap in knowledge in regards to these resilient children. The purpose of this study was to investigate buffers of childhood peer rejection and ADHD with respect to adolescent functioning, through a prospective longitudinal study of girls.

• Affirmative Challenges in Indigenous Resilience Research

  There is no unified Indigenous view of resilience, as different sources reflect varying degrees of integration with the Western view and different degrees of displacement from the land; many Indigenous views of resilience are based on their relationship to the land. The author’s years of work with a range of Indigenous communities in Canada and elsewhere have led them to understand that most Indigenous views of resilience go beyond the individual and negative tone implicit in “the capability of individuals to cope and flourish successfully in the face of significant adversity or risk”.

• Directions In Indigenous Resilience Research

  Measurement offers glimpses of resilience, mostly from the potentially distorted view of how resilient youth face specific adversity — adversity that is set by the funding opportunity: tobacco, substance abuse, suicide, or HIV infection. The driving role of funding has obvious problems; the priorities of funders may not be the priorities of communities and results can tell more about the funding opportunity than about resilience itself. Even so, this problem-focused research has the very practical advantage of producing results geared to solutions. A major lesson of this body of work is that we should allow ourselves the space (and the modesty) to recognize that Aboriginal resilience is greater than we have been able to measure under specific funding opportunities. Even with this limitation, results shows a large degree of specificity — what strengthens youth resilience to one type of adversity in one setting might well not work in another. Five proposals emerge from the findings.

• Risk and resilience factors in coping with daily stress in adulthood: The role of age, self-concept incoherence, and personal control

  This study observed young, middle-aged, and older adults (N = 239; Mage = 49.6 years; range = 18–89 years) for 30 consecutive days to examine the association between daily stress and negative affect, taking into account potential risk (i.e., self-concept incoherence) and resilience (i.e., age, perceived personal control) factors. Results indicated that younger individuals and individuals with a more incoherent self-concept showed higher average negative affect across the study. As well, individuals reported higher negative affect on days that they experienced more stress than usual and on days that they reported less control than usual. The current study helps to elucidate the role of risk and resilience factors when adults are faced with daily stress.

• Research Article: Resilience among women and men aged 60 years and over in Sweden and in Thailand

  The purpose of this study was to compare the level of resilience of people aged ≥ 60 years in Sweden and Thailand. In a randomized sample of 422 people in Sweden and a convenience sample of 200 people in Thailand, the level of resilience was measured by using the Resilience Scale. Despite different background characteristics, the Swedish and the Thai participants’ scores were almost the same on the Resilience Scale. More studies are necessary to address aspects of gender and ethnicity in relation to resilience.

• Surviving the Holocaust: A meta-analysis of the long-term sequelae of a genocide

  The current set of meta-analyses elucidates the long-term psychiatric, psychosocial, and physical consequences of the Holocaust for survivors. In 71 samples with 12,746 participants Holocaust survivors were compared with their counterparts (with no Holocaust background) on physical health, psychological well-being, posttraumatic stress symptoms, psychopathological symptomatology, cognitive functioning, and stress-related physiology. Holocaust survivors were less well adjusted, as apparent from studies on nonselected samples (trimmed combined effect size d = 0.22, 95% CI [0.13, 0.31], N = 9,803) and from studies on selected samples (d = 0.45, 95% CI [0.32, 0.59], N = 2,943). In particular, they showed substantially more posttraumatic stress symptoms (nonselect studies: d = 0.72, 95% CI [0.46, 0.98], N = 1,763).

• The relationship between resilience and levels of anxiety, depression, and obsessive–compulsive symptoms in adolescents

  Mental health problems affect approximately 20% of adolescents. Traditionally, the principal focus has been on vulnerability and risk factors and less on protective factors. The study, therefore, explores the relation between frequent psychiatric symptoms and resilience factors among older adolescents. This study provides further evidence that it may be fruitful for clinicians and researchers to attend to resilience factors in relation to psychological symptoms among older adolescents.

• Emotion Differentiation as Resilience Against Excessive Alcohol Use

  Some people are adept at using discrete emotion categories (anxious, angry, sad) to capture their felt experience; other people merely communicate how good or bad they feel. Researchers theorized that people who are better at describing their emotions might be less likely to self-medicate with alcohol. Results show that from a 30-day timeline follow-back revealed that people with intense negative emotions consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions and less reliant on global descriptions. Results from ecological momentary assessment procedures revealed that people with intense negative emotions prior to drinking episodes consumed less alcohol if they were better at describing emotions. These findings provide support for a novel methodology and dimension for understanding the influence of emotions on substance-use patterns.

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