Browsing by Author "Tucker, Christy"
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Item The Role of Mindfulness, Attachment, and Stress in Diverse Populations During Pregnancy(2017-07-27) Kirby, Joshua N.; Robinson, Richard C.; Tucker, Christy; Hynan, Linda S.; Bonsu, Mary L.; Stringer, Claude A.As stress can be detrimental to mental and physical health outcomes during pregnancy, there is a need for ongoing research of psychosocial factors, as well as underlying demographic and sociocultural variables, that may mitigate such impact. Attachment security and dispositional mindfulness have been found to predict lower stress levels in certain contexts. Additionally, mindfulness training has proven to be an effective stress reduction intervention in pregnant populations. This study aimed primarily to evaluate the relationship among demographic factors, stress, attachment, and mindfulness in a racially diverse sample of women with high-risk pregnancies. A secondary aim involved a small pilot study of mindfulness training in this population. The hypotheses were that women with more insecure attachment would have higher stress and lower levels of mindfulness, and that mindfulness would moderate the impact of attachment insecurity on stress. African-American women were hypothesized to have greater levels of stress and attachment avoidance based on a review of the literature. Participants (N = 127) completed the 10-Item Perceived Stress Scale, Experiences in Close Relationship Scale- Short Form, and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Short Form. Analysis of variance indicated participants were more likely to have avoidant attachment and lower dispositional mindfulness if they were African-American and unmarried. Regression analyses revealed attachment and mindfulness to be predictors of stress; however, mindfulness did not buffer the relationship between attachment insecurity and stress. Negative correlations were demonstrated between attachment avoidance and facets of mindfulness. With regard to the secondary, exploratory aim, a subsample of women (N = 5) completed a one-week mindfulness intervention compared to a control group (N = 5), in which all participants were administered the abovementioned questionnaires pre- and post-test. As anticipated, no statistically significant changes were noted, although important trends were identified for participants that practiced mindfulness meditation compared to those that did not. The results highlight differences in the experience of stress between African-American and white women when considering attachment tendencies continued into adulthood. Though not a significant moderator of stress for insecurely attached participants, this study identified mindfulness as a key mechanism in the appraisal and response to stress with unique sociocultural sensitivities that deserve further attention.Item Self-Disclosure, Secrecy, and Parental Knowledge in Caucasian and Latino Youth Managing Type 1 Diabetes(2013-07-29) Tucker, Christy; Wiebe, Deborah J.; Stewart, Sunita M.; Kennard, Beth D.; Reed, Gabriela; Caughy, Margaret O.A qualitative and quantitative examination of self-disclosure and secrecy was conducted to gain insight into their connections with parental knowledge and adolescent type 1 diabetes management. This is the first study to examine adolescent diabetes-related disclosure and secrecy in a diverse sample while considering the broader context of the parent-adolescent relationship. Participants were Caucasian and Latina mothers and their adolescents with type 1 diabetes (N = 118 dyads, 48% Latino, 54% female adolescents, 10 to 15 years old, illness duration > 1 year, 25% on insulin pump). Qualitative data consisted of coding adolescent responses to interview questions about two self-identified diabetes-related stressful events: “Does your mother (father) know about this stressful event?” and “As far as you know, how did your mother (father) find out?” Quantitative data included adolescent responses to questionnaires measuring diabetes self-disclosure to and secrecy from mothers and fathers, maternal and paternal knowledge, maternal and paternal acceptance (i.e. relationship quality), adherence, and depressive symptoms. Mothers also completed a maternal knowledge questionnaire and HbA1c was extracted from medical records. Sociodemographic data were collected by adolescent and maternal reports. Qualitative analysis revealed 10 ways in which parents came to know of their adolescents’ diabetes-related stressful events. For both stressful events, adolescent disclosed to parent was the most common code for mothers’ and fathers’ knowledge, mother present-observes was the second most frequent code for mothers, and mother discloses to father was the second most frequent code for fathers. Self-disclosure and secrecy predicted adolescent reports of maternal and paternal knowledge, whereas only self-disclosure and not secrecy predicted maternal reports of her own knowledge. Self-disclosure but not secrecy was associated with HbA1c, and secrecy but not self-disclosure was related to adherence, independent of both parental knowledge and acceptance. Although higher self-disclosure to mothers and lower secrecy to fathers were correlated with lower depressive symptoms, these associations were not statistically reliable after covarying parental acceptance and/or knowledge. These results provide a more thorough understanding of the relationship between adolescent self-disclosure and secrecy with health outcomes, raise questions about the focus on parental monitoring in interventions to improve diabetes management during adolescence, and point to important directions for future research.Item A Spanish Version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Short Form (ECR-S) Adult Attachment Questionnaire(2018-06-20) Brasch, Anne Caroline; Robinson, Richard C.; LePage, James; Tucker, Christy; Cedeño Dávila, Roselyn; Stringer, Claude A.Despite a wealth of literature on attachment theory and its diverse implications across relational, psychological, and health domains (Sroufe, 2005), cross-cultural understanding of attachment has remained limited. This is, in part, a natural consequence of the considerable lack of validated attachment measures in non-English languages. The need for validated research measures in Spanish, in particular, has become especially apparent in recent years, as Hispanics now represent the largest and fastest growing minority population in the U.S. (Passel, Cohn, & Lopez, 2011). This study therefore aimed to validate a Spanish version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale - Short Form (ECR-S; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). Hypotheses centered upon the assessment of the reliability, validity, and underlying factor structure of the Spanish ECR-S. Participants (N = 85) were Spanish-speaking women recruited from outpatient Ob/Gyn clinics, where they completed a battery of brief questionnaires to assess attachment style, psychological distress, and demographic information. Coefficient alphas were .80 and .60 for the anxiety and avoidance subscales of the Spanish version of the ECR-S, following removal of a problematic item. Test-retest reliability of the two subscales were r = .70 (p < .001) and r = .68 (p < .001), respectively. As expected, Spanish ECR-S anxiety (r = .81, p < .001) and avoidance (r = .72, p < .001) levels were found to correlate highly with those of the full-length Spanish ECR, as well as with symptoms of depression (r = .29 - .51, p < .05). Hypotheses of discriminant validity were not supported, with positive correlations found between ECR-S subscale scores and symptoms of ADHD (r = .24 - .46, p < .05) and psychosis (r = .28 - .45, p < .05). Although the Spanish ECR-S yielded two relatively independent factors, they were inconsistent with the expected underlying factor structure of two orthogonal dimensions of attachment anxiety and avoidance. Overall, this version of the Spanish ECR-S will require revision for validation and use in clinical and research settings; however, this study highlights the pressing and important need for more culturally sensitive measures of attachment in the Spanish language.