Research Summaries
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Research Summaries
Summary of a Research Article: Is Divorce More Painful When Couples Have Children? Evidence from Long-term Panel Data on Multiple Domains of Well-being
This article explores the psychological effects of divorce to the children. There have been various theoretical models that have indicated how divorce has an effect and is more painful to the children. Little research is available where a researcher looks at kids as moderators in divorce cases. In conducting the research, the first hypothesis used in the research that children caused much more effect on the wellbeing of parents during a divorce. The second hypothesis was children intensified a decline in divorce-related resources. Among the research question posed in conducting the research included: How would presence of children in marriage moderate divorce and does the age of children play a role in divorce process.
In conducting the research, interview was conducted in various households where parents had divorced and they had children. Household members who were of age 18 and above were interviewed in order to establish the transition that took place from marital to divorce state. 2353 participants were randomly selected with the criteria they had to have been divorced after years of marriage. The findings from the research was that presence of children increased emotional crisis on parents, economic losses and social resources. (Leopold, 2016). Mothers who had little kids who were yet to start school or were in pre-school were more likely to stop working. Mothers and fathers were also likely to fall into drug use such as alcohol because raising children as a single parent was hectic.
Summary of the Research Article: If We’re Going to Change Things, It Has to Be Systemic:’’ Systems Change in Children’s Mental Health
If We’re Going to Change Things, It Has to Be Systemic:’’ Systems Change in Children’s Mental Health is a research conducted to understand well-being of children. The research established a purpose that was to provide information that would aid in the development of care systems. It was enhanced to act as a reference for interested or parties in the subject of study and even further researchers to expand the knowledge and understanding the principle care units that include family, youth involvement, individualized care and cultural competencies that aimed at developing effective strategies for building systems and delivering services. The research question for the research was how the systems currently in place affected mentally ill children. The purpose of this article development was derived from calls for reforms on the child mental health in the United States since the 1960s. The hypothesis used in this research was how Soft System Methodology affected the systems of care especially for children with serious emotional disorder.
In conducting the research, a multi-embedded case study design was used in order to examine system changes. There were six systems that were selected through a national nomination process. The research used extensive document review as well as targeted phone interviews with the involved stakeholders. The study found out the current emphasis on medical fields through evaluation to be an emphasis on the implementation of evidence-based practices. Culture, individualized services, family children mental health and competence in linguistics had formed the bases to principles and values of systems in the study. Across the nations in order to develop community-based systems of care for children and families across states, there must be involvement multiple constituencies (Hodges, Ferreira& Israel,2012).
Summary of the Research Article: Children’s Shyness Moderates the Associations between Parenting Behavior and the Development of Children’s Pro-Social Behaviors
In a research article named Children’s Shyness Moderates the Associations between Parenting Behavior and the Development of Children’s Pro-Social Behaviors, a study on whether there is a relationship between the parenting style of a parent and the degree of shyness exhibited by the child they parent is conducted. To preface the work, shyness is described is described as a temperamental state in which a child exhibits unease when in a social group composed of individuals unfamiliar to them (Beier, Terrizzi, Woodward, & Larson, 2017). The main hypothesis made before the study theorize that children parented by parents who showed affectation and exercised behavioral on them would be more pro-social and moreover, the same associations would be more pronounced in children that exhibit shyness. While conducting the study, questionnaire was the data collection method of choice in which parents of 9368 children born in Finland in the province of central find land were supplied with questionnaires regarding their children`s temperament as far as shyness is concerned as well as their parenting styles. To establish the children`s temperament, the questions used the Children Behavior Questionnaire which contains 175 questions which require ratings on the children`s behavior on a scale of 1 to 7 as the answers.
To collect data on the children`s social behavior, the research used the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC) in which a scale of 1 to 4 is used to rate the social behavior of a child on 126 different items. On parenting styles, the research used the Finnish version of Block`s Child Rearing Practices Report (BCRR) parental affection and behavioral control subscales where the participants were required to rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, their level of affection and behavioral control on 14 different items. According to the results obtained from this method, it was established that the affection of both mothers and fathers positively affected how the social behavior of their children by enhancing it. Among shy children only, more affection from their mothers was found to improve their pro-social behavior, a phenomenon which could not be linked to non-shy children. Further, the research established that affection from fathers only helped improve the social behaviors of shy children while their behavior control was good when instilling pro-social behavior in non-shy children.
Summary of Research Article: Shyness and Social Conflict Reduce Young Children’s Social Helpfulness
In the article Shyness and Social Conflict Reduce Young Children’s Social Helpfulness, research is done aimed at trying to confirm the hypothesis that shyness and conflicts are impediments that hinder children from being useful in a societal setting. The research question in the research was whether both shyness and social conflict reduced a child social helpfulness. The two main hypotheses were formulated which were as follows: in the event the individual to be helped is clearly unwilling, then a child will refrain to help if the decision to do so is based on their preference to the individual. Secondly, since shy children dread the consequence of conflict, they will be less likely to help if the individual is unwilling (Zarra-Nezhad, 2018).
To confirm whether the hypotheses were right or not, experiments were conducted where children were exposed to opportunities of helping either physically or socially by setting up experiments which involved having a child help an experimenter to collect a she dropped or helping her gain the attention of another experimenter she pretended not to hear her calling while appealing disinterested. The aims of the experiments were to determine whether a child`s decision to be socially helpful was dependent on the target individual`s interest and whether shyness determines the social helpfulness of a child. From the research 81.3% of the children were observed to provide immediate physical help while only 59.4% of them readily provided social support. When the experimenters showed clear disinterest to be helped, the children refrained from helping them confirming the theory that the preference of the target individual negatively affects a child`s decision to be helpful both physically and socially. Regarding the association between shyness and social helpfulness, there was a direct link between shyness and social helpfulness while none was established between shyness and physical helpfulness confirming the theory that social helpfulness is more demanding to shy children since it requires taking social risk.
Summary of Research Article: Clinical Characteristics of Young Type 2 Diabetes Patients with Atherosclerosis
This research looks at both biochemical and clinical characteristics of the young diabetic patients that also suffer from arteriosclerosis as well as Type II Diabetes. The research was a cross sectional study that involved 2199 subjects who had been hospitalized in the hospital with type two diabetes. The research question was the occurrence rate of arteriosclerosis on children. The hypothesis for the research was whether age had an impact on occurrence of arteriosclerosis. The patients were divided into two groups those who had atherosclerosis and non-atherosclerosis. An older group was also included as part of the study who had arteriosclerosis and were at least 45 years of age. There were comparisons made between the different groups in order to establish metabolic and cardiovascular risk profiles of the young patients (Yang, 2016).
The results established that the young people had deleterious profiles of hyperlipidemia and weight when compared to the older generation. Atherosclerosis was also more prevalent in lower extremity arteries of the young patients when compared with the old. The comparison between the young patents with atherosclerosis and non-atherosclerosis pointed out they were more likely to have longer diabetes duration, have older age and larger waste size especially in females and higher BMI and poor control of their blood lipid parameters. Their cholesterol level in both groups did not bear any significant difference. Younger type two diabetic patients were also likely to experience diabetic retinopathy, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetic neuropathy incidences when compared to the older patients.
Summary of Research Article: A cross-sectional study on correlates of high blood pressure among school-going children in an Urban Area.
The researcher of this article aims at establishing if there is a link between blood pressure in school going children specifically in urban areas. Over the years there has been a significant number of children who have suffered from increased high blood pressure and obesity. The research question for the study was whether there was if school played an impact in resulting in high blood pressure among school going children. Hypothesis for the research was whether played any role or was a factor that led to development of high blood pressure in children.
In order to establish this, a cross sectional study was carried out for one and half years involving 892 children who were selected randomly both male and female between 8th-10th class. Measurements including height, weight and Blood pressure were recorded and classified per the BMI and standard guidelines outlined depending on both age and sex. The researcher was able to establish that children who were obese had elevated systolic blood pressure and elevated diastolic BP. The children who had familial history of diabetes in their history also had elevated diastolic pressure. The male also had elevated blood pressure than the female gender. There was a correlation between weight, height and BMI with Systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. From the experiment, the researcher established risk factors for elevated BP as being obese or overweight, family history of diabetes or hypertension and increase in age (Katta, 2018).
References
Beier, J., Terrizzi, B., Woodward, A., & Larson, E. (2017). Shyness and Social Conflict Reduce Young Children’s Social Helpfulness. Child Development, 88(6), 1922–1929.
Katta, A. V., & Kokiwar, P. R. (2018). A cross-sectional study on correlates of high blood pressure among school-going children in an Urban Area. Indian journal of community medicine: official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine, 43(2), 82.
Leopold, T., & Kalmijn, M. (2016). Is divorce more painful when couples have children? Evidence from long-term panel data on multiple domains of well-being. Demography, 53(6), 1717-1742.
Hodges, S., Ferreira, K., & Israel, N. (2012). “If We’re Going to Change Things, It Has to Be Systemic:” Systems Change in Children’s Mental Health. American journal of community psychology, 49(3-4), 526-537.
Yang, W., Cai, X., Han, X., & Ji, L. (2016). Clinical Characteristics of Young Type 2 Diabetes Patients with Atherosclerosis. PloS one, 11(7), e0159055.
Zarra-Nezhad, M., Moazami-Goodarzi, A., Nurmi, J.-E., Eklund, K., Ahonen, T., & Aunola, K. (2018). Children’s Shyness Moderates the Associations between Parenting Behavior and the Development of Children’s Pro-Social Behaviors. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27, 3008–3018. doi: doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1134-0