ABSTRACT
Injuries are the major causes of death for children. Pediatric psychology offers significant contributions to the multidisciplinary efforts necessary to prevent injuries and reduce harm to children. This Task Force Report reviews epidemiological data, characteristics of children's injuries, passive and active interventions for reducing injuries, and research, policy, and evaluation issues for individual and community injury control efforts. Directions for future pediatric psychology efforts are identified and placed in a context of collaborative efforts required to advance the control of children's injuries.
Subject(s)
Wounds and Injuries/prevention & control , Adolescent , Adult , Child , Child Development , Child, Preschool , Cognition , Female , Health Promotion , Humans , Male , Psychology, Child , Wounds and Injuries/mortality , Wounds and Injuries/psychologySubject(s)
Psychology, Child/education , Curriculum , Data Collection , Education, Graduate , Humans , Internship, Nonmedical , United StatesSubject(s)
Psychology, Clinical , Psychology, Social , Counseling , Humans , Psychological Theory , United StatesABSTRACT
A factorial design was employed to test the relative effectiveness of the four cognitive appraisal processes (severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, and self-efficacy) contained in the revised protection motivation theory (PMT). One hundred sixty undergraduate women read persuasive appeals for increasing exercise, which varied on these four dimensions. As predicted, both the vulnerability and self-efficacy variables enhanced intentions to exercise along with similar effects on self-reported exercising. Intentions were predictive of self-reported changes in behavior. The obtained interaction between vulnerability, self-efficacy, and response efficacy suggests that individuals employed a "precaution strategy": They intended to adopt the recommended behavior even though they held weak beliefs about its effectiveness and were not convinced of their at-risk status. These findings are compared to others obtained using the PMT, and the issue of main and interactive effects produced by the model is also addressed.
Subject(s)
Cognition , Motivation , Physical Exertion , Cardiovascular Diseases/prevention & control , Fear , Female , Health Promotion , Humans , Internal-External Control , Persuasive Communication , Psychological Theory , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
This paper presents the position that health psychology for children is not given proper attention in mainstream health psychology, which is primarily adult in orientation. It is proposed that the neglect of child-related problems in the recent Proceedings of the National Conference on Training in Health Psychology exemplifies the general orientation of mainstream health psychology, which views children's health problems primarily in terms of their effect on adult health rather than as problems that need current and immediate attention. We propose that applying a developmental perspective to the health psychology field would be one way of highlighting the fact that children's problems are unique and that children need to be viewed as something other than potential consumers of adult health psychology services or as agents for the prevention of adult health problems.
