Sleep interventions for adults admitted to psychiatric inpatient settings: a scoping review protocol.

OBJECTIVE: The scoping review aims to identify how sleep is measured and what sleep interventions are used effectively in psychiatric inpatient settings. Potential barriers to measuring sleep in inpatient settings will be classified. INTRODUCTION: Polysomnography has shown that poor sleep is associated with emotional, cognitive, and somatic changes, as well as increased risks in suicide ideation and aggression. People with mental illness often experience sleep disturbances and believe the psychiatric inpatient environment contributes to sleep problems. The use of sleep interventions has been studied widely in general inpatient wards; less is known of similar interventions in psychiatric inpatient settings. INCLUSION CRITERIA: The review will include studies that focus on the effectiveness of sleep interventions for adults in any psychiatric inpatient setting. Studies that focus solely on sleep apnea, parasomnias, or restless legs syndrome will be excluded. METHODS: A literature search of PsycINFO, Web of Science, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar will be conducted. Studies identified will be screened and examined against the eligibility criteria. Only studies published in English will be considered, and there will be no date limitation applied to the search. Eligible studies will be assessed for risk of bias and relevant data will be extracted to answer the review questions. Extracted data will be presented in narrative and tabular formats.

Predicting adult offending behavior for individuals who experienced a traumatic brain injury during childhood.

OBJECTIVES: To examine whether individuals who experienced a childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at increased risk for subsequent offending behavior, to identify the emotional characteristics of adults who experienced childhood TBI, and to examine whether these predict offending behavior. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals from the Canterbury region who had experienced a childhood (<18 years of age) injury event and were now 18 years or older and more than 5 years postinjury (between 18 and 30 years of age). Three groups were formed: (1) moderate/severe TBI (n = 62); (2) mild TBI (n = 58); and (3) fracture control group (n = 38). SETTING: University of Canterbury. MAIN MEASURES: A semistructured interview assessed lifetime involvement in offending behavior; the Emotional Behavior Scale measured internalizing and externalizing behaviors, including malevolent aggression, social anxiety, and social self-esteem. RESULTS: Compared with controls, there was an increased risk of offending behavior (mild TBI: odds ratio = 8.7; moderate/severe TBI odds ratio = 20.4). Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that the strongest predictors of offending behavior were TBI status, higher levels of malevolent aggression, and age at injury. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals who experienced childhood TBI are at increased risk of offending behavior. Emotional behavior measures were useful predictors of offending behavior, offering opportunity for intervention.

Relationship between psychopathy and indirect aggression use in a noncriminal population.

Psychopathy has long been associated with increased use of direct aggression and violence, especially among male inmates. Little research has, of yet, considered the relation between psychopathy and indirect forms of aggression. The current research sought to investigate the relationship between psychopathy and indirect aggression in a noncriminal sample. The results indicated that there was a strong relationship between psychopathic traits and indirect aggression, with strong correlations between indirect aggression and both factor 1 (coldheartedness) and factor 3 (impulsive antisociality). This association remained significant even after the effects of direct aggression had been controlled for. Path analysis indicated that both direct and indirect aggression was underpinned by the same psychopathy factors. This suggests that high psychopathy scorers will utilize direct and indirect aggression equally and, as such, the choice of one type of aggression over the other may be dependant on either situational factors or external moderators.

The construction and validation of a new scale for measuring emotional response style in adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Research on children's emotional behaviour has been hampered by the lack of psychometric assessment scales. The present study reports on the construction and validation of a new self-report instrument to measure the emotional response styles of adolescents. METHOD: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were carried out on the responses of three samples of adolescents aged between 11 and 14 years (total = 609) to an item pool derived from a scenario study. In addition to assessing reliability, the final form of the questionnaire was concurrently validated using a variety of related psychometric instruments as well as teacher ratings of pupils' behaviour. RESULTS: The factor analyses of the item pool yielded three independent factors labelled social anxiety, malevolent aggression, and social self-esteem. These categories correspond closely to the three dimensions that have emerged consistently from studies of children's temperament, labelled inhibited, undercontrolled and well-adjusted. The three factors comprising the final Emotional Behaviour Scale (EBS) all demonstrated satisfactory internal (coefficient alpha) and re-test reliability. Concurrent validation showed that the three factors were related in predictable ways to other related constructs, and comparisons with teacher ratings of pupils confirmed the relationship between the EBS subscales and children's actual social and emotional behaviour. CONCLUSION: The new scale offers a valid and reliable instrument for assessing adolescent emotional behaviour, and current work is aimed at extending the research to the assessment of young offenders.