An evaluation of mobile applications designed to assist service members and veterans transitioning to civilian life.

Mobile technologies may be able to provide service members and veterans with the knowledge necessary to transition to civilian life successfully in a cost-effective and accessible manner. Although a number of transition applications (apps) currently exist in the marketplace, to our knowledge, none of them has been evaluated for quality or effectiveness. For this study, 6 experts used the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS; Stoyanov et al., 2015) to evaluate the quality of 16 transition apps. The majority of these apps focused on providing service members with resource lists, employment assistance, or assistance with disability applications. Only 2 apps had been downloaded more than 10,000 times on GooglePlay, with the majority being downloaded between 100 and 1,000 times. Only 1 app received an above-average overall quality rating, and half received below-average overall quality ratings. Based on these findings, the authors recommend that researchers and developers create more high-quality apps by focusing on education and health-care transition issues, as well as work to better disseminate their products. (PsycINFO Database Record

Progress Monitoring in an Integrated Health Care System: Tracking Behavioral Health Vital Signs.

Progress monitoring implementation in an integrated health care system is a complex process that must address factors such as measurement, technology, delivery system care processes, patient needs and provider requirements. This article will describe how one organization faced these challenges by identifying the key decision points (choice of measure, process for completing rating scale, interface with electronic medical record and clinician engagement) critical to implementation. Qualitative and quantitative data will be presented describing customer and stakeholder satisfaction with the mental health progress monitoring tool (MHPMT) as well as organizational performance with key measurement targets.

Predictors of treatment engagement in ethnically diverse, urban children receiving treatment for trauma exposure.

Keeping traditionally underrepresented children and their families engaged in treatment until completion is a major challenge for many community-based mental health clinics. The current study used data collected as part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Core Data Set to examine whether racial/ethnic disparities exist in treatment duration and completion in children seeking treatment for trauma exposure. We then explored whether disparities persist after accounting for other variables associated with children's social contexts and the treatment setting. The sample included 562 ethnically diverse children receiving services from a child abuse prevention and treatment agency in Southern California. The results indicated that African American children had significantly shorter trauma-informed treatment duration and higher rates of premature termination than Spanish-speaking Latino children. These disparities persisted even with other variables associated with treatment duration and completion (e.g., child's age, level of functional impairment, and receipt of group and field services) in the model. Implications and future directions for research and practice are discussed.

Associations between parent and child pain and functioning in a pediatric chronic pain sample: A mixed methods approach.

This study employed a mixed-method design to test sex-specific parent-child pain associations. Subjects were 179 chronic pain patients aged 11-19 years (mean = 14.34; 72% female) presenting for treatment at a multidisciplinary, tertiary clinic. Mothers and children completed questionnaires prior to their clinic visit, including measures of children's pain, functioning and psychological characteristics. Mothers also reported on their own pain and psychological functioning. Interviews were conducted with a sub-sample of 34 mothers and children prior to the clinic visit and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The quantitative data suggest stronger mother-daughter than mother-son pain relationships. The qualitative data suggest that girls' pain and pain-related disability is related to an overly enmeshed mother-daughter relationship and the presence of maternal models of pain, while boys' pain and disability is linked to male pain models and criticism and to maternal worry and solicitousness. Boys and girls appear to have developmentally incongruous levels of autonomy and conformity to maternal expectations. The mixed-method data suggest distinct trajectories through which mother and father involvement may be linked to chronic pain in adolescent boys and girls.