Mental health during COVID-19: College students' need for structure.

Objective: College students made the unprecedented shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially contributing to escalating anxiety, depression, and suicide. This loss of structure may be a driving factor in students' distress. We examined the relationship between students' mental health, perceived need for structure, and five stressors related to COVID-19. Participants: Students (N = 1319, 76.3% female, 79.8% White) at a southeastern university responded to a survey in spring 2020. Methods: Participants answered questions about global anxiety and depression, suicide, perceived need for structure, and COVID-19 related stressors. Results: Participants reported increased anxiety and depression and elevated suicidality compared to previous studies of student mental health. Findings indicated that the stressors and lack of structure added unique variance toward predicting anxiety and depression. Conclusions: As COVID-19's consequences persist, counseling centers and other stakeholders are urged to work together in providing support for students' mental wellness and stress management.

Health beliefs as a key determinant of intent to use anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) among high-school football players: implications for prevention.

The use of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) is problematic for youth because of negative effects such as reduced fertility, increased aggression and exposure to toxic chemicals. An effective programme for addressing this problem is Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids (ATLAS). This secondary analysis expands prior research by identifying prominent mechanisms of change and highlighting key longitudinal processes that contributed to the success of ATLAS. The current sample consists of high-school football players (N = 1.068; M age = 15.25) who began ATLAS in grades nine through eleven and participated in booster sessions for two years post-baseline. Knowledge of AAS effects, belief in media ads, reasons not to use AAS, perceived severity of and susceptibility to AAS effects and ability to resist drug offers were critical mediators of the relations between ATLAS and outcomes. Modern applications of the ATLAS programme are also discussed.

Clinically differentiating life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited conduct problems: Is age-of-onset really enough?

One important subtyping of behavior problems is Moffitt's (1993) "life-course-persistent" (LCP) and "adolescent limited" (AL) categories of antisocial behavior, which she differentiated in terms of high impulsivity, poor academic performance, and aggression. These problems may be exacerbated by the cumulative effects of chronic stress. Copious evidence has documented validity and developmental differences between these subtypes, whereas far fewer data exist regarding their clinical utility, in spite of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual's nomenclature including corresponding subtypes based on age-of-onset of behavioral symptoms. The present study evaluated how well age-of-onset based subtyping identifies distinct developmental patterns of antisocial behavior corresponding to Moffitt's subtypes in terms of risk factors and gender between LCP and AL in a prospective sample of chronically stressed youth. A computerized assessment tool (ALEXSA©) was used to obtain data from 1,147 youth aged 8-16. Implications for clinical assessment and intervention strategy, particularly with stressed youth, are discussed.

Does DSM-5 nomenclature for inhalant use disorder improve upon DSM-IV?

Among drug classes, substance use disorder (SUD) consequent to using inhalants (SUD-I) has perhaps the smallest evidence base. This study compared DSM-IV versus DSM-5 nomenclatures, testing whether 4 traditional categories of inhalants (aerosols, gases, nitrites, solvents) are manifestations of a single pathology, obtaining item parameters of SUD-I criteria, and presenting evidence that SUD can result from using nitrites. An urban, Midwestern, community sample of 162 inhalant users was recruited. Participants were 2/3 male, nearly 85% White, and had a mean age of 20.3 years (SD = 2.4 years), spanning the ages of greatest incidence of SUD and slightly older than the primary ages of inhalants use initiation. Analyses consisted of bivariate associations, principle components analysis, and item response theory analysis. Validity was demonstrated for SUD-I consequent to each inhalant type as well as for aggregating all inhalant types into a single drug class. Results supported DSM-5 nomenclature over DSM-IV in multiple ways except that occurrence of diagnostic orphans was not statistically smaller using DSM-5. (PsycINFO Database Record