Eating fruit and vegetables may promote emotional well-being among healthy young adults.

The present study compares couples with equal levels of marital distress, similar help-seeking behavior, but differences in violence levels. Psychological profiles, histories of violence in family and peer milieus, and use of alcohol were evaluated in 42 maritally distressed couples seeking counseling. Women differed on several psychological dimensions, while men differed only in levels of alcohol abuse.With prevalence of marital violence estimated at one third for the duration of a marriage (Straus & Gelles, 1986), investigation of associated factors continues apace. Hotaling & Sugarman (1986) in their review of empirical research published between 1970 and 1984 found over 400 such studies, but reduced these to 90 on the bases of adequate control or comparison groups. Even in this reduced number, however, violent couples were typically compared with maritally nondistressed couples. This comparison has limitations, however, if the critical question is why some couples resort to violence in the face of marital conflict while others do not. It can be argued that the appropriate comparison group for violent couples is maritally distressed, nonviolent couples, rather than nondistressed couples. The present study presents an analysis of two groups of couples, nonviolent, distressed couples compared with violent, distressed couples. To further increase equivalence of groups, all couples in both groups were selected

Background Arthritis is a major cause of pain and disability. Arthritis New Zealand (Arthritis NZ) is a nongovernmental organization that provides advocacy, information, and advice and support services for people with arthritis in New Zealand. Since many people seek health information on the Web, Arthritis NZ has a webpage and a Facebook page. In addition to static content, Arthritis NZ provides synchronous discussions with an arthritis educator each week via Facebook. Objective The aim of this study was to describe participation and structure of synchronous discussion with a health educator on a social media platform and the type of information and support provided to people with arthritis during discussions on this social media platform. Methods Interpretive multimethods were used. Facebook Analytics were used to describe the users of the Arthritis NZ Facebook page and to provide descriptive summary statistics. Graphic analysis was used to summarize activity during a convenience sample of 10 arthritis educator–led synchronous discussions. Principles of thematic analysis were used to interpret transcripts of all comments from these 10 weekly arthritis educator–led discussions. Results Users of the Arthritis NZ Facebook page were predominantly female (1437/1778, 80.82%), aged 18 to 54 years. Three major activities occurred during arthritis educator–led synchronous discussions: (1) seeking or giving support; (2) information enquiry; and (3) information sharing across a broad range of topic areas, largely related to symptoms and maintaining physical functioning. There was limited peer-to-peer interaction, with most threads consisting of two-comment exchanges between the users and arthritis educators. Conclusions Arthritis educator–led discussions provided a forum for informational and emotional support for users. The facilitated discussion forum for people with arthritis on Facebook could be enhanced by encouraging increased user participation and increasing peer-to-peer interactions and further training of arthritis educators in facilitation of Web-based discussion. Future research should focus on addressing barriers to user participation and assessing the impact of arthritis educator facilitation training, with the latter leveraging the Action Research paradigm.

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