Given the variety and potential toxicity of synthetic cathinones, clinicians and educators would benefit from information about patterns of and motivations for use, frequency of psychosocial consequences, and experience of acute subjective effects. We administered a comprehensive, web-based survey to 104 recreational users of synthetic cathinones. Sixty percent of respondents consumed synthetic cathinones once or more per month, usually snorting or swallowing these drugs, typically at home, usually with others, customarily during the evening and nighttime hours, and often in combination with another drug such as alcohol or marijuana. Acute subjective effects attributed to synthetic cathinones were similar to those of other psychostimulants, including increased energy, rapid heartbeat, racing thoughts, difficulty sleeping, euphoria, decreased appetite, open-mindedness, and increased sex drive. Reported reasons for using synthetic cathinones included its stimulating effects, curiosity, substitution for another drug, and being at a party/music event. Respondents had experienced an average of six negative consequences of using synthetic cathinones during the previous year (e.g., tolerance, neglecting responsibilities, personality change). In combination with previously published investigations, these findings increase our understanding of the reported rationales and outcomes of recreational use of synthetic cathinones.

Objectives: The present study extracted symptom profiles based on parent and youth report on a broad symptom checklist. Profiles based on parent-reported symptoms were compared to those based on adolescent self-report to clarify discrepancies. Method: The current study used archival data from 1,269 youth and parent dyads whose youth received services at a community mental health center. The mean age of the sample was 14.31 years (standard deviation = 1.98), and the youth sample was half male (50.1%) and primarily Caucasian (86.8%). Latent profile analysis was used to extract models based on parent and self-reported emotional and behavioral problems. Results: Results indicated that a 5-class solution was the best fitting model for youth-reported symptoms and an adequate fit for parent-reported symptoms. For 46.5% of the sample, class membership matched for both parent and youth. Conclusion: Latent profile analysis provides an alternative method for exploring transdiagnostic subgroups within clinic-referred samples. C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Clin. Psychol. 72:676-688, 2016.

No abstract

No abstract

Social contexts have long been identified as having an impact on adolescent behaviors, including the neighborhood context. However, most literature examining neighborhood influences on juvenile behavior have focused on urban and semi-urban populations. When these urban-centric models are applied to rural populations, results are generally mixed, and oftentimes contradictory to patterns established in urban populations. The current study tested an alternative model for predicting juvenile problems behaviors in rural areas but examining the validity of previous conceptualized "neighborhood collective efficacy" in rural schools. Constructs similar to Sampson et al.'s (1997) neighborhood collective efficacy were found in this sample, and this construct was significantly negatively correlated to juvenile self-reported problems behaviors. As hypothesized, school collective efficacy was more strongly related to self-reported problem behaviors than neighborhood collective efficacy for this sample. Directions for future research and implications for policies are discussed. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The following list of those individuals who helped make this dissertation possible is extensive and still not all inclusive. I would like to thank my advisor, Carolyn Tompsett for her patience and support, and for providing me with an opportunity to explore the things I am most passionate about. Thank you to my committee members, Eric Dubow, Anne Gordon, and Paul Johnson. Your thoughtful feedback and interest in this project has helped to make it more scientifically sound, and "real-world" applicable. Thank you to my peers who have eagerly volunteered to proofread and edit this manuscript: Kelly Amrhein, Morgan Dynes, and Tony Bonadio-I feel blessed to have had peers of your intellectual caliber and sharp humor accompany me on this journey. I would also like to thank my parents and siblings, Pat, Greg, Juli, Katie and Michael, for the never-ending belief they had in my ideas and ability-although you had no clue what I was doing, you also knew "I could do it!" and for that, I'm forever grateful. My deepest gratitude and appreciation goes to my husband, Levi Lackey. Your steadfast love, support, and encouragement was my lifeboat throughout this process. Your faith in me while I worked towards my goals has been noticed and I am eternally grateful for that deepest kindness. Finally, I would like to thank the administrators, teachers, staff, and students from the districts discussed in this manuscript. Thank you for placing your trust in me, and for seeing the utility in this project. Research like this is never possible without the foresight of great community partners like you.