GOAL To describe potentially preventable factors in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration and victimization among South African 8th grade students. METHOD Data were collected during a pilot evaluation of a classroom 8th grade curriculum on gender-based violence prevention in 9 public schools in Cape Town through self-completed interviews with 549 8th grade students, 238 boys and 311 girls. Structural equation models (SEM) predicting IPV were constructed with variables a priori hypothesized to be associated. RESULTS The majority of students (78.5%) had had a partner in the past three months, and they reported high rates of IPV during that period (e.g., over 10% of boys reported forcing a partner to have sex, and 39% of girls reported physical IPV victimization). A trimmed version of the hypothesized SEM (CFI =.966; RMSEA=.051) indicated that disagreement with the ideology of male superiority and violence predicted lower risk of IPV (p<.001), whereas the frequency of using negative conflict resolution styles (e.g., walking off angrily, sending angry text messages, or refusing to talk to them) predicted high IPV risk (p<.001) and mediated the impact of heavy alcohol drinking on IPV (Sobel test, z=3.16; p<.001). The model fit both girls and boys, but heavy drinking influenced negative styles of resolving conflict more strongly among girls than boys. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that interventions to reduce IPV among South African adolescents should challenge attitudes supportive of male superiority and violence; encourage use of positive conflict resolution styles; and discourage heavy alcohol use among both boys and girls.

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Even though we know that external memory aids support communication in Alzheimer’s disease, the components of the communication aids for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease have not been studied systematically. The goal of these two pilot experiments was to examine differences in conversational performance of adults with Alzheimer’s disease related to the presence and absence of an aid, the type of symbol embedded in the aid, and the presence or absence of voice output. In Experiment 1, 30 adults with moderate-to-severe Alzheimer’s disease participated in 10-min conversations with and without personalized AAC boards. There was no effect of AAC, regardless of symbol type, and a deleterious effect of voice output. In Experiment 2, modified spaced-retrieval training preceded conversations, standardized prompts were presented, and semantically-based dependent variables were examined. For the 11 participants in the second experiment, there was a significant effect of AAC, showing that the presence of AAC was associated with greater use of targeted words during personal conversations. We discuss new information about the contribution of AAC for persons with Alzheimer’s disease, and demonstrate how the applied research process evolves over the course of a long-term commitment to a scientific investigation.

OBJECTIVE This study examined substance use and mental health service utilization among a 3-year longitudinal sample of active rural stimulant users. METHODS One-step transition probabilities were constructed between the two types of service use for each consecutive pairs of interviews in order to examine the resulting steady-state probabilities among our multiple one-step transition matrices. RESULTS Most participants received no substance or mental health services. On average, the limiting probabilities for each state regardless of initial probabilities were 82% for having received neither services, 10% for receiving mental health but not substance use treatment, 6% for receiving substance use but not mental health treatment, and 2% for receiving both services. CONCLUSIONS Previous analyses with these data found that both mental health symptomatology and substance use declined over time,suggesting that need for services would also have declined. Many of the changes in drug use may have occurred without specialty treatment.

ABSTRACT. Objective:We examined whether motivation to change mediated the relationships between gender and baseline alcohol severity with drinking outcome at 12-month follow-up in a longitudinal community sample. Method: Data were from baseline and 12-month interviews from the Rural Alcohol Study, a probability sample of rural and urban at-risk drinkers (N = 733) from six southern states. At-risk drinkers were identifi ed through a telephone-screening interview. Measures of motivation (problem recognition and taking action) were the resultant two factors derived from the Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale. Items on social consequences of drinking measured alcohol severity. Structural equation models examined relationships between baseline alcohol severity and motivation with drinks per drinking day at 12 months. Results: We identifi ed signifi cant, direct paths between drinking at 12 months and alcohol severity and taking action with an unstandardized estimate of 0.116 (p < .05), alcohol severity and problem recognition (0.423, p < .01), and each of the two "motivation" latent constructs-problem recognition (1.846, p < .01) and taking action (-0.660, p < .01). Finally, the combined direct and negative effect of gender on alcohol consumption at 12-month follow-up was statistically signifi cant, with an unstandardized estimate of -0.970 (p < .01). Conclusions: The current study offers evidence for motivation to change as a viable mechanism through which alcohol severity is associated with subsequent drinking outcomes. More research is needed to further explore the persistence of motivation to change on drinking outcomes over time. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 73, 504-513, 2012)