The United States has experienced the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression. This paper presents an instrument (Life Change Consequences of the Great Recession; LCCGR) depicting work and personal life-related stressors reflecting the enduring effects of the Great Recession. A national sample of 663 respondents completed a mail survey including this instrument and measures of drinking outcomes. Multiple regression analyses addressed the links between the LCCGR and drinking. Economy-related stressors manifested significant effects on both male and female consumptions patterns, but most LCCGR subscales were more clearly related to problematic drinking patterns in males compared to females.

The events of September 11 continue to negatively affect the mental health of the American population. Our results support the utility of according greater attention to the effects of such macrolevel social stressors in population studies embracing the stress paradigm.

Mothers with mental illnesses, who are homeless, as well as their children, are highly vulnerable and need specialized services. This retrospective study describes the experience of the Thresholds Mothers' Project in serving 24 homeless mothers. Benchmarks suggest that the mothers and their children benefited from the program. A year after intake, 79% were still engaged in services and were all living in either independent apartments or in supportive housing. The majority of the children in their mother's care at intake were still living with them 1 year later, 77%. The Mothers' Project provides an exemplary model of how to serve this vulnerable population.

Little is known about sleep problems in persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The article reports a study that assessed quantitative and qualitative aspects of sleep in a group of men and women with HIV infection and examined sleep parameters in regard to the degree of immune function. The convenience sample of 50 persons was drawn from an HIV clinic in a large midwestern metropolitan area. Subjects identified a variety of problems with their sleep that were not significantly related to their immune status. The findings of this study indicate that nurses should perform a sleep history and assessment on all persons with HIV infection to identify those in need of intervention.

The Child Behavior Checklist for children 6 to 18 (CBCL/6-18) is a widely used, standardized parent rating scale. However, few studies have tested the psychometric properties of this instrument in the Arab world despite the great need for such instruments to support the identification and education of children with emotional, behavioral, and social problems in these countries. In this study, we examined the configural invariance and reliability of the core items of the CBCL present in both of its editions using the Arabic translation of the CBCL/6-18 and a sample of 1,360 elementary school children in Qatar. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the factor structure of Achenbach’s eight-syndrome scales of the CBCL/6-18 for our sample in (a) its overall fit, (b) pattern of factor loadings, (c) syndrome correlations, and (d) comparability of results in other societies. Internal consistency was high. Categorization of the sample as normal, borderline, and clinical using standard scoring produces proportions roughly in line with expectations, but points to the need for local norms and validation of the instrument prior to its clinical use in Qatar.