This longitudinal study was conducted among 102 women with non-metastasic breast cancer to identify the time evolution and prevalence of distress at specific times through diagnosis and treatment of disease: preliminary diagnosis, surgery, definitive diagnosis and chemotherapy. Additionally, the study aimed to examine the role of demographic, medical and psychosocial factors on distress. The results indicated that prevalence of distress was higher at initial diagnosis (25%) than the following time points (approximately 17%). The differences inter-individuals in the levels of distress were observed over the four assessments. No relation between distress and demographic and medical factors was found. However, psychosocial aspects were significant risk factors. Patterns of emotional suppression and specific coping responses like helplessness/hopelessness, anxious preoccupation, cognitive avoidance and fatalism were positively related to distress, whereas fighting spirit and perceived social support showed a protective role. Moreover, helplessness/hopelessness and anxious preoccupation jointly predicted 75% of cases and 98% non-cases of distress. Finally, a mediational model between emotional suppression and distress through helplessness/hopelessness was tested. Results support the necessity of routine distress screening all through the illness. Implications of data for psychosocial interventions with breast cancer patients are highlighted.
The present study examined the influence of family and classroom environments on the development of particular individual characteristics, including level of empathy, attitude to institutional authority and perceived social reputation, and the role these characteristics may in turn play in school aggression. Participants were 1319 adolescents aged 11–16 (47% male) drawn from state secondary schools in Valencia (Spain). Since previous studies suggest that these variables may contribute differentially to aggressive behaviour depending on adolescent gender, two different mediational structural models were calculated, respectively, for boys and girls. Results obtained confirmed the associations expected among the variables considered in the structural equations tested and pointed out different paths for boys and girls. Overall, our findings suggested that a positive family environment seems to be a stronger protective factor for girls in the development of problems of behaviour at school, whereas for boys this is the case for a positive classroom environment. This model accounted for 40% of the variance in aggression at school for boys and 35% for girls.
The present study examined psychosocial adjustment in the following four groups of students: victims, bullies, bully/victims and a control group of adolescents not involved in bullying or victimization problems. Psychosocial adjustment was measured considering as indicators: level of self-esteem, depressive symptomatology, perceived stress, feeling of loneliness, and a general measure of satisfaction with life. Participants (N=1319) were aged from 11 to 16 (47% male) and drawn from seven state secondary schools in Valencia (Spain). ANOVAs revealed significant differences among groups, reporting adolescents not involved a general better psychosocial adjustment; they had higher levels of self-esteem and satisfaction with life, and lower levels of depressive symptomatology, perceived stress and feeling of loneliness. The scores for this group were equivalent to those of bullies with respect to self-esteem, depressive symptomatology and loneliness. However, bullies perceived more stress and expressed less satisfaction with life, as did the other two groups, namely victims and bully/victims. Victims reported the strongest feelings of loneliness. Bully/victims seemed to share characteristics with both bullies and victims, though showing more similarities with the latter and a general poor psychosocial profile.Within the last few decades, violent behaviours among adolescents at school have become an important concern for both educators and researches, due probably to the negative consequences this kind of behaviour exerts on students involved
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