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“I don't think either of us have really got over the diagnosis.” Caregiver perspectives on medical trauma in adolescent type 1 diabetes; a trauma-informed qualitative investigation

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is a 'family illness'; diagnoses and management can be perceived as invasive or traumatic. Caregivers bear the brunt of the diagnostic shock, influencing their child's experience. Children and adolescents may grapple with the psychological effects of past/ongoing medical trauma. Additionally, adolescents may struggle with their mental health as they navigate tensions between caregiver involvement and their developmental need for autonomy.

Perceived stress in mothers of children with and without islet and coeliac autoimmunity in the ENDIA study

We aimed to assess perceived stress and influencing factors in mothers with children at risk of type 1 diabetes and coeliac disease who did, or did not, develop islet autoantibodies or coeliac autoantibodies by 4 years of age.

Characterizing the Nature of Alexithymia in Autistic Adults: Validation of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire

Alexithymia—a trait characterized by difficulties in emotion processing—is of high interest in the autism field. However, the lack of validated alexithymia measures for autistic individuals limits progress. This study aimed to address this gap by examining the psychometric properties of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) across autistic and non-autistic samples. Using the PAQ, we investigated how alexithymia manifests in autistic individuals and its links with poor mental health outcomes (anxiety).

Healing Kids, Healing Families

The Healing Kids, Healing Families team strives to understand how trauma and adverse circumstances can impact a child and their family, and how we can help them to recover from these experiences.

“Society really does not like people with psychosis”: A thematic analysis of the stigma and self-stigma experiences of young people at-risk for psychosis

Stigma and self-stigma reduce self-esteem and increase hopelessness and suicidality. While psychotic disorders are widely recognized as the most stigmatizing of all mental health disorders, there is a dearth of research investigating how stigma and self-stigma are experienced by young people at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis.

Application of the paediatric medical traumatic stress model to the mental health experience of young people living with type 1 diabetes: a qualitative study

Despite the various traumatic events that a young person living with type 1 diabetes (T1D) may experience, little is known about the burden and manifestation of traumatic stress in this population. Though mental health outcomes have been explored generally, medical trauma-sensitive approaches to understanding these experiences remain limited. We utilised a qualitative descriptive approach to explore the impact of T1D on young people’s mental health through the paediatric medical traumatic stress model.

Thriving Under Threat: A Scoping Review of Human Thriving in Recurring Potentially Traumatic, Elevated Threat and High Stress Work Environments

In this scoping review, we explore the concept of human thriving in work populations that are repeatedly exposed to high stress, elevated threat, and potential trauma-professions such as first responders and front-line military personnel. The concept of thriving, defined as the joint experience of development and success, shares some similarities with other psychological concepts (e.g., resilience, posttraumatic growth, flourishing), but is distinct due to the consideration of physical wellbeing, and success (e.g., performance). 

Co-occurring Neurodevelopmental Conditions in Children: Advocating for Transdiagnostic Approach to Assessments

Approximately 8% of all children experience developmental and mental health conditions. Similarities in characteristics across neurodevelopmental conditions-such as difficulties in communication and language, social interaction, motor coordination, attention, activity regulation, behavior, mood, and sleep-make it challenging to attribute these characteristics exclusively to specific diagnoses and assessments. The purpose of this study was to identify symptomatic domains across neurodevelopmental conditions in children and to explore dimension reduction for transdiagnostic assessment. 

Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Outcome Expectancies: The Roles of Self-Efficacy, Cognitive Reappraisal, and Expressive Suppression

According to the Cognitive Emotional Model of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI), this behavior is governed by a complex interplay of NSSI-related cognitions (i.e., a person's expected outcomes of self-injury and self-efficacy to resist NSSI) and emotion-regulatory strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression). To empirically test this proposition, the current study examined the moderating roles of self-efficacy to resist NSSI, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression in the relationships between outcome expectancies and NSSI frequency among university students.

Characterising symptomatic substates in individuals on the psychosis continuum: a hidden Markov modelling approach

To improve early intervention and personalise treatment for individuals early on the psychosis continuum, a greater understanding of symptom dynamics is required. We address this by identifying and evaluating the movement between empirically derived attenuated psychotic symptomatic substates-clusters of symptoms that occur within individuals over time.