Browsing by Author "Lau, Simon"
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Item Parenting After War: Service Member PTSD Symptomatology and Anxiety and Depression in Children(2017-12) Lau, Simon; Alfano, Candice A.; Vujanovic, Anka A.; Yoshida, HanakoBackground: As the Global War on Terror (GWOT) continues, there is deep concern about the effects of repeated parental deployments on the well-being of America’s military-family children. While many military families have demonstrated remarkable adaptability and resilience during these stressful times, other families have fared much worse. A growing body of research details these struggles showing higher rates of family conflict, child mental health problems, and child maltreatment in relation to increases in service member total months deployed to a combat zone. The current study examined whether GWOT service members’ overall PTSD symptoms and the four PTSD symptom clusters (re-experiencing, avoidance, numbing, and hyperarousal) influenced anxiety and depression symptoms in dependent children. We also examined the role of two salient and potentially modifiable explanatory variables of this relationship – service members’ sleep disturbance and use of corporal punishment - expecting both to account for partial variance in the parent PTSD- child anxiety/depression relationship. Methods: Data from 48 military families (48 veteran/service members; 78 children) participated in this study. The average age of participating service member parents at the time of the study was 39.13 (SD = 6.28). The majority of service member participants were active duty (n = 36; 75%), enlisted (n = 33; 68.8%), and completed an average of 2.42 (SD = 1.05) deployments in support of GWOT. The average age of children participating were 11.74 (SD = 3.21) with a slight majority of females (n = 41; 52.6%). Service member participants completed self-report measures measuring severity of PTSD symptomology and sleep disturbances. Child participants completed self-report measures measuring anxiety, depression, and parenting practices. Results: Hierarchical linear regressions revealed overall PTSD symptoms did significantly predict greater levels of child anxiety and child depression. However, there was insufficient evidence individual PTSD symptom clusters (re-experiencing, avoidance, numbing, and hyperarousal) predicted greater levels of child anxiety and child depression. Multivariate regressions revealed overall PTSD symptoms, as well as each PTSD symptom cluster, significantly predicted increased levels of sleep disturbance in service members. However, we did not find evidence parental sleep disturbances directly impacted child anxiety or depression. Multivariate regressions also revealed overall PTSD symptoms predicted greater use of corporal punishment when disciplining children, which in turn partially mediated the association with greater anxiety in children, but not depression. When individual symptom clusters were analyzed, re-experiencing and numbing symptom clusters specifically predicted greater use of corporal punishment, which in turn partially mediated the effect on child anxiety. No evidence of indirect effects were found for child depression. Discussion: The results of this study has been largely consistent with past findings of a relationship between PTSD symptoms in service members and higher levels of internalizing symptoms in children. The use of corporal punishment by service member parents partially accounted for this relationship. While military families are often found to be resilient, service member PTSD symptoms poses significant risk to family members including children. Military family access to mental health care during and after deployments continues to be of vital importance.Item Sleep, the Never-Ending Quest of College Students: Effects of a Semester Long Sleep Course on Sleep Patterns and Daytime Functioning(2023-08) Lau, Simon; Alfano, Candice A.; Vujanovic, Anka A.; Yoshida, Hanako; Oosterhoff, BenjaminSleep occupies one-third of the human lifespan and plays a crucial role in physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being. Among college students, a wealth of research confirms dangerously high rates of inadequate sleep. Inadequate sleep in this population is routinely linked with low GPA, mood disturbances, and other behavioral risks. As a result, many colleges and universities now offer sleep education programs for students. Such programs are typically brief (e.g., one hour) and focus primarily on sleep hygiene. Studies examining the effectiveness of these programs have reported mixed results with mostly small effect sizes for changes in sleep knowledge. However, changes in sleep-related behaviors and patterns have not been found. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a semester-long course focused on sleep in improving college students' sleep patterns and behaviors. The study had two specific aims: (1) to evaluate changes in sleep patterns among students enrolled in a sleep course compared to students in other psychology courses, and (2) to assess changes in sleep hygiene behaviors among sleep course students compared to those enrolled in other courses. Participants included undergraduate students enrolled in an upper-level psychology course focused entirely on sleep (n = 105) or other upper-level psychology courses without sleep content (n = 54) but requiring the same pre-requisite coursework. The sleep course met in-person twice per week for 90 minutes. Major topics covered included the neurobiology of sleep, sleep-wake regulation, measurement of sleep, sleep hygiene, specific sleep disorders, and sleep relationships with learning, memory, mental and physical health. Students in the sleep course were not asked or required to alter their sleep during the semester. All participants completed identical one-week sleep logs at the same four time points during the semester. Results showed that students in the sleep course significantly increased their total sleep time by an average of about 25 minutes across the semester whereas sleep duration did not significantly change in the control group. Additionally, only the sleep course group showed significant decreases in sleep onset latency, nighttime awakenings, and daytime naps across the semester, though these changes were modest. Conversely, the control group but not the sleep course group showed a significant decrease in pre-sleep use of electronics from the beginning to the end of the semester. These findings highlight the potential benefits of a semester-long course for improving college students' sleep patterns and behaviors. These results, along with findings from previous studies, suggest that college students likely require greater understanding of the importance of sleep along with opportunity to modify unhealthy sleep patterns in order improve their sleep health. A semester-long course that includes lectures, discussion, homework assignments, tests, and self-assessment dedicated to sleep pattern may provide students with necessary support for making positive sleep changes as compared to brief seminars. Future studies employing objective measures of sleep and examining secondary effects of sleep-related changes in daytime functioning and academic performance among students enrolled in sleep courses are needed.