Adolescent Attachment Questionnaire: A Brief Assessment of Attachment in Adolescence

The Adolescent Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ), a brief questionnaire to assess attachment characteristics in adolescents, was developed and validated in a large normative sample (n = 691) and a sample of 133 adolescents in psychiatric treatment. The AAQ is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 3 scales of 3 statements each, with Likert-type responses from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The Availability scale assesses the adolescent's confidence in the availability and responsiveness of the attachment figure. TheGoal-Corrected Partnershipscale assesses the extent to which the adolescent considers and is empathetic to the needs and feelings of the attachment figure. The Angry Distress scale taps the amount of anger in the adolescent–parent relationship. All scales demonstrate satisfactory internal reliability and agreement between scores for adolescents (n = 91) from the normative sample who completed the AAQ twice. Adolescents in the clinical sample also completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI); the AAQ demonstrated high convergent validity with the AAI.     

A psychometric evaluation of the Defence Style Questionnaire-40 in a UK forensic patient population

Psychological defence mechanisms have been considered important personality processes in the onset, maintenance and recovery of mental disorders. More recently, their application to understanding presenting problems and as potential outcome indicators for forensic patients has been recommended. However, to date there have been no investigations into the reliability and factor structure of defence mechanism assessments for this population. The current study investigated the factor structure, internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the Defence Style Questionnaire-40 (DSQ) for 160 adult male UK forensic patients. The three-factor model of defences proposed by the DSQ-40 developers was not confirmed in the study sample. Reliability indices of the three factors indicated that the Immature factor was the most ‘acceptable’ in terms of internal consistency. Test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from .70 to .91. A revised three-factor structure that closely corresponds to the original validation study is recommended following an exploratory factor analysis. The findings are compared with previous reliability and factor analytic evaluations of the DSQ-40, and recommendations for its use with forensic patients are discussed.     

Maintaining neutrality in the Minister's office

How do non-partisan advisors in Ministers’ offices maintain political neutrality while immersed in a highly politicised environment? Private Secretaries are ubiquitous non-partisan public service representatives in the political environment of Ministers’ offices. There has been significant research undertaken the role of political advisors in Ministers’ offices, yet the contribution of these non-partisan advisors has not yet been described in academic literature. The risk of Private Secretaries being overly responsive to politicians and undertaking political tasks rather than maintaining neutrality is ever present. Further, they must actively manage the risk of free and frank advice being obstructed by political advisors. This article presents views about political neutrality gleaned from interviews with Private Secretaries who have worked in Ministers’ offices in New Zealand during the period of 1997–2018. It presents new insights into the tensions within a key setting of the core executive.     

Substance use and PTSD symptoms impact the likelihood of rape and revictimization in college women

The present study utilized a mixed retrospective and prospective design with an 8-month follow-up period to test a model of revictimization that included multiple childhood (i.e., child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse) and situational variables (i.e., substance use, sexual behavior) for predicting rape among 276 college women. It was of particular interest to determine whether traumatic responses (e.g., posttraumatic symptomatology or risky behavior) increased vulnerability for revictimization. During the 8-month follow-up period, 9% of participants were raped; 88% of assaults involved substance use by the victim. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology predicted rape, substance use, and sexual behavior. Substance use, but not sexual behavior, mediated the relation between PTSD symptomatology and rape during the follow-up period. Sexual behavior indirectly impacted risk for rape via substance use. Results suggest that college women with PTSD symptomatology may be at greater risk for rape if they use substances to reduce distress.     

Child Support and the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid Expansions

A quickly developing literature has shown that the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansions have improved health insurance coverage, health, and financial well‐being among low‐income adults without dependent children. This population includes noncustodial parents. With substantial overlap in the population that is typically obligated to pay child support and the population that has strongly benefited from the expansions, there may be potential implications for child support enforcement. In this paper, I examine the effect of public health insurance eligibility to low‐income adults on child support outcomes. I find that the ACA Medicaid expansions increased child support distributed to custodial families as arrears by 8.5 percent. Evidence also suggests current support distributions increased by about 2 percent. There were no significant effects on paying toward a child support order. Among unmarried mothers, the likelihood of child support receipt increased by 8 percent. These results imply that access to public health insurance can increase the ability of noncustodial parents to pay child support.