Do We Report the Information That Is Necessary to Give Psychology Away? A Scoping Review of the Psychological Intervention Literature 2000-2018

Using the Socio-Ecological Model to Understand Increased Risk of Gun Violence in the African American Community

Gun violence is a major public health issue of growing concern in the United States (U.S.) with 48,830 lives lost to gun related violence in 2021, documenting the highest number of gun related homicides and suicides ever recorded. The African American community is disproportionately impacted by gun violence and members of this community are almost 14x more likely to die by gun homicide than their white counterparts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified a socio-ecological framework as a lens through which to better understand violence and inform potential prevention strategies to address it. This model identifies four levels (individual, relationship, community, societal) which help to enhance our understanding of the complex interplay between individuals and their environments. Here, we use this model to understand why the African American community experiences elevated risk of gun violence in the U.S. and propose strategies for prevention. Understanding the issue of gun violence beyond individual level risk, this analysis highlights the interplay between multiple levels including the ways in which societal level factors influence violence. While this paper provides a lens through which to understand the multi-leveled factors that contribute to gun violence in the African American community, it also serves as a call to action for policymakers, scholars, and agencies to develop culturally informed policy and programming efforts specific to those who are most impacted.

Implementation of Parenting Programs in Real-World Community Settings: A Scoping Review

Implementing parenting programs in real-world community settings is fundamental to making effective programs widely available and consequently improving the lives of children and their families. Despite the literature acknowledging that the high-quality implementation of parenting programs is particularly challenging in real-world community settings, little is known about how the programs are implemented in these settings. This scoping review followed the methodological framework described by the Joanna Briggs Institute to map evidence on how evidence-based parenting programs have been implemented under real-world conditions. A systematic search of 12 scientific databases, gray literature, and the reference lists of the included studies identified 1918 records, of which 145 were included in the review. Fifty-three parenting programs were identified in studies documenting implementation in real-world community settings worldwide. Most studies included families in psychosocial risk engaged with family-support agencies. The qualitative synthesis identified several implementation outcomes, adaptations, barriers, and facilitators. Most studies reported a maximum of two implementation outcomes, mainly fidelity and acceptability. Providers frequently made adaptations, mainly to bring down barriers and to tailor the program to improve its fit. Findings highlight the need for a more detailed description of the implementation of programs, with greater consistency in terminology, operationalization, and measurement of implementation outcomes across studies. This will promote a more transparent, consistent, and accurate evaluation and reporting of implementation and increase the public health impact of parenting programs. Future studies should also assess the impact of adaptations and the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of programs in real-world community settings.

Promoting Peer Connectedness Through Social-Emotional Learning: Evaluating the Intervention Effect Mechanisms and Implementation Factors of a Social-Emotional Learning Programme for 9 to 12-Year-Olds

There is little evidence regarding the effect mechanisms of social-emotional learning programs on children's peer relationships. The current study evaluated a novel school-based social-emotional learning program for the first year of secondary school assessing effects on social-emotional skills, peer connectedness, happiness, student and teacher classroom climate. The sample included 19 intervention classrooms (n = 399) and 16 waitlist-control classrooms (n = 281), with a mean age of 10.34 (SD = 0.76) and 48.8% girls. The main intervention effect analysis followed a per-protocol approach and was thus conducted with eight classes that finished all sessions (n = 195) and the control group classes (n = 281). It was further hypothesized that increases in social-emotional skills would predict peer connectedness and class climate increases, which would predict happiness. Results indicated significant intervention effects for social skills, peer connectedness and happiness. Classroom climate declined for both groups, seemingly affected by the school transition. Hypothesized relationships between target variables were partly supported with significant effects of social-emotional skills on connectedness and significant effects of peer connectedness on happiness for children reporting connectedness decreases. Additional analyses were conducted including all classrooms to compare the intervention's effectiveness across different implementation progress groups. Significant group differences were found, indicating that implementation aspects impact intervention outcomes. The findings indicate that universal, school-based social-emotional leaning programs are effective approaches to support peer relationships in the context of the school transition. However, more implementation support seems to be needed to ensure best-practice delivery and achieve maximal intervention effectiveness.

Learning emotional dialects: A British population study of cross-cultural communication

The aim of the current research was to explore whether we can improve the recognition of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional faces in British participants. We tested several methods for improving the recognition of freely-expressed emotional faces, such as different methods for presenting other-culture expressions of emotion from individuals from Chile, New Zealand and Singapore in two experimental stages. In the first experimental stage, in phase one, participants were asked to identify the emotion of cross-cultural freely-expressed faces. In the second phase, different cohorts were presented with interactive side-by-side, back-to-back and dynamic morphing of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional faces, and control conditions. In the final phase, we repeated phase one using novel stimuli. We found that all non-control conditions led to recognition improvements. Morphing was the most effective condition for improving the recognition of cross-cultural emotional faces. In the second experimental stage, we presented morphing to different cohorts including own-to-other and other-to-own freely-expressed cross-cultural emotional faces and neutral-to-emotional and emotional-to-neutral other-culture freely-expressed emotional faces. All conditions led to recognition improvements and the presentation of freely-expressed own-to-other cultural-emotional faces provided the most effective learning. These findings suggest that training can improve the recognition of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional expressions.

Lack of Sample Diversity in Research on Adolescent Depression and Social Media Use: A Scoping Review and Meta-Analysis

Research on whether social media use relates to adolescent depression is rapidly increasing. However, is it adequately representing the diversity of global adolescent populations? We conducted a preregistered scoping review (research published between 2018 and 2020; 34 articles) to investigate the proportion of studies recruiting samples from the Global North versus Global South and assess whether the association between social media and depression varies depending on the population being studied. Sample diversity was lacking between regions: More than 70% of studies examined Global North populations. The link between social media and depression was positive and significant in the Global North but null and nonsignificant in the Global South. There was also little evidence of diversity within regions in both sampling choices and reporting of participants' demographics. Given that most adolescents live in the Global South and sample diversity is crucial for the generalizability of research findings, urgent action is needed to address these oversights.

Strategic Messaging to Promote Policies that Advance Racial Equity: What Do We Know, and What Do We Need to Learn?

Policy Points Many studies have explored the impact of message strategies to build support for policies that advance racial equity, but few studies examine the effects of richer stories of lived experience and detailed accounts of the ways racism is embedded in policy design and implementation. Longer messages framed to emphasize social and structural causes of racial inequity hold significant potential to enhance support for policies to advance racial equity. There is an urgent need to develop, test, and disseminate communication interventions that center perspectives from historically marginalized people and promote policy advocacy, community mobilization, and collective action to advance racial equity.

CONTEXT

Long-standing racial inequities in health and well-being are shaped by racialized public policies that perpetuate disadvantage among Black, Brown, Indigenous, and people of color. Strategic messaging can accelerate public and policymaker support for public policies that advance population health. We lack a comprehensive understanding of lessons learned from work on policy messaging to advance racial equity and the gaps in knowledge it reveals.

METHODS

A scoping review of peer-reviewed studies from communication, psychology, political science, sociology, public health, and health policy that have tested how various message strategies influence support and mobilization for racial equity policy domains across a wide variety of social systems. We used keyword database searches, author bibliographic searches, and reviews of reference lists from relevant sources to compile 55 peer-reviewed papers with 80 studies that used experiments to test the effects of one or more message strategies in shaping support for racial equity-related policies, as well as the cognitive/emotional factors that predict their support.

FINDINGS

Most studies report on the short-term effects of very short message manipulations. Although many of these studies find evidence that reference to race or use of racial cues tend to undermine support for racial equity-related policies, the accumulated body of evidence has generally not explored the effects of richer, more nuanced stories of lived experience and/or detailed historical and contemporary accounts of the ways racism is embedded in public policy design and implementation. A few well-designed studies offer evidence that longer-form messages framed to emphasize social and structural causes of racial inequity can enhance support for policies to advance racial equity, though many questions require further research.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude by laying out a research agenda to fill numerous wide gaps in the evidentiary base related to building support for racial equity policy across sectors.

Not All Effects Are Indispensable: Psychological Science Requires Verifiable Lines of Reasoning for Whether an Effect Matters

To help move researchers away from heuristically dismissing "small" effects as unimportant, recent articles have revisited arguments to defend why seemingly small effect sizes in psychological science matter. One argument is based on the idea that an observed effect size may increase in impact when generalized to a new context because of processes of accumulation over time or application to large populations. However, the field is now in danger of heuristically accepting all effects as potentially important. We aim to encourage researchers to think thoroughly about the various mechanisms that may both amplify and counteract the importance of an observed effect size. Researchers should draw on the multiple amplifying and counteracting mechanisms that are likely to simultaneously apply to the effect when that effect is being generalized to a new and likely more dynamic context. In this way, researchers should aim to transparently provide verifiable lines of reasoning to justify their claims about an effect's importance or unimportance. This transparency can help move psychological science toward a more rigorous assessment of when psychological findings matter for the contexts that researchers want to generalize to.

Determination of Markers of Successful Implementation of Mental Health Apps for Young People: Systematic Review

Background

Smartphone apps have the potential to address some of the current issues facing service provision for young people’s mental health by improving the scalability of evidence-based mental health interventions. However, very few apps have been successfully implemented, and consensus on implementation measurement is lacking.

Objective

This review aims to determine the proportion of evidence-based mental health and well-being apps that have been successfully adopted and sustained in real-world settings. A secondary aim is to establish if key implementation determinants such as coproduction, acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness, and engagement contribute toward successful implementation and longevity.

Methods

Following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, an electronic search of 5 databases in 2021 yielded 18,660 results. After full-text screening, 34 articles met the full eligibility criteria, providing data on 29 smartphone apps studied with individuals aged 15 to 25 years.

Results

Of 34 studies, only 10 (29%) studies were identified that were evaluating the effectiveness of 8 existing, commercially available mental health apps, and the remaining 24 (71%) studies reported the development and evaluation of 21 newly developed apps, of which 43% (9/21) were available, commercially or otherwise (eg, in mental health services), at the time of enquiry. Most studies addressed some implementation components including adoption, acceptability, appropriateness, feasibility, and engagement. Factors including high cost, funding constraints, and lengthy research processes impeded implementation.

Conclusions

Without addressing common implementation drivers, there is considerable redundancy in the translation of mobile mental health research findings into practice. Studies should embed implementation strategies from the outset of the planned research, build collaborations with partners already working in the field (academic and commercial) to capitalize on existing interventions and platforms, and modify and evaluate them for local contexts or target problems and populations.

Trial Registration

PROSPERO CRD42021224365; https://tinyurl.com/4umpn85f

Positive behavioural support for children and young people with developmental disabilities in special education settings: A systematic review

Background

Positive behavioural support (PBS) can be effective in supporting children and young people (CYP) with developmental disabilities. This systematic review focused on describing the components and nine characteristics of PBS that have been used with CYP with developmental disabilities in special education settings, and the evidence for PBS effectiveness in these settings. Additionally, facilitators and barriers to PBS implementation, and experiences of stakeholders, were investigated.

Method

Systematic searches followed a registered protocol, and 30 studies were identified, narratively synthesised, and critically appraised.

Results

From the 30 studies included, 10 reported the presence of all 9 PBS characteristics, 17 reported on 8 PBS characteristics, and 3 reported on 7 characteristics. Overall, 28 studies demonstrated significant decreases in behaviours that challenge and increases in alternative behaviours, if increasing alternative behaviours was part of the interventions.

Conclusions

There was a lack of evidence on facilitators and barriers, and a lack of qualitative studies exploring experiences of stakeholders with PBS in special education settings. The available evidence suggested that not all studies reported on all PBS characteristics when describing the approach followed. In addition, available evidence suggested that most studies demonstrated effectiveness of PBS regarding the measured outcomes. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Specifying and Reporting Implementation Strategies Used in a School-Based Prevention Efficacy Trial

Background

Implementation strategies used to enhance the implementation of interventions during efficacy and effectiveness studies are rarely reported. Tracking and reporting implementation strategies during these phases has potential to improve future research studies and real-world implementation. We present an exemplar of how this might be executed by specifying and reporting the implementation strategies that were used during a school-based efficacy trial, Project POWER, which tested a trauma-informed prevention program delivered by a university research team, community members, and school staff facilitators in 29 schools.

Methods

Following the conclusion of the 4-year trial, core Project POWER research team members identified the implementation strategies that supported intervention delivery during the trial using an established taxonomy of school-based implementation strategies. The actors, actions, action targets, temporality, dose, and implementation outcomes were specified using established implementation strategies reporting guidelines.

Results

The research team identified 37 implementation strategies that were used during the Project POWER trial. Most strategies fell within the categories of Train and Educate Stakeholders, Use Evaluative and Iterative Strategies, and Develop Stakeholder Interrelationships. Actors included members of the research team and partner schools. Strategies were used multiple times during the preparation and implementation phases. Action targets were most often characteristics of individuals, implementation process, and characteristics of the inner setting. Strategies predominantly targeted the implementation outcomes of fidelity, acceptability, feasibility, and adoption.

Conclusions

This study provided evidence that implementation strategies are used and can be identified in efficacy research using a retrospective approach. Identifying and specifying implementation strategies used during the initial phases of the translational research pipeline can inform the implementation strategies that are carried forward, adapted, or discontinued in future trials and routine practice to improve implementation and effectiveness outcomes.

Psychological Interventions for Parents of Youth With Chronic Pain: A Scoping Review

OBJECTIVE

Parents are integral to their youth's chronic pain experiences, and intervening with parents may improve parent and youth functioning. Existing systematic reviews are not specific to pain or do not systematically report critical aspects to facilitate implementation of parent interventions in diverse settings. Thus, this scoping review aimed to map published parent interventions for pediatric chronic pain to summarize the participant and intervention characteristics, treatment components, methods, outcomes, feasibility, and acceptability, as well as identify gaps for future research.

METHODS

Four databases were searched (PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Google Scholar). Studies of any design reporting psychological interventions including parents of youth (0 to 18 y) with chronic pain were included. Data on study characteristics, treatment components, effectiveness, and feasibility/acceptability were extracted.

RESULTS

Fifty-four studies met inclusion criteria from 9312 unique titles. The majority were nonrandomized cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions delivered individually. The degree of parent participation ranged from 17% to 100%; the average enrollment rate was 68%. Reported parent and youth outcomes were variable; 26% of studies did not include any parent-related outcomes.

DISCUSSION

Parent interventions may be a helpful and feasible way to support parents and youth with chronic pain. There is variability across study characteristics, treatment content/aims, parent participation, and parent/youth outcomes.

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 12 May 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4878591.v1.

Behavioural science is unlikely to change the world without a heterogeneity revolution

In the past decade, behavioural science has gained influence in policymaking but suffered a crisis of confidence in the replicability of its findings. Here, we describe a nascent heterogeneity revolution that we believe these twin historical trends have triggered. This revolution will be defined by the recognition that most treatment effects are heterogeneous, so the variation in effect estimates across studies that defines the replication crisis is to be expected as long as heterogeneous effects are studied without a systematic approach to sampling and moderation. When studied systematically, heterogeneity can be leveraged to build more complete theories of causal mechanism that could inform nuanced and dependable guidance to policymakers. We recommend investment in shared research infrastructure to make it feasible to study behavioural interventions in heterogeneous and generalizable samples, and suggest low-cost steps researchers can take immediately to avoid being misled by heterogeneity and begin to learn from it instead.