Psychologists and other mental health professionals working in correctional institutions bear the considerable responsibility for identifying, diagnosing, and treating mentally disordered inmates. The importance of these responsibilities has been recognized in recent years because of the burgeoning population of inmates in general and the higher numbers of inmates with mental illness in particular. Research has demonstrated that the screens currently used in correctional settings to identify mentally disordered and suicidal inmates are either unvalidated or generally ineffective. This study investigates the validity of different mental health screens in a jail population. Inmates from the Grayson County Jail were administered three screens: the Referral Decision Scale (RDS), Personality Assessment Screener (PAS), and the Mental Disability/Suicide Intake Screen (MDSIS). Criterion measures were the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS) for Axis I disorders and the Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) for suicidal ideation. Results indicate that each screen most effectively assessed one clinical domain: the RDS for psychosis, the MDSIS for suicidality, and the PAS for depression. Gender differences were observed in screen items most effective for classifying inmates by suicide risk level.

The transtheoretical model has a substantial history of measuring the change process. Hemphill and Howell validated the Stages of Change Scale (SOCS) on adolescent offenders. The current study expands their research by developing an additional component of the TTM, the Decisional Balance Scale for Adolescent Offenders (DBS-AO). This measure assesses movement through the stages of change and provides insight into mechanisms through which adolescent offenders attempt to change their criminal behaviors. Two hundred thirty-nine adolescent offenders at the Gainesville State School completed the SOCS, DBS-AO, Paulhus Deception Scales (PDS), and the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD). The study found the DBS-AO is psychometrically sound, demonstrates excellent reliability and has an underlying three-factor solution: Cons, Pros-Self, and Pros-Others. Offenders in the early stages of change scored significantly higher on the Cons scale. Offenders actively changing their behavior scored significantly higher on the Pro-Self and Pros-Other scales.

People living with HIV/AIDS (PLH) struggle with depression. Recent research suggests that depression affects medical regimen adherence, disease progression, and risky sexual behaviors. The present study uses a stress and coping theory viewing HIV-related stigma and physical symptoms as stressors in PLH. Results suggest whereas symptoms and stigma consistently predict negative affect, positive affect, and overall depression, the role of optimism, pessimism, active coping, denial, and behavioral disengagement is not as clear. Pessimism and denial predict negative affect and depression. Optimism and behavioral disengagement predict depression and positive affect. Active coping only predicts positive affect. Focusing on positive and negative affect as distinct components that contribute to overall depression may help researchers develop interventions more effectively.

Previous researchers have shown that the collaborative, self-directing, and deferring styles of religious coping result in different outcomes of depression under different levels of perceived stress. Neuroticism has also been shown to affect coping effectiveness overall or choice of coping method. However, little work has been done to investigate the association between neuroticism and the choice or effectiveness of religious coping styles in particular, or on the association of neuroticism and perceived stress. The present study addressed research questions by examining relations among neuroticism, perceived stress, objective life events, religious and non-religious coping styles, effectiveness of coping styles, and depression. Hierarchical multiple regression and correlational techniques found that religious coping styles predict depression, religious and non-religious coping correspond, and neuroticism predicts perceived stress beyond situational stressors. Neuroticism did not predict use of religious coping styles, but remaining personality factors were successful in predicting coping. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

The process by which earned-secures achieve attachment security in adulthood, despite having insecure parent-child relationships in childhood, was the focus of the current study. As internal working models are thought to be formed within relationships, specifically primary attachment bonds (Bowlby, 1969), it was postulated that secondary attachment relationships, specifically those that were positive, had the capacity to revise insecure models of self and other. In the current study, the secondary attachment histories of undergraduates who were earned-secure and continuously-insecure, or insecurely attached since childhood, were compared. A new measure of secondary attachment quality was developed (Questionnaire About Secondary Attachment Figures (Q-SAF)), which was used to measure undergraduates' perceptions of their past and current secondary attachment figures. Findings indicated that in comparison to continuous-insecures, earned-secures perceived their negative secondary attachment figures in adolescence as less mean. Earned-secures also reported being less dependent upon these figures' approval of them for their self-worth and more secure within these relationships. In adulthood, earned-secures reported more trust and intimacy with their positive secondary attachment figures. Compared to continuous-insecures, earned-secures described their peers as being more empathic and altruistic during childhood and more warm during adolescence; earned-secures also reported less dependency and greater closeness with their …