Sedentary behavior has been shown to lead to overweight and obesity, which are risk factors for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular heart diseases (CHD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Two constructs have been used to attempt to enhance motivation in order to promote long-term physical activity behavior change: self-efficacy (from Self-Efficacy Theory) and competence (from Self-Determination Theory). Though these constructs are from two different theories and purportedly measure two different concepts, they have been used interchangeably in physical activity research. This project examined similarities and differences in the theoretical explanations of self-efficacy and competence. Participants were college students ages 18 to 53 (n = 194, 65.8% female) who were randomized to one of two intervention groups (competence vs. self-efficacy) or an attention control group, with an overall attrition rate of 0.6%. Repeated measures ANCOVAs controlling for strenuous exercise and BMI showed no within groups or between-groups differences in competence or self-efficacy. Measures of competence and self-efficacy were strongly correlated (r = .74). Further inspection showed both measures were tapping into a third variable: confidence. Additionally complicating the findings is documented evidence of college students over-reporting high confidence levels. Recommendations include incorporating items measuring growing mastery into competence scales and examining …

Suicide is a significant public health issue in the US. Despite national and international prioritization since 1996, little definitive progress has been made in terms of identification and intervention in cases of elevated suicide risk. Forty percent of those who died by suicide attended an emergency department within a year of death. Therefore, universal suicide risk screening in emergency departments could prove a vital component to a national suicide prevention strategy. The present study empirically evaluated the universal suicide risk screening program recently implemented at Parkland Health and Hospital System. The sample consisted of patients over 18 years of age (N=333,855; Mage=42.7, 32% male) screened as part of routine clinical care from May 4th, 2015, through November 3rd, 2015. The Parkland Algorithm for Suicide Screening (PASS) is part of a clinical decision support system for responses to Columbia - Suicide Severity Rating Scale Clinical Practice Screener (C-SSRS) items, leading to an automated clinical response via three suicide risk stratification levels: no action for no risk identified, psychiatric social worker assessment for moderate risk identified, and psychiatrist/psychologist interview for high risk identified. The present study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, which found the PASS predicted disposition (z=30.46, p<.001, AUC=.78, …

The transition to college is marked by poorer eating behaviors. The Theory of planned behavior (TPB) represents a promising tool for predicting eating behaviors through the examination of attitudes (ATT), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and intention (INT). Despite prior application of the TPB, there exist several key methodological issues in the literature addressing eating behaviors. The present study utilized an enhanced dietary assessment methodology, the ASA24 dietary recall, and a short-term prospective design to assess the healthy eating behaviors of emerging adults in college. Dietary recalls of 68 participants (average age = 20.76 years; 70.6% female; 70.6% non-Hispanic, 48.5% White, 22.10% Black/African American, 13.20% Asian) were analyzed using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2010 scoring system. Results revealed that very few college students are meeting recommended dietary guidelines. Linear regression indicated that the indirect TPB variables (ATT, SN, and PBC) were related to INT (F[3,64] = 19.67, p < .001), although SN did not account for unique variance. Further, the direct TPB variables (INT and PBC) were related to HEI-2010 scores (F[2,65] = 4.00, p = .023); however, only PBC accounted for significant variance. Overall, findings suggest that more favorable attitudes relate to intention, but only perceived behavioral …

Poor sleep measured across many dimensions has been linked to adverse physical and mental health outcomes including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, increased mortality, depression, and anxiety. Current research typically relies upon brief, subjective, inadequately validated methods to assess limited dimensions of sleep, resulting in inaccurate measurements and possibly faulty conclusions. Specifically, research validating objective (e.g., actigraphy) and subjective (e.g., sleep diaries, retrospective surveys) measurement methods against the gold standard of polysomnography (PSG, an overnight sleep study) is primarily limited by a) a lack of reliability based on too short (e.g., 24 or 48 hours) of an assessment period to capture night-to-night variability, b) a lack of ecological validity (e.g., full PSG in a laboratory setting), and c) a lack of generalizability due to limited or special populations (e.g., individuals with insomnia). Barriers such as prohibitive cost, extensive setup time, and personnel training requirements diminish the ability of researchers to conduct measurement comparison studies using gold standard measures like traditional PSG. These barriers can be circumvented with the use of low-cost, minimally invasive single-channel EEG devices (e.g., Zmachine), but to date few studies have employed these devices. The current study evaluated the accuracy of retrospective surveys, sleep diaries, and actigraphy compared …

Accurate assessment of sleep-wake patterns is important for sleep researchers and clinicians. Actigraphs are low-cost, non-intrusive, wrist-worn activity detectors used to estimate sleep-wake patterns in a natural environment for several nights. Although actigraphy shows good sensitivity (sleep detection), it has consistently demonstrated poor specificity (wakefulness detection while lying in bed relatively motionless). Because insomnia is characterized by wakefulness in bed, actigraphy may not be a valid objective measure of wakefulness for this group. It is possible that refinement of actigraphy software settings for sleep/wake algorithms might improve specificity. The current studies investigated this hypothesis by comparing wake parameters from 48 combinations of actigraphy settings to determine which sleep/wake algorithms best inform insomnia diagnosis and treatment. In the first study, none of the 48 actigraphy setting combinations consistently discriminated between adults with insomnia (n = 69) and non-insomnia (n = 80) on all three wake parameters, and no setting clearly discriminated between groups for the composite variable, total wake time. Similarly, in the second study, no setting combinations consistently discriminated between adults treated for insomnia (n = 18) and controls with untreated insomnia (n = 26) on all three wake parameters. Although two setting combinations discriminated between groups for the composite …