The Impact of Parental Relationship Satisfaction on Infant Development: Results From the Population-Based Cohort Study DREAM

Extensive literature has shown that interparental conflicts and violence have detrimental effects on children's adjustment in childhood and adolescence. It is not equally well-understood how parental relationship satisfaction impacts infant communicational and personal-social development during the first year of life. This longitudinal study examines (a) the impact of maternal and paternal relationship satisfaction on infant development, (b) whether this prospective association is mediated by parent-infant relationship, and (c) a potential moderating effect of infant gender. Data were derived from the population-based cohort study “Dresden Study on Parenting, Work, and Mental Health” (DREAM) including 1,012 mothers and 676 fathers. Relationship satisfaction and parent-infant relationship were assessed eight weeks postpartum, infant communicational and personal-social development were measured 14 months postpartum. Multiple linear regression, mediation, and moderation analyses were conducted for mothers and fathers separately. It was shown that paternal relationship satisfaction is a significant predictor of infant personal-social development. This prospective association was partially mediated by father-infant relationship. When postnatal depression was included in the analysis, however, father-infant relationship was not a significant mediator. The association in fathers is neither reduced nor increased as a function of infant gender. No similar effects were found in the mothers' sample. Parental relationship satisfaction did not significantly predict infant communicational development in either mothers or fathers. The study findings highlight the importance of paternal relationship satisfaction, father-infant relationship, and postnatal depression for infant personal-social development.

Sociocultural Factors, Sensation Seeking, and Risk of Exposure to Substance Abuse Among Egyptian and Saudi Undergraduates

Background: Substance abuse is a major public health issue worldwide, particularly manifesting during the late adolescent and early adult period. Each culture has distinct beliefs and unique ways of raising children. Cultural differences in parenting beliefs and behaviors are an interesting area that enhances understanding of the nature of differences across cultures. Substance abuse risk may be related to family sociocultural factors; however, there are limited studies that address the relationships between pertinent variables. Objective: To examine and compare family sociocultural factors, sensation seeking, and risk of drug involvement among Egyptian and Saudi university students. Methods: The study employed a comparative correlational descriptive design using two-stage cluster sampling techniques. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires distributed to students enrolled in Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU) in Saudi Arabia and Damanhur University (DU) in Egypt. Results: The study showed that Egyptian and Saudi students with a higher percentage of supportive parent relationships have less risk of drug involvement. In both countries, cigarette smoking was the first substance used. Moreover, factors predicting the risk of drug involvement and regression analysis revealed that male students had five times more risk of drug involvement than their female peers, keeping all other factors constant (OR = 5.734; 95%CI:3.231-10.174), while highly supportive paternal relationship reduced the risk of drug involvement by 85% (OR = 0.148; 95% CI: 0.045-0.489). Conclusion: The risk for substance abuse in both cultural settings was moderate, and smoking was the most common substance used. Moreover, a highly supportive paternal relationship reduced the risk of drug involvement by 85%.

The influence of parental attitudes on the formation of the personality of a minor with delinquent behavior

The article considers the parental attitude as one of the main factors influencing the formation of the personality of a juvenile delinquent with delinquent behavior. The concept of "parental relationship" and its structure are studied. The author analyzes the features of destructive parental attitudes, such as shortcomings in the educational process, emotional alienation of parents, low moral level of families, deviant motherhood. The differences in the structure of the maternal and paternal relationship are determined. The features of negative relations between parents and minors are described, such as inconsistency, coldness, aloofness, inconsistency, disrespect, and misunderstanding. The authors also consider the causes of deviant motherhood, which consist in psychiatric and intellectual disorders of young women, resulting from violence, abuse in childhood, improper upbringing, as well as due to the influence of social factors, such as the low level of education of women, poverty, and unemployment. The article is written on the basis of a study conducted on the basis of the methodology for diagnosing parental attitudes developed by A. Ya. Varga and V. V. Stolin, parents of minors with law-abiding and delinquent behavior took part in the survey. As a result of the study, it was found that parents treated minors with delinquent behavior more coldly, distanced and alienated, and showed little attention to their lives than to law-abiding minors.

Distinguishing pedigree relationships using multi-way identical by descent sharing and sex-specific genetic maps

The proportion of samples with one or more close relatives in a genetic dataset increases rapidly with sample size, necessitating relatedness modeling and enabling pedigree-based analyses. Despite this, relatives are generally unreported and current inference methods typically detect only the degree of relatedness of sample pairs and not pedigree relationships. We developed CREST, an accurate and fast method that identifies the pedigree relationships of close relatives. CREST utilizes identical by descent (IBD) segments shared between a pair of samples and their mutual relatives, leveraging the fact that sharing rates among these individuals differ across pedigree configurations. Furthermore, CREST exploits the profound differences in sex-specific genetic maps to classify pairs as maternally or paternally related—e.g., paternal half-siblings—using the locations of autosomal IBD segments shared between the pair. In simulated data, CREST correctly classifies 91.5-99.5% of grandparent-grandchild (GP) pairs, 70.5-97.0% of avuncular (AV) pairs, and 79.0-98.0% of half-siblings (HS) pairs compared to PADRE’s rates of 38.5-76.0% of GP, 60.5-92.0% of AV, 73.0-95.0% of HS pairs. Turning to the real 20,032 sample Generation Scotland (GS) dataset, CREST correctly determines the relationship of 99.0% of GP, 85.7% of AV, and 95.0% of HS pairs that have sufficient mutual relative data, completing this analysis in 10.1 CPU hours including IBD detection. CREST’s maternal and paternal relationship inference is also accurate, as it flagged five pairs as incorrectly labeled in the GS pedigrees— three of which we confirmed as mistakes, and two with an uncertain relationship—yielding 99.7% of HS and 93.5% of GP pairs correctly classified.

Logoterapijsko sagledavanje autonomije palijativnog bolesnika

In Croatia and other transition countries, care for a palliative patient is undergoing changes. Recently there is a growing multidisciplinary approach that aims at raising the quality of palliative care patient to a higher level. The physician-patient’s paternal relationship now assumes a model based on patient’s autonomy. Logotherapy within the autonomy model finds a significant place and importance. Everyone has the right to choose, autonomy to look at and find answers to why and how to accept personal suffering during the illness. Perceiving patients through the dimension of spirituality means recognizing their inner values with the inevitable respect for their beliefs regardless the current state or ultimate outcome of chronic, severe and incurable disease.