Romantic conflict narratives and associations with psychological relationship aggression in emerging adult couples

This cross-sectional study aimed to understand how emerging adult couples interpreted relationship conflicts, and whether such meaning making was associated with psychological relationship aggression and moderated by gender. We specified the I Cubed model of relationship aggression to examine how in the context of recounting relationship conflicts, the impellance factors of anger and break-up anxiety might increase and the inhibition factor of perspective taking might decrease the likelihood of relationship aggression. Each partner in 126 couples was interviewed separately about their unmet relationship needs. Narrative-based measures of impellance and inhibition were obtained as well as self-reported psychological relationship aggression and satisfaction. Although gender was not a moderator, there was some support for associations of impellance and inhibition factors with aggression. Extending prior work using couple observations and diary methods, we found that interpreting conflict events in terms of anger and perspective taking was related to relationship aggression while controlling for relationship satisfaction. Consistent with the I Cubed model, there were actor effects such that anger ratings were an impellance factor that increased and perspective taking was an inhibition factor that decreased the likelihood of aggression. Our findings suggest that narrating past conflicts related to unmet needs is a task that involves the management of anger associated with more relationship aggression. The efficacy of relationship education programs for emerging adult couples might be improved by focusing on skills to decrease anger and facilitate perspective taking.

Young people engaging in event-based diaries: A reflection on the value of diary methods in higher education decision-making research

This paper reflects on the value of diary methods in the context of a qualitative, longitudinal narrative inquiry exploring the higher education decision-making of further education students in England. Event-based diaries were used alongside interviews and focus groups over a 14-month period to gain in-depth insights into the reasons and influences informing their decision-making trajectories. I explore the challenges, successful approaches and advantages of employing diary methods with young people in this context. Challenges consisted of maintaining participant engagement, which was overcome by combining methods and incorporating a reactive co-participatory element. Yet, a number of advantages emerged from participants' engagement with diary keeping which enhanced the richness of the data; this inspired deeper reflections on decision-making and influences and provided a private space for participants to disclose personal difficulties that could not be obtained via interviews.

Effect of a Community-led Total Sanitation Intervention on the Incidence and Prevalence of Diarrhea in Children in Rural Ethiopia: A Cluster-randomized Controlled Trial

We conducted a cluster-randomized trial in 48 rural villages of Ethiopia to assess the effect of community-led total sanitation (CLTS) on the diarrhea incidence of children. Twenty-four villages were randomly assigned to the intervention group and the other 24 were assigned to the control group. A CLTS intervention was implemented from January 2016 through January 2017. Baseline data collection was conducted during October and November 2015. At baseline, 906 children were recruited and followed-up until January 2017. These 906 children were randomly selected among all children in the 48 villages. To determine the 7-day period prevalence of diarrhea, four household-based surveys were conducted by independent data collectors at 3, 5, 9, and 10 months after the CLTS was initiated. To determine the incidence and longitudinal prevalence, the presence of daily diarrhea presence was recorded for 140 days using diary methods. The loss to follow-up rates were 95% for period prevalence and 93% for incidence and longitudinal prevalence. The incidence ratio and longitudinal prevalence ratio were 0.66 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.45–0.97; P = 0.03) and 0.70 (95% CI, 0.52–0.95; P = 0.02) after adjusting for clustering and stratification. The relative risk of period prevalence was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.45–0.98; P = 0.04) at 3 months after initiation. Improved toilet coverage increased from 0.0% at baseline to 35.0% at 10 months in the intervention villages, whereas it increased from 0.7% to 2.8% in the control villages. Adherence to the intervention was comparable with that of previous studies; therefore, we suggest that the findings of this study are replicable.

742 Linkages between sleep quality and mental health among couples coping with type 1 diabetes across survey and daily diary methods

Introduction Sleep serves an important role in maintaining and promoting metabolic and mental health. The interdependent nature of couple relationships makes examining sleep quality from a dyadic perspective critical. This study examined the effect of sleep quality on mental health among couples coping with type 1 diabetes across survey and daily diary methods and investigated whether relationship satisfaction moderated these relations. Methods 199 persons with type 1 diabetes (Mage = 46.82) and their spouses (Mage = 46.41) completed one survey questionnaire reporting their own sleep quality (PSQI), depressive symptoms (CESD), and relationship satisfaction (CSI). They also completed 14-day diaries reporting on their own sleep quality and negative affect. The actor-partner interdependence model and multi-level model were used to examine the effect of sleep quality on mental health across the cross-sectional and daily diary surveys. Multi-level modeling examined effects of within-person and between-person effects of sleep quality on next-day daily negative affect (controlling for prior day affect). Results Cross-sectional survey data revealed an association between poorer global sleep quality and higher depressive symptoms for both partners (actor effects). Spouses’ poorer sleep quality was associated with higher depressive symptoms for persons with T1D (partner effects). Daily diary data demonstrated an association between within-person and between-person effects of own poor sleep quality and higher negative affect for both partners. Poorer daily sleep quality for persons with T1D was associated with higher negative affect for spouses (partner effects). When examining the moderating role of relationship satisfaction, spouses’ poorer overall sleep quality was associated with greater depressive symptoms and overall negative affect respectively for those with lower relationship satisfaction but not for those with higher relationship satisfaction across both methods. Conclusion Findings support the conceptualized link between sleep quality and mental health as both an intraindividual and dyadic process among couples coping with T1D across survey and daily diary methods. Additionally, better relationship satisfaction may buffer the effect of overall poor sleep quality on mental health for spouses. Support (if any) This work was supported by NIH NIDDK program project grant (DP3DK103999). Individual support was provided by T32 MH019986 (ELT).

Attachment Anxiety Mitigates the Well-Being Costs of Object Attachment

Clinical and personality research consistently demonstrates that people can form unhealthy and problematic attachments to material possessions. To better understand this tendency, the current paper extends past research demonstrating that anxieties about other people motivate these attachments. These findings suggest that although object attachment generally correlates with poorer well-being, it may attenuate well-being deficits associated with insecurity about close relationships. The current paper presents two studies using converging correlational ( N = 394) and diary methods ( N = 413) to test whether object attachments’ association with poorer well-being is moderated by relationship uncertainties. We find that both trait (Study 1) and state (Study 2) insecurities about others eliminated, and in some cases reversed, the negative psychological correlates of object attachment. These effects, however, were only observed when focusing on between-person variation in both studies; within-person analysis demonstrated that state variation in object attachment predicted better psychological well-being. These results highlight a need for more nuanced studies of object attachment and well-being.