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Use of psychological care services in young people from the juvenile justice and protection system: An exploratory study Abstract: The objective was to identify the factors associated (i.e., demographic and clinical) with the use of mental health services in adolescents involved in the juvenile protection and justice system in Catalonia, Spain. The sample consisted of 227 adolescents, aged 12 to 17 years. Apart from gathering sociodemographic and treatment information the Youth Self Report was administered to assess psychopathological symptoms. The results showed that 54.2% of participants indicated that they were receiving psychological care. The regression analysis indicated that being younger, being involved in the protection system and presenting higher levels of transgressive behaviors predicted greater use of mental health services. There was no association with any of the internalizing problems. Since referral is the initial step towards using the mental health service, it is important that professionals receive the necessary training to carefully assess the young people under their care and refer them to the correspondent health services. Keywords: Adolescence; service use; juvenile justice; child protection; psychopathology. Resumen: El objetivo fue identificar los factores asociados (i.e, demográficos y clínicos) con el uso de servicios de atención psicológica en adolescentes atendidos por el sistema de protección y justicia juvenil en Cataluña, España. Participaron 227 adolescentes, de 12 a 17 años. Además de obtener datos sociodemográficos y sobre la atención psicológica, se administró el Youth Self Report para evaluar la sintomatología psicopatológica. Un 54.2 % de los adolescentes indicó estar recibiendo atención psicológica. El análisis de regresión indicó que ser más joven, estar en el sistema de protección y presentar niveles superiores de conductas trasgresoras predijeron un mayor uso de servicios de atención psicológica. No hubo asociación con ninguno de los problemas de internalización. Dado que la derivación es el paso inicial para la utilización del servicio de salud mental, es importante que los trabajadores reciban la capacitación necesaria para evaluar cuidadosamente y derivar a los jóvenes bajo su cuidado a los servicios de salud necesarios. Palabras clave: Adolescencia; uso de servicio; justicia juvenil; protección infantil; psicopatología.

The study aimed to compare the content of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) with that of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and to examine the extent to which PANSS items are represented in the ICF Core Sets (ICF-CS) for schizophrenia. The 30 items of the PANSS were linked to the ICF using established rules by two health professionals experienced in applying the ICF conceptual framework. PANSS items were linked to 42 unique ICF categories, corresponding mainly to the Body functions component; categories b160 Thought functions and b152 Emotional functions from this component were the most frequently linked. Regarding the Activities and participation component, the second-level category d720 Complex interpersonal interactions was the most frequently linked to PANSS items. Overall, PANSS items covered 18% and 40% of the categories included, respectively, in the Comprehensive and Brief versions of the ICF-CSs for schizophrenia. No PANSS items were linked to categories from the Body structures or Environmental factors components. The PANSS broadly covers the content of the ICF, especially as regards mental and movement-related functions, although it also covers some aspects of interpersonal relationships.

Objective: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) is a comprehensive and universally accepted framework for describing functioning and disability in a...

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) proposed ‘Internet Gaming Disorder’ (IGD) as a tentative disorder (APA framework) in 2013 and in 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) has fully recognized ‘Gaming Disorder’ (GD) as a mental health disorder (WHO framework). These two frameworks have not yet been jointly investigated in the context of esports. The present study aims to investigate the feasibility of the APA and WHO frameworks for disordered gaming among professional and non-professional gamers and to ascertain the suitability of existing psychometric tools for use in esports. Methods: A sample of 5,734 gamers (Mage = 21.47 years, SD = 6.69 years; 6.94% female) recruited through an online survey prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that included an age and gender matched group of professional (n = 2,867) and non-professional gamers (n = 2,867) was investigated. Pairwise comparisons, measurement invariance (MI), and latent mean difference tests were conducted to distinguish the two groups of gamers. Results: Overall, professional gamers showed greater time spent gaming and prevalence of disordered gaming than non-professional gamers. Additionally, MI was supported and both disordered gaming levels and latent means were significantly higher among professional gamers when compared to non-professional gamers across both APA and WHO frameworks. Conclusions: Esports is cross-sectionally associated with greater disordered gaming vulnerability through increased time spent gaming and disordered gaming prevalence rates. Furthermore, the APA and WHO frameworks are viable in the context of esports gaming with existing assessment tools being effective in the assessment of disordered gaming in esports. The results and implications are further discussed in light of the extant literature.

Identifying disability score differences in people with schizophrenia according to sociodemographic and clinical variables can help design better rehabilitation or care programs, but in order to compare the scores, it is necessary to confirm the measurement invariance. This study analyses differential item functioning (DIF) in the WHODAS 2.0 (WHO Disability Assessment Schedule) by applying two procedures based on Rasch trees (TREE-PCM and PCM-IFT). A total of 352 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder aged between 18 and 55 years took part. Sociodemographic (gender, age, marital status, and education) and clinical (depressive symptomatology, and presence of positive and negative symptoms) covariates were analysed in each of the WHODAS 2.0 domains. The TREE-PCM did not detect DIF, while with PCM-IFT an item with DIF was detected for the age variable. Although the findings suggest that only one item presents DIF, this refers to important issues when assessing functioning in patients with schizophrenia and should be reviewed.

Abstract. A comprehensive assessment of functioning in schizophrenia is essential to plan appropriate interventions for helping individuals with this health condition. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) offers a theoretical framework for assessing functioning and disability. Our aim was to identify the most frequently used measurement instruments reported in studies on functioning in schizophrenia, to conduct a content comparison with respect to the ICF, and to compare the categories extracted from these instruments with those covered by the Brief ICF-Core Set for schizophrenia. A structured literature search of studies on functioning in schizophrenia was conducted using Medline, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. The items of the top 20 measurement instruments were then linked to the ICF classification system. The most commonly used instruments were neuropsychological tests (i.e., Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Trail Making Test) and measures of clinical symptoms (i.e., PANSS) and general functioning (i.e., GAF). The linking process resulted in 45 ICF categories (25 from Body functions, 1 from Body structures, 14 from Activities and Participation, and 5 from the Environmental factors component). Most of the top 20 instruments are not specifically designed for patients with schizophrenia or for assessing functioning, but rather are general standardized tests widely used to measure a broad range of outcome variables in several health conditions. Our results suggest a lack of an internationally accepted, commonly used, specific and comprehensive gold standard to assess functioning in individuals with schizophrenia.

People with intellectual disabilities appear to be more vulnerable to victimization. However, few studies have assessed victimization in these groups and those that do exist are highly heterogeneous and tend to focus only on specific forms of violence. This study attempts to shed light on the phenomenon of victimization among adults with intellectual disabilities by assessing victimization and poly-victimization throughout their life course. The sample consisted of 260 adults (154 men and 106 women) with an intellectual disability diagnosis, recruited from the Catalan Federation for People with Intellectual Disabilities (DINCAT) in Spain. They ranged in age from 20 to 71 years ( M = 41.69, SD = 12.05). Victimization experiences were assessed by means of an adaptation of the retrospective version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ). The results showed that 96.9% of the participants had suffered some kind of victimization throughout their lives. With respect to the types of victimization, the most frequent were common victimization (87.7%), witnessing and indirect victimization (67.3%), victimization by caregivers (59.2%), sexual victimization (35%), and electronic victimization (23.5%). Women and early adults tended to experience higher rates of victimization. The poly-victimized group experienced 13 or more incidents of victimization throughout their lives. This study highlights the elevated rates of lifetime victimization among people with intellectual disabilities. It adds to previous evidence that special protection programs are required to address this issue and emphasizes the need for prevention and intervention measures in this particularly vulnerable group.

This qualitative study explores the barriers, personal characteristics/resources, and environmental factors that experienced physiotherapists identify as relevant in the assessment and treatment of persons living with schizophrenia, and whether the identified aspects are represented in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Core Sets for schizophrenia. A three-round Delphi study with physiotherapists was conducted between April and July 2018. In the first round, participants had to list all the aspects they considered to be relevant when assessing and/or treating individuals with schizophrenia, and they were asked six open-ended questions. Their responses were linked to categories. In the second and third rounds, physiotherapists had to judge whether each category/personal factor was relevant for describing functioning in schizophrenia. Thirteen of 22 eligible physiotherapists from eight countries responded to the first round, and 10 completed all three rounds. Eighty-two (84.5%) of the 97 categories in the Comprehensive Core Set for schizophrenia and all 25 categories in the Brief Core Set were considered relevant. A total of five categories were additionally identified. The barriers, personal characteristics/resources, and environmental factors from the physiotherapists’ perspective have been identified. The results largely confirm the content validity of the Core Sets for schizophrenia.Implications for rehabilitationThis study shows which barriers, personal characteristics/resources, and environmental factors in persons with schizophrenia are relevant from physiotherapists’ perspective and should be integrated in the rehabilitation process.The content validity of the Comprehensive and Brief Core Sets for schizophrenia is largely supported from the physiotherapists’ perspective and therefore could be used in the assessment of functioning in persons with schizophrenia.The Comprehensive and Brief ICF Core Sets for schizophrenia could be used to plan and assess multidisciplinary rehabilitation interventions. This study shows which barriers, personal characteristics/resources, and environmental factors in persons with schizophrenia are relevant from physiotherapists’ perspective and should be integrated in the rehabilitation process. The content validity of the Comprehensive and Brief Core Sets for schizophrenia is largely supported from the physiotherapists’ perspective and therefore could be used in the assessment of functioning in persons with schizophrenia. The Comprehensive and Brief ICF Core Sets for schizophrenia could be used to plan and assess multidisciplinary rehabilitation interventions.

Background The World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0) evaluates an individual's functioning and disability within the conceptual framework of the ICF. The present study examines the measurement properties of the WHODAS 2.0 in patients with bipolar disorder using Mokken scaling analysis (i.e., monotone homogeneity and double monotonicity models) and the graded response model. No previous studies applying these models to this instrument were found. Methods A sample of 291 patients with bipolar disorder (42.6% males) was tested. Results The WHODAS 2.0 domains showed strong unidimensionality, with no items being omitted. In addition, the analysis of invariant item ordering showed that the items of each domain formed a hierarchical scale, with the exception of the ‘Life activities’ items for employed persons or students and item D4.5 ‘Sexual activities’ in the ‘Getting along’ domain. The WHODAS 2.0 domains and the whole scale also showed excellent reliability in bipolar disorder. Limitations Although the study was limited to patients in Spain, the use of non-sample dependent procedures minimizes this limitation since the results are independent of the sample used. Conclusions The WHODAS 2.0 contains six strong unidimensional domains that are hierarchical and reliable for detecting disability in bipolar disorder, although caution should be exercised with regard to some items.

This paper summarizes the 2021 ChaLearn Looking at People Challenge on Understanding Social Behavior in Dyadic and Small Group Interactions (DYAD), which featured two tracks, self-reported personality recognition and behavior forecasting, both on the UDIVA v0.5 dataset. We review important aspects of this multimodal and multiview dataset consisting of 145 interaction sessions where 134 participants converse, collaborate, and compete in a series of dyadic tasks. We also detail the transcripts and body landmark annotations for UDIVA v0.5 that are newly introduced for this occasion. We briefly comment on organizational aspects of the challenge before describing each track and presenting the proposed baselines. The results obtained by the participants are extensively analyzed to bring interesting insights about the tracks tasks and the nature of the dataset. We wrap up with a discussion on challenge outcomes, and pose several questions that we expect will motivate further scientific research to better understand social cues in human-human and human-machine interaction scenarios and help build future AI applications for good.

Background/Objective: To gain knowledge about mothers' and fathers' interactions with their sons and daughters, we need reliable and valid tools to assess parental behaviors that can be used for different caregivers and in a variety of cultural contexts. The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO) to assess fathers' interaction with their children at early ages. PICCOLO is an observational tool originally developed in the United States for mothers and fathers and previously validated in Spain with a sample of mothers.Methods: One hundred and ninety-one father–child dyads were observed during free-play situations at home when the children were between 10 and 47 months of age (55.0% male). The fathers auto recorded 8–10 minutes of interaction and trained evaluators assessed the recordings with PICCOLO.Results: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the dimensional structure of the original version of the scale: four first-order factors (Affection, Responsiveness, Encouragement and Teaching) and one second-order factor (Parenting). The tool was found to have high inter-rater reliability at domain and total score level. Ordinal alpha and omega coefficients for each domain ranged between 0.79 and 0.85, and 0.64 and 0.79, respectively. No statistically significant differences were found in any PICCOLO domain or in the total score according to the child's gender. In assessments of the child's development with the Bayley-III scales, moderate positive correlations were found between Encouragement and receptive language (r = 0.32), and between Teaching and expressive (r = 0.34) and composite language (r = 0.31).Conclusion: The Spanish version of PICCOLO can be used to assess fathers' parenting. As PICCOLO is clearly linked to intervention goals, it is of particular interest for practitioners in early intervention and family programs.

The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence and severity of teen dating violence victimization in Spanish adolescents from both community and at-risk samples. The sample comprised 1,105 community adolescents from secondary schools, 149 adolescents from child, and adolescent mental health centers, 129 from residential care centers associated with the child welfare system, and 101 from centers in the juvenile justice system. The participants, aged between 14 and 17 years, were interviewed using the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire. The lifetime prevalence of victimization in dating relationships ranged from 2.5% to 33.7%. The prevalence of physical victimization was slightly higher in boys, while sexual and electronic victimization and injuries were more prevalent in girls. In conclusion, teen dating violence is a prevalent problem in Spain that needs to be addressed to prevent adolescents from developing risk behaviors and to avoid adverse consequences on mental health, especially in at-risk adolescents.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Core Sets for schizophrenia describe the key problems in functioning that are experienced by individuals with this disorder. This study examines the content validity of these Core Sets and aims to identify the most frequent problems faced by people with schizophrenia, considering for this analysis the perspective of Psychiatric-Mental-Health Nurses. The study complied with the COREQ checklist for qualitative studies. A total of 101 nurses from 30 countries covering all six World Health Organization regions participated in a Delphi study. Their responses in Round 1 were linked to ICF categories, retaining those reported by at least 5% of participants. In Round 2, they were asked to rate the relevance of each of these categories to the nursing care of patients with schizophrenia. This process was repeated in Round 3. A total of 2327 concepts were extracted in Round 1 and linked to ICF categories. Following the analysis, 125 categories and 31 personal factors were presented to the experts in rounds 2 and 3. Consensus (defined as agreement ≥75%) was reached for 97 of these categories and 29 personal factors. These categories corresponded to all those (N = 25) in the Brief Core Set and 87 of the 97 categories of the Comprehensive Core Set for schizophrenia. Ten new categories emerged. The Delphi process identified the problems in functioning that nurses encounter when treating individuals with schizophrenia, and the results supported the content validity of the Core Sets. We conclude that these Core Sets offer a comprehensive framework for structuring clinical information and guiding the treatment process.

In the context of the long-term effects of psychological abuse, this study examined psychological stress and psychopathological symptoms in survivors of groups with cultic dynamics where abusive behaviors take place on an ongoing basis. We specifically tested the mediating role of psychological stress suffered after the departure from the group between the group psychological abuse experienced and current psychopathology. An online questionnaire was administered to 608 Spanish-speaking former members of different groups. We distributed participants into a sample of victims ( N = 365) and a sample of nonvictims ( N = 243), according to whether or not they reported having experienced group psychological abuse. Moderate associations were found among group psychological abuse, psychological stress, and psychopathological symptoms. Greater differences in psychological stress intensity between samples were related to personal conflicts ([Formula: see text] = .30) and social relations ([Formula: see text] = .29). Greater differences in psychopathological symptoms were related to paranoid ideation ([Formula: see text] = .17), psychoticism ([Formula: see text] = .15), depression ([Formula: see text] = .15), and interpersonal sensitivity ([Formula: see text] = .13). Moreover, mediation testing demonstrated that psychological stress partially mediated the impact of group psychological abuse on psychopathological symptoms. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the long-term effects of group psychological abuse. Survivors of abusive groups not only need help in dealing with psychopathological symptoms, but also need resources to cope with stressful environmental demands. Interventions should address both psychological stress and clinical symptoms to promote survivors’ health and well-being during their integration process into the outgroup society.

Importance: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Core Sets (CSs) for schizophrenia are sets of ICF categories that are relevant specifically to the functioning and disability of people with schizophrenia. Objective: To identify the problems occupational therapists commonly encounter when treating people with schizophrenia and to validate the ICF–CSs for schizophrenia from their perspective. Design: Three-round Delphi study using online surveys distributed to occupational therapists worldwide. Participants were asked which problems with functioning they considered most relevant when treating people with schizophrenia. Participants: Occupational therapists experienced in the treatment of people with schizophrenia. Measures: Responses were linked to the ICF categories by two trained health professionals, and a statistical measure of agreement and κ coefficient were calculated. Results: Ninety-two occupational therapists from 29 countries in all six World Health Organization regions named 2,527 meaningful concepts. After the linking process, 121 ICF categories and 31 Personal Factors were presented to the expert panel, who reached consensus (agreement of ≥75%) on 97 ICF categories and 27 Personal Factors. Consensus was reached on the 25 categories in the Brief ICF–CS for schizophrenia and 89 of the 97 categories in the Comprehensive ICF–CS for schizophrenia. Conclusions and Relevance: The ICF Core Sets for schizophrenia were validated from the perspective of occupational therapists and are potentially useful tools for clinical practice because they cover a wide variety of problems that occupational therapists deal with in interventions with people with schizophrenia. What This Article Adds: The ICF–CSs for schizophrenia are useful guides for describing and classifying functioning, disability, and health to aid occupational therapy intervention with people with schizophrenia. Occupational therapists are essential in the rehabilitation of this client population, and their perspective has contributed to the development and enrichment of the ICF–CSs for schizophrenia.

Personality computing has become an emerging topic in computer vision, due to the wide range of applications it can be used for. However, most works on the topic have focused on analyzing the individual, even when applied to interaction scenarios, and for short periods of time. To address these limitations, we present the Dyadformer, a novel multi-modal multi-subject Transformer architecture to model individual and interpersonal features in dyadic interactions using variable time windows, thus allowing the capture of long-term interdependencies. Our proposed cross-subject layer allows the network to explicitly model interactions among subjects through attentional operations. This proof-of-concept approach shows how multi-modality and joint modeling of both interactants for longer periods of time helps to predict individual attributes. With Dyadformer, we improve state-of-the-art self-reported personality inference results on individual subjects on the UDIVA v0.5 dataset., Comment: Accepted to the 2021 ICCV Workshop on Understanding Social Behavior in Dyadic and Small Group Interactions

An integrated and interdisciplinary care system for individuals with schizophrenia is essential, which implies the need for a tool that assesses the difficulties and contextual factors of relevance to their functioning, and facilitates coordinated working across the different professions involved in their care. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Core Sets (ICF-CS) cover these requirements. This study aimed to evaluate the content validity of the ICF-CSs for schizophrenia from the perspective of experts. Six three-round Delphi studies were conducted with expert panels from different professional backgrounds which have played a significant role in the treatment of individuals with schizophrenia (psychiatry, psychology, nursing, occupational therapy, social work and physiotherapy). In total, 790 experts from 85 different countries participated in the first round. In total, 90 ICF categories and 28 Personal factors reached expert consensus (reached consensus from four or more professional perspectives). All the categories in the brief version of the ICF-CS for schizophrenia reached consensus from all the professional perspectives considered. As for the comprehensive version, 89.7% of its categories reached expert consensus. The results support the worldwide content validity of the ICF-CSs for schizophrenia from an expert perspective and underline the importance of assessing functioning by considering all the components implied.

This paper introduces UDIVA, a new non-acted dataset of face-to-face dyadic interactions, where interlocutors perform competitive and collaborative tasks with different behavior elicitation and cognitive workload. The dataset consists of 90.5 hours of dyadic interactions among 147 participants distributed in 188 sessions, recorded using multiple audiovisual and physiological sensors. Currently, it includes sociodemographic, self- and peer-reported personality, internal state, and relationship profiling from participants. As an initial analysis on UDIVA, we propose a transformer-based method for self-reported personality inference in dyadic scenarios, which uses audiovisual data and different sources of context from both interlocutors to regress a target person's personality traits. Preliminary results from an incremental study show consistent improvements when using all available context information., Accepted to the 11th International Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding workshop at Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision 2021

Schools are in a position to connect children and adolescents suspected of being victims of violence with an external source of support by making referrals to external agencies. However, several studies have identified obstacles that hinder early reporting among school staff members. Very few studies have applied a mixed-method approach to try to understand this sensitive issue. The current study used this approach to analyze to what extent the students suspected of being victimized match the ones reported by active school staff members in Spain ( n = 453, 83.5% females, age: M = 42.23, SD = 9.46). We classified the reasons given for not reporting the potential victimization cases encountered and made comparisons to determine whether there were differences in the level of knowledge, or in the sociodemographic characteristics, of respondents who gave different reasons for not reporting. Although 73.5% of school staff members had detected at least one potential case, 40.8% of them referred it to an external agency. The most common reasons for lack of reporting included deciding not to do so once concerns had been shared within the school and believing that one must be certain or that only serious violence should be reported. The findings of this study may help to further understand the decisions not to report certain suspicions of potential victimization cases to external agencies by school staff. There is an urgent need to raise awareness about the duty to report these concerns to external agencies, even in the absence of agreement from the school management team. Members of school staff need to be strongly encouraged to become familiar with the existing protocols.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) offers an internationally accepted standard for describing and assessing functioning and disability in any health condition. A specific list of ICF categories, an ICF Core Set (CS), has been developed for bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to determine commonalities in the ICF-CSs for these three disorders, and to identify relevant categories for the development of tentative ICF-CSs for severe mental disorders in general.The ICF categories of all three mental health conditions were examined and compared.Comparison of the Comprehensive ICF-CSs for the three mental health conditions revealed a set of 34 common categories (i.e., 10 from the Body functions component, 14 from the Activities and participation component, and 10 Environmental factors ). These categories formed the proposed Comprehensive ICF-CS for severe mental disorders. A total of 11 categories were common to the Brief ICF-CSs of the three mental health conditions, and these formed the Brief ICF-CS for severe mental disorders (i.e., 3 from the Body functions component, 6 from the Activities and participation component, and 2 Environmental factors ). All the categories included refer to key aspects of functioning for severe mental disorders.The proposed ICF-CSs for severe mental disorders may be applicable across a number of psychotic and affective disorders and they should prove useful for mental health services whose care remit covers a range of conditions.

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been recognized by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) as a tentative disorder in the latest (fifth) revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). However, psychometric evaluation of the nine IGD criteria remains necessary to further enhance its assessment. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS9-SF). The internal structure, internal consistency, temporal stability, and relationships with other variables were assessed. Furthermore, a polytomous item response theory (IRT) approach was used to evaluate the performance of each item and the test as a whole. A sample of 388 online gamers (53.61% women, mean age 25.45 years, standard deviation (SD) = 9.62) was recruited for this study. Similar to previous research, the results supported a one-factor structure for the IGDS9-SF, adequate internal consistency and temporal stability of scores, goodness of fit of the items to the graded response model (GRM), and more precise scores at high trait levels to assess IGD in Spanish populations. These findings corroborate the suitability of the Spanish IGDS9-SF for clinical assessment and research within Spanish-speaking populations.

Highlights • We tested the effect of knowledge in detecting and reporting victimization cases from school. • School staff with more years of experience were more likely to detect potential victimization cases. • Knowing that a report can be made without the principal’s consent predicted reporting behavior. • Hours per day spent in contact with children increased the likelihood of reporting. • Training and interventions should focus on these aspects to increase early reporting., Knowledge of child victimization among school staff is believed to affect the detection and reporting of potential cases in the school environment, but the current evidence is scarce and contradictory. We assessed the link between knowledge of victimization and other relevant reporter characteristics in detecting and reporting children suspected to be victims of violence in a sample of 184 school staff members from Spain (84.02% females, M = 43.40, SD = 10.37). We compared participants who had never detected nor reported any cases (i.e., non-detectors) with participants who had detected but not reported outside school (i.e., inconsistent reporters) and participants who had detected and reported at least one potential case (i.e., consistent reporters). Knowledge about the reporting procedures varied significantly across groups. Years of experience was the only variable to significantly predict having detected at least one case across job experience. Knowing whether a report can be made anonymously or without the principal’s consent was significant to predict the likelihood of being a consistent reporter, along with hours spent daily in contact with students. Trainings for school staff should be aware of what specific aspects of knowledge tend to increase detection and reporting. Interventions should include more specific guidelines and ways of recreating experience (e.g., role-playing, virtual scenarios) as an effective strategy to respond to cases of potential victimization encountered at school.

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness associated with several functional impairments. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Core Sets for schizophrenia are shortlists of ICF categories that are relevant for describing the functioning and disability of people suffering from schizophrenia. The aims of this study were to explore the content validity of these Core Sets from the perspective of psychiatrists and to identify - from this perspective and using the ICF framework - the most common problems of patients with schizophrenia. In a three-round survey using the Delphi technique, psychiatrists experienced in schizophrenia treatment were asked about the problems they commonly encounter in these patients. A total of 352 psychiatrists from 63 countries representing all six WHO regions responded to the first-round questionnaire, and 303 completed all three rounds (86% response rate). From the first-round responses, 7133 concepts were extracted and linked to 387 ICF categories and 35 personal factors. Of these, consensus (≥75% agreement) was reached for 91 ICF categories and 31 personal factors. Eighty-seven of the 97 ICF categories that form the Comprehensive ICF Core Set for schizophrenia were represented in this list. Only four of the categories for which consensus was reached do not feature in the Comprehensive Core Set. From the perspective of psychiatrists the content validity of the ICF Core Sets for schizophrenia was largely supported. This suggests that these Core Sets offer an effective framework for describing functioning and disability in individuals with schizophrenia.

This study assessed the relationship between poly-victimization and suicidality in 227 adolescents involved in child and youth-serving systems (i.e., child welfare and juvenile justice systems) in Spain. The mean age of participants was 15.24 years (SD = 1.56 (range 12 to 17). The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (which includes conventional crime, caregiver victimization, victimization by peers and siblings, sexual victimization, witnessing and indirect victimization, and electronic victimization), and two items from the Youth Self-Report were used to assess victimization and suicidality respectively. Lifetime poly-victimization was reported by 61.7% of the overall sample, and suicidality by 39.6%. The logistic regression analysis indicated that the odds of presenting suicidality were twice as high in the poly-victims (OR = 2.13). Sexual victimization was a statistically significant predictor and was associated with the occurrence of suicidality (OR = 2.67). In view of the high prevalence of victimization and its association with suicidality in this sample, we propose that the assessment of victimization should be included in the design of policies for suicide prevention and intervention.

This study aims to determine whether three different methodological approaches used to assess poly-victimization that apply the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ; Finkelhor, Hamby, Ormrod,Turner, 2005) identify the same group of adolescent poly-victims.The sample consisted of 1,105 adolescents (590 males and 515 females), aged 12-17 years old (M = 14.52, SD = 1.76) and recruited from seven secondary schools in Spain. The JVQ was used to assess lifetime and past-year experiences of victimization.Poly-victims were more likely to experience all types of victimization than victims, regardless of the method used. The degree of agreement between the methods for identifying poly-victimization was moderate for both timeframes, with the highest agreements being recorded between the one-above-the-mean number of victimizations and Latent Class Analysis (LCA) for lifetime, and between the top 10% and LCA for past-year victimization.Researchers and clinicians should be aware that the use of different methods to define poly-victimization may mean that different victims are identified. The choice of one method or another may have important implications. In consequence, focusing on how we operationalize poly-victimization should be a priority in the near future.

Externalizing symptoms correspond to a set of behavioral problems related to aggressiveness and the violation of norms. These disorders are common during adolescence, especially in poly-victimized populations. However, not much is known about the mechanism underlying the relationship between poly-victimization and symptoms or about the factors that could play a protective role in this relationship. It is necessary to understand the factors that influence the development of these disorders to prevent them. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships among coping strategies, poly-victimization, and externalizing symptoms. The participants were 144 adolescent outpatients ( M = 14.31, SD = 1.48) attending child and adolescent mental health services. The participants responded to three scales that examined their coping strategies, poly-victimization levels, and externalizing symptoms. The results showed that both poly-victimization and nonproductive coping were directly associated with externalizing symptomatology. In contrast, coping in reference to others and productive coping had inverse relationships with externalizing symptoms. Finally, the results of a cluster analysis revealed three groups of adolescents with different coping strategy profiles. The group with the least externalizing symptomatology was the “active-balanced” group (high use of coping in reference to others and productive coping combined with moderate use of nonproductive coping). The group with the greatest symptomatology was the “lonely” group (high use of productive and nonproductive coping but low use of coping in reference to others). The results suggest that poly-victimization and style of coping has an impact on the development of externalizing problems. These results may be useful for designing programs to prevent or treat externalizing disorders in adolescents.

Victimization has been widely demonstrated to have negative consequences in minors. Most crimes against children go unreported and victims tend to reach adulthood without receiving any of the available specialized support. Studies have highlighted the unique role of school workers in early detection and reporting of possible cases of victimization, and have also found high rates of underreporting by school staff. The present study analyzes the underreporting of child and youth victimization suspicions among school staff and aims to identify variables related to its detection and reporting. One hundred and eighty-four school staff members (83.7% females, M = 42.6 years old, SD = 11.7) from 17 different schools completed a self-administered questionnaire designed to record their knowledge and experience regarding the detection and reporting of potential victimization cases. Over 74% of the school workers had suspected at least one situation of victimization during their careers, but only 27% had actually reported these concerns. Higher rates of reporting were significantly associated with male gender, more years of experience, and awareness of five common misconceptions. Reporting behavior could be predicted by gender, years of experience and two statements assessing respondents’ knowledge of victimization. In order to increase early reporting of possible cases of victimization, it is necessary to overcome certain misconceptions, raise awareness among school staff, design new training programs or interventions, and adapt the school dynamics in the light of these findings.

Background:This meta-analytic review is the first to synthesise findings from prospective research on the long-term course of borderline personality disorder in adult clinical populations.Methods:Systematic searches were conducted in Medline, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, PubMed and Scopus within the period 1990-2017. Inclusion criteria were: (1) adult BPD sample diagnosed by a validated, semi-structured interview; (2) at least two prospective assessments of outcomes; and (3) follow-up period ≥ 5 years. Quality of evidence was rated with the Systematic Assessment of Quality in Observational Research (SAQOR). Four outcomes were meta-analysed using mixed-effect methods: remission from BPD diagnosis, completed suicide, depressive symptoms, and functioning. Potential moderators regarding the natural course and the initial treatment received were studied.Results:Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria, with 837 participants from nine countries being followed. Between 50% and 70% of the BPD patients achieved remission in the long-term. Significant reductions in depression and functional impairment were also found. Mean suicide rate ranged from 2% to 5%. Younger age was associated with higher likelihood for remission. Being female was correlated with lower functional improvement. Despite some positive trends, there were no significant associations between treatment moderators and the long-term outcome.Conclusions:Findings suggest that the course of BPD is characterised by symptomatic amelioration and a slight functional improvement in the long-term. Age and gender modulate the long-term prognosis and should be considered to adapt treatment resources. Further research is required to draw robust conclusions on the long-term effects of psychotherapeutic interventions.