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Youth use of cigars, bidis, and kreteks has spread as youth cigarette use has declined. This study investigates young people's attitudes toward and beliefs about these alternative tobacco products. The study used data from a convenience sample survey of 5,016 7th-through 12th-grade students in Massachusetts. The cigar attitudes receiving the highest endorsement levels were that cigars smell good and are something different to try, whereas the item receiving the lowest endorsement was that cigars give you a goodbuzz. The most endorsed bidi attitudes were that bid is look like joints and are something different to try. For kreteks, the most endorsed items were that kreteks smell good and are something different to try. Multivariate analyses found that reporting that these products tasted, smelled good, or were something different to try predicted use. Because the study was conducted with a convenience sample in one state, results do not necessarily generalize.

Abstract: This study compares the 12-month changes in substance use following admission to substance abuse treatment in Massachusetts between adolescents enrolled in Medicaid managed care and other publicly funded adolescents. Two hundred and fifty-five adolescents were interviewed as they entered substance abuse treatment and at 6 and 12 month follow-ups. Medicaid enrollment data were used to determine the managed care enrollment status. One hundred forty two (56%) adolescents were in the managed care group and 113 (44%) comprise the comparison group. Substance use outcomes include a count of negative consequences of substance use, days of alcohol use, days of cannabis use, and days of any substance use in the previous 30 days. Repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to assess change with time of measurement and managed care status as main effects and the interaction of time and managed care included to measure differences between the groups over time. Although several changes across time were detected for all four outcomes, we found no evidence of an impact of managed care for any of the outcomes. The results of our study do not support the fears that behavioral managed care, by imposing limits on services provided, would substantially reduce the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment for adolescents. At the same time, the results do not support those who believe that the continuity of care and improved resource utilization claimed for managed care would improve outcomes. Keywords: Adolescents, alcohol, consequences, managed care, substance abuse, INTRODUCTION Managed Care and Behavioral Health Services Managed care has become a common approach for delivering behavioral health services. As of 1999, 41 states operated some form of managed behavioral [...]

State substance abuse management information systems increasingly are becoming important tools for research, program management, and policy formulation at federal and state levels. These systems are currently undergoing radical expansion, leading to the creation of statewide performance and outcome monitoring systems for publicly-funded substance abuse treatment. This expansion makes imperative increased knowledge of the psychometric properties of the data in these systems. This study develops a method for examining the reliability of such data and applies it to the Massachusetts Substance Abuse Management Information System (SAMIS). Cohen's [kappa], intraclass correlations, and the techniques of Heise (1969) are used to assess the reliability of different types of variables. Results show that key variables on the SAMIS Admission Form exhibit moderate to high reliability, supporting the use of this data for aggregate analyses. At the same time, caution should be used in making judgments about individual patients. Keywords: reliability; substance abuse; substance abuse treatment; drug treatment; alcohol treatment; management information system; administrative data; assessment; three-wave panel data

The Individual Group Member Interpersonal Process Scale (IGIPS) was applied to videotapes of the first four sessions of seven 15-session outpatient therapy groups in the Mental Health Department of a health maintenance organization. The IGIPS is a newly designed scale to estimate patient behavior in group psychotherapy, and encompasses significant aspects of the mechanism by which patients behave in a group and react to the other members of the group. The scale consisted of Psychological Mindedness, Self-Fours, Comfort with Self, Interpersonal Sensitivity and Activity.

Abstract The Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) task force was assembled by the American Psychological Association (APA) to guide policy on the role of psychologists in interrogations at foreign detention centers for the purpose of U.S. national security. The task force met briefly in 2005, and its report was quickly accepted by the APA Board of Directors and deemed consistent with the APA Ethics Code by the APA Ethics Committee. This rapid acceptance was unusual for a number of reasons but primarily because of the APA's long-standing tradition of taking great care in developing ethical policies that protected anyone who might be impacted by the work of psychologists. Many psychological and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as reputable journalists, believed the risk of harm associated with psychologist participation in interrogations at these detention centers was not adequately addressed by the report. The present critique analyzes the assumptions of the PENS report and its interpretations of the APA Ethics Code. We demonstrate that it presents only one (and not particularly representative) side of a complex set of ethical issues. We conclude with a discussion of more appropriate psychological contributions to national security and world peace that better respect and preserve human rights.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF), the focus of the January 2011 special issue of the "American Psychologist," is a $125 million resilience training initiative designed to reduce and prevent the adverse psychological consequences of combat for soldiers and veterans. These are worthy goals. Soldiers and veterans deserve the best care possible, and military psychologists have critically important roles to play. But the special issue is troubling in several important respects. Elsewhere, we have offered a detailed review. Here we offer only a summary of our concerns. The CSF program is a massive research project launched without pilot testing to determine, first, the effectiveness of the training in a military environment. This is highly irregular and obviously worrisome considering the stakes. No evidence was provided indicating that CSF received preliminary review by an independent ethics review board. There are other ethically fraught possibilities. This special issue reveals much about current moral challenges facing the profession of psychology.

We examined the construction of media reporting on the Meiwes 'cannibal' case where two consensual adults gratified fantasies resulting in the death, dismemberment and partial consumption of one. We found the media imposed a traditional but ill-fitting predator-prey frame, contributing to omissions relating to sexuality and death, the utilization of cultural 'Othering' and the presence of the defenses of intellectualization and humor; thus distracting us against anxiety from our own mortality. This study suggests the relationship between the British media and public in crime reporting is not passive but reciprocal: the media creates but also responds to public fantasies/desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COHESIVENESS has been viewed as the group psychotherapy equivalent of the therapeutic alliance in individual treatment. Although researchers have attempted to study the concept of cohesion in group treatment, understanding of this so-called 'curative' group factor remains quite primitive. In this study of 12 time-limited psychotherapy groups, with a total of 90 nonpsychotic outpatients, we explore the relationships between cohesion, alliance and treatment outcome. Our cohesion measure is a new instrument, the Harvard Community Health Plan Group Cohesiveness Scale, developed for use with group therapy videotapes. To measure alliance we have modified the Penn Helping Alliance Scale (Group Alliance Scale) to be scored from videotapes of group sessions. Both of these instruments use trained observers to make ratings for the group-as-a-whole. The outcome battery for patients in these groups included a widely varied set of measures, enabling us to view change from a number of perspectives. Our findings indicate that cohesion and alliance as measured here are related concepts. We also find that both cohesion and alliance appear to have strong relationships with improved self-esteem and reduced symptomatology for patients in these groups. In addition, it appears that outcome is most related to cohesion in the first 30 minutes of a group session. Implications of these and other findings are discussed.