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The quality of adolescents' friendships: associations with mothers' interpersonal relationships, attachments to parents and friends, and prosocial behaviors.

Adolescents' friendship quality and observed emotional expression with their best friends were predicted from reports of their mother's interpersonal relationships-specifically the quality of her marriage and social network. Two models explaining these relationships received support. Consistent with an Attachment Theory model, adolescents' perceptions of marital quality predicted attachment security with mother, father and friends. Security of attachment to friends in turn predicted best friendship quality, but not affective behavior with the friend. A Social Learning Theory model was also supported, in which perceptions of both marital quality and mother's social network quality predicted adolescents' prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior in turn predicted both best friendship quality and affective behavior with the friend.

Adolescent↗

Fearful saints: comforting friends in a hospital setting.

The article examines the role of courage in breaking barriers which prevent friends unfamiliar with the health care industry from providing the needed support to sustain a friend during critical illness. "Fearful Saints" offers ways of understanding the complex issues which distance friends during illness. Close friends feel compelled to enter the world of suffering, but must first confront the terrifying images of illness. By examining Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer, and the story of Jesus asking his disciple Peter to wait with him in the garden, the concept of extending compassionate understanding during times of adversity becomes manageable. Although miracle potions may not be accessible, the reader learns to identify the role of comforter as one who will not permit an afflicted friend to travel through the experience alone.

Fear↗

Menstrual synchrony: only in roommates who are close friends?

This study examined menstrual synchrony among roommates residing in 20 university housing units. Menstrual synchrony was examined for roommates who were close friends and roommates who were not close friends, and by housing unit. The impact of personality, social-interaction and menstrual-related factors was also studied. To avoid limitations found in previous studies, (i) data were collected prospectively and (ii) over the entire academic year; (iii) high participation rate was obtained (86%); and (iv) women who used oral contraceptives were excluded. Menstrual synchrony was found among roommates who were close friends. Synchrony was not found for roommates who were not close friends, nor by housing units. The phenomenon of menstrual synchrony may more likely occur among close friends and women with intensive social contact than under the conditions common to university dormitories.

Adolescent↗

Perception of friends' use of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana among urban schoolchildren: a longitudinal analysis.

Relations between adolescents' substance use and perceptions of their friends' substance use were examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally in a predominantly African-American school district. Fourth- and fifth-grade students were surveyed and tracked for 4 consecutive years. Cross-sectional samples included 3,073, 5,955, 7,701, and 6,616 students in years 1 to 4, respectively; the longitudinal sample included 1,802 students surveyed in every year. Self-reported substance use of friends and classmates also was assessed. Perceived friends' substance use had a stronger association with prior substance use than friends' self-reported substance use in every year. Perceived family use and classmates' self-reported use also made independent contributions to regression models. Longitudinal structural equation analyses indicated that perceived friends' use is more likely to be a product of an adolescent's previous substance use than a precursor of subsequent substance use. The findings contradict prevailing theories on the influence of peers on substance use.

Black or African American↗

Can home smoking restrictions influence adolescents' smoking behaviors if their parents and friends smoke?

Research suggests that the presence of a total ban on smoking in the home is associated with a reduced likelihood of tobacco experimentation among adolescents. While the influence of parental smoking on this association is examined in this work, no study has examined the influence of friends' smoking behavior. In this study, we use data from a statewide survey of students (n=4125) from the Australian State of Victoria to examine the association between home smoking bans and stage of smoking uptake after controlling for parental smoking and smoking among friends. Logistic regression revealed that students residing in homes with a total ban on smoking were least likely to be susceptible to smoking or to have experimented with smoking. While there was an interaction between parental smoking status and home bans on smoking uptake stage, indicating that the effect of home bans was strongest when neither parent smoked, there was no interaction between home bans and friends' smoking. The results suggest that home smoking bans reduce the likelihood of an adolescent trying tobacco regardless of their friends' smoking behavior. By adopting strong home smoking bans, parents can reduce some of the influence friends' smoking can have on the smoking behavior of their adolescent.

Adolescent↗

Empathic accuracy in the interactions of male friends versus male strangers.

In unstructured interactions, male friends were found to be more accurate than male strangers in inferring each other's thoughts and feelings. Plausible reasons for this difference were that friends (a) interacted more and exchanged more information, (b) had more similar personalities and therefore more rapport with each other, and (c) had more detailed knowledge of each other's lives. Data confirmed that the friends did indeed interact more and were more similar in their sociability than the strangers; however, these differences did not account for the friends' greater empathic accuracy. Instead, this was primarily attributable to a difference in knowledge structures, namely, the friends' ability to accurately read their partners' thoughts and feelings about imagined events in another place or time.

Adult↗

Daily well-being of older adults with friends and family.

Family members are the major source of physical and emotional support for older adults, yet researchers suggest that friendships have a stronger bearing on subjective well-being. In this research we sought an explanation for this inconsistency in older adults' immediate experiences with friends. Retired adults provided self-reports on their subjective states at random moments during a typical week. Analyses of these reports confirmed the prediction that older adults have more favorable experiences with their friends than with family members. The difference is partly attributable to the greater frequency of active leisure activities with friends, but is also due to unique qualities of interactions with friends that facilitate transcendence of mundane daily realities. We propose that friends provide an immediate situation of openness, reciprocity, and positive feedback that engenders enjoyment and subjectively meaningful exchanges.

Aged↗

Adolescents' perceptions of physicians, nurses, parents and friends: help or hindrance in compliance with diabetes self-care?

Although compliance with self-care amongst adolescents with diabetes is known to be problematic, this issue has rarely been examined from the perspective of young diabetics themselves. The purpose of the study was to explore how adolescents with diabetes perceived the actions of physicians, nurses, parents and friends in relation to compliance with self-care. Fifty-one young diabetics aged from 13 to 17 responded to a questionnaire concerning compliance and were interviewed on the topic of compliance. Interview data were analysed by content analysis. The categories obtained were quantified and the relationship between compliance and the actions of physicians, nurses, parents and friends analysed by cross-tabulation. Interviews with 51 adolescents showed that the actions of physicians, nurses and parents described as motivating were associated with better compliance. Good compliance was also more evident when parental actions were perceived as accepting. Young diabetics whose friends offered silent support, or who viewed friends as irrelevant, were more likely to report good compliance. In contrast, physicians' actions described as routine/negligent, disciplined control by parents, and domination by friends were linked with poor compliance.

Adolescent↗

Cognition friendly interaction: A concept of partnership in human computer interaction.

This paper identifies yet another field of research, the discipline of human computer interaction, where the concept of self-similar fluctuations can play a vital role. A concept of interaction between computation and cognition is developed that is friendly toward the cognitive process. It is argued that friendly interactions must have a memory and be antipersistent. To cast this in a mathematical form, fluctuations in the interactions recorded over a period of time are studied, and it is shown that these fluctuations must necessarily be self-similar with the value of the self-similarity parameter confined to the interval (0, 1/2), for the interaction to be friendly. A statistical measure of complexity, of the interaction process, is also formulated as a function of the self-similarity parameter. Finally the question is raised as how to build a friendly software and a possible evolutionary process through which friendly softwares may emerge is indicated. (c) 2001 American Institute of Physics.

Journal Article↗

Interactive effect of support from family and friends in visually impaired elders.

The interactive relationship of high and low friend and family support for adaptation to chronic vision impairment was examined in 241 men and women. Two 2 (High/Low Family Support) x 2 (High/Low Friend Support) x 2 (Gender) multivariate analyses of covariance tested for psychological well-being, one with qualitative support measures, the other with quantitative support measures. Two analyses of covariance models tested for adaptation to vision loss. A significant multivariate 3-way interaction effect for qualitative support was found. Women with high support from both friends and family had better psychological well-being, whereas men with high support from both friends and family or just from family had better psychological well-being. Two univariate main effects showed that participants with high qualitative friend support and high quantitative family support had better adaptation to vision loss. Findings demonstrate the complexity of measuring and understanding relationships among social support, well-being, and domain-specific adaptation to chronic impairment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

I get by with a little help from my family and friends: adolescents' support for diabetes care.

Evaluated and compared the support provided by family members and friends for adolescents' diabetes care. Family and friend support also were examined in relation to other measures of social support, to demographic variables (age, gender, duration of diabetes) and to adherence. Using a structured interview, 74 adolescents with diabetes described the ways that family members and friends provided support for diabetes management (insulin shots, blood glucose monitoring, eating proper meals, exercise), and for helping them to "feel good about their diabetes." Families provided more support than friends for three management tasks (insulin injections, blood glucose monitoring, meals); this support was largely instrumental. In contrast, friends provided more emotional support for diabetes than families. Greater family support was related to younger age, shorter disease duration, and better treatment adherence. Implications of the findings include encouraging parents to remain involved in adolescents' treatment management, and involving peers as supportive companions for meals and exercise.

Adolescent↗

Glycolipids of mouse erythroleukemia cells (Friend cells) and their alteration during differentiation.

Neutral and acidic glycosphingolipids of Friend cells were characterized in 1) undifferentiated Friend cells (745A), 2) differentiated Friend cells induced with dimethyl-sulfoxide, and 3) solid tumors grown in mice after subcutaneous implantation of Friend cells. The structures of the isolated glycosphingolipids were determined by means of compositional analysis, methylation analysis and enzyme treatment. Gangliosides GD1a and N-acetylgalactosaminyl-GD1a, followed by GM1a and GM2, were the main gangliosides in undifferentiated Friend cells. GD1a and N-acetylgalactosaminyl-GD1a accounted for 45 and 25% of the total gangliosides, respectively. On differentiation, ganglioside GM2 decreased significantly, from 10% to a trace amount. In solid tumors, GD1a was the major ganglioside, whereas in contrast to the situation in the cultured cells, N-acetylgalactosaminyl-GD1a was almost completely absent, and ganglioside GM1b, but not GM1a, was detected. In addition, ganglioside GD1 alpha was detected in the solid tumors. Galactosylceramide, glucosylceramide, and lactosylceramide were the main neutral components in both types of cells, while globotetraosylceramide (globoside), IV3-N-acetyl-galactosaminyl globotetraosylceramide (Forssman glycolipid) and gangliotetraosylceramide (GA1) were major in solid tumors grown in vivo.

Animals↗

When children tell their friends they have AIDS: possible consequences for psychological well-being and disease progression.

OBJECTIVE: Past research has demonstrated that self-disclosure of traumatic or secretive information produces observable health benefits. Self-disclosure has also been linked, albeit less consistently, to improved psychological health. The present study examined the physiological and psychological consequences of children's self-disclosure of their HIV/AIDS status to friends. METHODS: Data were collected twice, one year apart, from 64 caregiver-child dyads in which all of the children were infected with HIV. Dependent variables included the child's CD4%, self-concept, and level of behavioral problems. RESULTS: Children who had disclosed their HIV+ diagnosis to friends during the 1-year course of the study had a significantly larger increase in CD4% than children who had told their friends before the study or those children who had not yet disclosed their HIV+ diagnosis to friends. This effect remained significant when the child's age and level of medication (protease inhibitors) were statistically controlled. Self-disclosure to friends did not impact the child's behavior or self-concept. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to investigate the effect of self-disclosure in children. The results were consistent with previous studies showing the positive health consequences of self-disclosure in adults, and suggest potentially important implications for professional and familial care givers of HIV/AIDS individuals.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

Adolescent dating violence: do adolescents follow in their friends', or their parents', footsteps?

Past research suggests that adolescents whose parents are violent toward one another should be more likely to experience dating violence. Having friends in violent relationships also may increase the odds of dating violence. The authors examined which antecedent, friend dating violence or interparental violence, if either, is more strongly predictive of own dating violence perpetration and victimization. Five hundred and twenty-six adolescents (eighth and ninth graders) completed self-report questionnaires on two occasions over a 6-month period. Consistent with hypotheses, friend dating violence and interparental violence each exhibited unique cross-sectional associations with own perpetration and victimization. However, only friend violence consistently predicted later dating violence. The authors explored influence versus selection processes to explain the association between friend and own dating violence.

Adolescent↗

The baby-friendly hospital initiative increases breastfeeding rates in a US neonatal intensive care unit.

This study evaluated the impact of a Baby-Friendly designation on breastfeeding rates in a US neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The medical records of all surviving infants directly admitted to the Boston Medical Center's level III, 15-bed NICU in 1995 (before Baby-Friendly policies were implemented) and 1999 (when Baby-Friendly status was granted) were reviewed. Infants receiving any breast milk by any means during the first week of enteral feeds were considered to have initiated breastfeeding. Maternal and infant demographics for 1995 and 1999 were comparable. The NICU breastfeeding initiation rate increased from 34.6% (1995) to 74.4% (1999) (P < .001). Among 2-week-old infants, the proportion receiving any breast milk rose from 27.9% (1995) to 65.9% (1999) (P < .001), and the proportion receiving breast milk exclusively rose from 9.3% (1995) to 39% (1999) (P = .002). The implementation of Baby-Friendly policies leading to a Baby-Friendly designation was associated with increased breastfeeding initiation and duration rates.

Adult↗

Length of male and female friendship and perceived intelligence in self and friend.

The Self-Rating Scale of Intelligence (SRSI) and the Otis intelligence test were administered to -20 pairs each of same-sex long-acquaintance males and females and 12 pairs each of same-sex short-acquaintance males and females. The SRSI provided subjects with the opportunity to make intelligence attributions to self, friend, and ideal friend and to provide the expected rating of self by the friend and people-in-general. Significant positive correlations were obtained from relating the within-person perceptions, while nonsignificant correlations were obtained from the relation of perceptions and objectively measured intelligence between friends. Self-concept support from the friend and from people-in-general were the more significant relationships identified across groups.

Female↗

Evidence-based medicine: watching out for its friends.

An old joke states that one need not worry about one's enemies, but may be in danger from one's friends. We review a number of "enemies" and "friends" of evidence-based medicine (EBM). To understand where these enemies and friends have come from, it is important to see how the rise of EBM has created shifts in power, especially within academic medicine. Attacks from "enemies"-especially the criticism that EBM amounts to overturning a medicine of the individual in favor of an undesirable population medicine-tend to reflect misunderstandings of EBM, or of the degrees of uncertainty inherent in medicine itself, rather than substantive criticisms. The activities of three categories of so-called friends might well give EBM an undesirable reputation. These "friends" are the practitioners of a crude version of EBM (uncritical acceptance of randomized controlled trials while rejecting all other forms of evidence), commercial sponsors of clinical trials whose biases distort the available evidentiary base, and bureaucrats who employ EBM practices in the service of inequitable rationing of health resources.

Academic Medical Centers↗

[Experience of the Baby Friendly Hospital initiative].

In the study is analyzed and described the initiative called "Initiative Baby Friendly Hospitals", a program which started in Brazil, 1992. This initiative intends to support, to protect and to promote the breastfeeding as proposed in a meeting in 1990 in Florence, Italy, which was promoted by WHO and UNICEF. The basic goal of this initiative is to mobilize health professionals and hospital or maternity workers for changing their routines and conducts aiming to prevent the early wean. The health establishments are evaluated based on the "ten steps for success of breastfeeding, a group of goals created in the same meeting. In Brazil, the evaluation is coordinated by the Federal Government through the PNIAM (Programa Nacional de Incentivo ao Aleitamento Materno). A baby friendly hospital, if approved, receives from the Minister of Health, a Federal Governmental Agency (SUS) a differential payment for childbirth assistance and prenatal accompaniment, 10% and 40%, more respectively. Until 1998 year there were 103 baby friendly hospitals in Brazil, with the majority of them located in the northeast area (68.1%). However, taking in accounting the number of 5650 hospitals linked to SUS in the country, less than 2.0% are baby friendly hospitals. On the basis of the experience and according with PNIAM data the implementation of the ten steps and the incentive to breastfeeding through baby friendly hospitals have resulted in a significant increase of breastfeeding incidence and duration in Brazil.

Brazil↗