Substance-use disorders and psychological distress among police arrestees

Objectives: To determine the 12-month prevalence of substance-use disorders and psychological morbidity in an Australian arrestee population. Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study. Participants and setting: 288 police arrestees at the Brisbane City Police Watch House in February and March 2001. Outcome measures: Prevalence of drug and alcohol disorders; psychological caseness according to the 28-item General Health Questionnaire; demographics and index offences. Results: 86% of the arrestees had at least one substance-use disorder; most had multiple disorders. More than 80% were substance dependent. The predominant substances used were amphetamines, marijuana, opioids and alcohol. 82% of the men and 94% of the women were suffering significant psychological distress. Conclusions: Development of services for detoxification and treatment of this population is a pressing need. The findings provide crucial information for the planning and implementation of drug courts and court diversion systems.

Long-term outcomes of an Australian universal prevention trial of anxiety and depression symptoms in children and youth: An evaluation of the friends program

This study evaluated the long-term effectiveness of the FRIENDS Program in reducing anxiety and depression in a sample of children from Grade 6 and Grade 9 in comparison to a control condition. Longitudinal data for Lock and Barrett's (2003) universal prevention trial is presented, along with data from 12-month follow-up to 24- and 36-month follow-up. Results of this study indicate that intervention reductions in anxiety reported in Lock and Barrett were maintained for students in Grade 6, with the intervention group reporting significantly lower ratings of anxiety at long-term follow-up. A significant Time times Intervention Group times Gender Effect on Anxiety was found, with girls in the intervention group reporting significantly lower anxiety at 12-month and 24-month follow-up but not at 36-month follow-up in comparison to the control condition. Results demonstrated a prevention effect with significantly fewer high-risk students at 36-month follow-up in the intervention condition than in the control condition. Results are discussed within the context of prevention research.

Passion and psychological adjustment: A test of the person-environment fit hypothesis

Passion represents a strong inclination toward an activity that is important, liked, and in which significant time is invested. Although a harmonious passion is well integrated in one’s identity and is emitted willingly, obsessive passion is not well integrated and is emitted out of internal pressure. This study tested for the presence of a Passion × Environment fit interaction with respect to psychological adjustment. Elite hockey players (N = 233) who tried out for a team in a highly competitive league participated in this short-term longitudinal study. As hypothesized, being selected by the highly competitive leagues led to higher psychological adjustment than not being selected by such leagues. Two months later, an interaction revealed that among athletes who were playing in highly competitive leagues, obsessively passionate athletes reported higher psychological adjustment than did harmonious athletes. Conversely, among athletes playing in less competitive leagues, harmonious athletes reported higher psychological adjustment than did obsessive athletes.

Behavioural and neurochemical correlates of drugs acting at imidazoline and a2-adrenoceptor binding sites

A number of agents with differing selectivity profiles for the non-a2 adrenoceptor binding site (NAIBS), imidazoline preferring receptor (IPR) and a2-adrenoceptor were employed in a series of behavioural and neurochemical experiments to determine a functional role for the former two sites. The highly selective NAIBS ligand RX801 077 produced an increase in rat brain extracellular noradrenaline (NA) levels, as determined by the technique of in vivo microdialysis, which may underlie its ability to produce a discriminable cue in the same species. This increase in NA may be due to a suggested link between the NAIBS and the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) activity of RX801 077. For instance, the RX801 077 cue was substituted for by the MAOI drugs pargyline and moclobemide, which themselves down regulate NAIBS when administered chronically. RX811 059 substituted for the RX801 077 cue which may be due its ability to stimulate NA release via its activity as a highly selective a2-adrenoceptor antagonist. An effect upon NA output may also explain the ability of RX801 077 to 'mimic' the anti-immobility effect of the antidepressant drug desmethylimipramine (DMJ) in the forced swimming test. Further studies are therefore required to examine a possible role for the NAIBS in the treatment of depression. Discriminable cues were also produced by RX811 059 and the a2- adrenoceptor agonist clonidine, probably as a consequence of their respective ability to stimulate and inhibit NA output via their opposing activity at a2-adrenoceptors. The IPR has been suggested to play a role in mediating the hypotensive effect of clonidine, although a precise role was unable to be established for this site in the present studies due to the unavailability of highly selective IPA agents.