Graduate lab member, Whitney recently presented her research regarding the impact of pets and animal assisted therapy on posttraumatic growth. The purpose of her research was to determine if owning pets, animal assisted therapy, social support, and stress impact posttraumatic growth. Her results showed that the amount of time spent with pets predicts posttraumatic growth in high school students. She also found that most of the participants who went through animal assisted therapy demonstrated increases in posttraumatic growth and perceived social support. Whitney will be presenting her research at the Lunch Bunch event which will take place on March 2nd in the Oakland Room of the Oakland Center from 12:00 to 12:50 pm.
Lab member, Jenna, presented an article Reliability and Validity of the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) Spanish Version by Rocío Rodríguez-Rey, Jesús Alonso-Tapia, and Helena Hernansaiz-Garrido. The purpose of this study was to adapt the BRS to the Spanish language and to demonstrate reliability and validity of this scale. The researchers hypothesized that the Spanish version of the BRS would demonstrate good validity and reliability and that participants with higher levels of stress would have lower resilience. Results indicated that the Spanish version of the BRS showed adequate reliability, validity, and sensitivity of its scores. Results also indicated differences in the level of resilience only significant between parents of critically ill children and parents of children with cancer. After discussing the article, Jenna presented her own hypotheses that she can potentially test during her time in the lab.
Lab member, Kyle, presented an empirical article, “Intrinsic religiosity, resilience, quality of life, and suicide risk in depressed inpatients” by Bruno Paz Mosqueiro, Neusa Sica da Rocha, and Marcelo Pio de Almeida Fleck. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how intrinsic religiosity is related to resilience in a population of depressed individuals and to evaluate suicide risk, clinical characteristics, quality of life, and social support. Results indicated that organizational religiosity, non-organizational religiosity, and intrinsic religiosity is associated with resilience. Those with high intrinsic religiosity reported higher social support and lower suicide attempts. Future research is needing to look at the culture context of intrinsic religiosity.
FF-PTG LAB 