This systematic review and meta-analysis compared the effects of 131 randomized controlled trials, published between 2006 and mid-2018, for dementia caregivers with community-dwelling care-recipients. A new classification of interventions was proposed to enable a more detailed examination of the effectiveness of psychological interventions; 350 postintervention effect sizes in 128 studies and 155 follow-up effect sizes in 55 studies were computed. Postintervention effects were significant for all outcomes when all interventions are pooled together. Follow-up effects were found for all outcomes, except physical health and positive aspects of caregiving. Educational programs with psychotherapeutic components, counseling/psychotherapy, and mindfulness-based interventions had the strongest effects on reducing depressive symptoms. Multicomponent and miscellaneous interventions had the largest effects on reduction of burden/stress. Multicomponent and mindfulness-based interventions had the largest effects on enhancing subjective well-being. It should be noted that mindfulness and counseling/psychotherapy studies generally had small samples, and studies with smaller sample sizes tended to report larger effects. Metaregression analyses revealed that, overall, younger caregivers benefited more from the interventions. Although the majority of studies were from North America and Europe, there were a growing number from Asia and other parts of the world. Recommendations were made, including developing new theoretical models that address caregivers' changing needs over time; development of interventions that can be flexibly administered and individually "tailored," and assessing positive as well as negative aspects of caregiving to encourage development of greater resilience. We conclude with observations on the global health significance of improving the impact of psychosocial interventions on caregivers' lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Objectives. We assessed the effectiveness of a 5-year trial of a comprehensive school-based program designed to prevent substance use, violent behaviors, and sexual activity among elementary-school students. Methods. We used a matched-pair, cluster-randomized, controlled design, with 10 intervention schools and 10 control schools. Fifth-graders (N = 1714) self-reported on lifetime substance use, violence, and voluntary sexual activity. Teachers of participant students reported on student (N = 1225) substance use and violence. Results. Two-level random-effects count models (with students nested within schools) indicated that student-reported substance use (rate ratio [RR] = 0.41; 90% confidence interval [CI] = 0.25, 0.66) and violence (RR = 0.42; 90% CI = 0.24, 0.73) were significantly lower for students attending intervention schools. A 2-level random-effects binary model indicated that sexual activity was lower (odds ratio = 0.24; 90% CI = 0.08, 0.66) for intervention students. Teacher reports substantiated the effects seen for student-reported data. Dose-response analyses indicated that students exposed to the program for at least 3 years had significantly lower rates of all negative behaviors. Conclusions. Risk-related behaviors were substantially reduced for students who participated in the program, providing evidence that a comprehensive school-based program can have a strong beneficial effect on student behavior.

Culture plays a role in mental health, partly by defining the characteristics that are indicative of positive adjustment. In Chinese cultures, positive family relationships are considered central to well-being. The culturally emphasized characteristic of family harmony may be an important factor associated with psychopathology. This article presents the development and psychometric examination of the Family Harmony Scale (FHS), an indigenously developed 24-item instrument tapping family harmony in 17,461 Hong Kong residents from 7,791 households. A higher-order model with 1 second-order factor and 5 first-order factors fit the data well and showed factorial invariance across sex and participants in different family roles. A 5-item short form (FHS-5) was also developed, with 1 item from each first-order factor. The short scale showed, as expected, a single-factor structure with good fit. Both scales demonstrated high internal consistency, acceptable test-retest reliability, and good convergent and discriminant validity. The 24-item FHS was negatively associated with depressive symptoms after accounting for individual risk factors and general family function. Family harmony moderated the relationship between life stress and depressive symptoms such that those individuals who reported low family harmony had stronger associations between life stress and depressive symptoms. This study adds to the literature a systematically developed, multidimensional measure of family harmony, which may be an important psychological protective factor, in a large urban Chinese sample. The FHS-5 minimizes operational and respondent burdens, making it an attractive tool for large-scale epidemiological studies with Chinese populations in urban settings, where over half of China's 1.4 billion people reside.

This article reports the effects of a comprehensive elementary school-based social-emotional and character education program on school-level achievement, absenteeism, and disciplinary outcomes utilizing a matched-pair, cluster-randomized, controlled design. The Positive Action Hawai'i trial included 20 racially/ethnically diverse schools (M enrollment = 544) and was conducted from the 2002–03 through the 2005–06 academic years. Using school-level archival data, analyses comparing change from baseline (2002) to 1-year posttrial (2007) revealed that intervention schools scored 9.8% better on the TerraNova (2nd ed.) test for reading and 8.8% on math, that 20.7% better in Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards scores for reading and 51.4% better in math, and that intervention schools reported 15.2% lower absenteeism and fewer suspensions (72.6%) and retentions (72.7%). Overall, effect sizes were moderate to large (range = 0.5–1.1) for all of the examined outcomes. Sensitivity analyses using permutation models and random-intercept growth curve models substantiated results. The results provide evidence that a comprehensive school-based program, specifically developed to target student behavior and character, can positively influence school-level achievement, attendance, and disciplinary outcomes concurrently.