Paper
Saturday, July 24, 2004
This presentation is part of : School Health
Evaluating Harmful Teasing Among Middle School American Youth
June Andrews Horowitz, PhD, APRN-BC, FAAN, William F. Connell School of School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA, Judith A. Vessey, PhD, MBA, FAAN, School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA, and Katherine Gregory, RN, MSN, William F, Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA.
Learning Objective #1: Describe the development and psychometric properties of the Child-Adolescent Teasing Scale (CATS)
Learning Objective #2: Examine the effectiveness of a standardized violence prevention program in reducing reported levels of harmful teasing as measured by the CATS
Objective: The CATS: Child-Adolescent Teasing Scale (R01 NR 04838), is a psychometrically defensible instrument designed to identify middle school youths at-risk for negative psychological sequelae from chronic teasing/bullying. In addition to serving as a measure of the degree of teasing experienced, the CATS has promise as an intervention outcome measure. Therefore, the hypothesis tested in this study is: “After completing a violence prevention program, students will have lower CATS scores and Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) than their peers who did not participate in the program.”

Population, Sample, Setting, Years: Students, grades 6 – 8 (N=500), have been recruited using systematic sampling from the health education classes of two middle schools of comparable socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds in an urban school district in southeastern Massachusetts, U.S. Students from the intervention school are participating in the Second Step violence prevention curriculum while students in the second school are serving as controls.

Variables Studied Together: teasing, psychosocial distress

Methods: All students have completed a demographic form, the CATS, and the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC); for controls this was done prior to the initiation in the Second Step curriculum. At the end of the academic year (June, 2004), all participants will again complete the CATS and PSC. Groups initially will be compared for differences among key demographic variables. Only subject cases with non-missing data on the CATS or PSC will be used in the analyses. Primary data analytic techniques include: t-tests, ANOVA, and Chi-square.

Findings: Pending.

Conclusions: Pending.

Implications: Information from this study will provide additional support for validation of the CATS including its sensitivity and specificity. Outcomes also will help inform professionals concerning the effectiveness of a standardized violence prevention program.

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