UNIverse - Public Research Portal

Projects & Collaborations

5 found

Show per page

Project cover

Childhood Trauma - Questioning, understanding, exploring, seeing, testing (CT-Quest)

Research Project | 2 Project Members

Different forms of adverse and stressful exposures are highly prevalent in childhood across different societies and populations. These early life adversities (ELA) are linked to diverse health-related risks later-on. Despite the need to better understand nature and consequences of ELA, conceptualization and valid measurement of stressors and adversities are still being debated by experts in the field. To address these discussions, we need to challenge common paradigms, and to raise the bar towards more methodologically rigorous research. The debate includes two important and related issues: Is one of our most broadly used assessments, the "Childhood Trauma Questionnaire" (CTQ), still a valid and reliable measure? And, how can we better measure neglect, the most frequent but also mis-measured form of ELA?

Project cover

Masked Emotions

Research Project | 7 Project Members

The ability to recognize different emotions in faces is a fundamental prerequisite in emotion processing, which covers the experience, expression, and control of different emotions. The development of emotion recognition and emotion processing skills is vital for healthy child development and establishment of mental wellbeing. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are required to wear masks not only in many public places, but also in schools and child daycare facilities. However, many people are worried about the effects that masked faces might have on child socio-emotional development. While first studies indicate that adults might indeed experience problems in recognizing emotions in masked faces, we do not know about any potential effects in children. Moreover, studies in healthy adults have mainly looked at emotion recognition in static pictures, which have limited ecological validity. The goal of this project is to develop a psychological test for children and adults that measures emotion recognition skills in masked and non-masked dynamic faces. After validation, the test may be used as a diagnostic tool. Moreover, we plan to use the test to examine long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on emotion recognition in children.

Project cover

Study on Mobile Phone Attraction, Relationship Ties, Social Interactions, Emotion Regulation, and Stress (SMARTIES)

Research Project | 11 Project Members

Mobile devices have become an essential part of our everyday life. Our smartphones grant access to work, entertainment, information, and to other people - anyplace and anytime. This permanent accessibility offers many benefits but also bears some risks. In the family environment, research on the risks and benefits of digital devices has mainly focused on child use. However, if and how parental problematic use of smartphones and other devices affects the socio-emotional development of children remains unclear. On the one hand, spending time on mobile devices reduces the time parents spend in direct interaction with their children. Because children learn many socio-emotional skills in direct interaction with their parents, a reduction in high-quality parent-child interactions increases the risk for child behavioral problems. On the other hand, using social networks might also increase the feeling of connectedness in the family. The aim of the proposed research project is to investigate the association between parental smartphone use and child socio-emotional development, and to assess the role of parent-child interactions in this association. To examine our research question, we are planning a large online study including German-speaking Swiss parents with children age 2-16. In addition, we will invite 150 parents with their 4-7-year-old children to the laboratories of the Child- and Adolescent Research Department of the Psychiatric University Hospitals (UPK). During the one-hour lab assessment, we will record and score parent-child interaction patterns in different situations and test different socio-emotional skills in children using developmental tests. In the long-term, the results will be highly relevant to formulate guidelines to advise parents on digital media use and screen time not only for their children but also for themselves.

Project cover

SWIPE: Swiss Study on Preschool Screen Exposure

Research Project | 1 Project Members

SWIPE (SWIss study on Preschool screen Exposure) is a national project across Switzerland to assess the frequency and modality of the used of screen-based media in Swiss children from birth to five years of age. Several institutions across Switzerland are contributing to this project, including the FHNW, HETSL, HfH, PHTG, USI, UKBB, UPK Basel and ZHAW. We aim to run an online survey that will consist of a “core-assessment” (sociodemographic information and screen time of the oldest child in the age group of 0 to 5 in the family) as well as different spinoff modules. These modules are defined by the participating institutions, each with a separate research question investigating different aspects of infant and parental screen time.

Project cover

Social-ecological context, health behaviours, and disruptive behaviour in young children

Research Project | 1 Project Members

The project will determine the relationship among family context and child health behaviours (screen use, drinking sugar sweetened beverages, physical activity, sleep duration) at 3-4 years with later disruptive behaviour at 5-6 years. Disruptive behaviour, such as temper tantrums, defiance, impulsivity, and aggression affect 9-15% of young children and interfere with a child’s adjustment to routines, social relationships, and learning opportunities. Disruptive behaviour is highly distressing for both child and family. Family context, including income, neighbourhood quality, and family functioning is associated with disruptive behaviour. Likewise, child health behaviours, such as too little physical activity or sleep, too much screen time, or poor eating behaviours, are also associated with disruptive behaviour. However, it is unclear how different family contexts and child health behaviours combine to impact child disruptive behaviour. The proposed study will use data already collected on 3,000 children aged 3-4 years and new data collected at 5-6 years from primary care. We will use computer algorithms to find the family context variables and child health behaviours that are most robustly associated with child disruptive behaviour. Then, we will identify profiles in family context variables and child health behaviours to see how different combinations and patterns of these variables are associated with disruptive behaviour. Understanding the specific patterns of family context and child health behaviours that give rise to disruptive behaviours is a key step to extend interventions with contextual relevance.