2020
University Medical Center Groningen
At the beginning of the COVD-19 pandemic, UMC Groningen provided students an alternative way to continue making progress with their studies, allowing medical master students to write their theses early. I answered the call for research topics and started working online with two motivated students.
Floor investigated the effects of early adolescent social withdrawal on mental and physical health care utilization patterns in adulthood, whereas Futun investigated the effects of childhood shyness on adulthood educational attainment. Both projects were pre-registered. From supervising, I learned that I enjoy working with students on developing their own research ideas and writing styles.
Students: Floor Welling & Futun Khayat
Health care utilization of emerging adults who were socially withdrawn in early adolescence
Welling, F. (2020). Health care utilization of emerging adults who were socially withdrawn in early adolescence. (Master’s thesis, University of Groningen, UMCG Groningen)
Social withdrawal is an overarching term to describe multiple forms of refraining from social interaction in both familiar and unfamiliar situations, which is done for many different reasons (e.g. anxiety, social disinterest). Changes in life that come with emerging adulthood may be difficult to navigate for individuals with high levels of social withdrawal, leading to internalizing, socioemotional, and health problems and consequent increased overall health care utilization and health care utilization for mental purposes. A protective effect of social withdrawal on risk-taking might result in a decreased physical health care utilization. The effect of early adolescent (M = 11.11 years, SD = 0.55 years) parent-reported social withdrawal on both physical and mental health care utilization in emerging adulthood (M = 25.62 years, SD = 0.60) was measured with 1,060 participants from the Dutch population-based cohort of the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS). Multiple linear regression models were used with sex, ethnicity, educational status in emerging adulthood, and early adolescent family income as control variables. Early adolescent social withdrawal did not have a significant effect on physical or mental health care utilization. Social withdrawal was higher in boys than in girls. Girls and those with a lower educational status were more likely to seek physical and mental health care. Sex, ethnicity, educational status in emerging adulthood, and family income during early adolescence accounted for 2.2% and 2.3% of the variance in physical health care utilization and mental health care utilization, respectively. In conclusion, the current study did not find an effect of early adolescent social withdrawal on physical or mental health care utilization.
The associations between childhood shyness and educational outcomes in adulthood
Khayat, F. (2020). The associations between childhood shyness and educational outcomes in adulthood. (Master’s thesis, University of Groningen, UMCG, Groningen)
Objectives: the current study aims to investigate the associations between shyness at age 11 years and educational outcomes at age 26 years including: obtaining a university diploma, starting a new educational program, stopping an educational program without a diploma, and completing an educational program successfully, above and beyond the effects of depressive symptoms, sex, and ethnicity. Methods: there were 2,229 participants from the population-based cohort of the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS). The data used in this study were at waves one (MageT1 = 11.11 SD = 0.56, 50.8% girls) and six (MageT6 = 25.65 SD = 0.60, 55% females). The large majority of participants were from an ethnically Dutch origin (88.6%). Results: we conducted a binary logistic regression test to investigate the associations between the variables, controlling for depressive symptoms, sex and ethnicity. Conclusions: unexpectedly, we found that childhood shyness was not associated with educational outcomes in adulthood. This suggests that shyness nowadays, might no longer be an early predictor of long-term worse academic performance and academic achievement, and shy children perform no worse than their sociable peers. Additionally, we found that girls were less likely to obtain a university diploma and more likely to stop an educational program without obtaining a diploma at 26 years which could be possibly attributed to traditional sex roles.