School of Psychology
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This collection contains Honours, Masters and Ph.D by coursework theses from University of Adelaide postgraduate students within the School of Psychology. The material has been approved as making a significant contribution to knowledge.
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Browsing School of Psychology by Author "Arendt, Molly"
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Item Open Access "Australian Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and the Integration of These Views in Healthcare Services"(2022) Arendt, Molly; School of PsychologyBackground: In Australia, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) has often been misrepresented, resulting in issues with prevention, diagnosis and care. Utilising stakeholder feedback to improve healthcare has been successful with other chronic illnesses, though has not yet been applied to FASD in an Australian context. Aims: To explore and summarise Australian stakeholders’ perspectives and recommendations concerning the diagnosis and management of FASD and to determine whether these recommendations are being utilised in Australian healthcare. Methods and Procedures: Six-step reflexive thematic analysis was utilised to analyse 69 publicly available written submissions to the 2019 Federal Australian Senate Inquiry into FASD. Subsequently, directed content analysis was employed to determine whether stakeholders’ FASD recommendations have been enacted in Australia. Outcomes and Results: A prevention-related superordinate theme - ‘FASD does not have to happen’ – was generated, under which three themes, each with subthemes, were generated: ‘Health professionals inadvertently perpetuate FASD stereotypes’, ‘Mitigating risk without stigmatising pregnant women is vital’, and ‘Community awareness reduces the burden of disease’. The content analysis demonstrated limited implementation of stakeholders’ recommendations in FASD care in Australia. Conclusions and Implications: FASD prevention is possible; however, appropriate health professional education and mandatory protocols for effective alcohol labelling are needed.Item Open Access Australian Women’s Knowledge of and Attitudes towards Non-Medical Oocyte Cryopreservation(2020) Arendt, Molly; School of PsychologyAims: Infertility is a global public health issue, with one in six couples worldwide facing fertility issues. One technique to potentially combat this issue and preserve fertility is oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing), which has previously been heavily researched among cancer patients. The present study focused on egg freezing for non-medical indications and aimed to determine which factors are associated with the decision to freeze eggs. Method: 514 participants aged between 18-44 years completed an online survey exploring knowledge of fertility, reproductive intentions and attitudes towards non-medical egg freezing. All factors were analysed descriptively. T-tests and Chi-Square analyses were also used to check for significant differences. Eighteen variables, identified as significant predictors of egg freezing in prior literature, were entered into a binary multiple logistic regression. Results: Overall, participants had poor knowledge of fertility with a mean score of 2.35/7 (SD= 1.31) on the adapted Swedish Fertility Awareness Questionnaire. Attitudes towards non-medical egg freezing were generally positive, with 61.3% of participants (N= 315) positively endorsing the procedure. Five variables were identified as predictors for the choice to undergo non-medical egg freezing: age, health of offspring, the importance of having children, having had a prior fertility consultation, and Medicare subsidisation. Conclusions: This study demonstrated an increasingly pressing need for targeted and effective fertility information. Future research, specifically examining the impacts of age and cost on the decision to undergo non-medical egg freezing in an Australian sample would be beneficial to determine if the results are replicable or the result of individual differences.