Herman Hay Ming Lo

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University | PolyU · Department of Applied Social Sciences

Introduction Mothers of children with intellectual disability (ID) are often distressed because of intensive workloads and difficulties in communicating with their children. Given the interdependence between the psychosocial well-being of such dyads, interventions that promote parent–child relationships and mutual communication would be beneficial....

In this chapter, a brief introduction to mindfulness is offered, with an exploration of its qualities and processes that may benefit children. An overview of the existing mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) for children and adolescents are provided and highlight how these programs have been adapted from approaches originally developed for adults. Fin...

Unlabelled: Objectives: Depressive symptoms are common among older adults and many of them did not seek for professional help. Although Zentangle has been widely implemented in service centers for older adults in many societies, very limited empirical study has been conducted on the effects of this method. This study aims to evaluate the effects o...

Background: Traditional treatment alone might not effectively control the severity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Transcranial pulse stimulation (TPS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) technology used on older adults with mild neurocognitive disorders and adults with major depressive disorder. However, there...

This study examined the effects of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindful yoga and positive psychology interventions and identified common psychotherapeutic elements that exert critical treatment effects on Hong Kong Chinese students with special educational needs (SENs). Forty‐seven participants received CBT intervention while 42 and 41 part...

BACKGROUND Online mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) for parents and families, especially in clinical populations, are limited. Low engagement and substantial dropout are major issues in MBP implementation. OBJECTIVE In this pilot study, we examined the effects of an online MBP on parents of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (A...

There is growing research interest in experiential avoidance and psychological inflexibility across cultures. The original Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ) has strong construct validity, but its length has greatly restricted its application in research and clinical practice. In this study, we validated a 15-item version...

Objective: In this study, we investigated the effects of a mindfulness-based family psychoeducation (MBFPE) program on the mental-health outcomes of both caregivers and young adults with first-episode psychosis with an onset in the past three years through a multi-site randomized controlled trial. We also studied the outcomes of three potential me...

Parental hostility and emotional rejection—or aggregated as general harsh family interactions with parents—have received little research attention due to such parent-child interactions being counted as minor forms of parental maltreatment and regarded as being less harmful. However, recent research showed that these minor forms of parental maltreat...

Grounded in an integrative body-mind-spirit (BMS) approach, a brief daily workplace well-being program has been developed for community mental health workers (CMHW) who were vulnerable to burnout. Aiming to evaluate the program’s efficacy, this study adopted a multi-site randomized controlled trial design. Primary outcome measures included work eng...

Objective: The current study aims to examine the effects of mental health programs on well-being among highly engaged workers. Methods: Participants were randomly allocated to Body-Mind-Spiritual or Peer Support program. Of the whole sample, we examined participants’ work engagement and positive affect from the highest quarter (HWE) and the lowest...

Studies have consistently shown that family caregivers experience caregiver burden and depression when they provide care for family members with psychosis. Photovoice is a participatory action research method of fostering dialogues about personal experiences by sharing and discussing photographs that may improve our understanding about how a mindfu...

In this paper, the author has reviewed four pieces of practice research that aim to investigate the outcome of social care programmes. Special attention is given to the process where the concerns of social work practitioners and stakeholders, including academic supervisors, agency administrators, funders and policy makers involved in the dialogues....

Background: Psychological distress is a common occurrence among women during the perinatal period. Maternal psychological distress (MPS) can also have a negative influence on neonatal outcomes such as infant health, child development or mother-child interaction. Hence, interventions to improve mental wellbeing during this period are vital. Mindful...

Although the twenty-first century is deemed as a new era of globalization, waves of immigration continue, due to disparities between politically and economically unstable regions and Western democratized and developed countries. Immigration research has therefore reignited its attention on the successful adaptation of immigrants’ offspring, which h...

Studies have consistently showed that informal caregivers have worse health, more medical consultations, anxiety and depression, and lower quality of life than those who do not provide such care. Positive outcomes of psychoeducation interventions have been found, but many of them are relatively long in duration, making them less cost-effective in i...

Objectives The social unrest that began in Hong Kong in 2019 became a threat to public mental health, such as for depression and post-traumatic stress disorders. A supportive family environment is the most effective protective factor for mental health problems for young people who are exposed to conflict and violence. This study investigated the ou...

Child labour remains a prevalent global concern, and progress toward eradicating harmful children’s work appears to have stalled in the African continent and henceforth, integrated social policy intervention is still required to address the problem. Among several forms of social policy interventions, stomach infrastructure (i.e., in-kind and/or cas...

Objectives Mindfulness practice has been recommended as part of health and social care education and training because of its potential benefits in fostering clinical skills and attitudes, increasing self-care, and reducing the effect of stress in education and occupation. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of a mindfulness-ba...

Objectives: This review systematically synthesizes existing evidence of prospective memory training for healthy older adults (> 55 years). Existing prospective memory training include strategy-based, process-based and combined regimens. Strategy-based training focuses on different mnemonics to compensate for aging declines in prospective memory. P...

Objectives The present study is aimed at investigating the effects and mechanisms of the Mindful Parenting Program (MPP) on the stress of Chinese parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methods A total of 113 Chinese parents of children with ADHD were randomly assigned to the MPP group (n = 58) or the treatment as...

This study aimed to examine the role of positive relationships and academic achievement in predicting student well-being, i.e. subjective happiness. This study employed a longitudinal design with two waves of data collection on a sample of 786 primary school students in Hong Kong. Students completed questionnaires on parent-child relationship, teac...

Background: According to the minority stress theory, the minority stressors of gender-related discrimination, rejection, and victimization will increase depression in the transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) population. However, few studies focused on these relations in the context of mainland China, and the positive perspective of their re...

This study investigated the effects of self-efficacy and mindfulness on the quality of life of Chinese adolescents. The effects of gender, age, and perceived family functioning were also examined. This cross-sectional study was based on a sample of 462 Hong Kong adolescents 11 to 18 years of age. Self-reported measures were used to collect data on...

This study investigated the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a concurrent mindfulness program (MYmind) on Chinese adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and their parents in Hong Kong, China using a randomized controlled trial with a waitlist control group. Results showed the study had 80% compliance rate, 0% dropout rate, and 89% re...

Students in Hong Kong are facing tremendous stress due to the overly competitive atmosphere and high expectations of academic success from their parents. Although Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years, some of the traditional Confucian values remained embedded in Hong Kong citizens. Moreover, those values were highly influential fo...

Parental stress increases child behaviour problems, and mindful parenting is suggested to be a potential moderator. The aim of this study was to explore the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting (IM-P) scale in Taiwan Chinese and investigate the relationship of mindful parenting with parent and...

This study assessed the depression status of transgender individuals and their personality profiles for seeing the psychological functioning. We further compared their status with cisgender individuals and explored the role of personality profiles in explaining the variance of depression level among transgender and cisgender individuals. Seventy-on...

BACKGROUND Sexual health is a major concern among young adults worldwide, which helps prevent sexually transmitted infectious. To foster individual sexual health, the sexual health literacy should be enhanced. Seldom previous evidence designed to incorporate gender-power dynamics, such as sexual coercion, although the prevalence of sexual coercion...

Background Sexual health concerns among young adults worldwide help to motivate preventative practices against sexually transmitted infections. To foster better sexual health, sexual health literacy must be enhanced. Little research has been conducted on the impact of gender power dynamics on sexual health, such as sexual coercion, even though the...

Background Given the emotional demanding nature of social services, we developed a brief daily body-mind-spirit (BMS) program and successfully piloted it with workers at elderly services. The proposed study focuses on community mental health workers who are often under chronic stress and vulnerable to burnout.Methods The study aims to evaluate the...

Objective The present study examined the psychophysiological effects of Family-based Mindfulness Intervention (FBMI) on children and parents from disadvantaged families. Methods This randomized controlled trial recruited parents and their children from 51 disadvantaged families in Hong Kong and randomized them into FBMI (n = 26) and waitlist contr...

Mind-body intervention has been well established as an alternative psychosocial intervention for managing depression. Mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) and health qigong (HQ) are two common forms of mind-body intervention which share the common focus on breathing. However, they may represent two distinct approaches with different mechanisms. MBI...

Treatment options for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are limited. Some social work practitioners have attempted drama-based approaches to improve the functioning and well-being of such children. However, studies on such interventions are few, and their benefits to children with ADHD are uncertain. In this exploratory...

Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) among emerging adults, including heterosexuals and sexual minorities in the Chinese population, is poorly understood. Focusing on college students, the objectives of the present study were to estimate the prevalence of IPSV among Chinese emerging adults, examine the association between sexual orientation and...

Purpose To examine the effects of short-term psychological interventions on reducing family stress of economically disadvantaged families. Method Systematic review and meta-analytic procedures were used to synthesize the results of randomized controlled studies published between 1980 and 2018. Results The search yielded 8 studies that included re...

Background: With the advent of the recovery movement in mental health, a humanistic paradigm shift has occurred, placing the focus on personal recovery (i.e., hope, identity, and life meaning) instead of functional or clinical recovery only (i.e., symptom reduction or increases in physical function). Along the journey of recovery, people with bipo...

Family psychoeducation (FPE) has been recommended as a major component in the treatment of psychosis. Many previous studies have implemented an intensive program design that often only emphasized improvements in patients’ illness outcomes but the benefits for caregivers were limited. There have been calls for a time-limited but cost-effective FPE p...

Objective To evaluate the effects of family-based mindfulness intervention (FBMI) to promote the stress management and early development of economically disadvantaged families. Method Families receiving social security allowance and full textbook allowance and with children aged 5–7 were recruited. Participants were randomized to an FBMI with para...

The Smiley Activation Programme (SAP) is a home-based intervention that is targeted to reduce depressive symptoms in elderly Hong Kong Chinese. The SAP includes eight social worker’s home visits and two volunteer visits over 19 weeks and a three-month follow-up, integrating problem-solving treatment and behavioural activation. This study aims to ev...

Introduction Mindfulness is one of the potential alternative interventions for children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some evidence suggests that mindfulness is related to changes in brain regions associated with ADHD. The potential benefits of mindfulness on children with ADHD, as well as the feasibility of this interventio...

Mindfulness-based interventions are increasingly being used in parent training and family-based programs to improve family well-being. The Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting (IM-P) scale was adopted as a measure to investigate the quality of interpersonal mindfulness in parenting. We conducted a study to validate IM-P in Hong Kong Chinese commu...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01090.].

Gambling-related cognitions and negative psychological states have been proposed as major factors in the initiation and maintenance of problem gambling (PG). While there are a substantial number of studies supporting the role of cognitive dysfunctions in the initiation and maintenance of PG, very few empirical studies have explored the specific rol...

Very few clinical cognitive-behavioural intervention (CBI) studies were conducted with the Chinese gamblers. There is a lack of attention paid to intervening in negative emotions that may also adversely affect PGs in current CBI treatment modality. This study is the first attempt to systematically and rigorously evaluate both the short-term and lon...

Although parent–child discrepant perception of the family has been increasingly noted in the west, pertinent research is limited in Chinese societies. In addition, prior pertinent studies predominantly treated parent–child discrepant effects as independent of the general and aggregate family context, which are in fact inseparable. Furthermore, thes...

The multidimensional PERMA-H positive education model provided evaluation and education framework for the theoretical and practice development of positive psychology in schools. Character strengths use mediates the association of strength knowledge and well-being. Using the Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes (2nd Version) (APASO-I...

This exploratory study examined the relationship between family functioning and individual’s well-being across seven East Asian cities. 3,834 participants recruited through convenience sampling completed a family survey. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVAs, and hierarchical regression analyses were performed. Results showed that, among the surv...

Parents of children with developmental disabilities are more likely to report parental stress and depression. This, in turn, leads to vicious cycles of negative outcomes for these children and the family’s well-being. To address the difficulties of such parents, the authors developed a brief mindfulness-based program for parents of children with de...

Objective: The aim of the study is to investigate the feasibility of a family-based mindfulness intervention in improving children with inattention and hyperactivity symptoms. Method: A total of 100 children aged 5 to 7 years with ADHD symptoms and their parents were randomly assigned to a family-based mindfulness intervention ( n = 50) or a wai...

This was a pilot pre–post-intervention study with added qualitative focused group discussions and interviews to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and effects of a mindfulness-based intervention (the 8-week MYmind course) for Chinese children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) aged 8 to 12 years (n = 11) and one of their pare...

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to the variation in time interval between heart rates (RR-interval). Studies have demonstrated that emotional disorder is associated with lower HRV. Electrocardiography (ECG) is the conventional HRV measurement conducted by healthcare professionals. Wearable devices with HRV measurement function may b...

This study examined the relationship between childhood physical abuse and adolescent suicidal ideation in Hong Kong, China. Emotional competence and resilience were investigated as possible moderators of the relationship between physical abuse and suicidal ideation. A cross-sectional survey using convenience sampling was conducted and a total of 26...

Suicidal ideation is defined as the thoughts about engaging in suicidal-related behaviors. Very few studies have been conducted on children’s suicidal ideation as there is a biased perception that suicidal behavior under the age of 12 is scarce. However, suicide is the leading cause of death among young children. Child suicidal ideation is predicti...

Previous family studies mainly treated parenting behavior as corresponding to family socialization, which is in fact a multifaceted concept. In the present study, two family socialization constructs, family processes and parenting practices, were simultaneously investigated for their relative effects on the adolescent development of internalizing a...

Previous family studies mainly treated parenting behaviour as corresponding to family socialisation, which is in fact a multifaceted concept. In the present study, two family socialisation constructs, family processes and parenting practices, were simultaneously investigated for their relative effects on the adolescent development of internalising...

Purpose: Theories explaining the impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on mental health have focused on heterosexual relationships. It is unclear whether mental health disparities between heterosexual and sexual minority people are due to IPV or factors related to sexual orientation. The present study aimed to investigate pathways of how sexua...

This research was conducted in Hong Kong investigating whether parental anxiety increases the risk of children developing depression, and whether positive psychological traits, including optimism, life satisfaction, hope and gratitude, can moderate this association. In a community sample, 439 Chinese primary school children completed questionnaires...

Background: The association between using smartphone dating applications (apps) and substance use in conjunction with sexual activities was only examined in homosexual men. This association was poorly understood in heterosexual samples. Objective: To explore the association between using dating apps and alcohol, and use of recreational drug in c...

Dating applications (apps) on smartphones have become increasingly popular. The aim of this study was to explore the association between the use of dating apps and risky sexual behaviours. Data were collected in four university campuses in Hong Kong. Subjects completed a structured questionnaire asking about the use of dating apps, sexual behaviour...

Study instument for assessing the use of dating apps, sexual behaviorus and sociodemograhpics. (PDF)

Objective: This study aims to explore the association between using smartphone dating applications (apps) and having unprotected sex with a casual sex partner. Study design: This is a cross-sectional study. Students were recruited from four university campuses in Hong Kong by convenience sampling. Main outcome measures: Subjects completed a st...

Background About 4 % of children in Hong Kong have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The parents of children with ADHD report higher levels of stress and show more negative parenting behavior. Medication and behavior training are evidence-based treatments, but both show significant limitations. In short, medical treatment is not suit...

Background Research suggests that an 8-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course may be effective for generalised anxiety disorder (GAD).AimsTo compare changes in anxiety levels among participants with GAD randomly assigned to MBCT, cognitive-behavioural therapy-based psychoeducation and usual care.Method In total, 182 participants wit...

It critically examines recent literature on stress among Hong Kong youth in order to clarify misconceptions about its nature and function, to examine some of the main sources of stress among youth in Hong Kong, to illustrate an alternative perspective of stress-related problems in terms of 'protective factor' rather than 'stressors', to present the...

In this chapter we examine critically recent literature on depression among Hong Kong youths in order to clarify misconceptions about the incidence rate in this specific group to highlight some of the main correlates and predictors for depression in the local context to present some of the interactions between depression, coping strategies, and soc...

This chapter critically examines recent literature on stress among Hong Kong youth in order to clarify misconceptions about its nature and function, to examine some of the main sources of stress among youth in Hong Kong, to illustrate an alternative perspective of stress-related problems in terms of ‘protective factors’ rather than ‘stressors,’ to...

The research team developed a mindfulness course for less academically able adolescents which aims to help them improve their emotional regulation and affective control with the ultimate aim of improving their academic performances. For the duration of the course in three secondary schools in Hong Kong high dropout rate and low attendance rate amon...

The study investigated the relationship among physical abuse, positive psychological factors including emotional competence and social problem-solving, and suicidal ideation among adolescents in China. The possible moderating effects of emotional competence and social problem-solving in the association between physical abuse and adolescent suicidal...

Objective To evaluate the effects of compassion–mindfulness therapy (C-MT), an adapted version of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy that integrates compassion training. Method Individuals aged 17–69 with recurrent depressive and anxiety symptoms were recruited from a community mental health service unit. Half of the participants were randomized...

Compassion practices originating from the Buddhist meditation traditions have aroused considerable interest among many Western practitioners and researchers over the past decade. In this article the author explores the potential of compassion practice for clinical interventions by examining psychological conflict experienced among East Asian popula...