Sara L Dolan

Sara L Dolan
Baylor University | BU · Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

Doctor of Philosophy

About

60
Publications
21,545
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3,143
Citations

Publications

Publications (60)
Article
Objective: The current study examined the association between subjective and objective cognitive measures and alcohol use in college students. Objective cognitive impairment is associated with alcohol use, however subjective cognitive impairment remains understudied in at-risk populations. Participants: Data were collected from 140 undergraduate st...
Article
Background: Head injuries are common injury in the fire service; however, very little data exist on the risks this may pose to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in this high-risk population. Aims: Our study aimed to compare levels of PTSD and depression symptoms in firefighters with a line-of-duty head injur...
Article
Full-text available
Prolonged social isolation is associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes, findings observed in both humans, and rodent models of isolation. Humans, like mice, may engage in enhanced exploratory and social behaviour following isolation, which may protect against subsequent cognitive decline and psychological distress. Understanding how...
Article
Suicide is a significant concern among fire service due to high rates of suicide behaviors. The aim of this study was to describe suicides among firefighters using national suicide death data. Data from the National Violent Death Reporting System for 722 firefighters and 192,430 non-firefighters were analyzed to compare sociodemographics and risk f...
Poster
The relationship between subjective and objective measures of cognitive functioning in individuals at-risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD) is still not fully understood. The aims of the current study were to (1) examine the relationships between problematic drinking (an indicator of risk for AUD) and subjective and objective cognitive functioning, a...
Article
Drug Court Treatment (DCT) Programs seek to integrate substance abuse treatment into the criminal justice system by providing a structured environment for offenders who engage in treatment in lieu of incarceration. DCT has shown successes in reducing drug/alcohol use, recidivism, and cost, but the impact of DCT on non-substance-related mental healt...
Article
Background: Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a nationwide problem; yet, no firefighter mTBI data are available. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we assessed retrospective head injuries using WHO guidelines. We captured mTBI frequency and examined firefighters’ symptoms (e.g., using Ohio State University Traumatic Brain Injury Identifica...
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Full-text available
Objective: Experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion synergistically form what is known as the closed response style. Prior study findings indicate that the closed response style, examined as an interaction between experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion, relates to posttraumatic stress symptom severity among a heterogeneous sample of trauma...
Article
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious public health problem that plagues millions of people worldwide. Treatment programs for perpetrators of IPV have had limited success, suggesting a need to better understand factors related to perpetration of IPV to develop more effective treatment. Biological and neuropsychological correlates have gained...
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Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are among the most common psychological disorders experienced by Americans. Only 10% of individuals with this disorder receive treatment, and the most popular treatment is some form of 12-Step involvement. Although there is evidence for the efficacy of 12-Step treatment, most AUD treatment providers are not well versed...
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To improve understanding and treatment of criminal behavior, researchers have developed typologies of juvenile offenders, primarily focusing on personality traits and criminal history to classify according to type of offense committed. Existing literature has examined underlying personality characteristics found in different subcategories of crimin...
Poster
The Weather Prediction Task (WPT) is a probabilistic category learning task that taps implicit and explicit memory processes. While the WPT has been used to assess memory functioning in several different populations, there are no studies examining the relationship between alcohol use and performance on the task. Furthermore, while alcohol use disor...
Article
Although research on military populations has found that measures of personal well-being are correlated with both intimate partner cohesion and military unit cohesion, it is not clear how these correlations should be interpreted. Based on Relationship Regulation Theory, it was expected that each type of interpersonal relationship would have indepen...
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Mental contamination occurs when individuals experience feelings of internal dirtiness and distress in the absence of physical contact with a contaminant. Women who experience sexual trauma frequently report mental contamination. The self-regulatory executive function (S-REF) model proposes that metacognitive beliefs contribute to the appraisal and...
Article
The majority of individuals exposed to trauma do not go on to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); thus, researchers have sought to identify individual difference variables that make one particularly susceptible to posttraumatic stress symptoms. Trait anxiety is one individual difference variable implicated in the pathogenesis of posttraum...
Poster
Executive functioning (EF) is related to risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD), but continued study is necessary to elucidate its impact. While objective assessments are traditionally used to measure EF, they are not always predictive of future AUD. We hypothesized that objective measures of EF are not sensitive enough to consistently detect impairme...
Poster
Current research suggests that neuropsychological measures of executive functioning and impulsivity predict problematic alcohol use in alcohol abusers. However, self-reports of functioning do not always correlate with actual performance on neuropsychological measures. In the current study, we examined the role of self-reported executive functioning...
Article
The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between food consumption behaviors and measures indicative of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and negative emotional states, including depression, anxiety, and stress. Soldiers (N = 351) preparing to deploy from Fort Hood completed a series of self-report measures. Those with higher stre...
Article
Military research on family resilience has not examined the contribution of family-of-origin to resilience of service-members. In this study, researchers investigated the extent to which predeployed service-members’ perception of resilience was related to characteristics of family-of-origin. The sample consisted of 344 U.S. Army soldiers within 6 m...
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Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine how sleep quality affects cognitive functioning in returning combat veterans after accounting for effects of combat exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) history. Method: This was a cross-sectional assessment study evaluating combat exposure, PTSD...
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Purpose: The present research tested the hypothesis that action- and emotion-focused coping strategies would mediate the relationship between neuropsychological functioning and quality of life among a sample of returning Iraq/Afghanistan veterans. Method: Veterans (N = 130) who served as part of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan completed a diagn...
Poster
Full-text available
The role of sleep quality in the relationship between combat experiences and combat related conditions on cognitive functioning
Article
Impulsivity and distress tolerance (DT) have been implicated as key features in development and maintenance of substance use disorders. This study expanded on previous research by exploring the four factors of DT (Absorption, Appraisal, Regulation, Tolerance) and their interaction with impulsivity in relation to substance use. Participants were 105...
Poster
Full-text available
Sleep quality as a mediator between combat experiences and neuropsychological outcomes in Iraq/Afghanistan veterans
Article
This study explored the experiences of parents of service members, military family members who are often overlooked even though they are likely a vital source of support for their military adult-children. Reflections on deployment of military adult-children were gathered from 21 parents in semistructured group interviews. A framework of ambiguous l...
Article
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False memory susceptibility was measured in 80 Iraq/Afghanistan veterans with (n = 32) and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; n = 48) using a modified Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) word list task that included trauma-related critical (nonpresented) lures. PTSD was classified using medical record diagnoses. Participants completed a variet...
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Abstract Individuals frequently use the Internet to search for medical information. For some individuals, repeated searches for medical information on the Internet exacerbate health anxiety. Researchers have termed this phenomenon "cyberchondria" and have suggested that cyberchondria might relate to the excessive use of the Internet for other purpo...
Article
Coping style may partially account for the frequent co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol-use disorders (AUD). We hypothesized that PTSD symptom severity, avoidant coping, and action-oriented coping would interact, such that veterans high on PTSD symptoms and avoidant coping and low on action-oriented coping would report...
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Positive religious engagement has numerous benefits for individuals struggling with mental health difficulties. There is, however, a dearth of literature addressing ways that secular psychologists can engage a client’s religious belief system in a manner that allows the positive benefits of the client’s religious and/or spiritual involvement to be...
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Previous research has revealed significant associations between distress tolerance (DT) with the maintenance and extinction of various symptoms of psychopathology. The current study investigated DT as a predictor of symptom experience in depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PSS) in a substance abuse population. Participants were 64 men an...
Article
Coping is an important part of substance use disorders in terms of use, treatment, and recovery. In this longitudinal study, participants were 25 patients at a 28- to 90-day residential substance abuse treatment facility. All coping strategies were measured using the Urge-Specific Coping Strategies and General Coping Strategies measures. Paired sam...
Article
Introduction: Intolerance of discomfort associated with recent smoking cessation has been studied with only one smoking-specific questionnaire. The present study investigates the extent to which the previously validated Intolerance for Smoking Abstinence Discomfort Questionnaire (IDQ-S) scales share variance with (a) laboratory measures of distres...
Article
Background: The present study examined the efficacy of various specific lifestyle and situation-specific coping skills by determining the relationship of each of these strategies to drinking outcomes. Methods: Patients with alcohol dependence in intensive day treatment (n=165) were participating in a randomized trial of naltrexone versus placebo...
Poster
Action focused coping as a mediator between social support and depression in an alcohol dependent in-patient treatment sample
Poster
Full-text available
Distress tolerance as a mediator between Depression and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder symptoms in an alcohol dependent in-patient treatment sample
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The American Psychological Association has recently issued a call for psychologists to redouble their efforts to eradicate homelessness (APA, 2010). Many may struggle with perceived challenges to beginning such work, yet contributing is not necessarily a complex or time-intensive task. Our collaboration with a faith-based homeless service agency pr...
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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are highly prevalent among Veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. These conditions are associated with common and unique neuropsychological and neuroanatomical changes. This review synthesizes neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies for both of these disorde...
Poster
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Action and Emotion-Focused Coping Styles as a Mediator between Neuropsychological Functioning and Quality of Life Outcomes in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veteran
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A substantial proportion of the more than 2 million service members who have served in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) have experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Understanding the long-term impact of TBI is complicated by the nonspecific nature of postconcussive symptoms (PCSs) and the high rates of co-occur...
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Problem gambling can create major financial, emotional and sometimes criminal problems for an individual. This study prospectively investigated the association between impulsive behavior at age 7 and the development of life-time problem gambling by adulthood. We also examined the specificity of any observed association between impulsive behaviors a...
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Morgellons Disease is a condition involving painful skin lesions, fibrous growths protruding from the skin, and subcutaneous stinging and burning sensations, along with symptoms of anxiety, depression, fatigue, and memory and attention deficits. The etiological and physiological bases of these symptoms are unclear, making the diagnosis controversia...
Poster
Full-text available
Differences in coping strategies implemented among substance abusers in residential treatment.
Article
The relationships between family history of substance use, executive functions, impaired decision making, and current substance dependence are the focus of this study. Thirty-eight substance-dependent inpatients were compared with 30 community controls on performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Trail-Making Test-B, the Stroop Color Word Tes...
Article
Little research has been conducted on the relationship of self-efficacy at treatment entry to individual differences or to treatment outcome for patients with cocaine dependence. Those relationships were examined in 163 cocaine-dependent patients in a residential treatment program using two measures of self-efficacy administered in the first week o...
Article
Schizophrenics have deficits in neuropsychological performance, some of which are modified by cigarette smoking. These patients also have high rates of smoking and resistance to smoking cessation interventions. We examined whether the presence of neuropsychological deficits prior to smoking cessation treatment was associated with smoking cessation...
Article
On a decision-making instrument known as the "gambling task" (GT), a subgroup of substance dependent individuals (SDI) opted for choices that yield high immediate gains in spite of higher future losses. This resembles the behavior of patients with ventromedial (VM) prefrontal cortex lesions. In this study, we addressed the possibility that hypersen...
Article
A decision-making instrument known as the "gambling task" was used, which has been shown to be sensitive to the decision-making impairment of patients with bilateral lesions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VM). Three groups of subjects were tested, substance dependent individuals (SD) (n=41), normal controls (n=40), and VM patients (n=5). Al...
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Clinical researchers have recently begun to explore differences between psychotherapy outcome studies that focus on efficacy and those that focus on effectiveness. The authors provide concise descriptions of these research models, followed by more extended consideration of the most important conceptual and empirical distinctions between the two. Re...

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