Hello!

My name is Su bin An and I am a rising senior at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in Psychology. I transferred to Pitt in my sophomore year from a university in South Korea. Previously, I majored in Education, but as I poured into this field, I became more interested in children’s mental health rather than academic teaching. This led me to where I am now!

This summer, I was fortunate to receive the Brackenridge Fellowship through David C. Frederick Honors College for my independent research project. My project focuses on the effect of caregivers’ stress on social stress of adolescents at clinical high-risk for psychosis (CHR-P). Those at CHR-P are mainly identified by the presence of milder psychotic symptoms, such as unusual thought content, grandiosity, delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized communication (Hasmi et al., 2021; Devoe et al., 2018). Within 2 years, 20-35% of adolescents at CHR-P may transition to psychosis (Addington et al., 2020). 

In this project, I am particularly interested in social stress among the myriad factors influencing the development of psychosis in youth. Primarily, I will explore how parental stress might affect this social stress. In addition, I plan to examine the quality of caregiver-adolescent relationships, as there is a potential for caregivers’ stress to be associated with unhealthy relationships. Therefore, this study aims to examine the association between caregivers’ stress and the quality of caregiver-adolescent relationships, and how these factors impact the social stress perceived by adolescents at high risk of developing psychosis. I believe that the outcome of this study has the potential to provide novel evidence supporting the use of therapeutic interventions for both CHR-P adolescents and their caregivers. This, in turn, may contribute to improving outcomes for adolescents’ at CHR-P by alleviating symptoms and, furthermore, reducing transitions to psychosis. I will be working on this project with my wonderful mentor, Dr. Leslie Horton, the director of the YETI lab, where I am currently working as an undergraduate research assistant.

My current professional goal is to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology with a focus on child mental health and parent-child interactions. Although I am still in the process of narrowing down my specific research interests, I hope that this summer fellowship will serve as a pivotal step in my academic journey. I believe this experience will provide me with insights into new areas I may want to explore further in the future. 

The Brackenridge Fellowship provides a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in conducting independent research. This experience will allow me to develop critical skills such as designing studies, collecting and analyzing data, and interpreting results. Also, working closely with Dr. Horton and other researchers in the lab would provide the chance to learn from experienced professionals in the field. I am excited to start collecting data and discover new things!

References

Addington, J., Farris, M., Devoe, D., & Metzak, P. (2020). Progression from being at-risk to psychosis: next steps. npj Schizophrenia, 6(1), 27. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41537020-00117-0 

Devoe, D. J., Farris, M. S., Townes, P., & Addington, J. (2019). Attenuated psychotic symptom interventions in youth at risk of psychosis: A systematic review and meta analysis. Early intervention in psychiatry, 13(1), 3-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.12677 

Hasmi, L., Pries, L.-K., ten Have, M., de Graaf, R., van Dorsselaer, S., Bak, M., … van Os, J. (2021). What makes the psychosis ‘clinical high risk’ state risky: psychosis itself or the co-presence of a non-psychotic disorder? Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 30, e53, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S204579602100041X