Emotional Distress Associated with Surgical Treatment and its Relationship with Coping Profiles Among Chronically ill Older Patients

The study determines the patterns of coping styles among older patients with hip osteoarthritis and assesses the derived profiles in terms of perceived stress and anxiety before and after arthroplasty. Sixty-one hospital patients (mean age 70.3 years) were analysed one day before arthroplasty and three months after. The participants were assessed with the Brief-COPE (coping style), PSS-10 (perceived stress) and STAI (anxiety) psychometric tests. Four coping patterns were yielded using data clustering: rational, enterprising (resourceful), potentially maladaptive and flexible. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated a main effect within subjects but did not indicate that decreases of stress and anxiety varied differently between groups. Cluster 1 (a coping profile characterised by high helplessness, low active coping, high avoidance) reported significantly greater stress and anxiety than all other groups before and after hip replacement, while clusters 2 (flexible), 3 (resourceful) and 4 (rational) were characterised by similar levels of anxiety and stress. Older patients with osteoarthritis might differ in terms of emotional response to surgical treatment. Screening for coping styles at admission to hospital may indicate more vulnerable individuals.     

Social Job Resources as Sources of Meaningfulness and its Effects on Nurses’ Vigor and Emotional Exhaustion: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Spanish Nurses

This study investigates the mediating role of psychological meaningfulness among social job resources (i.e., coworkers and supervisor support), vigor, and emotional exhaustion in a nursing context. In spite of progress in understanding which organizational influence affects nurses’ vigor and emotional exhaustion, the psychological mechanisms assumed to underlie the associations have not been fully explored. The sample for this study consisted of 171 nurses from Spanish hospitals (54.4 %) and Primary Care Centers (45.6 %). The mediation model was tested using the bootstrapping procedure. Our findings confirmed that psychological meaningfulness fully mediates the impact of social job resources on vigor at work. Moreover, psychological meaningfulness partially mediated the impact of social job resources on emotional exhaustion. Results suggest that meaningfulness plays an important role in the connection between job resources, vigor, and emotional exhaustion. The findings contribute to our understanding of the psychological processes that can explain how job resources contribute to the energetic aspect of burnout and engagement among nurses. Providing nurses with more social job resources, such as coworker and supervisor support, could activate their levels of personal meaningfulness and thus enhance their levels of well-being at work.     

Interculturality and Early Attachment: A Comparison of Urban/ <Emphasis Type="Italic">Non-Mapuche</Emphasis> and Rural/<Emphasis Type="Italic">Mapuche</Emphasis> Mother-Baby Dyads in Chile

It is well known in the field that culture and context play an important role in child rearing and parenting practices. However, many studies do not address the cultural dimension of attachment, although evidence indicates that aspects of early attachment differ across cultures. With the goal of comparing the quality of mother–baby interactions, this study analyzed attachment behaviors and maternal sensitivity in two settings: urban/non-Mapuche and rural/Mapuche in Chile. The sample was composed of 34 mother-baby dyads (17 urban/non-Mapuche and 17 rural/Mapuche) with 12-month-old children. During a feeding episode, the attachment style of the interaction was assessed with the Attachment during Stress scale, and maternal sensitivity was evaluated with the Child-Adult Relationship Experimental Index-Toddlers (CARE-Index). The groups differed in their interaction attachment style and in affective and proximity modalities: Urban/non-Mapuche mothers tended to have secure and ambivalent attachment styles, and rural/Mapuche mothers tended to have avoidant styles. When educational level is controlled, ethnicity group can explain the differences in mothers’ attachment styles. The findings of the study and their implications are discussed.     

Age-related trends in Stroop and conflicting motor response task findings.

Inhibition problems are reportedly at the heart of several childhood pathologies and learning disorders, but few instruments are available for their in-depth investigation. The main aim of the present study was to investigate the development of a capacity to inhibit automatic responses in young and middle childhood. For this purpose, 100 children between 6 and 11 years old were administered two tests that measure executive inhibition: an animal Stroop task (in a paper-and-pencil version of the computerized original proposed by Wright and colleagues in 2003) and a conflicting motor response task. Our results indicate that performance clearly improves in both tests during the course of a child's development and the data obtained with the paper-and-pencil animal Stroop task overlap with those obtained with the computerized version. When the task calls for a stronger inhibitory control (the incongruent situation in the Stroop task and in the opposite condition in the conflicting motor response test) the trend of the response times is less homogeneous, peaking in the youngest and oldest age brackets considered. The positivity and significance of the correlation coefficients between the two tests also suggest that the two measures are tapping cognitive abilities that are developing in a parallel fashion.     

Consumers Felt Commitment Towards Retailers: Index Development and Validation

This work seeks to develop an index of the consumer's felt commitment towards the retailer through a formative scale. By using structural equation modeling (SEM), in particular the multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) model, as well as reflective and formative indicators, the methodology developed by Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer is applied in order to construct this index. To clarify the whole meaning of the concept, the article undertakes a thorough review of literature on felt commitment and formative index development. Several MIMIC models are developed in order to validate the index. The empirical study was carried out in the financial services sector.     

Normative data on the familiarity and difficulty of 196 Spanish word fragments.

In this article, normative data on the familiarity and difficulty of 196 single-solution Spanish word fragments are presented. The database includes the following indices: difficulty, familiarity, frequency, number of meanings, number of letters given in the fragment, first and/or last letters given, and ratio of letters to blanks. A factor analysis was performed on difficulty, and two factors were obtained. Frequency, familiarity, and number of meanings loaded highly on the first factor, which we consider to measure lexical processes, whereas number of letters in the fragment, first and/or last letters given, and ratio of letters to blanks loaded highly on the second factor, which we judge to be determined by perceptual information. Regression analyses using factor scores as predictors showed that both factors accounted for a significant part of the completion probability scores. The full set of these norms may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Normative data on the familiarity and difficulty of 196 Spanish word fragments

In this article, normative data on the familiarity and difficulty of 196 single-solution Spanish word fragments are presented. The database includes the following indices: difficulty, familiarity, frequency, number of meanings, number of letters given in the fragment, first and/or last letters given, and ratio of letters to blanks. A factor analysis was performed on difficulty, and two factors were obtained. Frequency, familiarity, and number of meanings loaded highly on the first factor, which we consider to measure lexical processes, whereas number of letters in the fragment, first and/or last letters given, and ratio of letters to blanks loaded highly on the second factor, which we judge to be determined by perceptual information. Regression analyses using factor scores as predictors showed that both factors accounted for a significant part of the completion probability scores. The full set of these norms may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive atwww.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

The use of virtual reality in the study, assessment, and treatment of body image in eating disorders and nonclinical samples: a review of the literature

This article reviews research into the use of virtual reality in the study, assessment, and treatment of body image disturbances in eating disorders and nonclinical samples. During the last decade, virtual reality has emerged as a technology that is especially suitable not only for the assessment of body image disturbances but also for its treatment. Indeed, several virtual environment-based software systems have been developed for this purpose. Furthermore, virtual reality seems to be a good alternative to guided imagery and in vivo exposure, and is therefore very useful for studies that require exposure to life-like situations but which are difficult to conduct in the real world. Nevertheless, review highlights the lack of published controlled studies and the presence of methodological drawbacks that should be considered in future studies. This article also discusses the implications of the results obtained and proposes directions for future research.