Relations between Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-A scales and Rorschach variables with the scope and severity of maltreatment among adolescents

This study examined preexisting Rorschach (Exner, 2001) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-A (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) profiles to determine if selected MMPI-A scales and Rorschach variables would jointly associate with the number and severity of maltreatment subtypes (physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and emotional maltreatment) of 157 adolescents (ages 14-17) with documented maltreatment histories. The Maltreatment Classification System was used to systematically code the maltreatment attributes. Six Rorschach variables (MOR, PER, Afr, SumY, SumC', Human Content) were significantly correlated with the number of maltreatment subtypes, but none of the anticipated MMPI-A scales were related. MMPI-A Scale 7 and Rorschach variables Ego, MOR, and PER were jointly associated with physical abuse severity. MMPI-A Scale 0 and Rorschach variables MOR, PER, SumY, SumC', PTI, Human Content, and Texture jointly associated with sexual abuse severity. This study supports the potential for certain MMPI-A scales and Rorschach variables to reflect the impact of adolescents' maltreatment experiences in terms of the number and severity of types of maltreatment experienced. Because both instruments captured different aspects of adolescents' maltreatment experiences, clinicians should consider using both when evaluating the impact of maltreatment on adolescents.     

Development and Evaluation of a Decision Aid for BRCA Carriers with Breast Cancer

BRCA+ breast cancer patients face high risk for a second breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Helping these women decide among risk-reducing options requires effectively conveying complex, emotionally-laden, information. To support their decision-making needs, we developed a web-based decision aid (DA) as an adjunct to genetic counseling. Phase 1 used focus groups to determine decision-making needs. These findings and the Ottawa Decision Support Framework guided the DA development. Phase 2 involved nine focus groups of four stakeholder types (BRCA+ breast cancer patients, breast cancer advocates, and genetics and oncology professionals) to evaluate the DA's decision-making utility, information content, visual display, and implementation. Overall, feedback was very favorable about the DA, especially a values and preferences ranking-exercise and an output page displaying personalized responses. Stakeholders were divided as to whether the DA should be offered at-home versus only in a clinical setting. This well-received DA will be further tested to determine accessibility and effectiveness.     

Anger and Irritability Symptoms among Youth with ODD: Cross-Informant Versus Source-Exclusive Syndromes

We examined differences in co-occurring psychological symptoms and background characteristics among clinically referred youth with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) with and without anger/irritability symptoms (AIS) according to either parent or teacher (source-exclusive) and both informants (cross-informant), youth with noncompliant symptoms (NS) of ODD, and non-ODD clinic controls. Parents and teachers evaluated 1127 youth (ages 6-18) with a DSM-IV-referenced rating scale to assess ODD and co-occurring psychological symptoms. Parents also completed a background questionnaire (demographic, developmental, treatment, relationship, and academic characteristics) and teachers rated school functioning. Source-exclusive AIS groups were associated with different clinical features, and there was some evidence that cross-informant youth had more mental health concerns than source-exclusive groups. Findings varied to some extent among older (12-18?years) versus younger (6-11?years) youth. In general, the NS group (youth without AIS) was the most similar to clinic controls. AIS and NS are likely candidates for component phenotypes in ODD and continued research into their pathogenesis may have important implications for nosology, etiology, and intervention.     

Distinguishing highly confident accurate and inaccurate memory: insights about relevant and irrelevant influences on memory confidence

It is generally believed that accuracy and confidence in one's memory are related, but there are many instances when they diverge. Accordingly it is important to disentangle the factors that contribute to memory accuracy and confidence, especially those factors that contribute to confidence, but not accuracy. We used eye movements to separately measure fluent cue processing, the target recognition experience, and relative evidence assessment on recognition confidence and accuracy. Eye movements were monitored during a face-scene associative recognition task, in which participants first saw a scene cue, followed by a forced-choice recognition test for the associated face, with confidence ratings. Eye movement indices of the target recognition experience were largely indicative of accuracy, and showed a relationship to confidence for accurate decisions. In contrast, eye movements during the scene cue raised the possibility that more fluent cue processing was related to higher confidence for both accurate and inaccurate recognition decisions. In a second experiment we manipulated cue familiarity, and therefore cue fluency. Participants showed higher confidence for cue-target associations for when the cue was more familiar, especially for incorrect responses. These results suggest that over-reliance on cue familiarity and under-reliance on the target recognition experience may lead to erroneous confidence.     

A Reappraisal of the Nobody’s Perfect Program

Nobody’s Perfect Program (NP), involving 46 participants, was conducted from the spring of 2007 to the fall of 2009 in Peterborough, Canada. Prior to the program, parents completed demographic information, along with self-report measures assessing learned resourcefulness, the types of interactions with their children, parent resourcefulness, knowledge and use of resources, parent competency and self-efficacy, which were completed again after the program and at a 2 month follow-up testing. Most parents (83%) earned a certificate. Significant improvements over time were observed for parenting confidence satisfaction, knowledge about community resources, and parenting resourcefulness, with general learned resourcefulness skills approaching significance. Pre/post relative gains demonstrated in one attribute were associated with pre/post relative gains in others. Similarities and differences of these findings to a previous investigation are discussed, as well as the importance of parents’ general level of learned resourcefulness.     

Integrating Diabetes Self-Management Interventions for Mexican-Americans into the Catholic Church Setting

Churches provide an innovative and underutilized setting for diabetes self-management programs for Latinos. This study sought to formulate a conceptual framework for designing church-based programs that are tailored to the needs of the Latino community and that utilize church strengths and resources. To inform this model, we conducted six focus groups with mostly Mexican-American Catholic adults with diabetes and their family members (N = 37) and found that participants were interested in church-based diabetes programs that emphasized information sharing, skills building, and social networking. Our model demonstrates that many of these requested components can be integrated into the current structure and function of the church. However, additional mechanisms to facilitate access to medical care may be necessary to support community members’ diabetes care.     

Delay and déjà vu: Timing and repetition increase the power of false evidence

False images and videos can induce people to believe in and remember events that never happened. Using a novel method, we examined whether the timing of false evidence would influence its effect (Experiment 1) and determined the relationship between timing and repetition (Experiment 2). Subjects completed a hazard perception driving test and were falsely accused of cheating. Some subjects were shown a fake video or photograph of the cheating either after a 9-min delay (Experiment 1) or more than once with or without a delay (Experiment 2). Subjects were more likely to falsely believe that they had cheated and to provide details about how the cheating happened when the false evidence was delayed or repeated—especially when repeated over time—relative to controls. The results show that even a strikingly short delay between an event and when false evidence is disclosed can distort people’s beliefs and that repeating false evidence over a brief delay fosters false beliefs more so than without a delay. These findings have theoretical implications for metacognitive models of autobiographical memory and practical implications for police interrogations.     

Maternal Empathy and Changes in Mothers’ Permissiveness as Predictors of Toddlers’ Early Social Competence with Peers: A Parenting Intervention Study

The goal of the current study was to examine how changes in parenting due to a parenting intervention designed to decrease permissive parenting affected the quality of children’s peer interactions. Forty-nine mothers of toddlers aged 2–3 years participated in a 12-week intervention in which half got hands-on training and practice using positive guidance in a toddler classroom setting, while the other half learned positive guidance solely via a seminar format. To observe children’s peer interactions, toddlers were divided into 8 groups of 5–7 children mixed across condition. Observers coded mothers’ empathy, permissiveness, and positive guidance parenting strategies. Children’s peer interactions were coded for antisocial behaviors, verbal aggression, physical aggression, prosocial behaviors, positive social bids, and empathy. Prior analysis of this intervention indicated that mothers in both conditions showed reductions in permissiveness over the course of the intervention. Results from the present study indicated that reductions in permissiveness predicted decreases in toddlers’ verbal aggression. Maternal empathy was a moderator such that mothers low in empathy who got hands-on training in positive guidance had children who demonstrated the greatest reductions in antisocial behaviors.     

Free viewing perceptual asymmetries for judgment of brightness and quantity: dependence on stimulus orientation

Previous research has indicated that normals exhibit strong leftward biases during free-viewing perceptual judgments of brightness and quantity. When participants view two symmetrical objects and they are forced to choose which object appears darker or more numerous, participants usually select the stimulus with the relevant feature on the left side. The present study investigated the possibility that these perceptual asymmetries are dependent on scanning a stimulus horizontally across the midline by administering a task with two rectangular reversed stimuli presented either horizontally or vertically. When the stimuli were presented horizontally (crossing the midline), participants exhibited leftward biases, but these biases disappeared when the stimuli were presented vertically. This result supports the position that free-viewing perceptual asymmetries are dependent on scanning the stimuli across the midline.     

The use of diabetes-specific perceived control and health belief measures to predict treatment choice and efficacy in a feasibility study of continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion pumps

Abstract

In the course of a feasibility study of continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion pumps, 382 insulin-requiring diabetic patients were offered a choice of CSII, intensified conventional treatment or conventional treatment. Two hundred and eighty-six (75%) patients completed newly developed diabetes-specific measures of health beliefs and attributions before any change of treatment regimen. The scales were useful predictors of patients' choice of treatment. Furthermore, they were useful in predicting efficacy of treatment in terms of glycosylated haemoglobin measures of diabetes control after one year of treatment in the study. The implications of the findings for introducing patients to new forms of treatment are discussed.