The Editor's Note on Change

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Carrying the Burden: Perspectives of African American Pastors on Peer Support for People with Cancer

For African Americans facing advanced cancer, churches are trusted sources of support and ideal settings to improve access to supportive care. The Support Team model enhances community support for practical, emotional, and spiritual caregiving. We report on focus groups with pastors of 23 Black Churches and explore their perspective on the Support Team model for church members with cancer. Pastors describe the needs of church members facing cancer from a holistic perspective and recognize opportunities for synergistic faith–health collaboration. The results of this study indicate potential benefits of the Support Team model in Black Churches to reduce silent suffering among individuals facing cancer.     

In these pages

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

The creative skills of culturally and linguistically diverse gifted students

The purpose of this study was to explore the creative abilities of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The relationships among creativity and achievement, intelligence, nonverbal reasoning, and instructional climate were also examined. For the pupils in this study, moderate correlations were found between creativity and intelligence and between creativity and reading achievement. A low correlation was found between creativity and nonverbal‐reasoning skills. Significant relationships were found between creativity and several classroom variables. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of identifying gifted youth from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds.     

Psychometric characteristics of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire in an Argentinean sample: a cross-cultural contribution

Although studies in several populations have provided support for Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSQW) reliability and validity, factor analysis studies carried out on different populations show divergent results. The aim of this article is to contribute with the cross-cultural literature on PSWQ. This report describes two studies examining the psychometric characteristics of a revised Argentinean version of the PSWQ. In the first study, items of original PSWQ were translated into Spanish and then back-translated into English. Then, in order to examine its reliability and factorial structure, the instrument was completed by 400 community participants. The second study included two groups of participants as follows: patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and patients with other anxiety disorders (AC). Results revealed appropriated test-retest reliability over a four-week period, high internal consistency, and good convergent and discriminant validity for PSWQ. In concordance with some results reported in previous studies, a single factorial structure was confirmed for the Argentinean version of PSWQ. By the other hand, a receiver operating characteristic analysis was made to evaluate the ability of PSWQ to discriminate GAD from individuals with others anxiety disorders. A total score of 63 simultaneously optimized sensitivity and specificity in discriminating GAD patients from patients with others anxiety disorders.