Reevaluating Suicidal Behaviors: Comparing Assessment Methods to Improve Risk Evaluations

This study examined suicide assessment validity by comparing methods of measuring current risk associated with past suicidal behaviors. Three independent samples (Ns = 359, 1007, and 713; aged 18–76 years) all included participants covering a broad spectrum of suicidality. Information theory, item response theory, general linear modeling, and linear regression modeling tested seven competing methods/models of assessing past suicidal behaviors in relation to current suicidality. In contrast to contemporary theories, ANOVA results showed suicide plans can indicate higher risk than suicide attempts when intent to die is higher. Contrary to popular practice, evidence demonstrated that defining risk by suicide ideation (yes/no), attempts or serious attempts (yes/no), are false dichotomies, were the least valid models tested, and failed to explain substantial explainable variance in suicidality/risk. A newly proposed model, differentiating behaviors with or without intent to die, was the most efficacious dichotomous method. However, as predicted, continuous variables were superior to dichotomous. The proposed suicidal barometer model (SBM) exhibited robust evidence as the best available model for evaluating suicidal behaviors in all samples (100 % probability), explaining 47–61 % of suicidality variance and provided incremental improvement in risk evaluations. Findings were consistent by sample, sex, age-group, ethnicity, and psychiatric history. This study, and related evidence, demonstrate that there is a clear and present need for updating measures, clinical training and core competencies, for valid assessment and risk formulation.     

Does worry affect adjustment to bereavement? A longitudinal investigation

Background and objectives: Repetitive thought is a trans-diagnostic risk-factor for development of psychopathology. Research on repetitive thought in bereaved individuals has focused primarily on clarifying the role of rumination, repetitive thinking about past negative events and/or negative emotions. While detrimental effects of rumination have been demonstrated following bereavement, surprisingly few studies have aimed to clarify the role of worry, repetitive thinking about potential future negative events, in adjustment to loss. This study sought to fill this gap in knowledge. Methods/Design: One hundred eighty-three bereaved individuals (85.3% women) filled out questionnaires on sociodemographic and loss-related characteristics, worry, and symptom measures of depression, anxiety, and prolonged grief. After six months, 155 participants completed worry and symptom measures again. Using multiple regression analyses, concurrent and longitudinal associations between loss-related variables, worry, and symptoms of psychopathology were examined. Results: Main results were that worry was strongly positively associated with symptoms of anxiety, depression and prolonged grief concurrently and also predicted higher levels of anxiety, depression and prolonged grief longitudinally. Conclusions: Findings suggest that worry influences adjustment to bereavement negatively and may be a potential target in grief therapy, especially when aiming to reduce anxiety.     

Are the literacy difficulties that characterize developmental dyslexia associated with a failure to integrate letters and speech sounds?

The ‘automatic letter‐sound integration hypothesis’ (Blomert, 2011 ) proposes that dyslexia results from a failure to fully integrate letters and speech sounds into automated audio‐visual objects. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of English‐speaking children with dyslexic difficulties (N = 13) and samples of chronological‐age‐matched (CA; N = 17) and reading‐age‐matched controls (RA; N = 17) aged 7–13 years. Each child took part in two priming experiments in which speech sounds were preceded by congruent visual letters (congruent condition) or Greek letters (baseline). In a behavioural experiment, responses to speech sounds in the two conditions were compared using reaction times. These data revealed faster reaction times in the congruent condition in all three groups. In a second electrophysiological experiment, responses to speech sounds in the two conditions were compared using event‐related potentials (ERPs). These data revealed a significant effect of congruency on (1) the P1 ERP over left frontal electrodes in the CA group and over fronto‐central electrodes in the dyslexic group and (2) the P2 ERP in the dyslexic and RA control groups. These findings suggest that our sample of English‐speaking children with dyslexic difficulties demonstrate a degree of letter‐sound integration that is appropriate for their reading level, which challenges the letter‐sound integration hypothesis.     

Illusions of Parental Control: Parenting and Smoking Onset in Dutch and Swedish Adolescents1

Parental control is assumed to be associated with smoking onset: Parents who exert control on their children and monitor their children's behavior are less likely to have children who start to smoke. However, the empirical evidence for this assumption is mostly from cross‐sectional studies. The present research examined the prospective associations between parental control and smoking onset among Dutch and Swedish adolescents and their parents. Findings revealed nonsignificant links between general parental control and smoking onset in both samples, and no link between smoking‐specific parental control and smoking onset in the Dutch sample, thereby questioning the assumption that parental control prevents adolescent smoking onset.     

I Can't Wait to Get Married: Gender Differences in Drive to Marry

In this study we examined a new construct—the Drive to Marry (DTM). Young single men and women (149 men and 246 women) rated their desire to get married and completed measures of their valuing of marital, parental, and occupational roles; concern about others' views of them; and feminist attitudes. We found that women had a higher DTM than did men. In both genders, DTM was predicted by the value of parental role and by concern about others' views of them. In women, DTM was also predicted by traditional attitudes toward gender roles, and there was a trend for women who valued the occupational role to have a lower DTM. Conservative women, women who valued the parental role, and women with a higher DTM were also more likely to want to use the title “Mrs.” and to adopt their husband's surname. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in May 2004.     

中国的安乐死观念与卫生保健

把在荷兰福利体制下狭义的安乐死概念移植到中国是不适当的.对于临终病人医疗上的缺陷不能用他们临终时的体面、尊严这一标准来衡量.这一问题的解决不是迅速地结束生命,而是要通过中国卫生医疗决策中的分配公正来提高生命的质量,需要建立一个跨国框架来讨论安乐死的特性与共性.     

Perceptual biases in the horizontal and vertical dimensions are driven by separate cognitive mechanisms

Perceptual attention in healthy participants is characterized by two biases, one operating in the horizontal plane, which draws attention leftward, and the other operating in the vertical plane, which draws attention upward. Given that these biases are reliably found in the same individual, and appear similar at a surface level, a number of researchers have investigated the relationship between horizontal and vertical attentional biases. To date, these investigations have failed to find an association, and this may be due to the fact that one-dimensional vertical and horizontal stimuli were presented separately rather than being measured from a single, two-dimensional stimulus. Across three experiments, two dimensional stimuli were presented, and participants marked the centre of the stimuli. In addition, the shapes of the stimuli were manipulated to determine whether this produced the same modulation of the two biases. Across 13 stimuli and three experiments there were no correlations between the vertical and horizontal biases. In addition, manipulations of stimulus shape, which affected biases in one dimension, did not affect biases in the other dimension. There were, however, consistent correlations between the degree of bias within each dimension across the different stimuli. This study has produced converging evidence that horizontal and vertical biases in spatial judgments rely on separate cognitive mechanisms. To account for these results we discuss a model whereby horizontal asymmetries rely more on space-based mechanisms whereas vertical asymmetries rely more on object-based mechanisms.     

Patients with bipolar disorder show a selective deficit in the episodic simulation of future events

A substantial body of evidence suggests that autobiographical recollection and simulation of future happenings activate a shared neural network. Many of the neural regions implicated in this network are affected in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), showing altered metabolic functioning and/or structural volume abnormalities. Studies of autobiographical recall in BD reveal overgeneralization, where autobiographical memory comprises primarily factual or repeated information as opposed to details specific in time and in place and definitive of re-experiencing. To date, no study has examined whether these deficits extend to future event simulation. We examined the ability of patients with BD and controls to imagine positive, negative and neutral future events using a modified version of the Autobiographical Interview (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002) that allowed for separation of episodic and non-episodic details. Patients were selectively impaired in imagining future positive, negative, and neutral episodic details; simulation of non-episodic details was equivalent across groups.