Quality of Life and Optimism in Patients with Morphea

Despite extensive knowledge about quality of life of people suffering from dermatological diseases, data on patients with morphea are scarce. The aim of our study was to compare the quality of life of healthy controls and morphea patients, as well as to determine the correlation of this variable with the level of dispositional optimism. The study included 47 patients with morphea and 47 healthy controls, matched for gender and age. Cantril’s Ladder and Life Orientation Test-Revised were used to assess the levels of life satisfaction and dispositional optimism, respectively. LoSSI was used for the objective assessment. The anticipated level of life quality and the level of dispositional optimism were statistically significantly lower in morphea patients (p?=?0.032 and p?=?0.014, respectively) when compared to controls. There were no differences in the assessment of current (p?=?0.168) and past (p?=?0.318) levels of life quality. Also, we proved that type of morphea did not differentiate the current (p?=?0.175), past (p?=?0.620) and future (p?=?0.356) assessment of the quality of life. In the group of morphea patients there was a statistically significant correlation between the level of dispositional optimism and current (p?=?0.002, r?=?0.43), as well as anticipated (p?r?=?0.57) levels of life quality. Current level of life quality of healthy controls and morphea patients is comparable, whereas the latter anticipate their future life situation to be significantly worse than the former. Higher level of life satisfaction correlates with higher level of optimism.     

Counseling Chemically Dependent Chronic Pain Patients in an Integrated Care Setting

This article identifies the chronic pain population and explores a holistic integrated approach to treatment and its appropriateness for counseling the chronic pain patient with substance use disorders.     

Relative correctness

John MacFarlane defends a radical form of truth relativism that makes the truth of assertions relative not only to contexts of utterance but also to contexts of assessment, or perspectives. Making sense of assessment-sensitive truth is a matter of making sense of the normative commitments undertaken by speakers in using assessment sensitive sentences. This paper argues against the possibility of making sense of such a practice. Evans raised a challenge to the coherence of relative truth. A modification of the challenge can be given against MacFarlane’s revised views on assertion. The main objection to the relativist is that rational and earnest speakers are not bound by assessment-relative standards of correctness.     

Is naming faces different from naming objects? Semantic interference in a face- and object-naming task

A current debate regarding face and object naming concerns whether they are equally vulnerable to semantic interference. Although some studies have shown similar patterns of interference, others have revealed different effects for faces and objects. In Experiment 1, we compared face naming to object naming when exemplars were presented in a semantically homogeneous context (grouped by their category) or in a semantically heterogeneous context (mixed) across four cycles. The data revealed significant slowing for both face and object naming in the homogeneous context. This semantic interference was explained as being due to lexical competition from the conceptual activation of category members. When focusing on the first cycle, a facilitation effect for objects but not for faces appeared. This result permits us to explain the previously observed discrepancies between face and object naming. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, with the exception that half of the stimuli were presented as face/object names for reading. Semantic interference was present for both face and object naming, suggesting that faces and objects behave similarly during naming. Interestingly, during reading, semantic interference was observed for face names but not for object names. This pattern is consistent with previous assumptions proposing the activation of a person identity during face name reading.     

Heinz Werner: His Life,Ideas, and Contributions to Developmental Psychology in the First Half of the 20th Century

ABSTRACT

The author provides an overview of Heinz Werner's life and contributions to the field of developmental psychology during the first half of the 20th century. She focuses on his early work in Vienna and Munich as well as his tenure at the Psychological Institute in Hamburg, up through the time when he became a named Professor in Psychology at Clark University. Recognized as one of the founders of developmental psychology, Heinz Werner worked in the areas of perceptual development, comparative psychology, and symbol formation. Versatile in rigorous experimental methodologies, and in observational and phenomenological methodologies, Werner's approach to development stood in contrast to other approaches of development, both past and current. For Werner, development was a heuristic, a way of looking at processes in a variety of domains, including ontogeny, phylogeny, microgenesis, biology, developmental psychopathology, neuropsychology, and comparative psychology. Werner viewed development as proceeding from a state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and hierarchical integration, but he also stressed that individuals can function at different developmental levels under different times and conditions. Werner's holistic, organismic, comparative, and contextual approach to development transcended interdisciplinary boundaries, allowing him to study the interrelatedness between thought, language, feeling, perception, and culture.     

An Investigation of a Polish Version of the Parentification Inventory

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parentification is defined as a pattern of family interactions in which children and adolescents are required to engage in adult-like roles and...     

An obscure rider obstructing science: the conflation of parthenotes with embryos in the Dickey-Wicker amendment

In 1996 Congress passed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment (DWA) as part of an appropriations bill; it has been renewed every year since. The DWA bans federal funding for research using embryos and parthenotes. In this paper, we call for a public discussion on parthenote research and a questioning of its inclusion in the DWA. We begin by explaining what parthenotes are and why they are useful for research on reproduction, cancer, and stem cells. We then argue that the scientific difference between embryos and parthenotes translates into ethical differences, and claim that research on parthenotes is much less ethically problematic. Finally, we contextualize the original passage of the DWA to provide an explanation for why the two were possibly conflated in this law. We conclude by calling for a public discussion on reconsidering the DWA in its entirety, starting with the removal of parthenogenesis from this prohibition of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.     

Development of a new fear of hypoglycemia scale: FH-15

Hypoglycemia is the most common adverse event associated with insulin treatment in diabetes. The consequences of hypoglycemia can be quite aversive and potentially life threatening. The physical sequelae provide ample reason for patients to fear hypoglycemia and avoid episodes. For these reasons, our purpose in this study was to develop a new measure that explores specific fear of hypoglycemia (FH) in adult patients with type 1 diabetes and to examine its psychometric properties. The instrument developed to assess FH was initially made up of 20 items, of which 18 were negative and 2 were positive, assessed on a 5-point Likert scale (1-5). This scale was completed by 229 patients with type 1 diabetes. Additionally, a structured interview and a closed question called subjective fear of hypoglycemia were included as diagnostic criteria. A factor analysis employing the principal-components method and promax rotation was carried out, resulting in a new scale composed of 15 items. Three factors (fear, avoidance, and interference) were obtained and explained 58.27% of the variance. The scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .891) and test-retest reliability (r = .908, p < .001), as well as adequate concurrent and predictive validity. The cutoff score that provided the highest overall sensitivity and specificity was set at 28 points. The Fear of Hypoglycemia 15-item scale (FH-15) demonstrated good reliability and validity. This study suggests that the new instrument may serve as a valuable measure of specific FH for use in research and clinical practice.     

War exposure and post-traumatic stress as predictors of Portuguese colonial war veterans' physical health

The relationship between war exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been largely investigated but the impact of the combat experience on physical health has only recently merited attention. The authors investigated the relationship between war exposure and psychological and physical health among 350 Portuguese colonial war veterans. The role of current PTSD symptoms as a mediator of these relationships was also investigated. The results showed that 39% of the veterans met criteria for current PTSD diagnosis and psychological distress was present in half of the sample. Pain, fatigue, and sleep problems were the most reported physical symptoms and mental health and gastro-intestinal problems, the most reported illnesses. Combat exposure variables were significant predictors of current health. The results indicated that veterans with higher exposure to war trauma maintained higher current levels of psychological distress and presented more physical health problems and physical symptoms than those less exposed. Mediation analyses showed that current PTSD was a full mediator of the relationship between war exposure and physical health outcomes.     

Observational analysis of the free throw shot made by grassroots basketball players

This article represents an approach to the free throw from the perspective of observational methodology. Faced with the obvious difficulty of transferring quantitative data resulting from the habitual biomechanical studies to everyday sports intervention, an easily accessible observational tool has been produced which, as a main contribution, allows the detection of T-patterns in free-throw shots. As the endorsement of the usefulness of the designed observational tool, an example is presented of the results obtained in a research design that studies a selection of grassroots basketball players (11-12 years).