Kultursensible Diagnostik in Forschung und Praxis

Nearly one fifth of the German population are migrants of the first and second generation. Evidence-based knowledge about mental health of migrants, their health care needs and the actual mental health care situation of this population is limited. Psychometric instruments are helpful for the assessment of mental disorders. Although a culture-sensitive approach in diagnostics is necessary it is often neglected in research as well as in clinical practice. This article describes culture-specific and linguistic challenges and specifies specific communication problems. In most cases psychometric instruments are not developed simultaneously in different languages but are translated later on. After translation psychometric instruments should be culturally validated and adapted with respect to linguistic, cultural and metric equivalence. The article gives an overview about the different aspects of equivalence and explains these aspects on the example of the PHQ-9.     

Brain oscillatory activity associated with task switching and feedback processing

In this study, we sought to dissociate event-related potentials (ERPs) and the oscillatory activity associated with signals indicating feedback about performance (outcome-based behavioral adjustment) and the signals indicating the need to change or maintain a task set (rule-based behavioral adjustment). With this purpose in mind, we noninvasively recorded electroencephalographic signals, using a modified version of the Wisconsin card sorting task, in which feedback processing and task switching could be studied separately. A similar late positive component was observed for the switch and correct feedback signals on the first trials of a series, but feedback-related negativity was observed only for incorrect feedback. Moreover, whereas theta power showed a significant increase after a switch cue and after the first positive feedback of a new series, a selective frontal beta–gamma increase was observed exclusively in the first positive feedback (i.e., after the selection of the new rule). Importantly, for the switch cue, beta–alpha activity was suppressed rather than increased. This clear dissociation between the cue and feedback stimuli in task switching emphasizes the need to accurately study brain oscillatory activity to disentangle the role of different cognitive control processes.     

Trait anxiety and the neural efficiency of manipulation in working memory

The present study investigates the effects of trait anxiety on the neural efficiency of working memory component functions (manipulation vs. maintenance) in the absence of threat-related stimuli. For the manipulation of affectively neutral verbal information held in working memory, high- and low-anxious individuals (N = 46) did not differ in their behavioral performance, yet trait anxiety was positively related to the neural effort expended on task processing, as measured by BOLD signal changes in fMRI. Higher levels of anxiety were associated with stronger activation in two regions implicated in the goal-directed control of attention--that is, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left inferior frontal sulcus--and with stronger deactivation in a region assigned to the brain's default-mode network--that is, rostral-ventral anterior cingulate cortex. Furthermore, anxiety was associated with a stronger functional coupling of right DLPFC with ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. We interpret our findings as reflecting reduced processing efficiency in high-anxious individuals and point out the need to consider measures of functional integration in addition to measures of regional activation strength when investigating individual differences in neural efficiency. With respect to the functions of working memory, we conclude that anxiety specifically impairs the processing efficiency of (control-demanding) manipulation processes (as opposed to mere maintenance). Notably, this study contributes to an accumulating body of evidence showing that anxiety also affects cognitive processing in the absence of threat-related stimuli.     

Youth’s Negative Self-Statements as Related to Social Self-Efficacy Among Differing Relationships

Background

Cognitive variables are often neglected in child and adolescent populations despite their roles in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. Furthermore, the importance of examining these variables contextually is underestimated.

Objective

The present study aimed to examine the relationship between two theoretically related cognitive variables in a contextually relevant fashion by proposing several models demonstrating the association between negative self-statements and social self-efficacy holistically and among differing relationships (i.e., peers, adults, strangers) using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques.

Method

As part of a larger study, 126 participants (ages from 11 to 14 years) were recruited for participation from the middle school grades. Participants’ parents were contacted for informed consent, and subsequently, participants were asked to fill out a set of measures in assembly format.

Results

Results indicated that the structural model was well-fitted to the data. Specifically, the frequency of negative self-statements was found to indicate the amount of social self-efficacy present with more negative self-statements being associated with less social self-efficacy. Further, when examined among differing relationships via path analysis, the frequency of negative self-statements was found to be indicative of the social self-self efficacy with peers and adults, but not with strangers.

Conclusions

These findings provide useful information concerning cognitive trends, which are likely relevant for the enhancement of treatment processes in children and adolescents. Implications and recommendations are discussed.     

Trajectories of self-efficacy in persons with chronic illness: An explorative longitudinal study

Background: Self-efficacy is important for changing health behaviour in persons with chronic illness. Longer term trajectories have not been previously explored.

Objective: This study’s objective was to explore the trajectories of self-efficacy in two different groups with chronic illnesses attending a patient education course.

Design: The study design was a longitudinal, comparative cohort study with five time points during a one-year follow-up, using repeated measures analysis of variance.

Setting and participants: Persons with morbid obesity (n = 55) and persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; n = 56) were recruited at the start of patient education courses in Norway and followed-up four times the following year.

Main outcome measure: The General Self-Efficacy Scale was the main outcome.

Results: Obese persons showed a linear pattern of increasing self-efficacy during the follow-up period, whereas persons with COPD had an initial increase followed by a decrease in self-efficacy. Having paid work was associated with a more positive self-efficacy trajectory.

Conclusion: The results provide support for the currently employed patient education course for morbidly obese persons. In contrast, persons with COPD may need more extensive and/or more frequent support in order to increase and maintain self-efficacy across time.     

On Advantages of the Clear Mind: Spiritual Practices in the Training of a Phenomenological Researcher

The article describes the training of the mind of the researcher in the process of preparation for phenomenological psychological research. Training opens the direct intuition of the interior architecture and meaning contents of the lived embodied self, thus helping students to ground phenomenological concepts in their own lived experience. Training is based on the comparative analysis of the approaches to knowledge in phenomenology and in spiritual systems such as Hesychasm, Vedanta, Shakta-Vedanta and Sufism. Husserl's method and spiritual systems share epistemological ground in the emphasis on the "knowledge by presence" and the use of direct intuition. Spiritual systems posit that the mind of the knower should be specially trained to have faculties such as discernment, healthy character structure, and self-awareness, which enhance the capacity of knowledge. This training, designed on the basis of meditation methods adapted for academic purposes, causes positive shifts in self-awareness, sense of identity and self-attitudes. The method has potential applications as a mnemonic technique in higher education and as an ego-strengthening intervention in cases of depersonalization or spiritual emergence in therapy.     

Slim Futures and the Fat Pill: Civic Imaginations of Innovation and Governance in an Engagement Setting

Innovation politics is seen as an ever more central area of public policy, and as a key means for shaping societal futures. Particularly in Europe, with its history of controversial public debates about innovations, the idea that scientific progress is automatically equated with societal progress seems hard to sustain. Broader public participation within techno-scientific governance seems necessary; though who is to participate in which form often remains unclear. Increasingly, when the innovation process is discussed in both policy and academia, the question of when public engagement should take place in the innovation process is addressed using common models such as ‘upstream engagement’. However, these discussions about public engagement often assume a top-down approach, and pay little attention to citizens' perspectives. To address this gap in the literature, this article will ask the following questions: what tacit understandings of techno-scientific innovation and governance do citizens have; and how do they relate their understandings of the form, structure and dynamics of these innovation processes to their visions of governance and participation? How do specific cultural forms of conceptualising innovation open up or close down particular possibilities of governance and public participation, hence privileging the involvement of certain actors and not others? To address these questions, we analyse the discussions in a long-term public engagement setting involving both genome scientists and citizens in Austria.     

Imagery and strength of craving for eating,drinking, and playing sport

The elaborated intrusion (EI) theory of desire (Kavanagh, Andrade, & May, 2005) attributes the motivational force of cravings to cognitive elaboration, including imagery, of apparently spontaneous thoughts that intrude into awareness. We report a questionnaire study in which respondents rated a craving for food or drink. Questionnaire items derived from EI theory formed a single factor alongside factors for anticipated reward/relief, resistance, and opportunity. In a multiple regression predicting strength of craving, the first three factors accounted for 36% of the variance. Opportunity did not enter the model. In a second study, the difference between individuals’ strong and weak cravings to take part in a sporting activity was shown to be related to visual, auditory, and general imagery, and to anticipated reward or relief from engaging in the activity. Implications for treatment of craving-related disorders are discussed in the light of these results and of other research indicating that interference with imagery can reduce the strength of craving.     

Therapeutic Assessment With Children: A Pilot Study of Treatment Acceptability and Outcome

Therapeutic Assessment (TA) with children is a hybrid of psychological assessment and short-term intervention. It uses the ongoing process and results of psychological assessment to enhance parents' understanding of their child and to facilitate change. Clinical reports and single case studies suggest that TA with children is an acceptable and effective brief intervention. However, no aggregate data have been published to support this claim. This pilot study investigated the acceptability and preoutcome–postoutcome of TA with 14 clinically referred children with emotional and behavior problems and their parents. Results indicated high treatment acceptability as well as significantly decreased child symptomatology and enhanced family functioning as reported by children and mothers. In addition, mothers demonstrated a significant increase in positive emotion and a significant decrease in negative emotion pertaining to their children's challenges and future. The findings, although limited due to the design and small sample size, support assertions from published single case studies that TA is possibly an efficacious child and family intervention for children with emotional and behavioral problems and should be studied in a larger, comparison design.