Work style preferences among medical specialties

Strong Interest Inventory Personal Style Scales (SII-PSS) assess people's preferences for work style, learning environment, leadership style, and risk taking. We examined whether the SII-PSS predict medical specialty choice for college students. We administered the scales to 355 students when they began a combined Bachelor of Science/Doctor of Medicine program during the 2003–2005 academic years. Specialty choice was obtained when these students graduated from medical school during 2009–2011 academic years. In the end, 120 students (34%) provided useable data and were included in the analysis. The remaining students either did not graduate from the 6-year BS/MD program or entered preliminary or transitional specialties. Specialties included in the analysis were internal medicine, family medicine, psychiatry, surgery, pediatrics, emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and obstetrics/gynecology. Work style was the only PSS variable that showed differences across various specialties. A MANOVA showed that the work style scale was significantly different across various specialties (p < .05, Bonferroni correction p < .006). Students who went into internal medicine scored significantly higher on working with people rather than ideas or things (X = 53.08, SD = 8.90) compared to students who went into surgery (X = 46.25, SD = 7.44, F = 6.83) or anesthesiology (X = 42.38, SD = 5.15, F = 10.70). Students who entered obstetrics/gynecology also scored significantly higher on working with people (X = 54.25, SD = 7.62) than students who entered anesthesiology (X = 42.38, SD = 5.15, F = 12.13). In the realm of medical specialties, preferences for working with people versus things may underlie choices between the group of medical specialties categorized as primary-care versus those categorized as surgical and as technical specialties.     

University Student Depression Inventory: Measurement model and psychometric properties

University Student Depression Inventory (USDI) was developed to assess the symptoms of depression among the university students. Considering the debilitating nature of depression among university students globally, USDI was translated in Persian and validated using university students from Iran. A battery including the Persian version of USDI and scales measuring suicide, depression, and stress was administered to a normative sample of 359 undergraduate students, and an additional clinical sample of 150 students referred to the university's mental health centre. The results supported the factor structure and the psychometric properties of the translated version. Confirmatory factor analysis upheld the previously reported three‐factor first‐order and one‐factor second‐order structure. The internal consistency, test‐retest reliability, and concurrent and discriminant validity of the Persian version were supported. Cut‐off points using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis were established to identify students at risk. Gender differences on the symptoms of depression were evident only in the normative sample, where male participants, compared with female students, had higher mean scores in lethargy, cognitive/emotion, and academic motivation subscales. The translated scale can be used with Persian‐speaking students in Iran and the neighbouring countries as well as those settled in the West to identify symptoms of depression for further evaluation and management.     

Ethnic Differences in the Developmental Significance of Parentification

Using an ecological framework, this 2‐wave longitudinal study examined the effects of parentification on youth adjustment across the transition to adolescence in a high‐risk, low‐income sample of African American (58%) and European American (42%) mother–child dyads (T1 M_age = 10.17 years, T2 M_age = 14.89 years; 52.4% female). Children's provision of family caregiving was moderately stable from early to late adolescence. Emotional and instrumental parentification evidenced distinct long‐term effects on adolescents' psychopathology and the quality of the parent–child relationship. Ethnicity moderated these relations. Emotional and instrumental parentification behaviors were associated with predominantly negative outcomes among European American youth in the form of increased externalizing behavior problems and decreased parent–child relationship quality, whereas emotional parentification was associated with positive outcomes among African American youth in the form of increased parent–child relationship quality, and instrumental parentification was neutral. These findings support a multidimensional view of parentification as a set of culturally embedded phenomena whose effects can only be understood in consideration of the context in which they occur.     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF): Support for a distinction between Emotional and Behavioral Regulation

Previous research has supported a three-factor division of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) when dividing the parent form in 9 instead of 8 subscales. The present study investigated different factor models in the 8- and 9-scale division in both the parent and teacher form of the Norwegian BRIEF version. Confirmatory Factor Analyzes showed best fit for the three-factor model in a mixed healthy and clinical sample, indicating a distinction between Emotional and Behavioral Regulation. This division is in accordance with present knowledge of brain function and may increase the specificity of executive dysfunction in clinical groups.     

God,the good life,and HEXACO: the relations among religion,subjective well-being and personality

The relations among religiousness, subjective well-being (SWB) and the HEXACO (Honesty–Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness) model of personality were studied in a Muslim population. As expected, Extraversion and Honesty-Humility factors were the strongest correlates of SWB and religiosity, respectively. Religiosity also correlated with higher levels of SWB, and explained variance in SWB beyond personality factors, showing that religion is a unique predictor of well-being. Results have been discussed within the religious orientation paradigm, and the HEXACO model of personality structure.     

Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) Profiles of Male Veterans With Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; L. C. Morey, 1991) is a promising tool for the assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but few studies have examined the PAI profiles of individuals with the diagnosis. In this study, the PAI was administered to 176 combat veterans with PTSD. Results showed significant elevations on scales measuring depression, somatic complaints, anxiety, anxiety-related disorders, schizophrenia, and negative impression management. The Traumatic Stress subscale was the highest point in the mean score profile and was moderately correlated with several established measures of PTSD. Veterans with and without comorbid major depression differed on PAI scales assessing depression, anxiety, and warmth. Analysis of two-point codetypes for the PAI and the MMPI-2 revealed substantial heterogeneity in symptom endorsement on both instruments, suggesting that there may be no clear PTSD profile on either instrument. Results provide a reference point for future work with the PAI in PTSD samples.     

Factor analytic evaluation of differences between black and caucasian emotionally disturbed children on the children's depression inventory

Scores on the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) for 392 Caucasian and 159 black psychiatric inpatients between 6 and 18 years of age were subjected to principal-components factor extraction with Varimax rotation. Factors not contributing to variance were eliminated using the scree test (Cattell, 1966) and the degree of variance accounted for by remaining factors for both groups was examined through respective squared multiple correlations. A comparison of CDI factors for blacks and Caucasians indicated some differences, with blacks be ing less suicidal yet higher on other behavioral dimensions, such as oppositionality, and Caucasians higher on affective dimensions, such as sadness. The results support research on black-Caucasian differences and suggest the need to validate further the CDI with minority populations.     

Cross-validation of a minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI) subscale for the assessment of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder

We have examined the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scores of 80 carefully diagnosed veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in an attempt to cross-validate the PTSD subscale and three-point MMPI code of Keane, Malloy, and Fairbank (1984). In general, although we replicated Keane and co-workers'cutoff scores, our hit rates were slightly lower than those reported originally.This research was supported in part by NIMH Grant MH-37839 to Dr. Kolb.     

Construct interpretation of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) clinical scales: An orthogonal transformation

The implications for personality test construction of the revolution in testing caused by construct validity considerations are outlined, with particular relevance to the assessment of psychopathology. These include (a) substantive definition of constructs; (b) concern for internal consistency reliability as well as generalizability; (c) evaluation of structural relationships among items and scales; (d) suppression of response biases; (e) emphasis on minimum redundancy among scales; (f) evaluation of convergent and discriminant validity of scales and profiles; and (g) evaluation of criterion validity for configurations of scales and profiles, as well as single scales. Benefits are seen as accruing to an increased understanding of psychopathology and higher levels of validity. Prior, and subsequent, to the forthcoming revision of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), one approach to realizing some of the aims of construct measurement with an empirically based test is through an orthogonal transformation of the scales. Preliminary results for the extant MMPI clinical scales are reported, yielding evidence of (a) scale independence while retaining high correlations with uncorrected scales, (b) an appropriate pattern of correlations with a separate set of new scales of psychopathology, (c) a possible basis for new item analyses, and (d) freedom from correlations with a putative measure of response bias. Implications of the orthogonal transformation for profile interpretation are discussed.Portions of this paper were presnted at an invited address, 18th Annual Symposium on Recent Developments in the Use of the MMPI, Minneapolis, April 9, 1983. This paper was written while Douglas N. Jackson was distinguished visiting professor at the College of Education, The University of Iowa. This research has been supported by Research Grant 895-84/86 from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, Research Grant 411-83-0014 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Alberta Hospital Edmonton.