The General Behavior Inventory as an outpatient screen for dysthymic disorder

High prevalence, morbidity, and response to treatment make the detection of dysthymic disorder an important public health issue. We report our experience with the General Behavioral Inventory, a self-report questionnaire developed to detect affective illness, including dysthymic disorder. In a small sample of psychiatric outpatients the instrument yielded a sensitivity of 61% and a specificity of 88% for dysthymic disorder. These results challenge the utility of this instrument for detecting dysthymic disorder in this population.This work was supported in part by Grants MH-19069 and MH7103 from the National Institutes of Mental Health.     

Pour une poétique des jeux de langage

Malgré le refus que Wittgenstein semble avoir toujours opposé à l'idée d'une esthétique philosophique, son oeuvre et les nombreuses suggestions que contiennent ses divers propos se révélent riches d'enseignements, en particulier pour ce qui concerne les voies dans lesquelles certaines formes de discours sur l'art se sot engagées. La notion wittgensteinienne dejeu de langage est, sous ce rapport, éclairante. Elle permet de mettre au jour, ou du moins d'entrevoir, deux catégories de faits. Tout d'abord, elle offre une perspective critique intéressante sur le programme de ce que l'on s'est plu à nommer une poétique, dans le prolongement d'Aristote, de Jakobson et de Valéry. La poétique structuraliste, en particulier, se révéle solidaire d'une philosophie que ses ambitions théoriques ne suffisent pas à occulter. En second lieu, la notion de jeu de langage, chez Wittgenstein lui-même, est associée à une pratique d'écriture originale qui obscurcit les frontiéres que la philosophie, depuis Platon, s'est toujours souciée de tracer. Pour une poétique des jeux de langage, il existe, entre la poétique et la philosophie une double symétrie. La premiére — celle des structuralistes ou des néo-structuralistes —obéit à un programme plus philosophique qu'on ne croit; la second, en revanche, comme on le voit avec Wittgenstein, intégr une démarche poétique qui nous invite à penser à nouveaux frais ce que nous faisons.     

See the devil and tame him

Born in 1921, professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw and art theory in the Polish Academy of Sciences; has published twelve books and more than three hundred articles (bibliography in volume 14 of A. Mercier (ed.).Philosophers on Their Own Work. Bern: 1990) ranging over the history of aesthetics, Marxist and Soviet aesthetics, and issues related to the status of the arts in contemporary Western culture.     

Developmental changes of parental-reported sleep disturbance symptoms in children with attention deficit disorder

The primary goal of this retrospective study was to assess parental report of current sleep disorders in school-aged attention deficit disorder (ADD) children, as well as recalled sleep problems from when the children were infants (0–12 months) and toddlers (1–3 years). Results of a sleep questionnaire completed by mothers of 48 ADD children and a comparison group of 30 patients with school problems indicate that ADD children were perceived to have significantly more sleep problems and that these problems had onset in infancy. Specific items in the questionnaire which were increased included latency to sleep onset of more than 30 min at least 3 nights per week, fatigue upon awakening, and recall of nightmares. Pediatric clinicians should be alert to possible sleep disorders in children suspected of attention disorders and should consider sleep hygiene measures as a component of treatment.     

The impact of defibrillator discharges on psychological functioning of implantable cardioverter defibrillator recipients

A lag exists with respect to our understanding of the psychological demands and rehabilitation needs of individuals who have undergone implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) implantation. The ICD is designed to transmit an electric shock to the heart to treat a potentially life-threatening arrhythmia. This study specifically examined the impact of defibrillator discharges on the psychological functioning of ICD recipients. A questionnaire was self-administered to 33 individuals who have been living with the ICD for at least 6 months. Results revealed that levels of anger and depression were significantly higher in those subjects who reported a lower discharge rate, while sense of well-being was significantly higher in those subjects who reported a greater discharge rate. Possible explanations for our findings were proposed as well as implications for clinical intervention were discussed.     

Family characteristics as mediators of the influence of problem drinking and multiple risk status on child mental health

Structural equation modeling was used to test a theoretical model in which family cohesion and family reframing coping were hypothesized as mediators between family drinking problems, multiple risk factors, negative life events, and child mental health (conduct disorder, depression, anxiety) in two-parent families. Family cohesion mediated the relationships of family drinking problems and negative life events to child conduct disorder and depression. Negative life events mediated the relationships of family drinking problems and family multiple risk to child conduct disorder. Family reframing coping did not function as a mediator nor was it related to child mental health when other factors were considered simultaneously. Results indicate that increasing family cohesion and reducing sources of stress within the family (negative life events) represent promising areas for interventions for children with problem-drinking parents. Work on this study was funded in part by the National Institute for Mental Health Grant 2-P50-MH39246-06 to support a Preventive Intervention Research Center. The authors gratefully acknowledge contributions made by Rita Shell, Marcia Michaels, Joanne Gersten, George Knight, and Carolyn Berg.     

Interrater reliability of teacher rating scales for children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Interrater reliability of eight teacher rating scales designed to assess characteristics of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder was investigated. Coteachers of 46 students completed the rating scales. The students, ages 8–17, were designated as having a Serious Emotional Disturbance. The resulting interrater reliability correlation coefficients ranged from .62 to .87. The percentage of variance shared between raters ranged from a low of 38.4% (the ACTeRS Oppositional factor and the CBCL-TRF Attention Problems factor) to 75.7% (ADHD Rating Scale). The percent of shared variance was higher for younger children. Kappa scores evaluating rater agreement were highest at the two standard deviations above the mean cutoff. The reliability coefficients were consistent with those reported in prior research.