Stability and change in feelings of loneliness: A two-year prospective longitudinal study of advanced alcohol abusers

In order to study the changing nature of loneliness in a prospective design, 78 alcoholics were examined twice with an interval of two years. Change scores in loneliness were correlated with change scores in social network, psychological well-being, life-satisfaction, activities, adaptation to one's work and non-work situation, psychiatric symptoms and alcohol consumption. In addition, a step-wise multiple regression analysis with loneliness change as the dependent variable was performed. Change in loneliness was accompanied by changes in well-being (especially indolence, self-esteem and perceived treatment from others), mood-related psychiatric variables and satisfaction with autonomy and life as a whole. However, other variables, like satisfaction with one's social network and a number of non-cyclic psychiatric disorders, did not change along with loneliness, despite stable cross-sectional links. The discrepancy between the cross-sectional and the longitudinal correlation patterns may be indicative of different forms of loneliness in regard to temporal stability.     

The relationship between IQ, social class and EEG findings in healthy children investigated by child-psychiatric methods

Abstract.— 222 children aged between 4.5 and 16.5 years. who were found to be normal by strict somato-neuro-logical criteria, were investigated by EEG and by child-psychiatric methods. Intelligence tests were performed according to WISC. The mean intelligence quotient amounted to 116.3± 12.4 in boys and 116.6± 14.1 in girls. Child-psychiatric findings deviating from the strictly normal occurred in 30 children significantly more frequently in social class III compared to I and 11. There was no relationship of significance between IQ and social group. No relevant relationship was found between IQ and psychiatric variables, nor between IQ and EEG-findings. The absence of the normal fixed relationship between IQ and social group is a notable finding, as is also the high average IQ. The strict normal criteria may have contributed to the exclusion of individuals with lesions and thus diminished factors having an inhibitory effect of the development of intelligence.