Efficacy of behavioral management and patient education on vascular access cleansing compliance in hemodialysis patients

Compared four treatment conditions to test their ability to enhance compliance with vascular access cleansing (VAC) procedures in a group of 56 hemodialysis patients. The conditions were patient education, behavioral management with monetary incentive, patient education/behavioral management, and attention control. Behavioral observers rated VAC behavior at pretreatment, posttreatment 1-month follow-up, and 1-year follow-up. Knowledge of VAC procedures was also assessed via a questionnaire at pretreatment and posttreatment. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance. Results indicated that the patients in the education/behavioral, behavioral, and education groups gave significantly more correct answers on our VAC knowledge questionnaires at posttreatment than did patients in the attention control group. Further, patients in the education/behavioral and behavioral groups completed significantly more VAC steps at posttreatment and 1-month follow-up than did patients in the education group and in the attention control group. Differences were not maintained at 1-year follow-up, although more than 50% of the patients were lost to follow-up. Implications of the present findings for behavioral and educational interventions are discussed.     

Does Organizational Commitment Fully Mediate Constituent Commitment Effects? A Reassessment and Clarification

Research suggests that employees can be committed to constituents of an organization, distinct from commitment to the organization itself. However, 2 key studies came to different conclusions on whether constituent commitments have independent effects on outcomes. This study improves on earlier methodology to clarify this contradiction. Specifically, nested-model comparisons test a partially mediated model versus a fully mediated model (through organizational commitment). The results refute the main conclusion of Hunt & Morgan (1994), supporting a partially mediated model with direct constituent commitment effects on turnover intentions and citizenship behaviors (i.e., Becker, 1992). Effects of commitment to work group on turnover intentions and non-idleness were in the opposite direction from those of organizational commitment. Implications for commitment research are discussed.     

Affection and Abuse: Technology Use in Adolescent Romantic Relationships

Communication technologies benefit romantic relationships in terms of connection, but can also bring potential harm. Positive relational outcomes of adolescent technology use (i.e., increased emotional connection) have been examined separately from negative outcomes (i.e., unwanted monitoring of whereabouts) in previous research. However, the current study utilized hierarchical multiple regression to explore whether variance in both positive and negative relational outcomes could be explained by time spent online. Results suggest that time spent online predicts both positive relationship quality and cyber dating abuse after controlling age and gender. Implications include a greater understanding of the intersection between technology and adolescent relationships.     

The tachistoscopic recognition of letters under whole and partial report procedures as related to intelligence

Investigations of the short-term memory task performance of retarded individuals have indicated that these individuals demonstrate a deficit in the mechanisms necessary for the acquisition, storage and/or retrieval of information. The present study examined the tachistoscopic letter recognition task performance of retarded and non-retarded individuals under a partial report and a whole report procedure. The results revealed that the retarded subjects did significantly more poorly relative to the non-retarded subjects under both procedures. The data were interpreted as indicating that the retarded subjects were inefficient in their strategy to make the simultaneous imput task manageable. Further, the data provided no support for the suggestion that a visual-to-auditory encoding process exists between iconic and short-term memory.     

Hemispheric processing deficits in patients with paranoid schizophrenia

The purpose of the present study was to investigate hemispheric deficits in individuals with paranoid schizophrenia on four kinds of tasks: dichoptic viewing tasks involving verbal and nonverbal visual stimuli, and dichotic listening tasks involving verbal and nonverbal auditory stimuli. As dependent measures, both accuracy and speed of (correct) responding were measured. The sample recruited for this study consisted of 18 patients with paranoid schizophrenia, 15 outpatients with anxiety disorders, and 20 controls with no history of psychiatric disorders. Results indicated that, relative to the controls, the paranoid schizophrenic patients were less accurate and less efficient on auditory-verbal tasks requiring right hemisphere processing. Unlike the controls the paranoid schizophrenic patients manifested a lateralized left hemisphere advantage.     

Hemispheric specialization for reading

Behavioral laterality tasks with linguistic stimuli were used to assess the differential processing efficiencies of the cerebral hemispheres in right- and left-handed adults. Findings from a lateralized lexical decision task with concrete nouns supported Zaidel's (1983) "direct access" model of hemispheric functioning. A dual task consisting of oral and silent reading indicated that the right hand was significantly more disrupted than the left during unimanual finger tapping; however, some bilateral interference was observed. Taken together the findings suggest that although the left hemisphere was relatively more efficient, the right hemisphere was dynamically involved in the reading process.