Personality Tests

This prospective multicenter study assessed personality characteristics that may influence patient satisfaction after implantation of multifocal intraocular lenses (MIOLs). One hundred eighty-three patients who underwent bilateral implantation of different MIOLs were enrolled. Uncorrected and corrected distance visual acuity for distance and near (ie, UDVA, UNVA, CDVA, and CNVA) were assessed preoperatively and 3 and 6 months after implantation. Before surgery, personality characteristics were evaluated using a questionnaire based on the NEO Personality Inventory Test and the Compulsiveness Inventory Test. At the 3- and 6-month postoperative visits, patients answered a questionnaire concerning overall satisfaction, need for spectacles at different distances, visual function at different distances and lighting conditions, photic phenomena, and ease of performing daily activities. Three months after surgery (n = 163), mean CDVA was 0.03 ± 0.09 logMAR, UDVA was 0.05 ± 0.09 logMAR, and ...

A group of 48 inpatient alcoholics were studied using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia--Life-time Version (SADS-L) and the Brief Standard Self-rating for Phobic Patients. Approximately one-quarter of the patients were diagnosed as suffering from agoraphobia and social and mixed phobias. Approximately 44% were diagnosed as suffering from anxiety disorders and 46% had suffered from an episode of major depression. Data from the self-rating questionnaire were consistent with the diagnostic data. The alcoholics with phobias had experienced more severe dysphoric feelings than nonphobic alcoholics with other psychiatric disorders.

Abstract: Frontal lobe functions include a range of cognitive, emotional, and social abilities that enable goal-directed behavior. Although a number of studies have plotted the development of frontal lobe functions in childhood, few have extended into the adolescent years. There is also little information on which cognitive and emotional components of frontal functioning may be correlated. The aims of this study were to identify and compare age effects on different components of frontal functioning in childhood and adolescence and to examine whether abstract reasoning skills were associated with levels of emotional intelligence and social sensitivity. Twenty children (ages 9-18) were recruited from the local community for a study of normal adolescent brain development. All subjects were free of psychiatric or developmental disorders, as determined by a structured interview. Subjects completed a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery, as well as self-report measures of social sensitivity (anxiety) and emotional intelligence. Significant age effects were found for measures of abstract reasoning, response inhibition, and attentional set shifting. Levels of social anxiety increased moderately with age, although not significantly at this sample size. Abstract reasoning skills correlated positively with levels of social anxiety but not emotional intelligence. The pattern of results suggests differential developmental trajectories across various cognitive and emotional domains of frontal lobe functioning in childhood and adolescence. Increased abstract reasoning ability may be associated with increased vulnerability to social anxiety during this period.

The dimensionality of Maslach's (1982) 3 aspects of job burnout--emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment--was examined among a sample of supervisors and managers in the human services. A series of confirmatory factor analyses supported the 3-factor model, with the first 2 aspects highly correlated. The 3 aspects were found to be differentially related to other variables reflecting aspects of strain, stress coping, and self-efficacy in predictable and meaningful ways. Implications for better understanding the burnout process are discussed.

The EDE is a semistructured interview which has been developed as a measure of the specific psychopathology of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. To establish its discriminant validity it was administered to 100 patients with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa and to 42 controls. The two groups differed significantly on all items. Five subscales were derived on rational grounds and evaluated on the two populations. The α coefficients for each subscale indicated a satisfactory degree of internal consistency. The EDE provides clinicians and research workers with a detailed and comprehensive profile of the psychopathological features of patients with eating disorders.

The purpose of this program of research was to explore the use of muscle stretching procedures in relaxation training with a clinical population. In the first controlled study, stretching exercises for four muscle groups (obicularis occuli, sternocleidomastoid/trapezius, triceps/pectoralis major, and forearm/wrist flexors) were prepared. A group of people using these procedures (SR, N = 8) was compared to a group using the Bernstein and Borkovec (1973) tense-release (TR; N = 8) techniques for those same muscle groups, as well as compared to an appropriate group of controls (WL; N = 8). Assessment of physiological (multi-site EMG) and subjective (emotions, muscle tension, and self-efficacy) responses showed that persons in the SR displayed less sadness, less self-reported muscle tension at four sites, and less EMG activity on the r.masseter than persons in the TR group. In the second study, 15 subjects were administered an expanded version of the SR relaxation procedures. Results showed that all subjects reported significant decreases in self-reported levels of muscle tension; muscle tension responders showed lowered trapezius EMG and respiration rates and cardiovascular responders showed lowered diastolic blood pressure. The results are discussed in terms of the utility of relaxation procedures based primarily on muscle stretching exercises for lowering subjective and objective states of arousal.

The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comorbidity with lifetime bipolar disorder, and the influence of this comorbidity on various demographic and clinical variables in patients. Patients (n = 159) with a previous diagnosis of bipolar disorder (79 female, 80 male) were included in this study. All patients were interviewed for the presence of current adult and childhood ADHD diagnosis and other axis I psychiatric disorder comorbidities using the structured clinical interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children—Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL). The subjects also completed a Wender Utah rating scale (WURS-25) and a Current Symptoms Scale for ADHD symptoms. In particular, patients’ clinical characteristics, the age of onset of bipolar disorder, and the number of episodes were noted. Twenty-six of the 159 bipolar patients (16.3%) were diagnosed with adult ADHD, while another subgroup of patients (n = 17, 10.7%) received a diagnosis of childhood ADHD but did not fulfill criteria for adult ADHD. Both of these two subgroups (patients with adult ADHD, and patients with only childhood ADHD) had an earlier age of onset of the disease and a higher number of previous total affective or depressive episodes than those without any lifetime ADHD comorbidity. However only bipolar patients with adult ADHD comorbidity had higher lifetime comorbidity rates for axis I psychiatric disorders, such as panic disorder and alcohol abuse/dependence, compared to patients without lifetime ADHD. Bipolar patients with comorbid adult ADHD did not differ from bipolar patients with comorbid childhood ADHD in terms of any demographic or clinical variables except for adult ADHD scale scores. In conclusion, ADHD is a common comorbidity in bipolar patients, and it adversely affects the course of the disease and disrupts the social adjustment of the patients. Regular monitoring of ADHD will help to prevent problems and complications that could arise in the course of the disease, particularly in patients with early onset bipolar disorder.