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Established Measures (established + measure)
Selected AbstractsPsychometric properties of the Trauma Assessment for AdultsDEPRESSION AND ANXIETY, Issue 2 2009Matt J. Gray Ph.D. Abstract Background: The Trauma Assessment for Adults (TAA) was developed to facilitate the assessment of exposure to traumatic events that could result in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The TAA inquires about numerous potentially traumatic events that an individual may have experienced. Although the TAA has been used extensively for clinical and research purposes, its psychometric properties have never been formally evaluated. The objective of the present investigation was to evaluate the psychometric properties of this frequently used measure. Methods: The studies reported here describe the performance of the TAA in two samples,college undergraduates (N=142) and community mental health center clients (N=67). Among undergraduates, 1-week temporal stability was evaluated and, in both samples, item- and scale-level convergence of the TAA with an established trauma exposure measure was assessed. Convergence of the TAA with clinically related constructs was also evaluated. Results: The TAA exhibited adequate temporal stability (r=.80) and satisfactory item-level convergence with existing measures of trauma history among college students. In the clinical sample, the TAA again converged well with an established measure of trauma exposure (r=.65). It was not as strongly predictive, in either sample, of trauma-related distress relative to an alternate trauma exposure measure. Conclusion: Although it performs satisfactorily, the TAA does not appear to be superior to other existing measures of trauma exposure. Depression and Anxiety, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Normal interhemispheric inhibition in persistent developmental stuttering,MOVEMENT DISORDERS, Issue 5 2009Martin Sommer MD Abstract Imaging studies suggest a right hemispheric (pre)motor overactivity in patients with persistent developmental stuttering (PDS). The interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) studied with transcranial magnetic stimulation is an established measure of the interplay between right and left motor areas. We assessed IHI in 15 young male adults with PDS and 15 age-matched fluent-speaking subjects. We additionally studied the ipsilateral silent period (iSP) duration. We found no significant between-group difference for IHI or for iSP duration. We conclude that the interplay between the primary motor cortices is normal in patients with PDS. The abnormal right motor and premotor activity observed in functional imaging studies on PDS are not likely to reflect altered primary motor cortex excitability, but are likely to have a different origin. © 2009 Movement Disorder Society [source] Comparing low frequency heart rate variability and preejection period: Two sides of a different coinPSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 6 2008Annebet D. Goedhart Abstract It has been hypothesized that the ratio of heart rate variability in the low- (LF) and high- (HF) frequency bands may capture variation in cardiac sympathetic control. Here we tested the temporal stability of the LF/HF ratio in 24-h ambulatory recordings and compared this ratio to the preejection period (PEP), an established measure of cardiac sympathetic control. Good temporal stability was found across a period of 3.3 years (.46 Individual differences in the experience of burden in caring for relatives with dementia: role of personality and masteryAUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL ON AGEING, Issue 4 2005Edward Helmes Objective:,We explored individual differences in caregiver outcome according to the personality and behavioural style of the carer. Current models of caregiver burden fail to consider such factors. Methods:,This cross-sectional, exploratory study used carer variables of personality traits and mastery and patient variables of cognitive, functional and neurobehavioural status to predict scores on an established measure of burden in a sample of 51 people with dementia and their carers. Results:,Hierarchical multiple regression showed a significant association between behavioural disturbance and neuroticism and burden, but not with mastery. Conclusions:,The primary findings in this study are that models of caregiver outcome need to take an individual differences perspective in accounting for caregiver mental health risk factors: personality characteristics do play a part in the way caregivers manage this difficult role. [source] Integrated Environmental and Financial Performance Metrics for Investment Analysis and Portfolio ManagementCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2007Simon Thomas This paper introduces a new measure, based on a study by Trucost and Dr Robert Repetto, combining external environmental costs with established measures of economic value added, and demonstrates how this measure can be incorporated into financial analysis. We propose that external environmental costs are relevant to all investors: universal investors are concerned about the scale of external costs whether or not regulations to internalise them are likely; mainstream investors need to understand external costs as an indication of future regulatory compliance costs; and SRI investors need to evaluate companies on both financial and social performance. The paper illustrates our new measure with data from US electric utilities and illustrates how the environmental exposures of different fund managers and portfolios can be compared. With such measures fund managers can understand and control portfolio-wide environmental risks, demonstrate their environmental credentials quantitatively and objectively and compete for the increasing number of investment mandates that have an environmental component. [source] The Cannabis Use Problems Identification Test (CUPIT): development, reliability, concurrent and predictive validity among adolescents and adultsADDICTION, Issue 4 2010Jan Bashford ABSTRACT Aims To describe the empirical construction and initial validation of the Cannabis Use Problems Identification Test (CUPIT), a brief self-report screening instrument for detection of currently and potentially problematic cannabis use. Design In a three-phase prospective design an item pool of candidate questions was generated from a literature review and extensive expert consultation. The CUPIT internal structure, cross-sectional and longitudinal psychometric properties were then systematically tested among heterogeneous past-year users. Participants Volunteer participants were 212 high-risk adolescents (n = 138) and adults (n = 74) aged 13,61 years from multiple community settings. Measurements The comprehensive assessment battery included several established measures of cannabis-related pathology for CUPIT validation, with DSM-IV/ICD-10 diagnoses of cannabis use disorders as criterion standard. Findings Sixteen items loading highly on two subscales derived from principal components analysis exhibited good to excellent test,retest (0.89,0.99) and internal consistency reliability (0.92, 0.83), and highly significant ability to discriminate diagnostic subgroups along the severity continuum (non-problematic, risky, problematic use). Twelve months later, baseline CUPIT scores demonstrated highly significant longitudinal predictive utility for respondents' follow-up diagnostic group membership. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis identified a CUPIT score of 12 to be the optimal cut-point for maximizing sensitivity for both currently diagnosable cannabis use disorder and those at risk of meeting diagnostic criteria in the following 12 months. Conclusions The CUPIT is a brief cannabis screener that is reliable, valid and acceptable for use across diverse community settings and consumers of all ages. The CUPIT has clear potential to assist with achievement of public health goals to reduce cannabis-related harms in the community. [source] Design spaces, measures and metrics for evaluating quality of time operators and consequences leading to improved algorithms by design,illustration to structural dynamicsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING, Issue 14 2005X. Zhou Abstract For the first time, for time discretized operators, we describe and articulate the importance and notion of design spaces and algorithmic measures that not only can provide new avenues for improved algorithms by design, but also can distinguish in general, the quality of computational algorithms for time-dependent problems; the particular emphasis is on structural dynamics applications for the purpose of illustration and demonstration of the basic concepts (the underlying concepts can be extended to other disciplines as well). For further developments in time discretized operators and/or for evaluating existing methods, from the established measures for computational algorithms, the conclusion that the most effective (in the sense of convergence, namely, the stability and accuracy, and complexity, namely, the algorithmic formulation and algorithmic structure) computational algorithm should appear in a certain algorithmic structure of the design space amongst comparable algorithms is drawn. With this conclusion, and also with the notion of providing new avenues leading to improved algorithms by design, as an illustration, a novel computational algorithm which departs from the traditional paradigm (in the sense of LMS methods with which we are mostly familiar with and widely used in commercial software) is particularly designed into the perspective design space representation of comparable algorithms, and is termed here as the forward displacement non-linearly explicit L-stable (FDEL) algorithm which is unconditionally consistent and does not require non-linear iterations within each time step. From the established measures for comparable algorithms, simply for illustration purposes, the resulting design of the FDEL formulation is then compared with the commonly advocated explicit central difference method and the implicit Newmark average acceleration method (alternately, the same conclusion holds true against controllable numerically dissipative algorithms) which pertain to the class of linear multi-step (LMS) methods for assessing both linear and non-linear dynamic cases. The conclusions that the proposed new design of the FDEL algorithm which is a direct consequence of the present notion of design spaces and measures, is the most effective algorithm to-date to our knowledge in comparison to the class of second-order accurate algorithms pertaining to LMS methods for routine and general non-linear dynamic situations is finally drawn through rigorous numerical experiments. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Development of measures of online privacy concern and protection for use on the InternetJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 2 2007Tom Buchanan As the Internet grows in importance, concerns about online privacy have arisen. The authors describe the development and validation of three short Internet-administered scales measuring privacy-related attitudes (Privacy Concern) and behaviors (General Caution and Technical Protection). In Study 1, 515 people completed an 82-item questionnaire from which the three scales were derived. In Study 2, scale validity was examined by comparing scores of individuals drawn from groups considered likely to differ in privacy-protective behaviors. In Study 3, correlations between the scores on the current scales and two established measures of privacy concern were examined. The authors conclude that these scales are reliable and valid instruments suitable for administration via the Internet, and present them for use in online privacy research. [source] A measure of disclosure risk for microdataJOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES B (STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY), Issue 4 2002C. J. Skinner Summary. Protection against disclosure is important for statistical agencies releasing microdata files from sample surveys. Simple measures of disclosure risk can provide useful evidence to support decisions about release. We propose a new measure of disclosure risk: the probability that a unique match between a microdata record and a population unit is correct. We argue that this measure has at least two advantages. First, we suggest that it may be a more realistic measure of risk than two measures that are currently used with census data. Second, we show that consistent inference (in a specified sense) may be made about this measure from sample data without strong modelling assumptions. This is a surprising finding, in its contrast with the properties of the two ,similar' established measures. As a result, this measure has potentially useful applications to sample surveys. In addition to obtaining a simple consistent predictor of the measure, we propose a simple variance estimator and show that it is consistent. We also consider the extension of inference to allow for certain complex sampling schemes. We present a numerical study based on 1991 census data for about 450 000 enumerated individuals in one area of Great Britain. We show that the theoretical results on the properties of the point predictor of the measure of risk and its variance estimator hold to a good approximation for these data. [source] Response to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy: Is It Time to Expand the Criteria?PACING AND CLINICAL ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 10 2009HENNEKE VERSTEEG M.Sc. Background: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is a promising treatment for a subgroup of patients with advanced congestive heart failure and a prolonged QRS interval. Despite the majority of patients benefiting from CRT, 10,40% of patients do not respond to this treatment and are labeled as nonresponders. Given that there is a lack of consensus on how to define response to CRT, the purpose of this viewpoint is to discuss currently used definitions and their shortcomings, and to provide recommendations as to how an expansion of the criteria for CRT response may be useful to clinicians. Methods and Results: Analysis of the literature and case reports indicates that the majority of established measures of CRT response, including New York Heart Association functional class and echocardiographic, hemodynamic, and neurohormonal parameters, are poor associates of patient-reported symptoms and quality of life. Moreover, the potential moderating role of psychological factors in determining health outcomes after CRT has largely been neglected. Conclusions: It is recommended to routinely assess health status after CRT with a disease-specific questionnaire in standard clinical practice and to examine its determinants, including psychological factors such as personality traits and depression. This may lead to improved (secondary) treatment and prognosis in CHF patients treated with CRT. [source]
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