Response Inventory Research Articles

Development and Validity Study of the Daily Stress Response Inventory for Adolescent

Development and Validity Study of the Daily Stress Response Inventory for Adolescent

Coping Strategies and Psychological Distress Among Mothers of Patients With Nonsyndromic Cleft Lip and Palate and the Family Impact of This Disorder

The current study aimed to investigate the coping strategies and level of psychological distress in mothers of patients with cleft lip and palate (CLP) and the family impact of this disorder. Participants were mothers of 55 children or adolescents with nonsyndromic CLP recruited from families attending a CLP clinic and 2 university hospitals in Mashhad, northeast of Iran. Family impact, psychological distress, and coping strategies were assessed using validated psychological questionnaires including Family Impact Scale, General Health Questionnaire, and Coping Response Inventory. Findings revealed that mothers relied more on the use of approach-oriented rather than avoidance-oriented coping strategies. According to General Health Questionnaire scores, 38.2% of mothers showed some evidence of psychological distress, and 23.6% were suspected of having severe psychological problems. Regarding the family impact of CLP, mothers reported the greatest impact to be on the family's financial status and parental emotions. Those mothers who used avoidant coping strategies reported a greater family impact of CLP (P = 0.002). Emotional discharge and acceptance coping were significant predictors of family impact (P = 0.037 and P = 0.035, respectively). Mothers of 13- to 18-year-old patients with CLP reported greater use of problem-solving coping strategy when compared with mothers of younger patients (P = 0.006). Child's age and coping strategies were not significant predictors of the level of mother's psychological distress. Increased knowledge about how parents cope with their child's craniofacial condition may help caregivers develop a more family-oriented care approach, which is sensitive to the psychosocial needs of parents, children, and their families.

Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Stress Management Program to Reduce Work-Related Stress in a Medium-Sized Enterprise

ObjectivesTo assess the effectiveness of a comprehensive workplace stress management program consisting of participatory action-oriented training (PAOT) and individual management.MethodsA comprehensive workplace stress management program was conducted in a medium-sized enterprise. The baseline survey was conducted in September 2011, using the Korean Occupational Stress Scale (KOSS) and Worker’s Stress Response Inventory (WSRI). After implementing both organizational and individual level interventions, the follow up evaluation was conducted in November 2011.ResultsMost of the workers participated in the organizational level PAOT and made Team-based improvement plans. Based on the stress survey, 24 workers were interviewed by a researcher. After the organizational and individual level interventions, there was a reduction of several adverse psychosocial factors and stress responses. In the case of blue-collar workers, psychosocial factors such as the physical environment, job demands, organizational system, lack of rewards, and occupational climate were significantly improved; in the case of white-collar workers, the occupational climate was improved.ConclusionsIn light of these results, we concluded that the comprehensive stress management program was effective in reducing work-related stress in a short-term period. A persistent long-term follow up is necessary to determine whether the observed effects are maintained over time. Both team-based improvement activities and individual interviews have to be sustainable and complementary to each other under the long-term plan.

Personality at Face Value: Facial Appearance Predicts Self and Other Personality Judgments among Strangers and Spouses.

Character judgments, based on facial appearance, impact both perceivers' and targets' interpersonal decisions and behaviors. Nonetheless, the resilience of such effects in the face of longer acquaintanceship duration is yet to be determined. To address this question, we had 51 elderly long-term married couples complete self and informant versions of a Big Five Inventory. Participants were also photographed, while they were requested to maintain an emotionally neutral expression. A subset of the initial sample completed a shortened version of the Big Five Inventory in response to the pictures of other opposite sex participants (with whom they were unacquainted). Oosterhof and Todorov's (2008) computer-based model of face evaluation was used to generate facial trait scores on trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness, based on participants' photographs. Results revealed that structural facial characteristics, suggestive of greater trustworthiness, predicted positively biased, global informant evaluations of a target's personality, among both spouses and strangers. Among spouses, this effect was impervious to marriage length. There was also evidence suggestive of a Dorian Gray effect on personality, since facial trustworthiness predicted not only spousal and stranger, but also self-ratings of extraversion. Unexpectedly, though, follow-up analyses revealed that (low) facial dominance, rather than (high) trustworthiness, was the strongest predictor of self-rated extraversion. Our present findings suggest that subtle emotional cues, embedded in the structure of emotionally neutral faces, exert long-lasting effects on personality judgments even among very well-acquainted targets and perceivers.

Cerebellar Cortex Granular Layer Interneurons in the Macaque Monkey Are Functionally Driven by Mossy Fiber Pathways through Net Excitation or Inhibition

The granular layer is the input layer of the cerebellar cortex. It receives information through mossy fibers, which contact local granular layer interneurons (GLIs) and granular layer output neurons (granule cells). GLIs provide one of the first signal processing stages in the cerebellar cortex by exciting or inhibiting granule cells. Despite the importance of this early processing stage for later cerebellar computations, the responses of GLIs and the functional connections of mossy fibers with GLIs in awake animals are poorly understood. Here, we recorded GLIs and mossy fibers in the macaque ventral-paraflocculus (VPFL) during oculomotor tasks, providing the first full inventory of GLI responses in the VPFL of awake primates. We found that while mossy fiber responses are characterized by a linear monotonic relationship between firing rate and eye position, GLIs show complex response profiles characterized by “eye position fields” and single or double directional tunings. For the majority of GLIs, prominent features of their responses can be explained by assuming that a single GLI receives inputs from mossy fibers with similar or opposite directional preferences, and that these mossy fiber inputs influence GLI discharge through net excitatory or inhibitory pathways. Importantly, GLIs receiving mossy fiber inputs through these putative excitatory and inhibitory pathways show different firing properties, suggesting that they indeed correspond to two distinct classes of interneurons. We propose a new interpretation of the information flow through the cerebellar cortex granular layer, in which mossy fiber input patterns drive the responses of GLIs not only through excitatory but also through net inhibitory pathways, and that excited and inhibited GLIs can be identified based on their responses and their intrinsic properties.

Frequently Used Coping Scales: A Meta‐Analysis

This article reports the frequency of the use of coping scales in academic journals published from 1998 to 2010. Two thousand empirical journal articles were selected from the EBSCO database. The COPE, Ways of Coping Questionnaire, Coping Strategies Questionnaire, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, Religious-COPE and Coping Response Inventory were frequently mentioned. In particular, the COPE (20.2%) and Ways of Coping Questionnaire (13.6%) were used the most frequently. In this literature reviewed, coping scales were most often used to assess coping with health issues (e.g. illness, pain and medical diagnoses) over other types of stressors, and patients were the most frequent participants. Further, alpha coefficients were estimated for the COPE subscales, and correlations between the COPE subscales and coping outcomes were calculated, including depressive symptoms, anxiety, negative affect, psychological distress, physical symptoms and well-being.

Suicide Intervention Skills Among Japanese Medical Residents

Patient suicide is a tragic occurrence, and it can be a demoralizing experience for medical residents. Few studies, however, have assessed suicide management skills among these front-line healthcare professionals. This study evaluated the self-assessed competence and confidence of medical residents with regard to the management of potentially suicidal patients and assessed the correlation with the residents' background characteristics. The authors conducted a multicenter, cross-sectional survey of 114 medical residents in Japan, using a modified version of the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory (SIRI-2), the Medical Outcomes Study 8-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-8), and a 5-point Likert scale to assess confidence in suicide management. A majority (89.5%) of the residents rated their confidence in managing suicidal patients as Not At All Confident or Rather Not Confident, although most were close to completing their psychiatric rotation. Results on the SIRI-2 suggested intermediate competence in managing suicidal behavior, as compared with that of other healthcare professionals. Competence as indicated by the SIRI-2 score was weakly and negatively correlated with the score for self-perceived Vitality on the SF-8 scale. Insufficient skills and lack of confidence in the management of suicidal patients was observed in this sample of Japanese medical residents, thus highlighting the need for improved suicide-management programs for junior medical residents in Japanese hospitals.

Analysis of the bullwhip effect with multi-echelon, multi-product supply chains

Article history: Received March 16 2013 Received in revised format May 9 2013 Accepted May 9 2013 Available online May 15 2013 The bullwhip effect is a phenomenon in forecast-driven distribution channels, which is associated with a trend of larger and larger swings in inventory in response to changes in demand, as we look at firm further back in the supply chain for a particular product. This paper deals with the bullwhip effect in a multi-echelon multiple products supply chain with correlated market demands. The downstream retailer procures products from an un-capacitated upstream supplier to meet the correlated market demands of multiple products. This paper proposes a new method based on demand forecasting technique and uses a simple moving average to eliminate the bullwhip effect, which is proved to be effective under some circumstances. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Motor Abilities and Psychological Characteristics of Slovene Military Pilots

In our study, we aimed to determine which tests differentiate Slovene military pilots from control groups (general population, sports pilots, and soldiers), and produced a profile of a military pilot, which is an important factor for military pilot selection. Indeed the performance of a pilot also depends on a pilot's motor abilities, his or her personality profile, and his or her stress coping style. We administered some motoric tests, some of the tests in the Complex Reactionmeter Drenovac series, the Big Five personality questionnaire, and a stress coping questionnaire called the Coping Responses Inventory. The analysis of variance was used to test research aims. SPSS 16.0 was used to analyze the data. The results show that the special characteristics of military pilots include better emotion control, a higher level of emotional stability, extrovertedness, and higher impulse control. Slovene military pilots use strategies focused on a problem, they cope with problem situations effectively, and they have shorter reaction times on the test of spatial coordination. The research findings can be used to determine specific criteria for high-quality military pilot selection and to provide directions for development in this field.

Effectiveness of brief suicide management training programme for medical residents in Japan: a cluster randomized controlled trial

Aims. To evaluate the effectiveness of a brief suicide management training programme for Japanese medical residents compared with the usual lecture on suicidality. Methods. In this multi-center, clustered randomized controlled trial, the intervention group attended a structured suicide management programme and the control group, the usual lecture on depression and suicidality. The primary outcome was the difference in residents' cumulative competency score to manage suicidal persons from baseline (T0) to 1 month after the intervention (T2), determined using the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory (SIRI-1) score, at individual level. Results. Analysis of 114 residents (intervention group n=65, control group n=49) assigned to two clusters in each group revealed no change in SIRI-1 score from T0 to T2 or immediately after the intervention (T1) between the two groups. As a secondary analysis, discrepancy in judgement between the participants and Japanese suicidologists was examined immediately after the intervention in the adjusted model, with a mean difference in score of 9.98 (95% confidence interval: 4.39-15.56; p=0.001). Conclusions. The structured programme was not proven to improve competency in suicide management when measured by the SIRI-1 score. Further elaboration of the programme and valid measurement of its outcome would be needed to show the program's effectiveness.

Posttraumatic Cognitions, Avoidance Coping, Suicide, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Adolescent Refugees

This cross-sectional survey examined posttraumatic cognitions, avoidance coping, suicide and trauma-related disorders of Congolese adolescent refugees in Nakivale refugee settlement. We interviewed 89 adolescents (aged 18-24 years; 62.9% females) using the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory, Coping Response Inventory, MINI suicidality scale and Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostics Survey. Forty-four (49.4%) adolescent satisfied the PTSD diagnostic criteria. Twenty-six adolescents (29.2%) had moderate to high current suicide risk. Significant predictors including negative cognitions about self, emotional discharge, and acceptance or resignation explained 33.6 percent of the variance in PTSD symptom severity. About 50.8 percent of the variance in PTSD was explained by risk factors including age, trauma load, and negative cognitions about self. The findings suggest that for the adolescent refugees, negative appraisal and avoidance coping strategies used subsequent to trauma exposure have implication for current psychological wellbeing. Therefore there is need to provide psychological intervention to address these maladaptive posttraumatic problems.

University Mental Health Professionals in Puerto Rico: Suicide Experiences, Attitudes, Practices, and Intervention Skills

This study explored suicide knowledge, experiences, attitudes, practices, and intervention skills of mental health professionals (n = 52) working in counseling centers of Puerto Rican public and private universities. Intervention skills were examined using a Spanish version of the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory (SIRI-2; Neimeyer & Bonelle, 1997). Results suggest inadequate screening practices, difficulty in exploring and assessing suicidal ideation/conduct and intent, and a lack of knowledge of risk factors. Results point to the need for further training in suicide screening and risk assessment as an early intervention strategy for prevention. Implications for future studies and practice are discussed.

Self-reported stressors of National Guard women veterans before and after deployment: the relevance of interpersonal relationships.

ABSTRACTBACKGROUNDWith their rapidly expanding roles in the military, women service members experience significant stressors throughout their deployment experience. However, there are few studies that examine changes in women Veterans’ stressors before and after deployment.OBJECTIVEThis study examines the types of stressors women Veterans report before deployment, immediately after deployment, 3 months after deployment, and 1 year post-deployment.DESIGNDescriptive data on reported stressors was collected at four time points of a longitudinal study (HEROES Project). Open-ended responses from the Coping Response Inventory (CRI) were coded into six possible major stressor categories for analysis.PARTICIPANTSSeventy-nine Army National Guard and Reserve female personnel deploying to Operation Enduring Freedom (OFF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) were surveyed prior to deployment. Of these participants, 35 women completed Phase 2, 41 completed Phase 3, and 48 completed Phase 4 of the study.KEY RESULTSWe identified six major stressor categories: (1) interpersonal (i.e., issues with family and/or friends), (2) deployment-related and military-related, (3) health concerns, (4) death of a loved one, (5) daily needs (i.e., financial/housing/transportation concerns), and (6) employment or school-related concerns. At all time points, interpersonal issues were one of the most common type of stressor for this sample. Daily needs concerns increased from 3 months post-deployment to 1 year post-deployment.CONCLUSIONSInterpersonal concerns are commonly reported by women Veterans both before and after their combat experience, suggesting that this is a time during which interpersonal support is especially critical. We discuss implications, which include the need for a more coordinated approach to women Veterans’ health care (e.g., greater community-based outreach), and the need for more and more accessible Veterans Affairs (VA) services to address the needs of female Veterans.

GATEKEEPER TRAINING FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION IN FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITY MEMBERS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Gatekeeper training aims to train people to recognize and identify those who are at risk for suicide and assist them in getting care. Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), a form of gatekeeper training, has been implemented around the world without a controlled evaluation. We hypothesized that participants in 2 days of ASIST gatekeeper training would have increased knowledge and preparedness to help people with suicidal ideation in comparison to participants who received a 2-day Resilience Retreat that did not focus on suicide awareness and intervention skills (control condition). First Nations on reserve people in Northwestern Manitoba, aged 16 years and older, were recruited and randomized to two arms of the study. Self-reported measures were collected at three time points-immediately pre-, immediately post-, and 6 months post intervention. The primary outcome was the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory, a validated scale that assesses the capacity for individuals to intervene with suicidal behavior. Secondary outcomes included self-reported preparedness measures and gatekeeper behaviors. In comparison with the Resilience Retreat (n = 24), ASIST training (n = 31) was not associated with a significant impact on all outcomes of the study based on intention-to-treat analysis. There was a trend toward an increase in suicidal ideation among those who participated in the ASIST in comparison to those who were in the Resilience Retreat. The lack of efficacy of ASIST in a First Nations on-reserve sample is concerning in the context of widespread policies in Canada on the use of gatekeeper training in suicide prevention.

An open-label study of effects of acupuncture on chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundEven though chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue are quite common, there are no clearly known causes. Most treatments are therefore symptomatic in nature, and chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue patients are highly interested in using oriental medicine or complementary and alternative medicine treatment. Acupuncture, one of the major treatments used in oriental medicine, is effective in treating various diseases. This study will attempt to analyze the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of chronic fatigue by comparing the two treatment groups (body acupuncture, Sa-am acupuncture) and the control group (usual care).Methods/designThis study consists of a four-center, three-arm, randomized, controlled, and open-label trial. One hundred and fifty participants are randomly divided into treatment groups A and B and a control group. The treatment groups will receive acupuncture treatments either two or three times per week for a total of 10 sessions over a period of 4 weeks. The control group will not receive acupuncture treatments and will continue their usual care during this period. The primary outcome variable is the Fatigue Severity Scale, which will be utilized 5 weeks after randomization. Secondary outcome variables are the Fatigue Severity Scale at 13 weeks, a short form of the Stress Response Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Numeric Rating Scale, and the EuroQol-5 Dimension at 5 and 13 weeks after randomization.DiscussionThis study will provide evidence with high external validity on the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture as a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue.Trial registrationClinical Research Information Service KCT0000508

The relationship between coping styles and affective/behavioural symptoms among individuals with an acquired brain injury

Primary objective: To evaluate the impact of combined Axis I and II emotional profiles, demographic and psychosocial variables on coping responses in an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) population using the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the Coping Response Inventory (CRI).Research design: This was a retrospective study examining the relationship between coping styles with affective, demographic and psychosocial variables using a multi-dimensional profile analysis.Methods and procedures: Participants completed the PAI and CRI during a regular clinical visit at the ABI Program (n = 100). Profile data was divided into seven established sub-types and analysed with coping responses. Traumatic (TBI; n = 78) and non-traumatic (n = 24) brain-injured individuals comprised the sample.Main outcomes and results: Previous findings were confirmed showing that highly symptomatic patients primarily use negative coping strategies. Also, affective symptoms, gender, relationship status, perceived stress and psychosocial supports mediate the use of different negative coping responses. Interesting, anxiety-based symptoms were associated with positive responses similar to asymptomatic ABI patients.Conclusions: Coping strategies adopted by brain-injured individuals are mediated by Axis I and II symptoms as well as psychosocial support, stress, marital status and gender. As a result, this has implications for developing treatment strategies.

Impact of the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism on Regional Brain Gray Matter Volumes: Relevance to the Stress Response

ObjectiveGenetic imaging is used to investigate the mechanism by which genetic variants influence brain structure. In a previous study, a structural change of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with symptom modulation in post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This study examined the effect of a polymorphism in the gene encoding brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) on regional gray matter (GM) volumes and the correlations between the dorsolateral prefrontal GM volume and the stress level in healthy volunteers.MethodsSixty-one volunteers underwent genotyping for the BDNF Val66Met single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and completed the Stress Response Inventory (SRI). Magnetic resonance images were also acquired, and the effect of each subject's BDNF genotype and SRI subscore on his or her dorsolateral prefrontal GM volume was evaluated.ResultsThe Val/Val homozygotes had significantly larger GM volumes in the prefrontal cortex and the precuneus, the uncus, and the superior temporal and occipital cortices than Met carriers. The Met homozygotes demonstrated a higher stress response in depression domain than Val/Val and Val/Met groups. A negative correlation between the middle frontal cortex GM volume and the SRI depression subscore was found.ConclusionThese findings indicate an interaction between genes and brain structure, and they suggest that differences in dorsolateral prefrontal GM volume related to the BDNF Val66Met SNP are associated with resilience to stressful life events, particularly in the dimension of emotion.

Cupping for Treating Neck Pain in Video Display Terminal (VDT) Users: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial

This was a randomized controlled pilot trial to evaluate the effectiveness of cupping therapy for neck pain in video display terminal (VDT) workers. Forty VDT workers with moderate to severe neck pain were recruited from May, 2011 to February, 2012. Participants were randomly allocated into one of the two interventions: 6 sessions of wet and dry cupping or heating pad application. The participants were offered an exercise program to perform during the participation period. A 0 to 100 numeric rating scale (NRS) for neck pain, measure yourself medical outcome profile 2 score (MYMOP2 score), cervical spine range of motion (C-spine ROM), neck disability index (NDI), the EuroQol health index (EQ-5D), short form stress response inventory (SRI-SF) and fatigue severity scale (FSS) were assessed at several points during a 7-week period. Compared with a heating pad, cupping was more effective in improving pain (adjusted NRS difference: -1.29 [95% CI -1.61, -0.97] at 3 weeks (p=0.025) and -1.16 [-1.48, -0.84] at 7 weeks (p=0.005)), neck function (adjusted NDI difference: -0.79 [-1.11, -0.47] at 3 (p=0.0039) and 7 weeks (p<0.0001)) and discomfort (adjusted MYMOP2 difference score: -0.72 [-1.04 to -0.40] at 3 weeks and -0.92 [-1.24, -0.60] at 7 weeks). Significant improvement in EQ-5D was observed at 7 weeks (1.0 [0.88, 1.0] with cupping and 0.91 [0.86, 0.91] with heating pad treatment, p=0.0054). Four participants reported mild adverse events of cupping. Two weeks of cupping therapy and an exercise program may be effective in reducing pain and improving neck function in VDT workers.

Coping Skills, Mental Disorders, and Suicide Among Rural Youths in China

The strain theory of suicide postulates that psychological strains usually precede mental disorders including suicidal behavior. Lack of coping skills is one of the four strains. This article focuses on the effect of lack of coping skills on individual mental disorders and suicide. Data including 392 suicide cases and 416 community-living controls were from a large psychological autopsy study conducted in rural China. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R were used for the diagnosis of mental disorders. Coping skills were measured by the Coping Response Inventory. The logical analysis and cognitive avoidance coping skills were negatively associated with mental disorders, whereas the taking problem-solving action and acceptance/resignation coping skills were positively associated with mental disorders. This study supports the hypothesis that lack of coping skills to certain strains is likely to lead to mental disorders and suicidal behavior. Improving people's coping strategies may be an effective way to lower the prevalence of mental disorders and suicide.

Changes in Pain Cognitions Mediate Effects of Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment on Reductions in Symptoms and Disability in Children with Unexplained Abdominal Pain

Purpose: A recent study by our group (Levy et al., 2010) demonstrated the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral intervention for parents and children aimed at reducing abdominal pain and disability in children with functional abdominal pain. However, the factors that mediated this change were unknown. The present study sought to determine whether the cognitive variables targeted by our intervention mediated intended outcomes. Methods: 200 children with persistent functional abdominal pain and their parents were randomly assigned to one of two conditions - a 3-session cognitive-behavioral (CBT) intervention targeting parents' reactions to their children's pain complaints and children's coping with symptoms, or a 3-session educational intervention that controlled for time and attention. Pain was assessed using the “current pain” item from the Faces Pain Scale-Revised (Hicks et al., 2001); GI Symptoms were assessed using the GI Symptom subscale of the Children's Somatization Inventory (Garber et al., 1991); and health-related disability was measured with the Functional Disability Inventory (Walker & Greene, 1991). Mediators included child catastrophizing as measured by the Pain Response Inventory and parents' perceived threat regarding their child's pain as measured by the Pain Beliefs Questionnaire (Walker et al., 2005). Results: Reductions in parents' perceptions of the threat of their child's pain mediated effects of the CBT intervention on reductions in both child- and parent-reported child pain, GI symptom severity, and disability. Similarly, reductions in children's catastrophic cognitions about their pain mediated effects of the CBT intervention on child- and parent-reported child pain, and child-reported GI symptom severity and disability. Conclusion: Changes in the way parents and children think about the child's pain, specifically reductions in concerns about its seriousness, appear to mediate reductions in symptoms and disability. This information should be incorporated into the clinical evaluation and medical treatment of these patients.