A Sjöbring bibliography

Background: The aim of this study was to examine the level and affect of exposure to teacher bullying in primary and secondary schools on patients with personality disorders (PD). Method: The study group contained 116 people (18–60 years old); 49 patients diagnosed with PD undergoing psychiatric treatment in 10 different psychiatric outpatient clinics in the Southern and Middle part of Norway, and a control group consisting of 67 people who worked in an institution for somatic/elderly people and an institution for people with drug/alcohol dependency in the Middle part of Norway. All study participants filled out a self-report questionnaire, which included demographic data, one item about whether they have been bullied by one or several teachers, and 28 items regarding subjection to negative acts from teachers based on the Negative Acts Questionnaire -Revised (NAQ-R). Results: Patients diagnosed with PD reported significantly more bullying by teachers in both primary school (OR 7.3; 95% CI 1.9–27.7) and secondary school (OR 5.8; 95% CI 1.1–30.5) than healthy controls. Patients with PD also reported a higher prevalence of negative acts from teachers than healthy controls in both primary and secondary schools, such as differential treatment, ridicule, humiliation, and being ignored or neglected at least once weekly. Conclusion: Our findings indicate a correlation between bullying from teachers, as reported by PD patients, and the development of PD in adulthood. The problem of teacher bullying deserves more attention with regard to this possible correlation between student victimization and the development of PD.     

Effects of Mood on Lacrimal Flow: Sex Differences and Asymmetry

After baseline assessments or mood and lacrimal flow in each eye, 80 subjects participated in either a sadness or happiness mood manipulation. They were requested to generate imagery of sad or happy events in their lives and (o reexperience the associated affect. Self-reports of mood and lacrimal flow were then reassessed. For both sexes, the sadness condition was associated with reports of greater dysphoric affect than the elation condition. In females, lacrimal flow tended to increase following the sadness manipulation and significantly decreased following the happiness manipulation. Mood did not significantly influence flow values in males. Among females, the left eye showed larger changes than the right as a function of mood condition. The nature of the sex differences, the implications of the findings for theories of lateralization of emotion, and the utility of the lacrimal flow measure as an index of mood are discussed.     

TMD患者精神抑郁与疼痛、颌骨功能的关系

目的：比较各型颞下颌关节紊乱病（TMD）患者精神抑郁水平，并且探讨精神抑郁水平与自我报告疼痛、颌骨功能受限的关系。方法：韩国国立汉城大学齿科病院TMD与颌面疼痛门诊经过颞下颌关节紊乱研究诊断标准（RDC／TMD）确诊为TMD患者58名。要求每一名患者回答RDC／TMD韩语版病史问卷，并且建立TMD与颌面疼痛门诊标准病历。根据RDC／TMD分为3组：面肌疼痛组、关节盘移位组和其他关节病组（骨关节炎、骨关节痛和骨关节病）。应用RDC／TMD评价精神抑郁水平、疼痛强度和颌骨功能受限情况。结果：抑郁症状指数和疼痛强度在3组患者之间均存在显著性差异。抑郁症状指数与疼痛强度成正相关，疼痛强度与颌骨功能受限程度成正相关。结论：TMD以肌筋膜疼痛组最多见．且该组患者抑郁症状指数最高。对TMD患者进行精神抑郁水平评价是相当重要的。     

A peer-nomination assessment of electronic forms of aggression and victimization

The perpetration and receipt of electronic aggression have largely been assessed with self-report questionnaires. Using a sample of 573 adolescents, the current study compared the psychometric properties of a peer-nomination measure of electronic aggression and victimization to the more widely used self-report approach. Estimates of the reliability, stability, and concordance of peer- and self-report assessments were adequate, mirroring those from research on aggressive exchanges in school. Analyses of validity and utility revealed that peer-nominations, compared to self-reports, provide overlapping and distinct information on adolescents' social, emotional, and academic adjustment. Overall, these findings provide evidence that peer-nominations are a reliable, valid, and useful means for measuring electronic aggression and victimization. Future work will benefit from their incorporation into multi-method assessments.     

Measurement of self-reported pain intensity in children and adolescents

Acute and chronic pain is a common experience in children and youth. A thorough assessment is fundamental to understand this experience and to assess and monitor treatment responses. The intensity of pain is the parameter most commonly assessed. In this article, we describe the different methods employed to assess pediatric pain intensity and review well-validated and commonly used self-report measures of pain. This review is based on the recent systematic reviews conducted for the Pediatric Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials Consensus Group and the Society of Pediatric Psychology. Amongst the several types of pediatric pain measures, self-report, when available, is regarded as the primary source of information about pain intensity, to be complemented by observation and knowledge of the context. There is a large number of self-report measures of pediatric pain intensity; and there is some agreement that professionals in the clinical and research practice should assess pain intensity using the Pieces of Hurt Tool, the Faces Pain Scale, the Oucher, or Visual Analogue Scales because these measures have shown to have sound psychometric properties and clinical utility. Despite the increased number of age-appropriate self-report measures of pediatric pain intensity over the last years, we report several research gaps and priorities of future research.     

Drug Use and Street Crime in Miami: An (Almost) Twenty-Year Retrospective

Researchers at the University of Delaware have been conducting field studies of drug use and crime in Miami, Florida, since 1977. This paper reviews this research and its contributions to understanding drugs-crime relationships. Early studies tested mechanisms for accessing street populations of heroin users and assessing the nature and extent of their drug use and criminality. Subsequent studies targeted a variety of crime-involved heroin and cocaine users, including women as well as men, serious delinquents, adolescent and adult crack users, and cocaine users in treatment as well as on the street. Major findings include the low risk of arrest for income-generating crimes committed by heroin users, and the prevalence of HIV-risk behaviors among both serious delinquents and women crack users. Analyses consistently show the critical importance of sample characteristics in research on drug use, including age, cohort, and street-versus-treatment status. [Translations are provided in the International Abstracts Section of this issue.]     

Do actions speak louder than words? Self-assessed and performance-based measures of physical and visual function among old people

Self-assessments and performance-based tests are methods commonly used to assess physical function in health surveys of older people. It has been suggested that the choice of method could affect the results, particularly in certain groups. This study compares results attained using self-assessed and performance-based measures of upper and lower body function and vision. The influence of sex, age, education and cognitive status is explored. This is done by studying the prevalence rates of self-reported and observed limitations in function, the prevalence rates of discrepancies between measures and the prevalence rates as well as the odds ratios of discrepancies depending on sex, age, education and cognitive status. Data are from a nationally representative sample of the Swedish population aged 77 or above (n=492). The results show that discrepancies occur among a minority of the sample and with no distinctive bias toward either under- or overestimations of functional ability at the cross-sectional level. Cognitive impairment seemed to increase the risk of discrepancies. Women showed an increased tendency toward discrepancies between measures of upper body function. Age and education showed associations with some discrepancies but were not significant in the multiple regression models. In conclusion, there is a risk of systematic biases in the association between self-assessed and performance-based measures of function. At the cross-sectional level, however, these differences are small.     

Medical Students and Drugs: Further Neuropsychological and Use Pattern Considerations

Drug use patterns of 134 freshman medical students were surveyed. Ninety-four percent reported experience with alcohol, 72% with marijuana, 24% with hallucinogens or stimulants, and 7% with opiates. Persons who reported use of the least socially sanctioned substances (hallucinogens, stimulants, opiates) were a subgroup of marijuana users, whereas marijuana experienced students were a subgroup of alcohol users. Increasing marijuana use appears to be associated with increased alcohol consumption. Twenty-five students who had never used marijuana and 26 students who had used it on 50 or more occasions were compared on three neuropsychological tests: Tactual Performance Test, Minnesota Perceptuo-Diagnostic Test, and the Hutt Adaptation of the Bender Gestalt Test. There were no neuropsychological differences between marijuana experienced and marijuana naive subjects. The methodological difficulties in studying the long-term cerebral effects of marijuana are discussed.     

Age effects to negative arousal differ for self-report and electrodermal activity

Affective processing and emotional experience may change with age. Because findings of age differences in affective experiences are mixed even in studies using standardized stimuli, this study assessed age differences along gradual increases in negative arousal. Younger (20-30 years) and older (70-80 years) healthy adults (n=78) viewed 110 neutral to negative pictures (IAPS) while intensity ratings and electrodermal activity were recorded. Results showed that age had opposite effects on intensity ratings and electrodermal activity over gradual increases in normative arousal. Whereas older adults showed greater increases in intensity ratings than younger adults, they showed attenuated electrodermal activity, especially at high negative arousal. Because self-reports of arousal capture various aspects of affective processes (e.g., physiological changes as well as experience), effects of age may vary for these different aspects.     

Quality of Alcohol Use Histories Collected at Intake to Substance User Treatment

Many survey questions on alcohol require complex cognitive tasks, such as long-term recall, shifting reference periods, and numeric calculation. Moreover, alcohol-related impairment is known to affect cognitive ability. To assess the quality of data on self-reported alcohol use, internal consistency analyses were conducted as part of a comprehensive multisite prospective study of drug user treatment outcome undertaken in 11 cities throughout the United States (DATOS). Contrary to expectation, analyses found high levels of internal consistency. For questions on age of initiation of different types of alcohol use, over 99% of respondents (N = 2,842) reported consistent answers for each pair of logically related questions. Reports of being drunk and of quantity of alcohol consumed were similarly consistent.