Looking Inside the Black Box of "Attendance at Services": New Measures for Exploring an Old Dimension in Religion and Health Research.

Research in religion and health has spurred new interest in measuring religiousness. Measurement efforts have focused on subjective facets of religiousness such as spirituality and beliefs, and less attention has been paid to congregate aspects, beyond the single item measuring attendance at services. We evaluate some new measures for religious experiences occurring during congregational worship services.

Psychosocial factors in heart surgery: presurgical vulnerability and postsurgical recovery.

Objective: Distress and low perceived social support were examined as indicators of psychosocial vulnerability in patients about to undergo heart surgery.

Design: A total of 550 study patients underwent heart surgeries, including bypass grafting and valve procedures. Psychosocial interviews were conducted about five days before surgery, and biomedical data were obtained from hospital records.

FAS and CFL forms of verbal fluency differ in difficulty: a meta-analytic study.

The Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) Test is a brief and sensitive measure of executive cognitive dysfunction. There are two commonly used forms of the test, one using the letters F, A, and S, and the other using C, F, and L. This study examines the relative difficulty of the two forms using a meta-analytic approach that includes multiple samples of normal individuals.

Course of depressive symptoms in patients undergoing heart surgery: confirmatory analysis of the factor pattern and latent mean structure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensionality, stability, and course of depressive symptoms over the 12-month period beginning approximately 1 week before heart surgery.

Methods: The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was administered to 570 patients before heart surgery and 1, 3.5, 6.

Evaluating two brief substance-use interventions for mandated college students.

Objective: This study evaluated two brief personal feedback substance-use interventions for students mandated to the Rutgers University Alcohol and Other Drug Assistance Program for Students (ADAPS): (1) a brief motivational interview (BMI) intervention and (2) a written feedback-only (WF) intervention. A key question addressed by this study was whether there is a need for face-to-face feedback in the context of motivational interviewing to affect changes in substance-use behaviors or whether a written personal feedback profile is enough of an intervention to motivate students to change their substance use.

Method: The sample consisted of 222 students who were mandated to ADAPS, were eligible for the study, and completed the 3-month follow-up assessment.

Therapeutic alliance and treatment adherence in two interventions for bulimia nervosa: a study of process and outcome.

The relationship between therapeutic alliance, therapist adherence to treatment protocol, and outcome was analyzed in a randomized trial of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and interpersonal psychotherapy for bulimia nervosa. Independent observers rated audiotapes of full-length therapy sessions. Purging frequency was the primary outcome variable.

Impulsivity, negative expectancies, and marijuana use: a test of the acquired preparedness model.

According to the 'acquired preparedness model,' expectancies mediate the relationship between an impulsive personality style and alcohol use. The current study evaluated whether the model can also be applied to marijuana use. Estimated probabilities and subjective evaluations of personally expected marijuana effects, along with impulsivity and frequency of marijuana use, were assessed in 337 college undergraduates.

Short-term neuropsychological recovery in clients with substance use disorders.

Background: Cognitive impairments are frequently observed in clients who enter treatment programs for substance abuse. The potential for early recovery of cognitive abilities is suggested by previous research; however, the extent of improvement and risk factors that may help predict individual differences in rates of recovery remain unclear. This study is a 6-week follow-up and retest of an original sample of 197 men and women who had received a broad neuropsychological assessment at addiction treatment entry.

[Willingness and alternatives to drunk driving among young people from São Paulo city, Brazil].

Unlabelled: The new Brazilian Traffic Code considers drinking and driving as a traffic crime. A health behavior model suggests that much of the young people's risky behavior is not planned and that questions measuring the willingness to drink and drive are useful. In face of the importance of drinking and driving as a national health problem, the objective of the present study was to analyze the behavior willingness among youngsters about to receive their driver's licenses.

Development of the OCDS--revised: a measure of alcohol and drug urges with outpatient substance abuse clients.

Urges to use substances is an important construct in understanding the maintenance of substance use as well as relapse. There is a need to evaluate single instruments measuring global urges to use substances (including alcohol). The Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS; R.

Risk factors and neuropsychological recovery in clients with alcohol use disorders who were exposed to different treatments.

Risk covariates of neuropsychological ability (NA) at treatment entry and neuropsychological recovery (NR) across 15 months were examined and replicated in 2 samples (Ns = 952 and 774) from Project MATCH, a multisite study of alcoholism treatments. NA at treatment entry was associated with age, education, and other covariates. Statistically significant mean increases in NA over time had small effect sizes, suggesting limited clinical significance of NR in the samples as a whole.

Development and validity of drinking pattern classification: binge, episodic, sporadic, and steady drinkers in treatment for alcohol problems.

This study refines an empirically derived drinking pattern classification system [Addict. Behav. 20 (1995) 23] and assesses its concurrent and predictive validity in a new sample of alcohol-dependent adults in treatment.

An application of item response theory analysis to alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine criteria in DSM-IV.

Item response theory (IRT) is supplanting classical test theory as the basis for measures development. This study demonstrated the utility of IRT for evaluating DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Data on alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine symptoms from 372 adult clinical participants interviewed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview--Expanded Substance Abuse Module (CIDI-SAM) were analyzed with Mplus (B.

Examining mechanisms of action in 12-Step community outpatient treatment.

Twelve-step theory hypothesizes that changes in specific cognitions and behaviors, including adoption of disease model beliefs and involvement in self-help programs, lead to symptom reduction. We examined the role of self-help affiliation in treatment outcome using causal chain analysis. Baseline, end-treatment and follow-up self-help affiliation and substance use were assessed in 252 drug and alcohol abusers attending a community program.

Health-related quality of life for adults participating in outpatient substance abuse treatment.

Interest exists in assessing health-related quality of life as one aspect of treatment effectiveness with substance abuse clients. The SF-36 Health Survey is a self-report measure assessing subjective health status along physical and mental health dimensions. Subjects were 252 adults in an outpatient, randomized clinical trial for substance abuse treatment.

Motivational subtypes and continuous measures of readiness for change: concurrent and predictive validity.

This study compared the concurrent and predictive validity of motivational subtypes versus a continuous measure of readiness for change as measured by the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale (URICA; E. A. McConnaughy, J.

Examining mechanisms of action in 12-step treatment: the role of 12-step cognitions.

Objective: Twelve-step treatment appears to be modestly effective in treating alcohol and cocaine dependence, but little is known about its mechanisms of action. The primary aim of this study was to examine the hypothesized mechanism of action of 12-step cognitions. In addition, the psychometric properties of a measure used to assess 12-step cognitions were tested.

A multi-site study of alcohol subtypes: classification and overlap of unidimensional and multi-dimensional typologies.

Aims: The current study examined the usefulness of four prevailing alcohol typologies, assessed in terms of replicability of the multi-dimensional schemas, percentage of the sample classified by each typology, distribution of subtypes by gender and treatment site and construct validity of Type 1/Type 2. In addition, overlap of classification systems was examined to determine whether the four typologies may be narrowed to a smaller set of meaningful, non-redundant subtype schemas.

Design: Baseline data from five treatment outcome studies were used to facilitate subtyping according to four alcohol typologies: antisocial (ASP) versus non-ASP, early versus late onset, Type 1/Type 2 and Type A/Type B.

Reasons for alcohol use in young adulthood: validation of a three-dimensional measure.

Objective: To evaluate the reliability and validity of a measure of reasons for use, which is based on a cognitive mediational view of alcohol use as a means for affect regulation.

Method: Data for this study were obtained from the Rutgers Health and Human Development Project. Self-reports of young men and women aged 25 to 31 years (N = 1,176; 598 women) were used to obtain measures of reasons for use, coping use, sex-enhancing use, use intensity and use problems.

Prevalence of DSM-IV alcohol diagnoses and symptoms in adolescent community and clinical samples.

Objective: Summary prevalence data are critical to determining the utility of DSM-IV criteria for alcohol use disorders among adolescents. This study examined cross-study consistency in the relative prevalence of DSM-IV alcohol symptoms, the ratio of alcohol abuse to dependence diagnoses, the prevalence of the physiological dependence subtype, and the proportion of subthreshold cases of dependence.

Method: DSM-IV alcohol diagnosis and symptom prevalence data were obtained from five community and four clinical adolescent samples.

Binge eating among gastric bypass patients at long-term follow-up.

Background: A better understanding of the relationship of eating behavior and attitudes to weight loss following gastric bypass (GBP) will enable the development of interventions to improve outcome. Thus, the present study sought to characterize the postoperative weight, eating behavior, and attitudes toward body shape and weight in a cross-section of GBP patients. A second objective was to examine the relationship of postoperative binge eating to surgery outcome.

Individual differences in latent neuropsychological abilities at addictions treatment entry.

The latent structure of neuropsychological abilities and risk factors for impairment were examined in 197 persons entering addictions treatment. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded 4 factors: Executive, Memory, Verbal, and Processing Speed. The measurement model was consistent with evidence that neuropsychological test performance is factorially complex and supported by multiple brain regions.

On Correcting Biases in Self-Reports of Age at First Substance Use with Repeated Cross-Section Analysis.

Household survey data on age at first use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and hard drugs can be biased due to sample selection and inaccurate recall. One potential concern is attrition, whereby individuals who get involved with substance use at an early age become increasingly less likely to be surveyed in successive years. A comparison of data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) with data from a longitudinal study suggested that attrition might have caused substantially less bias than did "forward telescoping," the inflating of age at first use over time.