Group cohesion and working alliance: prediction of treatment outcome in cardiac patients receiving cognitive behavioral group psychotherapy.

Background: Various definitions of both group cohesion and working alliance are used in theories on group psychotherapy, making the study of their relative contribution to the treatment outcome difficult. In this study, two different, nonoverlapping questionnaires were used to explore the relationship between group cohesion, working alliance and treatment outcome in a time-limited, structured cognitive behavioral group psychotherapy aiming at the reduction of coronary risk factors.

Methods: After having undergone percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, 42 patients were treated with the aim to reduce exhaustion, anxiety, hostility and depression.

Measuring overall defensive functioning with the Defense Style Questionnaire: a comparison of different scoring methods.

The evidence for the division of defenses measured with the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) into immature, neurotic, and mature types appears to be lacking. We hypothesized that defenses can be represented unidimensionally. Classical multidimensional scaling was applied to the maturity ratings of items given by 279 experts.

Where health care has no access: the nomadic populations of sub-Saharan Africa.

Nomadic and seminomadic pastoralists make optimal use of scarce water and pasture in the arid regions south of the Sahara desert, spreading from Mauretania in the west to Somalia in East Africa. We attempted to summarize the fragmentary evidence from the literature on the health status of these populations and to assess the best ways to provide them with modern health care. Infant mortality is higher among nomadic than among neighbouring settled populations, but childhood malnutrition is less frequent.

Fibrinolytic activity in peripheral atherosclerosis in the elderly.

Increased concentrations of plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1) and of D-dimer have jointly been found in subjects with cardiovascular disease. To understand this apparent paradox of increased inhibition of fibrinolysis (high PAI-1) combined with increased fibrinolytic activity (high D-dimer), we examined the relation between D-dimer, PAI-1 and the activator of fibrinolysis, tissue type plasminogen activator (t-PA) in subjects with varying severity of peripheral atherosclerosis. In 325 subjects selected from the Rotterdam Study, a cohort of 7983 men and women aged 55 years and over, the ankle to brachial systolic blood pressure ratio, t-PA antigen and activity, PAI-1 antigen and D-dimer were measured.

Elevated plasma fibrinogen: cause or consequence of cardiovascular disease?

An association between increased plasma fibrinogen and an increased risk for myocardial infarction (MI) is well established, but the nature of this association is subject to debate. Our aim was to shed light on the potentially causal nature of this association. We examined whether increased plasma fibrinogen, due to a condition that is independent of cardiovascular events, also increases the risk for MI.

Seasonal variation in fibrinogen in the Rotterdam Study.

As evidence accumulates to implicate fibrinogen as a risk indicator for cardiovascular disease, it is of interest to study its seasonal variation. A population based cross-sectional study was performed among participants of the Rotterdam Study, a cohort of 7,983 men and women, aged 55 years and over. Fibrinogen levels were measured by the prothrombin time derived method in the first 2,325 participants of the study.