1,721,172 research outputs found
Clinimetrics and Clinical Psychometrics: Macro- and Micro-Analysis
No full textBackground: Clinimetrics was introduced three decades
ago to specify the domain of clinical markers in clinical medicine
(indexes or rating scales). In this perspective, clinical validity
is the platform for selecting the various indexes or rating
scales (macro-analysis). Psychometric validation of these
indexes or rating scales is the measuring aspect (micro-analysis).
Methods: Clinical judgment analysis by experienced
psychiatrists is included in the macro-analysis and the item
response theory models are especially preferred in the micro-
analysis when using the total score as a sufficient statistic.
Results: Clinical assessment tools covering severity of
illness scales, prognostic measures, issues of co-morbidity,
longitudinal assessments, recovery, stressors, lifestyle, psychological
well-being, and illness behavior have been identified.
Conclusion: The constructive dialogue in clinimetrics
between clinical judgment and psychometric validation
procedures is outlined for generating developments of clinical
practice in psychiatr
The prevalence of psychological distress in Parkinson's disease patients: The brief symptom inventory (BSI-18) versus the Hopkins symptom checklist (SCL-90-R)
Full text linkThe prevalence of psychological distress in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients has been evaluated by many different assessment instruments and with diverse control groups. The most frequently used distress symptom scale has been the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R), although it contains many symptoms with problematic validity clinically. The 18-item subscale of the SCL-90-R, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-18) has recently been shown to have a sufficient validity to screen for the prevalence of psychological distress (somatization) in PD patients. We have performed a clinimetric analysis by comparing the BSI-18 with SCL-90-R relevant subscales in PD patients. Our micro-analysis has focused on the Mokken model to test the scalability of the subscales. The macro-analysis has focused both on effect size statistics and the normative level of psychological distress with reference to the Italian general population data using T-score metric. The Mokken analysis indicated acceptable scalability for all the subscales of BSI-18. The effect size statistics identified somatization in both BSI-18 and SCL-90-R as the most prevalent and intense symptom of psychological distress. The T-score metric identified the phobic anxiety subscale of SCL-90-R to be clinically much more important than the BSI-18 anxiety subscale in the PD patients. We have found the SCL-90-R subscale of phobic anxiety and the BSI-18 somatization subscale most clinically valid when measuring psychological distress in PD patients
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Satisfaction with treatment among patients with depressive and bipolar disorders
No full textBACKGROUND: Patients' satisfaction with care may be an important factor in relation to adherence to treatment and continued psychiatric care. Few studies have focused on satisfaction in patients with depressive and bipolar disorders. METHOD: A comprehensive multidimensional questionnaire scale, the Verona Service Satisfaction Scale-Affective, was mailed to a large population of patients with depressive or bipolar disorders representative of outpatients treated at their first contact to hospital settings in Denmark. RESULTS: Among the 1,005 recipients, 49.9% responded to the letter. Overall, patients were satisfied with the help provided, but satisfaction with the professionals' contact to relatives was low. Younger patients (age below 40 years) were consistently more dissatisfied with care especially with the efficacy of treatment, professionals' skills and behaviour and the information given. There was no difference in satisfaction between genders or between patients with depressive disorder and patients with bipolar disorder. CONCLUSION: There is a need to strengthen outpatient treatment for patients discharged from a psychiatric hospital diagnosed of having affective disorders, focusing more on information and psychoeducation for patients and relatives
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
- …
