摘要:

This issue ofThe Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseasereports fundamental research into the nature of mental disorders, using both new and traditional time-sampling approaches. The studies present convincing findings gathered in a variety of patient popula tions and demonstrate the utility of using quantitative and replicable methods in psychiatric research and clinical care. Research that adequately describes the person in context as well as the influence of situations on mental state has proved difficult. Methods such as the diary and Experience-Sampling Method that explore experiences in daily life overcome some of the shortcomings of previous psychiatric research strategies, such as reliance on retrospective recall and the failure to take the variability of mental state more fully into account. The studies in this issue introduce techniques for creating a data base for psychiatric research and clinical practice that is anchored in patient experience and behavior.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Microbehavioral approaches to social science research minimize the complexities of general activity reporting by limiting questions to elementary activity experience in the context of daily life. Time diaries and sampling studies of activity at random moments during the day are two examples of this approach.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

In this paper we describe an approach to the study of time use data that focuses on relatively infrequent activities as well as the contexts in which the activities take place. To illustrate the method, we present several examples from a secondary analysis of the Multinational Comparative Time-Budget data, based on over 25,000, 24-hour, time use diaries collected in 12 countries during 1965 through 1966. Activities that represent a small fraction of the overall time budget of a population may nevertheless yield valuable insights into a culture or group. Analyses of such mundane events as doing the laundry, transporting children, and taking a walk indicate marked differences among the countries sureyed in terms of frequencies, durations, by whom, and with whom these activities were typically performed.In the future, time use studies can be expected to contribute to the understanding of mentai disorders in natural contexts. In contrasting specific diagnostic groups with normal subjects, analyses of specific activities (e.g., personal care, social interaction) or contexts (e.g., alonevs. with others, at homevs. away) may be particularly relevant. Strategies thaat combine continuous recording (diary) with repeated, instantaneous experience-sampling methods are likely to be the most useful in such studies of mental disorders.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

To understand the dynamics of mental health, it is essential to develop measures for the frequency and the patterning of mental processes in every-day-life situations. The Experience-Sampling Method (ESM) is an attempt to provide a valid instrument to describe variations in self-reports of mental processes. It can be used to obtain empirical data on the following types of variables: a) frequency and patterning of daily activity, social interaction, and changes in location; b) frequency, intensity, and patterning of psychological states,i.e., emotional, cognitive, and conative dimensions of experience; c) frequency and patterning of thoughts, including quality and intensity of thought disturbance. The article reviews pratical and methodological issues of the ESM and presents evidence for its short-and long-term reliability when used as an instrument for assessing the variables outlined above. It also presents evidence for validity by showing correlation between ESM measures on the one hand and physiological measures, one-time psychological tests, and behavioral indices on the other. A number of studies with normal and clinical populations that have used the ESM are reviewed to demonstrate the range of issues to which the technique can be usefully applied.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The purpose of this research is to describe in greater detail than is typically done the daily life experienes of 11 ambulatory chronic mental patients and 11 nonpsychiatric controls. The subjects, although diagnostically heterogeneous, were representative of Dutch chronic mental patients. The Experience-Sampling Method was used to signal subjects randomly 10 times a day for 6 consecutive days to fill out self-rating forms assessing mental state and contextual information at the moment of the signal. Compliance was good. In time-allocation comparisons with nonpsychiatric subjects the patients were found to live relatively “normal” lives. As expected, their psychopathology was influenced by social environments such as being alone, at home, or in soclety at large. Contrary to other studies that stress the social isolation of such individuals, the chronic subjects reported feeling better away from home and among people than normal subjects. When alone, chronic patients reported daydreaming more and noted a fendency to drift away from thouhts about current activities. Mental state fluctuations and daily interactions, characteristic of this group, are examined in relation to theories of vulnerability and coping style of chronic mental patients, with an eye to individualized treatment applications.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

This article illustrates the use of quantitative time-sampling data in developing a psychology of “optimal experience” to help in the psychiatric development of adequate rehabilitation approaches. The Experience-Sampling Method was used on a sample of 47 Italian adolescent students to measure fluctuations in their experience. We found that the ratio of subjectively experienced challenges and skills was a fundamental parameter that predicated optimal experience as well as boredom and anxiety. In contrast, “low” experience in daily life was viewed as a risk factor that could be minimized to increase the quality of life. Monitoring fluctuations in optimal and low experience may therefore be an important tool in developing personalized psychiatric rehabilitation plans.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Experience sampling is a relatively new research approach that captures relevant variations in experince and symptoms in the course of everday life. In this paper, a socioecological frame of reference that integrates psychological, historical, cultural, and develop mental theories about anxiety phenomena will be illustrated using quantitative descriptions of anxiety and avoidance behaviors gathered with the Experience-Sampling Method. The interaction between anxiety symptoms and the environment in which they occurred is explored in a case study that points to possibilities for future research and the establishment of therapeutic approaches that are optimally suited to the individual patient.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Despite much recent research, there is still little systematic information about the phenomenology of panic attacks, and their possible causes remain obscure. We investigated panic attacks in the natural environment using an event sampling approach. Twenty-seven panic attack patients and 19 matched normal conrols kept panic attack and self-exposure diaries for 6 days and wore an ambulatory heart rate/physical activity recorder for 3 days. Patients reported 175 attacks, generally of moderate severity. The most frequent symptoms were palpitations, dizziness/lightheadedness, dyspnea, nausea, sweating, and chest pain/ discomfort. The results did not support the classification of panic attacks recently proposed by Sheehan and Sheehan, which requires three symptoms as a cutoff for panic attacks. Panic attacks classified by the patients as situational (i.e., occurring in feared situations) were more severe and occurred in situational contexts different from spontaneous attacks, but were otherwise phenomenologically similar. Heart rates did not change during spontaneous attacks and were only mildly elevated during situational attacks or during the 15 minutes preceding these attacks. These heart rate changes were interpretable as effects of anxiety, although physical activity showed a similar pattern of changes. Some normal control subjects reported on the panic diary primarily situational anxiety episodes that were phenomenologically similar to, albeit less severe than, the patients' episodes. Panic patients may sometimes fail to perceive environmental triggers for their attacks because many sometimes fail to perceive environmental triggers for their attacks because many attacks classified as spontaneous occurred in classical “phobic” situations. Furthermore, the comparison of concurrent diary and retrospective interview and questionnaire descriptions showed that panic patients have a tendency toward retrospective exaggeration. Implications for the assessment, definition, and classification of panic attacks are discussed.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Snowball sampling is a method that has been used in the social sciences to study sensitive topics, rare traits, personal networks, and social relationships. The method involves the selection of samples utilizing “insider” knowledge and referral chains among subjects who possess common traits that are of research interest. It is especially useful in generating samples for which clinical sampling frames may be difficult to obtain or are biased in some way. In this paper, snowball samples of heroin users in two Dutch cities have been analyzed for the purpose of providig descriptions and limited inferences about the temporal and social contexts of their lifestyles. Two distinct heroin-using populations have been discovered who are distinguished by their life cycle stage. Significant contextual explanations have been found involving the passage from adolescent peer group to criminal occupation, the functioning of network “knots” and “outcroppings,” and the frequency of social contct. It is suggested that the snowball sampling method may have utility in studying the temporal and social contexts of other populations of clinical interest.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

A variant of the time-sampling method, experience sampling, was used to produce a narrative description of the inner experience of a schizophrenic young woman. In general, her inner experience was predominantly visual, and those images were frequently “goofed up”i.e., tilted, obliterated, or inaccurate in detail. The case has methodological significance in that it demonstrates that the descriptive time-sampling method can provide useful information about individuals, and also, has significance in our understanding of schizophrenia, in that it exemplifies in detail the everyday distortions of inner experience in schizophrenia.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1987

数据来源: OVID