摘要:

The complex symptomatology of Hispanic Vietnam veterans receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) was explored with the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule, a structured diagnostic interview that yields current and lifetime operational diagnoses (e.g., DSM-III). Social networks and level of acculturation of these veterans were also examined and compared to those of a “control” group and a sample of veterans with DSM-III schizophrenic disorder (both samples included only Hispanic veterans from the Vietnam and post-Vietnam eras). All subjects reported heavy combat stress and met DSM-III criteria for PTSD. Most were very symptomatic and had significant social impairment. PTSD was rarely seen as a discrete entity but appeared instead mixed with symptom clusters cutting across various DSM-III diagnoses. Social networks of PTSD veterans were intermediate in size, frequency of contact with network members, and network density to those of the comparison groups. A distinctive feature of the PTSD group was the high proportion of negative relationships with close family members, especially spouses. “Highly” symptomatic PTSD veterans reported significantly smaller networks, fewer contacts outside the close family circle, and more negative emotionality directed toward family members than “minimally” symptomatic veterans. While all Hispanic groups studied were not significantly different in level of acculturation, PTSD veterans appeared more alienated from their cultural heritage than the other groups. The severe and polymorphous psychopathology found among these veterans suggests that “rap” groups alone may not constitute an adequate therapeutic approach and that more formal psychiatric therapies should be additionally considered in the management of Vietnam-linked PTSD.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

An earlier study retrospectively evaluated the effectiveness of six separate substance abuse treatment programs and generated a set of hypotheses for matching patients to the most appropriate programs. In the present study, these predictors and the matching strategy were tested in a prospective design, using the same treatment programs and a new sample of 130 alcohol-and 256 drug-dependent patients. The new group of patients whoweretreated in their predicted program (matched patients) were compared with those patients from the same sample whowere nottreated in their predicted program (mismatched patients). Treatment staffwere notapprised of the matching criteria or which patients were matched, thus permitting an experimental test of the predictions. Results indicated superior performance during treatment and an average of 19 per cent better 6-month outcomes for the matched patients than for their mismatched counterparts. The matching effect was seen in both the alcohol-and drug-dependent samples and in all treatment programs. The authors discuss the application of these findings to other types of patients and treatments in substance abuse and other fields of psychiatry.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The concurrent validity of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), a new scale for assessing a range of clinical dimensions in drug and alcohol abusers, was evaluated in 204 opiate addicts applying for treatment. This study is the first independent validation study of this measure. The ASI subscales were found to have good concurrent validity with self-report measures in the areas of psychological problems, social adjustment problems, legal problems, and employment problems (r= .55 to .39). Drug abuse problems showed limited concurrent validity and medical problems were not concurrently assessed in our study. Addicts with psychiatric diagnoses beyond opiate abuse were effectively identified by the ASI, and depressed addicts were particularly well screened with a sensitivity of 89 per cent and a specificity of 67 per cent. A cluster analysis demonstrated that the six ASI scales could be used to discriminate depressed addicts, antisocial addicts, and addicts without psychiatric disorders. Thus, the ASI was demonstrated to be a potentially important evaluation instrument for opiate addicts.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Opiate addicts living with family members generally have better treatment outcomes than addicts who live alone, but family support for the addict remaining drug-free depends on the family being aware of the addiction. We found that many addicts deny their drug abuse to their families and we hypothesized that these addicts would have poor treatment outcomes, even though they lived with nonaddict family members. To test this hypothesis, four groups of addicts in a naltrexone program were compared: 28 male addicts with their spouses, 27 addicts living with their parents, 23 addicts who denied their drug abuse to the family members with whom they lived, and 28 addicts who lived alone. The first two groups participated in family therapy, and these addicts remained drug-free longer than the other two addict groups (analysis of variance,p< 0.001). The addicts who denied their drug abuse to their families remained drug-free for significantly less time than those who admitted their drug abuse to their families. Furthermore, addicts who admitted their drug abuse to their spouse, but denied it to their parents, remained drug-free for shorter times than married addicts who also told their parents. Thus, maximum family involvement in treatment including spouses and parents was associated with a better prognosis.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The performance of a group of detoxified male chronic alcoholics was compared with that of age-matched nonalcoholic controls on a memory task which at face value seemed relevant to daily life—i.e., learning to associate people's names with their faces. The alcoholics not only made more errors while learning the face-name associations than did the controls, but fewer of them were able to reach the learning criterion. However, 1 hour later, the alcoholics were nevertheless able to recognize all of the faces and names used during acquisition. The savings scores for the alcoholics, an index of the relative number of face-name associations retained during the 1-hour interval, did not differ significantly from those of the controls. These results demonstrate that the alcoholics' paired-associate learning deficit on this ecologically relevant task is related to their failure to form associations rather than to deficiencies in recognition memory or perceptual processes.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Neuropsychological performance data from 106 children with epilepsy were evaluated to determine the effects of seizure type and age of onset. The performance of children with partial seizures (N= 49) was similar to that of children with generalized seizures (N= 57). Only one of 13 tests showed a significant difference between groups, with children with partial seizures performing better on that test. The effects of age of onset were also similar in the two seizure groups. Children whose seizures began before the age of 5 years performed significantly worse than children whose seizures began later on four measures (Verbal IQ, Performance IQ, Trails A, and Trails B) and performed more poorly, but not significantly so, on the other nine measures in the battery. A breakdown of the partial group into simple partial, complex partial, and secondarily generalized partial seizure groups found a significant difference between the groups on only one variable, but there were suggestions in the data that the performance of the partial secondarily generalized group was worse than the other two groups. These results indicate that variables associated with an early onset of seizures, regardless of type, place a child at risk for cognitive dysfunction.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1983

数据来源: OVID