Biomedical subjects

Anton K Formann

Publications and source records attributed to Anton K Formann.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

Variation in European suicide rates is better accounted for by latitude and longitude than by national percentage of Finno-Ugrians and Type O blood: a rebuttal of Lester and Kondrichin (2004).

The variation in contemporary suicide rates for men and women across 20 European nations is, in terms of shared variance, better accounted for by latitude and longitude than by national percentage of Finno-Ugrians and Type O blood, thus supporting the conclusion of Voracek, et al. in 2003 and refuting the supposition of Lester and Kondrichin of 2004. Discussion focuses on possible bases of this finding and on research problems pertaining to relations between suicide and blood type.

ABO Blood-Group System↗

PubMed2003

Suicide and general elections in Austria: do preceding regional suicide rate differentials foreshadow subsequent voting behavior swings?

BACKGROUND: Suicide-epidemiological research on short-term effects of elections on national/regional suicide and parasuicide incidence has yielded contradictory evidence. Reversing the cause-effect relationship of this line of research we investigated whether preceding regional suicide rates are related to subsequent election results. METHODS: For Austria's 121 districts, we regressed averaged standardized suicide rates for the preceding period (1988-1994) on political parties' subsequent electoral gains/losses (1999-to-1995) while controlling for a set of 12 domain-relevant psychosocial/economic indices. RESULTS: Stepwise weighted multiple regression led to a significant model. The 1999-to-1995 electoral gains/losses of two opposition parties, together with the population variation caused by migration balance and by births/deaths balance, accounted for a substantial part (30%) of the variability in preceding district-level suicide rates. Various other social indices failed to contribute further substantial increments to this model. CONCLUSIONS: This finding suggests that variations in preceding regional suicide incidence might be mirrored in subsequent changes in voting behavior. A speculative post hoc explanation for the finding is offered: on a community level, suicide's aftermath might produce socially and politically alienated survivors of suicide who co-shape swings towards opposition parties in subsequent general elections. The finding calls for more research on suicide's long-term aftermath. LIMITATIONS: Within-country replicability and cross-national generalizability await further investigation. At present, the factor/mechanism accounting for this finding is neither well-established nor has been directly tested.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Latent class model diagnosis from a frequentist point of view.

This is in response to Garrett and Zeger (2000, Biometrics 56, 1055-1067) who, within the Bayesian framework, developed mainly graphical methods for latent class model diagnosis. Possible problems with this approach, and with its application to both generated and empirical data, are pointed out. The impact of the proposed tools cannot be understood by their reader, as no comparisons are made to results obtainable using established methods for latent class model diagnosis; this applies especially to overall goodness-of-fit tests, for which alternatives (bootstrap, Rudas-Clogg-Lindsay index of fit) are mentioned. Further, in one case of generated data, the methods proposed by Garrett and Zeger seem to give problematic results as to identifiability; in the case of the empirical data on major depression, they lead to accepting a suboptimal three-class model. In the latter case, one can be rather sure that an identifiable, well-fitting latent class model could have been identified--if Garrett and Zeger had also considered restricted latent class models.

Biometry↗

PubMed2003

Modeling data from water-level tasks: a test theoretical analysis.

The water-level tasks were invented by Piaget to diagnose the level of mental development of spatial abilities, especially behavior of liquids. It has become usual practice to dichotomise water-level responses by the subjects into right vs wrong using a certain tolerance limit (departure from the horizontal measured in degrees) and to fit a mixture of binomials to the raw scores resulting from a series of water-level tasks. The present study questions this procedure. Based on a series of 12 water-level tasks (round bottles at 12 different angles of orientation) presented to 431 subjects, both children and adults, females and males, the following results were obtained. First, considering the task difficulties (proportions of correct answers) and the scores, the effect of age was significant, but that for sex was not. Second, a mixture of binomials were shown to be inappropriate due to their ignoring the heterogeneity of the task difficulties, whereas latent class models, due to their taking this heterogeneity as well as that of the subjects into account, were successful in rendering a complete and well-rounded description of the data as observed for the eight water-level tasks showing bottles with orientations corresponding to 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11 o'clock. Third, the Rasch model was valid as justification for the simple interpretation that subjects and tasks have a unidimensional scale in common with each other and that the raw score is the sufficient statistic for the subjects' performance. Fourth, employing the linear logistic test model, the task difficulty parameters according to the Rasch model could be attributed to a single parameter associated with the angle of inclination of the bottle. In all, the results do not give a final answer to the question of whether the concept of types (classes) or that of a continuous trait is the better of the two, but they do give rise to some warnings against the use of a mixture of binomials for modeling data on water-level tasks.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Maternal bonding behaviour in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, considering premorbid personality traits.

OBJECTIVE: Bonding between mother and child is described as a complex two-way process ensuring the needs of the child for nurture and protection. As such, it is dependent on the contribution of mother and child [1-3] whereby characteristics of personality of the child may have consequences on maternal bonding behaviour. In the current study the perception of maternal behaviour, premorbid personality traits and relationships between maternal behaviour and personality traits were investigated in schizophrenic and schizoaffective patients and their same-sex, healthy siblings. METHODS: We recruited 36 schizophrenic and schizoaffective patients and their same-sex healthy siblings. Information about maternal bonding behaviour was assessed by the Parental Bonding Instrument, information about premorbid personality traits was obtained from their mothers using the "Giessen-Test". RESULTS: Compared to their siblings, patients showed less social resonance, more permeability, less social competence and a more depressed and anxious mood. Furthermore, patients described their mothers to be less caring and to be more overprotective than their siblings described them. But there were strong associations between maternal bonding behaviour and premorbid personality traits. These findings were supported by missing significant differences in maternal care behaviour between patients and siblings when using premorbid characteristics as covariates. Significant high maternal overprotection perceived by patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders still remained after correcting for the influence of premorbid personality traits. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that premorbid personality traits should be considered not only in analyses of maternal care behaviour in schizophrenic and schizoaffective patients but also when studying other psychiatric patient groups.

Adult↗