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Biomedical subjects

D I Ben-Tovim

Publications and source records attributed to D I Ben-Tovim.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

[Personal behavior and mental state in anorexia nervosa].

Personality of the patients with anorexia nervosa is characterised by high neurotization and anxiety that resulted in diffuse anxiety in stress situation. Personal peculiarities included also high total hostility and intrapunitivity, inclination to obsessive-phobic and dysthymic reactions and tendency to somatization of anxiety. Such peculiarities promoted the choice of intrapunitivity type of reaction in situation of frustration. Its manifestation increases with an increase in the disease duration. The range of psychotic disorders in anorexia nervosa is restricted to anxious-depressive, obsessive and asthenic sphere.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Eating disorders revisited. II: Bulimia nervosa and related syndromes.

Bulimia nervosa and related syndromes are common, and occur in up to 5% of women who attend general practitioners. Young women in First World countries, particularly those who "diet", are at increased risk. Behaviours, such as binge eating and induced vomiting, are typically kept well hidden. Only a minority of those with these disorders present for treatment. General practitioners play a key role in primary and secondary prevention. Effective treatments include psychotherapies that focus on the patient's attitudes and relationships, not just the binge eating behaviour. About 50% of patients make a complete recovery, but the long term outcome is unknown.

Bulimia↗
PubMed1998

Eating disorders revisited. I: Anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa is a serious psychiatric illness with a high morbidity and a significant lifetime mortality. Recurring themes in such patients centre on issues of self-worth and control. Treatment is difficult and prolonged, and may require hospitalisation. Therapy focuses on altering the misperceptions that patients have of themselves, both psychologically and physically. A multi-disciplinary team based in a specialised unit provides the treatment of choice, but if this is not available, a consistent, supportive relationship with an individual therapist familiar with the condition will be beneficial. Successful outcome should be based not simply on body weight but also on the resolution of anorexic thinking.

Anorexia Nervosa↗
PubMed1997

Telepsychiatry: 'tele' yes, but what about the 'psychiatry'?

To investigate what is lost or gained in a psychiatric evaluation when it takes place via telepsychiatry we compared the interrater reliability between two psychiatrists interviewing 63 subjects in an observer/interviewer split configuration in telepsychiatry and same-room settings. The measures used were the BPRS and interviewer ratings from a semi-structured interview. Patients also rated their experience. There were some clear differences between the telepsychiatry and same-room evaluations. Despite these variations, diagnoses were as reliably made by telepsychiatry. Patient acceptance of telepsychiatry was high.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Recall of the visual body image using a novel boundary detection task.

A new task for eliciting a pictorial mental image of the body or other objects is described. The task involved relating a pair of crosses to the boundary of a mental image 'projected' onto a computer screen. Responses were assessed for accuracy defined as identifying a relationship between a cross and an image that would hold when a photograph (of the same object) was substituted for the mental image. A group of 30 female students achieved between 70 to 80% accuracy when using this task to assess mental images of their own faces, torsos, or a familiar nonbody object. Accuracy was similar for body and nonbody objects. The presence of some kind of quasipictorial representation of the body is confirmed. Its characteristics await further elucidation.

Body Image↗
PubMed1996

Low levels of interrater reliability in a standard measure of outcome in eating disorders (the modified Morgan-Russell Assessment Schedule).

OBJECTIVE: The interrater reliability of the modified version of the widely used Morgan-Russell Assessment Schedule was assessed. METHOD: Sixty-six female patients presenting for treatment for the first time in a general hospital and a community health center were assessed by a treating clinician and a researcher during sequential interviews. Two extra items were added to the Schedule to allow for the assessment of bulimic behaviors. Ratings were analyzed using the Cohen's weighted kappa. RESULTS: Poor to very poor levels of agreement were found between rater pairs assessing the 66 separate patients. DISCUSSION: The necessity for a specific, standardized format in using the Morgan-Russell Schedule is discussed. In its current, unstandardized format the Schedule may not be suitable for comparing outcome in eating disorders across different centers.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Psychiatric and substance abuse disorder diagnoses as predictors of length of hospital stay.

The mental health and substance abuse components of AN-DRG 3 were examined using data from all inpatient separations in two Australian States over a two-year period. Assignment to a mental health or a substance abuse diagnosis related group (DRG) predicted about 20 per cent of the variability in average length of stay of patients treated for such conditions. Assignment to a substance abuse DRG was a much less robust predictor of length of hospital stay than assignment to a mental health DRG. There was little variation between years or States. Day-only intent patients were excluded, as were long-stay outliers identified using an inter-quartile range trimming process. Psychiatric DRGs are similar to a number of other non-surgically focused diagnosis related groups in their capacity to predict length of hospital stay. They are likely to remain an important component of casemix classification systems.

Health Services Research↗
PubMed1996

Effects of serotonin reuptake inhibitors on hemostasis.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the hematologic safety profile of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), with particular emphasis on the effects of these drugs on platelet aggregation. METHODS: Platelet aggregation studies were undertaken at baseline, and repeated 2 and 4 weeks after the initiation of treatment with an SSRI. Other investigations undertaken included analysis of serum electrolyte and liver enzyme concentrations, complete blood count, and coagulation studies. Patients were also assessed for clinical signs of bleeding. Eight patients (7 treated with fluoxetine, 1 with paroxetine) completed the study protocol. RESULTS: Repeated ANOVA revealed no abnormalities in platelet aggregation, hematopoiesis, or coagulation profile. No patient developed clinical signs of abnormal hemostasis during the study period. A statistically significant elevation in the mean serum bilirubin concentration was detected, but this was not of clinical significance. CONCLUSIONS: Although the SSRIs may cause abnormal hemostasis, this effect is probably rare. Another possibility is that abnormal hemostasis is more likely to occur when high doses of SSRIs are administered.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1995

Pictorial adaptation of Stroop measures of body-related concerns in eating disorders.

Patients with eating disorders were asked to color-name pictures of a variety of body shapes. The time taken to color-name these stimuli was compared with the time taken to color-name a series of neutral visual stimuli. There was a significant delay in naming body shapes in comparison to neutral stimuli, and this delay was greater in anorexic and bulimic patients than in controls. Previous Stroop adaptations have used verbal stimuli to assess the intensity of weight and shape-related concerns. The possible advantages of pictorial stimuli are discussed.

Body Image↗
PubMed1995

Body image, disfigurement and disability.

The body-related attitudes of groups of women suffering from physical conditions that are commonly regarded as being disfiguring and/or disabling were studied by means of the Body Attitudes Questionnaire. Despite their conditions, the women did not necessarily disparage their bodies. They also seemed to worry less about small changes in weight and shape than did comparable women without physical difficulties, and to have an enhanced sense of their own robustness. There was an indication that development of negative body attitudes might be linked to emergence of a chronic physical condition during adolescence, rather than from birth or during adulthood. If our results are confirmed, they point to the need to pay special attention to the psychological needs of women whose bodies become dysfunctional at this sensitive time.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Making casemix work for psychiatry.

Providers of mental health and substance abuse care cannot afford to ignore the existence of casemix descriptions of their services. As casemix comes to be the predominant language used to describe the products of hospital care, its use will inevitably impinge upon psychiatric services. The psychiatric components of the Australian national diagnosis-related groups classification 1 and 2 (AN-DRG 1 and 2) do not describe the relevant products with great accuracy. We review some possible reasons for this and the effects on the homogeneity of resource consumption of technical procedures, such as trimming of data sets, in the context of the current casemix system and that proposed for AN-DRG-3. The evolution of a casemix system which does justice to current and future psychiatric services will be a complex process. Some of the crucial areas are discussed. Clinicians involved in mental health and substance abuse care must continue to advocate for the resources and effort needed to improve casemix information in their area.

Australia↗
PubMed1994

The influence of age and weight on women's body attitudes as measured by the Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ).

The influence of age and weight on the body-related attitudes of a large sample of South Australian women were measured by the Ben-Tovim-Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ). Attitudes were found not to vary substantially with age, and only the Feeling Fat, Body Disparagement and Lower Body Fatness sub-scales of the BAQ were correlated with BMI. The effect of BMI on attitudes was independent of age. Obese subjects felt significantly less attractive than those with BMIs only slightly above average. However, they did not disparage their bodies more than did less overweight women. Body attitudes appear to be substantially independent of the current physical body.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

An insight into the personal and cultural significance of weight and shape in large Samoan women.

The aim of this work was to investigate the personal and cultural significance of body weight and shape for women in Western Samoan culture. A cross cultural study was carried out of Western Samoan and Australian women comparing responses to the Body Attitude Questionnaire (BAQ). The work was carried out in a tertiary education institution and an occupational setting in Apia, Western Samoa, and on community residents in Adelaide, South Australia. The subjects were 70 volunteer female respondents from Western Samoan educational and occupational settings, individually matched for weight and height with 70 respondents from a South Australian random community setting. The psychometric properties of the BAQ, as completed by the Western Samoan respondents, were found to be similar to those for Australian women. Samoan women who were biologically overweight, felt as fat and had similar feelings about lower body fatness as their identical weight Australian counterparts. They, however, showed highly significantly less salience of fatness than the Australian sample, indicating that fatness is not a pre-occupying in Samoans as it is in Australian women. Despite this apparent non-concern over their fatness, Samoan women were significantly more disparaging about their bodies than their Australian counterparts. The other significant finding from this cross-comparative study, was that large Samoan women felt more attractive and much stronger and fitter than their Australian counterparts. It was concluded that Samoan women's body-related attitudes can be studied using techniques and concepts originating in the west, but the specific concerns of Samoan women need to be explored in further detail.

Adult↗