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Biomedical subjects

D J Berndt

Publications and source records attributed to D J Berndt.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Comparing alternative methods for composing community peer groups: a data warehouse application.

A method for assessing the health status of communities has been under development for a decade at the University of South Florida. Known as CATCH (Comprehensive Assessment for Tracking Community Health), the method utilizes health status indicators from multiple data sources. With federal grant support, a unique data warehouse has been created to automate CATCH assessments and to enhance online analytical processing for efficient data browsing, knowledge discovery, and model testing. A comparison of two peer grouping methods (population size versus predicted age-adjusted mortality) is reviewed to demonstrate the warehouse capabilities.

Community Health Planning↗
PubMed2001

Rating the health status of U.S. communities.

Although the existence of small-area variation in health care utilization and quality had been acknowledged decades ago, and the public release of data about the performance of hospitals and physicians is no longer controversial, the wide range of variability in the health status of U.S. communities has received relatively little attention. The authors demonstrate (using Florida data) an empirically derived national system for rating the health status of communities, presented in a simplified consumer-type format, using a symbol-graded report card. This system is intended to keep the symbols of poor health status prominently in the minds and on the political agendas of community leaders.

Benchmarking↗
PubMed1998

CATCH/IT: a data warehouse to support comprehensive assessment for tracking community health.

A systematic methodology, Comprehensive Assessment for Tracking Community Health (CATCH), for analyzing the health status of communities has been under development at the University of South Florida since the early 1990s. CATCH draws 226 health status indicators from multiple data sources and uses an innovative comparative framework and weighted evaluation criteria to produce a rank-ordered list of community health problems. CATCH has been applied successfully in many Florida counties; focusing attention on high priority health issues and measuring the impact of health expenditures on community health status outcomes. Previously performed manually, we are using information technology (IT) to automate the CATCH methodology with a full-scale data warehouse, user-friendly forms and reports, and extended analysis and data mining capabilities. The automated system, CATCH/IT, will reduce the time to prepare community health status reports from months to days. In this paper, we present the current status of the project, along with the principal research and development issues and future directions of the project.

Community Health Planning↗
PubMed1984

Multidimensional assessment of depression.

A brief version of the Multiscore Depression Inventory was evaluated. Good coefficient alpha and test-retest reliabilities were obtained for the total score and the subscales. Two factor analyses were reported which appear to justify the use of a multiscore approach for at least 8 of the 9 subscales: helplessness, energy level, guilt, social introversion, cognitive difficulty, irritability, pessimism, and low self-esteem. Sad mood apparently overlapped with energy level on one analysis (replicating findings with the 118-item Multiscore Depression Inventory), and with self-esteem on the second analysis. Normative data are provided on diverse samples totaling 849 subjects.

Depression↗
PubMed1983

Preliminary investigation of bulimia and life adjustment.

Despite the reported increase in the incidence of bulimia, little is known about the life adjustment of bulimic patients. The authors surveyed 80 women who met the DSM-III criteria for bulimia regarding their adjustment in the areas of work, social and leisure activities, relationship with extended family, role as spouse, role as parent, and membership in the family unit. The life adjustment of the bulimic sample was significantly poorer in all areas than that of a normal community sample and was most similar to that of a comparison group of alcoholic women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

A multi-institutional study of depression in family practice.

Depression among outpatients of three descriptively and geographically dissimilar family practice residency programs was studied. The Beck Depression Inventory, the Popoff Index of Depression, and the Multiscore Depression Inventory (MDI) were compared. Reliabilities of all three instruments were high, as were correlations among the instruments. The only significant differences among the three populations were on the social introversion and sad mood subscales of the MDI. Regression analyses were then performed to compute equivalent scores on the Beck Depression Inventory short form from the MDI and Popoff instruments. This allowed approximate conversion of scores to the four levels of severity of depression described by Beck and Beck. This study provides the first extensive normative data for family practice on these measures, thus providing family physicians with a comparison group appropriate for a family practice rather than a psychiatric population.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Depression and self-actualization of gifted adolescents.

Administered the Multiscore Depression Inventory and the Personal Orientation Inventory to 248 academically gifted adolescents drawn from across the state of South Carolina to participate in a select program. Low but significant correlations were noted among several of the scales. Factor analysis of the scales of both instruments resulted in five factors for females and six for males. In both samples the first two factors accounted for more than half the variance. Gifted students who were not self-actualizing types were more depressed, and their pattern of scores revealed that guilt, low self-esteem, learned helplessness, and cognitive difficulty were important symptoms. The gifted adolescents, on the whole, tended to be more socially introverted.

Achievement↗
PubMed1981

How valid are the subscales of the Multiscore Depression Inventory?

Investigated subscales of the Multiscore Depression Inventory for construct and concurrent validity. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on the responses of 263 students provided support for the construct validity of Irritability, Energy Level, Guilt, Instrumental Helplessness, Social Introversion, and Cognitive Difficulty. The separation of Low Self-Esteem and Pessimism was supported only partially, while Learned Helplessness and Sad Mood combined in a single cluster. The graph-theoretic advantages of the cluster analysis permitted speculation about the relationship among the subscales. Factor-analytic examination of the same data demonstrated comparable evidence of construct validity for most scales. Concurrent validity was demonstrated on a sample of 89 students, with significant relationships obtained for all subscales with respective criterion measures, with the exception of Learned Helplessness, which had a low, but significant, correlation with its criterion. Discriminant validity was demonstrated by low correlations between the subscales and socially desirable responses.

Depressive Disorder↗
PubMed1980

Relationship of mild depression to psychological deficit in college students.

Twenty-five mildly depressed and 25 nondepressed college students, identified on the basis of their scores on two self-report depression measures, were distinguished by a discriminant analysis of their scores on six measures of psychological deficit. The significant function correctly identified 88% of the nondepressed group of 92% of the mildly depressed group with four variables: Paired easy associates, a digit symbol test, a writing speed task, and Neckar Cube reversals. A measure of short term memory and paired hard associates did not load on the discriminant function. Results were interpreted as suggestive evidence that mild depression is associated with a deficit in energy during both initial preceptual processing, and organization and execution of psychomotor tasks.

Depression↗
PubMed1980

Development and initial evaluation of a multiscore depression inventory.

The construction and evaluation of a new self-report depression inventory was presented. Altogether 833 subjects participated in the various phases of the study. A sequential item selection strategy resulted in an inventory that provided separate scores for ten subscales: Sad Mood, Fatigue, Learned Helplessness, Guilt, Pessimism, Social Introversion, Irritability, Instrumental Helplessness, Low Self-Esteem, and Cognitive Difficulty. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were satisfactory. Concurrent validity of the full scale was demonstrated by high correlations with existing measures. Criterion related validity and face validity were also demonstrated. It was concluded that the new inventory might prove to be a useful research tool for studying depression in normal populations, and the need for further evaluation of psychometric properties in normal and clinical populations was noted.

Depressive Disorder↗