Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to F Petermann.
The article reviews instruments for measuring quality of life which are mainly used for the assessment of psychosocial impact of cancer and tumor illnesses. An early assessment of the psychosocial consequence of illnesses which are carried out during the interviews are given in addition to the questionnaires. Newer, multidimensional data-collections are described in detail.
Developmental risk mainly refers to the development of emotional and behavioral disturbances, and a tendency to consume drugs in children with parental drug dependence. Results of empirical studies have indicated that the ingestion of drugs and alcohol has an effect on the development of behavioral disturbances (aggression, hyperactive), social anxiety and uncertainty. Intervention programs will be gradually developed to stabilize the children at risk.
Improved long-term survival rates in childhood cancer have resulted in an increased demand for family-centered care programs. The EFR-O was developed as a screening-instrument tapping parental stressors and resources. The instrument was designed in order to assist family health care providers in allocating parents to need-centered rehabilitation services.
The main aim of the present study was to examine the frequency and correlates of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Anxiety and depressive symptoms were evaluated by means of the Revised Ontario Health Study Scales. The probands were 215 adolescents aged 11 to 19 years. An important finding was the high rates of suicidal thought in the 11-12 year old boys (23.1%) and the 17-19 year girls (26.7%). Our result also showed a significant correlation between depressive symptoms and doctor's visit and critical life events. The implication of the results for clinical practice and research were discussed.
The development of typical epidemiological questions is discussed. Possible definitions und fields of applications for simple status-diagnostics as well as for epidemiological longitudinal research are presented. Examples for the application of complex mathematical models like LOGIT- or LISREL-analysis are presented. Insufficient methodological systematisation and problems in comparing studies of different origin (i.e. for metaanalysis) are identified as problems for the future development of epidemiology. A classification system of epidemiological methods is presented that includes content aspects as well as methodological aspects on four levels. These are: the demand of the study (descriptive vs. inferential), the time dimension (status diagnostics vs. longitudinal research), the content level of operationalisation (micro- vs. macrolevel) and the level of explanation (correlative vs. causal). Examples show that this system can be used for classification of existing studies as well as for the conceptualisation and optimization of planned studies.
Patients with chronic-obstructive lung diseases often develop unrealistic anxiety about the side-effects of cortisone therapy. Distorted descriptions in mass-media are the reason for the anxiety. The relations between cortisone anxiety and other variables of the subjective and objective situation will be investigated within a model of health psychology. About 10% of the 66 patients completing a questionnaire express attitudes, which could be interpreted as cortisone anxiety. The patients with cortisone anxiety differ in other characteristics as well.
We report an empirical study in which the subjective complaints and stress experiences of children with bronchial asthma (outpatient, short- and long-term rehabilitation) are analyzed. The data were taken from a specifically developed questionnaire. The results should contribute to the conceptualization of programs for patient education and asthma training in order to meet the exact requirements and needs of the children to be instructed. The role of emotional asthma triggers is specified. Hierarchical cluster analysis is applied in order to analyze, first, the perception patterns of attack precursors and, second, the array of stressors that a child has to face as a consequence of suffering chronic asthma. Based on the social learning theory approach, the child's various expectations about the controllability of an asthma attack are differentiated. A factor analysis reveals that the coping process can be described by two basic coping dimensions.
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The aim of this study is to control the effectiveness of a training in social competence within the framework of a stationary therapy by means of observable behavior and to regard the course of salivary-serum- and urine cortisol in parallel with expected changes in behavior. The behavior assessment showed, that apart from anxiety and a deficiency in social competence, lack of trust and helplessness were essential variables (symptoms). Against the theoretical background of contemporary research in trust and helplessness it was tried to find relations between these factors and to show up relevance for therapy in the case in point. Guided by hypotheses the effects of training and therapy are verified by systematic observation of behavior as well as a significant change of the salivary cortisol values. The development of the therapy and the graphic similarity between the sequence of urine cortisol and the formalized Wortman-Dintzer-Model suggest a corresponding interpretation reservedly. In parallel with Seligman's theories the process could refer to psychophysiological connections between helpless behavior and urine cortisol.
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Numerous community psychology oriented research designs do not sufficiently take into consideration real processes of exchange between person and environment. With the target to enrich community psychology empirically we developed a structured interview scheme for the description of interpersonal transactions. Random samples of self-registered social interactions can be analysed ex posteriori context- and contentwise by the "Kontaktanalysebogen". Following explications and instructions for each paragraph first results concerning objectivity and acceptance in field research are reported. Target groups in particular are individuals threatened by social isolation, e.g. former mental patients. Some empirical results of our own study are given.
Almost 70% of the autistic children are developmentally deviated and developmentally delayed too. There are still no sufficient diagnostical or intervation-oriented strategies recognizing this fact. Problems of diagnosis and developmental facilitation of autistic, developmental delayed children could be found in the field of unresolved questions of differential-aetiology and differential-diagnosis and of intervention-orientated assessment. This work is an attempt to develop some theoretical foundations and practical issues.
Assessment and intervention is a great challenge in working with autistic children. The problems of assessment can be described as a function of the autism-specific developmental problem of decontextualization. The problems of psychological intervention as a related problem of generalization. To control both problems in the social interaction with autistic children one is called to create and videotape situations of social interaction. One can create units of observation on the basis of development psychology studies. Those units are derived from the three main aspects of social interaction, the interactional situation, the interactional style and the interaction behavior. The audio-visuell taping and videoanalysis of many such interactions-sequences at the beginning, in the course and at the end of the intervention process make it possible to control the problems of intervention planning, finetuning and effectiveness.
This article describes a new assessment of the social behaviour of autistic children. The relevance of clinical and developmental diagnostic criteria for the social interaction with autistic children will be illustrated. A practical example stresses that new developmental psychology studies on autistic children's reciprocal interaction, analyse the social behavior in the "social context". Aspects of the social context--the social situation and the background knowledge--are used to demonstrate the construction of observation units. Those units will structure and help to control the social interaction of the examiner and the child. One observation unit consists of the interactional situation, the interactional style and the interaction behavior. The construction of several observational units as quasi-natural situations and the audio-visual record of the social behavior in those situations permit the collection of qualitative deviations in the social behavior of autistic children. Identification, differential diagnosis and therapy-orientated assessment can be based on those informations.
Our study reports about the performance of a training with social inassertive nursery-school children (see Petermann & Petermann 1989). The proceeding was mainly related to the conception of learned helplessness of Seligman referred to an individual and a group training with exactly defined objects. The participants of the study were five children in the age between four and six years. Effects of the training could be proved by individual case studies and the application of ARIMA-models. Behavior observations were conducted to establish the diagnoses and to control the progress during the training. The training took place over a period of four months and the control of efficiency was extended to six months. The result was a confirmation of the differentiated hypotheses related to the individual cases and so a proof of the success of the training.
The article reports about social incompetent children in the age from seven to fourteen years. Social incompetence is assumed to be the leading symptom of such children which is linked to problems in school, concentration disorders, physical restlessness and inferiority feelings. There are no explicit theories about the connections or the reciprocity of occasions between the symptoms which were demonstrated in a comparison between 16 for a therapy announced children. The "Training mit sozial unsicheren Kindern" by Ulrike and Franz Petermann (1989) was practised and effects were tested in a group of three children over a short and over a long period. The results were stable effects about over two years (measured by behavior assessment and reports of the parents), furthermore there was an improvement in other behavior disorders or in coping with these difficulties. The "Training mit sozial unsicheren Kindern" changes effectively behavior disorders of children with multiple symptoms over a long period of time.
This study investigates the compliance in respect to medication. Because of the so far wide ranging and often methodologically differing ways of documentation and description of compliance, we first had to start by determining the term in accordance with the current scientific discussion. The following step was to demonstrate similarities and differences of the compliance in relation to trust by empirical data. Empirical methods: A sample of ten persons was interviewed by a semi-standardized questionnaire, in order to find the constructs of compliance and trust in reference to the medication. These interviews were based on a theoretical analysis. The evaluation of the interview showed 21 constructs for compliance and 14 constructs for the description of trust in the therapeutic situation. These constructs were combined with control questions in a likert-rated questionnaire, which was answered by 160 representative test persons. From the thus required data 6 factors of compliance and 5 factors of the trust were isolated in a factor analysis. A comparison of compliance and trust by a regression-analysis showed that it is not possible to exchange both constructs completely. The limit of the exchangeability is given by medical factors such as side-effects or the knowledge about a given medication. Thus it was demonstrated that it is possible to increase compliance by trust. However, compliance is made up by different factors which are hardly modified by trust.
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