Biomedical subjects

H Källmén

Publications and source records attributed to H Källmén.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

[Alcohol drinking habits assessed by the AUDIT test. Reduced maximum levels doubled the number of women with dangerous alcohol drinking].

The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) was completed by 997 persons randomly sampled from the general Swedish population (80 percent response rate). Eighteen percent of the men and 5 percent of the women had hazardous or harmful alcohol use according to the 8+ score criterion. Since women are more sensitive to alcohol than men, a cut-off score of 6+ was suggested for them. The female prevalence of hazardous or harmful alcohol use then increased to nearly 11 percent. Hazardous or harmful alcohol use decreased with increasing age in both genders. The "binge drinking" question explained half of the total AUDIT variance and is thus the best predictor of heavy drinking in the test. The internal and test-retest reliability of the AUDIT was satisfactory. Reference values for different ages and genders are presented.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

[Ten questions about alcohol as identifier of addiction problems. Psychometric tests at an emergency psychiatric department].

It is important to develop and evaluate methods of identifying alcohol dependent patients and patients at risk of alcohol problems. The World Health Organisation recommends a 10-item questionnaire, AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), which assesses hazardous alcohol use, dependence symptoms, and harmful alcohol use. The article describes a Swedish version of AUDIT that has been psychometrically tested on a sample of patients admitted to a psychiatric emergency ward. Both internal consistency, reliability and validity were found to be satisfactory in terms of sensitivity and specificity in predicting DSM alcoholism diagnoses.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Alcohol and disinhibition.

This review investigates research evaluating the disinhibition hypothesis. This hypothesis postulates that in a sober state behavior is inhibited. When people are influenced by alcohol the inhibitions are supposed to be weakened and the motivating drives are postulated to become disinhibited and potent to influence behavior. This report reviews the effect of alcohol on nerve functions, on human sexuality, aggression, eating behavior, psychological conflicts, fluency in talk, social anxiety, violent crimes and the interaction of alcohol and social norms. It has been shown that individual subjective experiences sometimes indicate disinhibition (reduction of the forces holding back impulses) and objective behavior in some respects was different when the subject was intoxicated, but the mechanism that mediates behavior is not clear. It seems to be difficult to measure independently the forces restraining (inhibiting) the driving forces (uncontrolled impulses) at the same time as measuring these driving forces. The review concludes that there is no unambiguous support of the disinhibition hypothesis. An alternative hypothesis that seems to explain many behaviors in an inebriated individual is the 'time out' hypothesis which states that drunken behavior is influenced more by norms about what it should be than by the pharmacological effect of alcohol.

Aggression↗

PubMed1991

Subliminal psychodynamic activation: an experiment controlling for major possible confounding influences outlined by Fudin.

40 and 48 subjects participated in two separate experiments aimed at reproducing the subliminal psychodynamic activation (SPA) phenomenon and taking into account the major methodological critique by Fudin (1986, 1990). Subjects were first exposed either to a full or one of all possible partial symbiotic messages and then to their anagram equivalents. Confounding and irrelevant influences were controlled; the results indicate that only the full symbiotic message improved motor performance. This strongly suggests that subjects encode the meaning of the full message and supports an interpretation in terms of an alleviation of an internal symbiotic conflict leading to a state of calmness conducive to improved motor performance.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Alcohol, subliminal stimulation, and disinhibitory processes.

An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that an unconscious conflict between a wish to attain symbiotic oneness with another person on the one hand and personal independence on the other, should be weakened by alcohol if the main effect of intoxication is to reduce the strength of psychological inhibitions. In turn, a reduction in such conflicts should improve motor performance. Data indicated no such effects, and it was concluded that the disinhibition hypothesis as an explanation of alcohol-related behavior was not supported.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Subliminal stimulation and cognitive and motor performance.

The present experiment investigated whether subliminally exposed messages affect cognitive and motor performance and whether personality factors can explain interindividual differences in this respect. According to Silverman (1983), people have a symbiotic fantasy, that is, a need for symbiotic oneness with the mother figure. This need can temporarily be satisfied by a tachistoscopic exposure of the message "Mommy and I are one." By relieving the unconscious conflict, psychological tension is reduced. Using these notions, it was hypothesized that different measures of performance should be improved. The results indicate that both cognitive performance, in terms of the ability to interpret incomplete and fragmented pictures, and motor performance, in terms of the ability to follow a printed line with a stylus, is improved by this procedure compared to that of a control group exposed to the neutral message "People are walking." However, it was not possible to relate these changes to individual differences in terms of the individual's structure of his psychological defense system as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT). Other possible explanations are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Effects of alcohol on cognitive performance measured with Stroop's Color Word Test.

An experiment was performed to test whether alcohol intoxication leads to cognitive disinhibition as measured by the Color Word Test. In psychoanalytic terms, it was hypothesized that alcohol would decrease secondary process functioning leading to disinhibition and so make it easier to perform a primary process function. 24 men and 24 women participated and were randomly assigned to an Alcohol group, a Placebo group or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. No statistically significant differences were found on any of the three dependent measures, number of errors, number of hesitations and total time needed, except that men in the Alcohol group needed significantly longer time to complete the test. These results indicate that cognitive disinhibition is not valid as an explanation for alcohol-related changes in cognitive functioning.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Alcohol and the compensation hypothesis: a test with cognitive and psychomotor tasks.

An experiment tested the hypothesis that moderately intoxicated subjects can compensate for the detrimental effects of alcohol. Subjects were assigned either to a Control group, a Low Incentive group, or a High Incentive group. The dose of alcohol was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. The rationale of the experiment was that the High Incentive group would be more inclined to try to compensate than would the Low Incentive group. A psychomotor and two different cognitive tasks were used. Analysis indicated that the psychomotor test was not at all affected by alcohol, so there was no possibility for compensation. On the Color Word Test, intoxicated subjects developed the strategy of taking longer time to complete the test and so keeping the number of errors low. On the Dot Test, men were not affected by alcohol and could not compensate while women were affected and successfully compensated for the detrimental effects of alcohol. The results were interpreted as a partial support of the hypothesis of compensation for alcohol effect.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Psychological defense mechanisms and manifest anxiety as indicators of secondary psychosomatic body pain.

13 men and 27 women patients from an outpatient pain unit participated in the study. Blind to the research worker they were diagnosed by the responsible physicians as suffering from either primary somatic or secondary psychosomatic pain. The study explored whether manifest anxiety and number of primitive psychological defense signs could be used to classify patients into the two categories. Analysis indicated that with respect to manifest anxiety this was possible for the women but not for the men in that psychosomatic women exhibited raised manifest anxiety. Both men and women, diagnosed as psychosomatic, exhibited more primitive defense signs than patients diagnosed as somatic. Theoretical and clinical implications were discussed.

Defense Mechanisms↗

PubMed1990

Effects of alcohol on prolonged cognitive performance measured with Stroop's Color Word Test.

24 men and 24 women were randomly assigned in equal numbers to an Alcohol group, a Placebo group, or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg of body weight. Subjects were tested three consecutive times using Stroop's Color Word Test. The dependent measures were total time needed to complete the test, number of errors made and number of hesitations. Data were grouped into three blocks of 100 words. Results indicated that number of hesitations was too insensitive a measure to yield any significant effects. On the two first measures alcohol had a detrimental effect in that the Alcohol group needed more time to complete the test and made more errors than the Placebo group. There was also a significant interaction of alcohol dose by sex by blocks on both these measures, indicating that the detrimental effect of alcohol over time was restricted to women. Different implications of the results were discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

The effect of alcohol intoxication on primary and secondary processes in male social drinkers.

The acute effects of alcohol intoxication on cognitive style and on locus of control was investigated in an experimental setting. Sixty male subjects were randomly assigned to either an Alcohol, a Placebo, or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. Subjects filled out a modified version of Rotter's locus of control scale and reported their perceptions to Street's Gestalt Completion Test. The latter test was scored in a standardized way for stimulus closeness, indicating a reality oriented and rational functioning, and stimulus distance, indicating a more primitive, irrational and pleasure oriented functioning. Alcohol made subjects less internally controlled and decreased the reality oriented functioning while the pleasure oriented functioning was not affected. Results were discussed in terms of pharmacological mechanisms, disinhibition, and creativity.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Changes in the psychological defence system as a function of alcohol intoxication in men.

Social drinking young men participated in an experiment exploring whether acute alcohol intoxication affects the characteristics of the psychological defence structure. It was found that a moderate alcohol dose (1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight) increased the overall level of defence activity compared to a sober Control group and as measured by the Defence Mechanism Test. This increase was mainly due to a significant increase in the defence mechanism Isolation. Gender differences in this respect and the implications of this shift in the defence structure for the understanding of intoxicated behavior and motives for drinking were discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Alcohol effects on cognitive and personality style in women with special reference to primary and secondary process.

Changes in primary and secondary process functioning as well as in experienced locus of control as indicators of cognitive style were examined as a function of alcohol intoxication. Women subjects drank 1.0 ml of pure alcohol/kg body weight and were compared to a placebo and a control group. Results indicated a significant shift in locus of control toward greater externality and a significant shift in cognitive style from a dominance of secondary process when sober to a dominance of primary process when intoxicated. These shifts were discussed as indicative of the pharmacological properties of alcohol and were related to the disinhibition and the arousal hypotheses. Alternative explanations were also discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

The structure of psychological defense mechanisms in women as a function of alcohol intoxication.

The present experiment tested whether moderate alcohol intoxication influences the relative strength of different psychoanalytic defense mechanisms and whether the overall level of defense activity is changed. Thirty-six women were randomly assigned to either an alcohol, a placebo, or a control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. Subjects were tested with the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT), which gives a valid measure of both elaborate or late and primitive or early defense mechanisms. Results indicated no significant effects of alcohol intoxication on any aspect of the defense system. This was taken as supportive of the psychoanalytic notion in respect of the stability of the defense system. Possible complications were discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

The blood alcohol curve as a function of time and type of beverage: methodological considerations.

Six male subjects came to the laboratory on three different occasions and drank either spirits, wine, or beer. The spirits drink contained 1.0 ml of pure alcohol/kg body wt. and the other two drinks were 20% larger. The blood alcohol curve was monitored every 15 min. The mean peak level was roughly the same for the three types of beverages although the peak was reached later for wine and beer. For spirits and beer the curve dropped off smoothly after the peak was reached while for wine the peak level was maintained for about 60 min. Individual curves varied greatly for all three beverage types. The results are discussed in terms of methodological complications when doing experimental research in the laboratory.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Alcohol and unpleasant stimulation: subjective shock calibration and pain and discomfort perception.

In an experiment 8 men participated in an alcohol and a sober condition in a rotated order. In both conditions subjects first calibrated a shock scale to a subjective criterion and then rated their subjective pain and total discomfort. Subjects calibrated the shock scale higher when intoxicated and rated the calibrated level equally painful in the sober and intoxicated conditions, but when intoxicated subjects actually rated the higher shock level as less uncomfortable. The shock scale was calibrated higher under intoxication not because subjects wanted to impress the experimenter but because less pain and discomfort was actually experienced.

Adult↗