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Biomedical subjects

H O Veiel

Publications and source records attributed to H O Veiel.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Psychosocial correlates of clinical depression after psychiatric in-patient treatment: methodological issues and baseline differences between recovered and non-recovered patients.

General methodological and design issues in research on psychosocial outcome predictors of clinical depression are discussed, and the first stage of a study of discharged depressed in-patients is presented. It involved 115 recovered and 75 non-recovered such patients who were compared regarding stress factors, social support, personality and coping styles. While there were few differences between recovered and non-recovered patients with respect to stable personality traits, recovered patients were less likely to have had severe long-term life difficulties, and their coping style differed: it was characterized by more negative appraisals of stressful situations, greater problem avoidance, less palliative activities, and a lesser inclination to solicit social support. Whereas among women without partners, as well as men, non-recovery was also associated with less support from friends, in particular psychological-emotional support in crises, non-recovered women with partners had much more such support. The results are discussed with reference to the existing literature on outcome correlates of clinical depression.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Self-esteem and depression. II. Social correlates of self-esteem.

The Self-Evaluation and Social Support Schedule (SESS), an interview-based instrument, is described, which aims to give a comprehensive description of a person's social milieu in terms of 'objective' and 'subjective' measures. On the basis of a population survey of 400 largely working-class women, a tentative causal model is developed which relates both the quality of current interpersonal ties and childhood experiences to current negative and positive measures of self-esteem. A major purpose of the exercise is to develop positive and negative indices of the social environment that can be used to elucidate the aetiological role of self-esteem in the development of depression. This is the task of a third paper.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

The Mannheim Interview on Social Support. Reliability and validity data from three samples.

Social support questionnaires usually provide scant information about the members of supporting networks, while network-analytical approaches often fail to sufficiently detail the functional aspects of social support available to an individual. A structured interview, the "Mannheim Interview on Social Support" (MISS) is presented which combines the advantages of both approaches by mapping an individual's social resources in a "support matrix" of [network members] * [relationship characteristics + support functions]. Stability and validity data collected in three different samples (discharged depressed in-patients, university students, and parents of children afflicted with cancer) are reported. Test-retest correlations are compared with alternative measures of stability, and the relationship of various MISS scores to scores based on conceptually related instruments is explored. The results indicate good test-retest stability of the main functional and structural MISS scores rtt = 0.66 to 0.88 for a four-week interval, and rtt = 0.42 to 0.79 for a six-month-interval). It is shown that the MISS captures several dimensions of a person's social support environment not covered by questionnaires targeting subjective perceptions of support.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Depressed mood and major depressive episodes: differential responsiveness to psychosocial experiences.

In a sample of 64 remitted and discharged depressed in-patients the structure and quality of their social environment was examined in relation to the subsequent development of depressive symptoms. It is shown that mood-related symptoms were influenced by psychosocial factors, whereas vegetative and non-specific symptoms were not. Since the latter are rather more heavily weighted in the DSM-III criteria for Major Depressive Episode than in typical symptom sum scores, psychosocial variables did not predict DSM-III-defined clinical relapses. Possible implications for conceptualizing depressive disorders are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Relatives and depressive relapse: the critical period after discharge from in-patient treatment.

In a sample of 60 remitted depressed in-patients, the power of three basic parameters of the social support network--Kin Support Network Size; Non-kin Support Network Size; and Satisfaction with Support--to predict depressive symptom levels seven months after discharge was examined. The results suggest that even positive, supportive family relationships can have a distinctly detrimental effect, and that a depressed in-patient's return to his or her family represents a crucial period for the further course of the disorder. The findings are discussed with respect to the social support literature and the 'Expressed Emotion' concept. It is held that neither paradigm provides an adequate explanation, and alternative mediating mechanisms are suggested.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

The social supports of suicide attempters: the different roles of family and friends.

The social support patterns of a sample of 101 suicide attempters were compared with the patterns of a control sample on the basis of structured interview data. Network characteristics and the extent of support in different functional categories were examined as to their absolute and relative power to discriminate between the suicide attempters and the controls. A clear separation of the functions of kin and of friends/acquaintances emerged. The crucial difference between the attempters and the controls lay in the number of friends with whom the subjects had agreeable everyday interactions and in the number of kin that provided crisis support, both psychological and instrumental. Other support differences between the two groups were of secondary importance. While there was no overall difference in the frequency of social interactions between the two groups, the size of the social network differed greatly. Consequences for the conceptualization and measurement of social support as well as for the prevention of suicidal behavior are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Base-rates, cut-points and interaction effects: the problem with dichotomized continuous variables.

On the background of the recent discussion about the appropriateness of linear difference and ratio models for testing interaction effects of social support and stress, it is argued that interaction effects are basically unstable when dichotomized continuous variables are analysed. A data set with known interrelationships of the continuous variables 'stress', 'social support', and 'depression' was simulated and analysed in tabular format. It is shown that the choice of cut-points for the independent variables crucially determines the size and presence of interaction effects in ratio analysis models.

Depressive Disorder↗
PubMed1987

Buffer effects and threshold effects: an alternative interpretation of nonlinearities in the relationship between social support, stress, and depression.

The common interpretation of statistical interactions of global measures of social support and stress in their effects on depression (the "buffer effect" of social support) as reflecting interactive processes within individuals was examined. It was argued that its adequacy depends on incorrect assumptions about the distribution of depressive symptoms within individuals over time and/or different levels of psychosocial adversity. With hypothetical data sets generated under the assumption of a threshold effect in the development of depression and of additive, rather than interactive, effects of social support and stress, it was demonstrated that spurious "buffer effects" of social support can appear in analyses of cross-sectional data. Methodological and substantive implications are discussed, and strategies for study design and data analysis are proposed that allow to assess whether empirical deviations from linearity are more adequately interpreted as a buffer or as a threshold effect.

Adjustment Disorders↗
PubMed1985

Psychopathology and Boolean Factor Analysis: a mismatch.

It has recently been claimed that Boolean Factor Analysis (BFA) is superior to more traditional approaches to empirical syndrome identification in psychopathology (Weber & Scharfetter, 1984). This paper examines the underlying assumptions and the empirical basis of this claim. A hypothetical data set, with a more complex structure than the examples used by Weber & Scharfetter to support their claim, is analysed by means of both BFA and Ordinary Factor Analysis (OFA). It is shown that, as data sets resemble empirical conditions more closely, BFA may break down completely while OFA continues to yield adequate results.

Factor Analysis, Statistical↗