Biomedical subjects

John Schafer

Publications and source records attributed to John Schafer.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Violence or nonviolence: which do we choose?

A large mass of research on violence now exists, yet the utilitarian value of this vast amount of scientific endeavor may be rated as low, comparing it to the levels of violence at all levels abounding in the world today. The author calls for centralizing funding and work on violence at the national level in the United States, perhaps forming a separate National Institute for Violence. In addition to focusing on violence, nonviolence must be studied with more vigor for scientific work in this area to increase in utilitarian value.

Battered Women↗

PubMed2004

Cognitive functioning and length of abstinence in polysubstance dependent men.

To date, there are few large-scale studies that have examined the relationship between duration of abstinence and cognitive functioning in polysubstance-dependent individuals. Existing large-scale studies of polysubstance abusers have reported only minimal recovery of cognitive functioning with abstinence [Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 35 (1978) 1063]. The goal of this study is to test whether length of abstinence (1 day and 14 months) is related to cognitive ability in a large cross-sectional sample of men recovering from dependence on at least two drugs (N = 207). A series of Poisson and linear regressions were run to test whether length of abstinence is associated with neuropsychological performance while controlling for demographic variables, raw Vocabulary score, drug use, and dependency. The primary finding is that increasing length of abstinence was not statistically associated with superior neuropsychological ability. This suggests that the abuse of multiple substances potentially produces long-lasting neuropsychological impairment with minimal recovery of functioning over a 1-year period.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

A path model of risk factors for intimate partner violence among couples in the United States.

The present study was designed to identify the impact of drinking problems, impulsivity, and a history of childhood physical abuse on both male-to-female (MFIPV) and female-to-male intimate partner violence (FMIPV). The data were collected in 1995 from a representative national sample of couples living in the contiguous 48 states. Using a multistage probability sampling design, face-to-face interviews were conducted in respondent' homes, privately with each member of 1, 635 couples. A complex path model building on earlier work was tested for African American, Hispanic, and White couples separately. Multiple-group path analysis demonstrated that impulsivity, alcohol problems, and childhood physical abuse were differentially associated with reports of MFIPV and FMIPV as a function of ethnicity. This study suggests that a history of being physically harmed by parental figures during childhood, impulsivity, and drinking problems are all risk factors for intimate partner violence in the general household population in the United States.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Behavioral reputation: a cross-age perspective.

This study examined the measurement of peer perceptions of behavioral reputation within the contexts of elementary, middle, and high school environments (Grades 2-12, N = 2,812) through the systematic evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Revised Class Play (A. S. Masten, P. Morison, & D. S. Pellegrini, 1985). Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the data did not fit A. S. Masten et al.'s original 3-factor structure. Cross-loading of items and different patterns of association between subscales across age groups (elementary, middle, and high school) contributed to the overall poor fit. Exploratory factor analyses revealed an alternative 4-factor structure as a more reliable and valid means of assessing behavioral reputation regardless of the age of the peer group sampled. Both convergent and divergent patterns of associations emerged across developmental levels.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Intimate partner violence and drinking: new research on methodological issues, stability and change, and treatment.

This article represents the proceedings of a symposium at the 2002 RSA meeting in San Francisco, California. The presentations were (1) Assessing couples' agreement about alcohol involvement in intimate partner violence, by John Schafer; (2) The occurrence of partner physical aggression on days of alcohol consumption: a longitudinal diary study, by Williams Fals-Stewart; (3) The 5-year stability of intimate partner violence and drinking among White, Black, and Hispanic couples, by Raul Caetano; (4) Partner violence before and after individually-based alcoholism treatment for male alcoholic patients, by Timothy O'Farrell. The discussant was Brenda Miller.

Aggression↗

PubMed2003

Automatic-controlled information processing and error detection in a simulated pharmacy-verification task.

The relationships between attentional variables and information-processing demands of pharmacy dispensing tasks that contribute to difficulties in cognitive performance are not well-known. In the present study, a psychological approach to medical dispensing errors, the cognitive-systems performance model of Grasha, was employed to evaluate the contributions of individual differences in attention and alterations in visual task information on simulated pharmacy-verification performance, perceived workload, and self-reported stress. 73 college-age volunteers completed a pretest battery containing psychological measures of automatic and controlled information processing, and one-week later spent 265 min. completing the end visual-inspection process for 200 simulated prescriptions, 27% of which contained artificially inserted errors. Evidence suggesting that both automatic and controlled processes underlie performance of a simulated pharmacy-verification task was obtained. Individual differences in controlled information processing were mildly predictive of detection accuracy, while contrary to expectations, automatic processing scores did not produce significant relationships. Detection associated with experimental alterations in font size (12-pt. vs 6-pt.) of critical prescription label information was partially in line with expectations from the cognitive-systems performance model, while additional visual enhancements via a magnification/illumination device yielded mixed results. Finally, reports of perceived workload (NASA Task Load Index) and specific patterns of self-reported stress (Dundee Stress State Questionnaire) were consistent with a three-tier behavioral framework offered recently by Matthews, Davies, Westerman, and Stammers for predicting behaviors along the automatic-controlled continuum.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Workload, error detection, and experienced stress in a simulated pharmacy verification task.

The relationships among workload, stress, and performance efficiency are topics of applied interest and theoretical importance to researchers concerned with human performance. Such interest extends to a variety of occupational areas including inpatient, outpatient, and community pharmacies. In that context, these relationships have become a consumer health issue given concerns that workload contributes to job stress and a significant decline in dispensing accuracy. In the present study, 102 trained college-aged individuals evaluated simulated pharmacy prescriptions for errors under conditions of either low workload (72 orders over 120 min. on task) or high workload (120 orders over 120 min. on task) in a high-fidelity simulated pharmacy environment. Overall, cumulative and detection theory indices of error detection were compatible with estimates from pharmacy field studies. When rates of sensitivity and specificity for detection were examined, substantial variations in the identification of errors (sensitivity) and difficulties with detection of data-entry mistakes were observed in the high workload condition, but only modest effects emerged for the low workload condition. Although increases in objective workload were associated with modest declines in detection accuracy, objective workload did not significantly affect negative mood (Mood Adjective Checklist) or perceived workload (NASA-Task Load Index) as expected.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Alcohol-related problems, drug use, and male intimate partner violence severity among US couples.

BACKGROUND: Particularly for women, level of intimate partner violence (IPV) severity is associated with risk of injury. Previous research suggests that male drinking problems and drug use are key risk factors. Few studies, however, have examined the associations between male and female alcohol problems and drug use and risk of moderate and severe male IPV in general household population samples. METHODS: A multiethnic sample of 1615 married and cohabiting couples was obtained from the 1995 National Study of Couples, a cross-sectional study on alcohol and IPV. We assessed the contribution of past year male and female alcohol-related problems (i.e., drinking consequences and alcohol-dependence symptoms) and illicit drug use to the risk of moderate and severe male IPV. A series of generalized multinomial logit models, with adjustment for sociodemographic and psychosocial covariates, was constructed to assess these associations. RESULTS: Female and male alcohol-related problems and female drug use, were associated with increased risk of moderate and severe male IPV. Contrary to our expectation, male drug use was not associated with elevated risk for either type of male IPV. Compared with couples residing in low-unemployment neighborhoods, couples residing in high-unemployment neighborhoods were at greater risk for severe, but not moderate, male IPV. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol-related problems among men and women and drug use among women, appear to be important correlates of male IPV severity among couples in the general population. These findings can aid in IPV screening efforts, the formulation of prevention strategies, and help inform batterer and victim treatment programs.

Adult↗