Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to K C Winters.
The association between various MMPI codetypes and DSM-III schizophrenics, depressives, and bipolars (manic or depressed) (N = 169) was examined. Most codetypes predictive of bipolar-depressed also predicted major depression, yet these codetypes were not characteristic of bipolar-manic. Furthermore, "affective" codetypes often overlapped with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Cognitive and attentional deficits were assessed in children with either a schizophrenic, and affectively disordered or a normal parent. The children were grouped both by their parents' DSM-II diagnoses (broadly defined group of schizophrenics and heterogeneous group of depressives)and by a new set of diagnoses (narrowly defined group of schizophrenics, unipolar depressive group and bipolar group). Children whose parents met the more stringent criteria for schizophrenia performed somewhat more deviantly than children whose parents met only DSM-II criteria. In addition, the importance of splitting the heterogeneous depressive group into more homogeneous subgroups is indicated by the findings that children of unipolar parents generally could not be distinguished from children whose parents are schizophrenic. On the other hand, children of bipolar parents performed reliably better than children of schizophrenics. These findings are viewed within the context of current high-risk studies and psychological deficit literature and suggest that diagnostic issues require more attention by researchers in these areas.
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The development of a new adolescent alcohol and other drug abuse screening scale is summarized. The Personal Experience Screening Questionnaire (PESQ) is intended to meet the need for a quick, psychometrically adequate adolescent screening tool to measure the need for a comprehensive assessment. The development of the questionnaire's problem severity scale and evidence related to its reliability (internal consistency) and validity are described.
The development and initial psychometric properties of a new parent questionnaire for assessing adolescent drug abuse are described. The Personal Experience Inventory-Parent Version (PEI-PV) is intended to provide a standardized parent report as a companion measure to the adolescent self-report instrument, the Personal Experience Inventory. The PEI-PV addresses problems associated with the child's drug abuse and psychosocial factors and parenting practices that may underlie their drug involvement. Reliability and validity data are reported for two groups of mothers, 205 of whom had a child referred for an evaluation for drug treatment and 185 from a community sample. The structure and scope of the PEI-PV was supported by scale intercorrelation data; most scales had a proportion of unique, reliable variance greater than 20%. Estimates of the scale's internal consistency were found to be comparable to those of established parent questionnaires, and the observed differences between the clinic-referred and community samples were consistent with expectations. Significant convergence of mothers' reports to those of their child was obtained for nearly three-quarters of the PEI-PV scales, including moderate agreement between mother and child on the drug involvement severity scales. However, mothers tended to underreport their child's level of drug involvement and resulting problems compared to the child's self-report. The study results suggest that the PQ is associated with favorable evidence that the scales measure what they are intended to measure.
Validity of adolescent self-report of alcohol and drug use and consequential effects and problems is examined. Validity is discussed in terms of its importance in research and clinical work. Also, results from a recent study are presented that focus on self-report temporal stability and response bias tendencies as evidence of validity of self-report. Study results indicate that the great majority of drug clinic and school teenagers gave temporally consistent reports of substance involvement and that only a small proportion of drug clinic and school subjects presented extreme response bias tendencies.