Biomedical subjects

Kurt Hahlweg

Publications and source records attributed to Kurt Hahlweg.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

[How well do parents and teachers' reports agree on behaviour problems in pre-school-aged children?].

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study is to examine the extent of parental and teacher agreement on behaviour problems in preschool-aged children. METHOD: Families were recruited from preschools in Braunschweig. In total, N=310 children aged three to six years were evaluated by their mothers and fathers and by their preschool teachers using the Child Behavior Checklist and the Caregiver-Teacher Report for ages 1(1)/(2) to 5. RESULTS: The inter-parental agreement on behaviour problems was high. Parents consistently reported more problem behaviour than did preschool teachers. The median of intra-class correlation between the evaluations by the mothers with those by the fathers was 0.65, and 0.18 (0.17) for parent-teacher dyads. For the agreement between parents with respect to the borderline/clinical range a mean of kappa=0.41 was found, while there was no agreement between parents and teachers. CONCLUSIONS: The results are integrated into the literature, and implications, particularly those for clinical assessment procedures at preschool age, are discussed.

Child↗

PubMed2006

[The prevalence of ADHD and attention problems in preschool-aged children. A comparison of two diagnostic instruments].

OBJECTIVES: In order to analyse the prevalence of ADHD and attention problems in preschool-aged children, mothers were asked to rate their children using two measuring instruments. METHODS: The analysis is part of a prospective, randomised control study of N = 280 children aged three to six years, whose mothers rated them using the Child Behaviour Checklist/CBCL 1 1/2-5 and the Parent Rating Scale for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). RESULTS: The prevalence rates ranged from 2.7% to 9.9%. There was no significant gender effect in this age group. CONCLUSIONS: The study delivers initial findings and provides support for decisions to implement in Germany new assessment methods for preschool-aged children with ADHD or hyperkinetic syndrome. Finally, the different rates of prevalence and the implications of the findings for epidemiology and the prevention of ADHD and attention problems among preschool-aged children are discussed.

Age Factors↗

PubMed2006

Predicting marital distress and dissolution: refining the two-factor hypothesis.

Measures of communication, hostility, and neuroticism taken from 85 couples from Germany before marriage were used to predict marital outcomes 5 years later. Hostility and neuroticism discriminated between couples who separated or divorced after 5 years and those who remained married, whereas communication discriminated between married-satisfied and married- dissatisfied couples. Only hostility and neuroticism predicted marital satisfaction at 18 months, suggesting that these factors contribute to rapid, early declines in marital functioning. The authors conclude that poor communication alone cannot account for the full range of marital outcomes and that skill-based models of marriage can be strengthened by considering relatively rare exchanges between partners (e.g., aggression) and their enduring vulnerabilities (e.g., neuroticism).

Communication↗

PubMed2006

Long-term prediction of marital quality following a relationship education program: being positive in a constructive way.

Relationship education programs such as Ehevorbereitung--Ein Partnerschaftliches Lernprogramm (Premarital Preparation--A Couples' Learning Program) and the Relationship Education and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) can help prevent marital distress among newlyweds. Thus, it is important to understand which couples respond best to the intervention and which couples respond less well. E. A. Schilling, D. H. Baucom, C. K. Burnett, E. A. Allen, and L. Ragland (2003) unexpectedly found that the more women increased positive communication in response to PREP, the more likely they were to become distressed in the subsequent 5 years. The current study explores similar issues, investigating a relationship education program in Germany. The current results indicate that couples are susceptible to future relationship distress if women demonstrate extreme increases in positive and decreases in negative communication after intervention. Implications are provided for adapting these relationship education programs in the future.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Parent recruitment and retention in a universal prevention program for child behavior and emotional problems: barriers to research and program participation.

Despite the potential of parent training as a prevention and behavioral family intervention strategy, there are a number of important issues related to implementation (e.g., recruitment and retention of families). This paper presents recruitment and retention data from families enrolling in a randomized controlled universal prevention trial for child behavior problems conducted in Germany. The recruitment rate averaged 31% (general project participation), with families of lower socioeconomic status (SES) participating at a lower rate. Project-declining families most often reported intrusion of privacy as their primary concern. In contrast, once parents were enrolled in the project, participation among those randomized to the parent training group averaged 77% (program/intervention participation); non-participation was mostly due to logistical issues. Parents accepting the offer of parent training were more likely to report child behavior problems than did declining parents. Although parents from more disadvantaged areas had a lower overall level of participation in the project once recruited, parents with children having higher levels of behavior problems indeed were more likely to participate in the intervention. Different recruitment methods may be required to engage high-risk families from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas to further improve community-level impact on child mental health.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Effectiveness of an empirically supported treatment for social phobia in the field.

This study examined the effectiveness of individual exposure combined with cognitive restructuring for social phobia in a clinical setting as well as the influence of sample restriction criteria on the effect size. Participants were 217 unselected patients with a primary diagnosis of social phobia who were treated by 57 therapists in four outpatient clinics of the Christoph-Dornier-Foundation of Clinical Psychology in Germany. Results 6 weeks after the end of therapy showed highly significant reductions in social phobic fears and avoidance as well as in general anxiety and symptoms of depression. However, patients who dropped out during therapy reported a significantly higher degree of depression. Results did not differ between the four outpatient clinics and are comparable with the average effect-sizes reported by meta-analytic studies of controlled efficacy research, using selected patients. Also, restricting the sample according to the selection criteria often applied in research settings did not result in higher effect sizes for the applied outcome measures. We conclude that individual cognitive behavioural therapy for social phobia can be transported from research settings to the field of mental health.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

The Family Questionnaire: development and validation of a new self-report scale for assessing expressed emotion.

The level of expressed emotion (EE) as assessed in the Camberwell Family Interview (CFI) has proved to be one of the best predictors of relapse in schizophrenia. The present study describes the development and validation of the Family Questionnaire (FQ), a brief self-report questionnaire measuring the EE status (criticism, emotional overinvolvement) of relatives of patients with schizophrenia. The FQ classifications in the initial sample of relatives (N=76) correlated significantly with the ratings in the CFI subcategories 'criticism' (78% correct classifications) and 'emotional overinvolvement' (71% correct classifications), as well as with the overall CFI EE ratings (74% correct classifications). A validation study in an independent second sample (N=79) yielded similar results. The overall correct classification rate of 74% remained unchanged. The FQ had better agreement with the CFI on emotional overinvolvement than did other short EE questionnaires.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Early prevention of externalizing disorders--basic principles and parent-centered approaches to prevention of expansive childhood behavior disorders].

Conduct disorder is an area of mental disorder, in which prevention seems to be advisable for different reasons. First, relevant factors that help identifying a population at risk are well-known. Second, a number of research efforts showed negative developmental trajectories for children with early conduct disorder, and third, we have effective treatment programs that facilitate deriving prevention strategies. This paper first describes results which clarify the need for prevention. Then basic principles and contents of effective prevention programs for conduct disorder are described. Finally, four behaviorally oriented examples from the numerous existing universal, selected and indicated prevention programs are illustrated and discussed.

Adolescent↗