PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

L M Range

Publications and source records attributed to L M Range.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

Perception of behavioral contagion of adolescent suicide.

In order to assess perceptions of behavioral contagion of suicide (what people thought a disturbed adolescent would do if the teen knew about a suicide in the community), and to assess actor-observer differences in such perceptions, 142 college students were asked to view a videotaped vignette of a distressed high school student, and then to assess her potential for committing suicide, running away, entering therapy, or abusing alcohol. Subjects who were told that the teenager knew of two recent suicides in the community (contagion group) rated the young woman as more likely to commit suicide or run away than did the subjects who were not told of the suicides (noncontagion group). Subjects who were instructed to imagine that they were the teenager (actors) blamed situational factors, and in particular the teen's parents, more for her distress than did subjects who were instructed just to rate the teenager on the videotape (observers). Contagion/actors rated suicide as more likely than did any other group. Apparently, people believe that behavioral contagion occurs when a suicide is reported, and they especially perceive themselves to be influenced by such information.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Gestalt dialogues as a treatment for mild depression: time works just as well.

In a treatment analogue design, 44 moderately depressed volunteer subjects were divided randomly into four groups: attention-placebo; Gestalt empty chair dialogues designed to be personally relevant and high in affect; dialogues designed to be personally irrelevant and neutral in affect; and groups in which strong affect was encouraged, but no dialogues enacted. Groups met 1 hour per week for 4 weeks. Each group was pretested, post-tested, and follow-up tested with an abbreviated MMPI, the Depression Adjective Check List, and experimenter questionnaires. A series of 4 X 3 ANOVAs indicated significant main effects for time across all dependent variables. Also, anxiety and social introversion decreased over time in all groups. No other main or interactional effects were significant. These results suggest that mild depression, as well as anxiety and social introversion, dissipated over time and remained lower regardless of whether the subject had any treatment.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Cultural and emotional components of loneliness and depression.

The relation between loneliness and depression and the distinction between emotional and social loneliness were examined by administering the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale, the Belcher Extended Loneliness Scale (BELS), the Beck Depression Inventory, and self-report questions about social and emotional loneliness to the following four groups: foreign (Chinese-descent) students in American universities, Chinese students in Taiwanese universities, American students in American universities, and depressed American clients. Depressed clients reported not only more depression but also more overall loneliness than did any of the other groups; they also were more likely to report emotional loneliness or both emotional and social loneliness than were the other three groups. Foreign students, in contrast, reported more social loneliness than did Taiwanese students. Results substantiate the view that loneliness is not a unitary concept and suggest that the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the BELS emphasize emotional rather than social loneliness and that emotional loneliness is a greater component of depression than is social loneliness.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Community responses following suicide, homicide, and other deaths: the perspective of potential comforters.

To determine whether actual responses of potential comforters in the community differ according to cause of death, 83 college students participated in a structured, individual interview. They were asked demographic questions about themselves, the bereaved, and the deceased, and then about various aspects of how they, and others in the community, responded to the death. Students were grouped by their reports of the cause of death (suicide, homicide, accident, natural anticipated death, or natural unanticipated death). When the death was by suicide or homicide, others were perceived as relatively less supportive of the bereaved person. When the death was by suicide, respondents themselves tended more to blame the bereaved person. When the death was by homicide, the bereaved person was perceived as reacting relatively worse. Potential comforters were relatively more shocked when the death was by homicide or accident.

Accidents↗
PubMed1987

Factor structure of Calhoun's Youth Suicide Scale.

To assess the factor structure of Calhoun's Youth Suicide Scale (YSS), 191 consenting undergraduates in one sample and 240 consenting undergraduates in a second sample wee given the YSS during class. From the second sample, 152 subjects also took the YSS a second time about 1 month later. In the first sample, three factors, which accounted for 50.0% of the variance, emerged. They were: How the Parents were Viewed (in terms of psychological disturbance, likability, and blame); Expected Responses to the Bereaved Family (terms of tension and sympathy); and Empathy with Parents (whether the newspaper was viewed as correct in reporting the cause of death, how long parents were expected to grieve, and whether parents were expected to be liked). In the second sample, the same three factors emerged (accounting for 55.5% of the variance), with the exception of one item on Factor 3: expecting to like the parents. Congruence coefficients between the three factors in the two samples were .98, .94, and .78, respectively. Reliability correlations on individual items ranged from a low of .30 to a high of .61. These results indicate that the YSS is valid, stable, and moderately reliable for assessing reactions to youth suicide; thus, it would be a viable instrument for use in future research on reactions to suicide.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1983

The effects of patients' fee payment source on the duration of outpatient psychotherapy.

Investigated the effects of fee payment source alone, as well as in combination with selected demographic factors (race, sex, education, and socioeconomic status), on the duration of outpatient psychotherapy. One hundred and sixty outpatients receiving treatment at a medical center based community mental health center served as Ss. These Ss were divided into four groups: Medicaid, insurance, insurance plus self-payment, and scaled self-payment only. Univariate results indicated that patients who paid a scaled fee had significantly more sessions than those whose fee was paid by Medicaid. Multivariate results, however, indicated that education and sex, which were highly correlated with fee payment source, accounted for most of the variance in treatment duration.

Ambulatory Care↗
PubMed1982

Predicting psychotherapy duration from therapists' sex, professional affiliation, democratic values, and community mental health ideology.

Analyzed therapists' scores on the Community Mental Health Ideology (CMHI) and Democratic values scales and their sex and professional affiliation to predict the number of psychotherapy visits of 166 outpatients. A step-wise multiple regression indicated that all variables taken together accounted for 3% of the variance in treatment duration. A four-way analysis of variance revealed only a significant main effect for the CMHI scale. Thus, low-scoring CMHI therapists had significantly more therapy sessions with their clients than high-scoring CMHI therapists. The latter may emphasize briefer treatment approaches that stress outside resources and primary prevention.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Is training in psychology associated with increased responsiveness to suicidality?

Training is associated with improved responses to suicidal individuals, but it is not clear whether any training helps or whether the training needs to be in psychology. The authors compared beginning and advanced psychology graduate students and practicing psychologists to nursing graduate students. A total of 139 participants in these 4 groups read a vignette about Pat, who had either contemplated suicide or never contemplated suicide, then completed questions about how they would respond to a distressed telephone call from Pat, how suicidal they thought Pat was, and how good a no-suicide contract would be for Pat. Advanced students and psychologists were more helpful in their responses than beginning graduate students, who were more helpful than nursing graduate students. However, all participants noticed whether Pat had contemplated suicide, and all were faintly positive about no-suicide contracts.

Education, Medical, Graduate↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Psychometric properties of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire.

In order to assess the reliability and validity of Cole's (1988) four-item version of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire (SBQ), 57 clinical outpatients completed it and the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL), and 86 undergraduates completed it and the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI). Two weeks later, 30 undergraduates completed the SBQ again. Cronbach alphas were moderate (clinical sample = .75; nonclinical sample = .80). Test--retest correlations were also significant (r = .95). The SBQ and SSI were significantly correlated (r = .69). The SBQ and RFL were also significantly correlated (r = -.34), although modestly. In view of its moderate to strong reliability, its construct and fact validity, its ease of administration and scoring, and its brevity, the SBQ is recommended as a brief screening instrument for suicidality for researchers and clinicians.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Family environment, attitudes toward life and death, depression, and suicidality in elementary-school children.

This study examines whether perception of family environment, attitudes toward life and death, and depression predict suicidality in elementary-school children. Seventy-eight participants ages 8 to 13 recruited through an elementary school and a university were assessed for attitudes toward life and death, depression, suicidality, and family environment. A regression equation indicated that depression and attraction to life were the only variables accounting for variance in suicidality (49%). Family environment variables were moderately correlated with depression, indicating that family environment may play a role in the development and maintenance of depression, of which suicidality is a symptom. Concurrent treatment of family issues may not only ameliorate children's symptoms, but also provide a critical sense of support that may decrease the likelihood that these children will become suicidal in the future.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Suicidality, hopelessness, and attitudes toward life and death in clinical and nonclinical adolescents.

To see if hopelessness and four attitudes (attraction to life and death and repulsion by life and death) account for the development of suicidality in children, 15 adolescent psychiatric inpatients and 84 middle and high school students, average age 15.2 years, took a four-item version of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire, the Hopelessness Scale for Children (HSC), and the Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale for Adolescents (MAST-A). Profiles on the four attitudes differentiated adolescents at risk for suicide from those not at risk. Suicidality was negatively related to Attraction to Death and positively related to Repulsion by Life, Attraction to Death, Repulsion by Death, and hopelessness. Hopelessness was negatively related to Attraction to Life, and positively related to Repulsion by Life and Repulsion by Death. The best predictors of suicidality were hopelessness and Repulsion by Life. Results imply that reducing feelings of rejection by their families might lessen suicidality in adolescents.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The escape theory of suicide and perfectionism in college students.

A preliminary model of the escape theory of suicide was tested in 168 college students (52 males, 116 females), who completed self-report measures of self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism, negative life stress, depression, hopelessness, anxiety, reasons for living, and suicidal behaviors. A path analysis provided only partial validation for the model and accounted for 26% of the variance in suicidal behaviors. None of the three dimensions of perfectionism significantly accounted for any additional variance in suicidal behaviors above and beyond the other variables used in the study. Socially prescribed perfectionism was the only dimension of perfectionism that showed a statistically significant bivariate correlation with suicidal behaviors. The path analysis indicated that this correlation was an indirect effect through reasons for living. Depression was a better predictor of suicidal behaviors than hopelessness. Perhaps one reason for these equivocal results was the limited amount of variability in suicidal behaviors in this nonclinical sample.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Twenty suicide assessment instruments: evaluation and recommendations.

Twenty relatively new suicide assessment instruments can be grouped into the following categories: (a) clinician-rated suicide instruments, (b) self-rated suicide instruments, (c) self-rated buffers against suicide, (d) instruments focused on children and adolescents, and (e) special purpose scales. The present review describes these instruments, giving the potential clinician or researcher information about their psychometric properties, strengths, and weaknesses. They vary in length and the age group for which they are designed, but most are reliable and have some psychometric evidence of validity. Of the 20, most highly recommended are Beck's Scale for Suicide Ideation series, Linehan's Reasons for Living Inventory, and Cole's self-administered adaptation of Linehan's structured interview called the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Are teachers of children and young adolescents responsive to suicide prevention training modules? Yes.

Both before and after a 1-hour suicide prevention training module, 75 elementary teachers-in-training read a 4-sentence vignette about a suicidal student ("Pat"), then completed 8 questions about their responses. Compared with pretraining, at post-training these teachers were more likely to say that they would send or escort Pat to the counselor's office, use written or verbal no-suicide agreements, call Pat's parents, believe Pat to be serious rather than simply seeking attention, and feel comfortable handling a similar situation. Increased proactive attitudes after one hour of training imply that teachers would benefit from periodic suicide awareness and prevention training modules.

Adolescent↗