Biomedical subjects

M J McKendall

Publications and source records attributed to M J McKendall.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1986

Copatient relationships on a short-term psychiatric unit.

Emotional and physical relationships among copatients on a short-term psychiatric unit were assessed in a two-year prospective study. Sixty-four relationships involving 102 patients were reported; the incidence rate was estimated at 10.7 percent. Thirty-three percent of the relationships were characterized as emotional, 9 percent as physical, and 58 percent as both. Patients involved in the relationships tended to be young and unmarried and to have a diagnosis of eating disorder, personality disorder, or bipolar disorder. Although most of the relationships were reciprocal, half were judged to be destructive and to create management problems. Staff discussed the relationship with the patients when it was considered destructive or exploitative but ignored relationships felt to be positive and healthy. The authors urge further studies of such relationships to help clarify patient management issues.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1985

Diagnostic heterogeneity and the DST in consecutive psychiatric admissions.

There is uncertainty about the clinical usefulness of the dexamethasone suppression test (DST). It is also unclear whether there are advantages to a 1-mg or 2-mg DST. Eighty-three consecutive psychiatric inpatients were randomly given a 1-mg or 2-mg DST within the first week of admission. Sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic confidence are reported for this group, and also in combination with those for 119 semi-consecutive psychiatric admissions. Although rates of nonsuppression were consistently higher in patients with affective disorders than in patients with other diagnoses, the diagnostic confidence of the DST for major depression in a diverse and unselected patient population was not greater than the prevalence of the disorder. The DST does not appear to be useful for clinical diagnostic decision-making. Nonetheless, the DST may still be an important biological marker in neuroendocrine psychiatric research.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

Gender and psychiatric clerkship performance.

This study compared the performance of male and female medical students on a psychiatric clerkship rotation. The women performed at a higher level than the men, although the difference was not significant. In general, the men scored significantly higher on national standardized medical examinations. Correlations between psychiatric clerkship evaluations and national examinations were low, suggesting that the two measures are independent. These findings for psychiatric clerkship are consistent with those for clerkships in medicine, surgery and obstetrics, implying that female clinical clerks are just as capable as male clinical clerks in providing high quality medical care.

Achievement↗

PubMed1983

Pain sensitivity and obesity.

Endogenous opiates have been implicated as regulators of mood and pain. Recent literature suggests a relationship between these internal opiates and ingestive behaviors in both animals and humans. The present study investigates this relationship by comparing the pain sensitivities of obese and nonobese subjects. Twenty-six subjects (18 females, 8 males) whose weight was 130% or greater of their ideal body weight (IBW) constituted the obese experimental group, while 34 subjects (14 females, 20 males) whose weight was less than 130% IBW formed the nonobese control group. Volunteer subjects were sought from a general medicine clinic of a hospital. Each subject placed his index finger in a pressure device bearing a 3-pound weight and was instructed to report the first occurrence of pain and the desire to remove the finger from the device. Obese subjects were significantly more pain sensitive. The difference in pain sensitivities supports the hypothesis that the weight difference between the obese and nonobese subjects may be related to endogenous opiate control of ingestive behaviors.

Adult↗