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Biomedical subjects

P D Retzlaff

Publications and source records attributed to P D Retzlaff.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Event-related potentials during the Continuous Visual Memory Test.

The Continuous Visual Memory Test (CVMT; Trahan & Larrabee, 1988) is a recognition format assessment of figural memory. It includes 112 ambiguous designs presented sequentially, with a number of designs that recur through the 112 presentations. The patient's task is to identify the recurring figures by responding with the word "old" for recurring stimuli and "new" for non-recurring stimuli. This study examined cortical event-related potentials during discrimination of old vs. new stimuli. While no latency differences between stimuli were found, P300 amplitude was greater during recognition of old stimuli and increasingly prominent at anterior sites. A stimulus by electrode site interaction suggests greater functional involvement in the discrimination by the frontal areas. This points to a degree of psychophysiological validation of the CVMT and cortical specificity of the task.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Psychopathology in caregivers of the chronically ill: personality and clinical syndromes.

The purpose of this study was to examine the caregivers of the chronically physically ill across personality and clinical psychopathology dimensions. The MCMI-II inventories of 30 caregivers and 28 matched controls were analyzed. Differences between the two groups were found on the clinical scales of anxiety, somatoform, dysthymia, and major depression. This suggests that differences exist between caregivers and non-caregivers on several clinical syndromes including psychosomatic variables. Professional, paraprofessional, and lay hospice support personnel should be aware of these possibilities, actively assess for them, and be prepared to intervene.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1994

MCMI-II high-point codes: severe personality disorder and clinical syndrome extensions.

The MCMI-II is becoming more widely used in both clinical practice and research settings. From a research perspective, one area that has not received a great deal of attention is high-point codes. While the MMPI has a very lengthy history of high-point code analysis and ancillary interpretative manuals, the MCMI-II has no such traditional data base. The present study determined the prevalence of single and two-point high codes in a large sample of VA patients. Additionally, associated severe personality scales and clinical syndrome scales are delineated as a function of the 20 most common profiles. These 20 common profiles accounted for 82% of the patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Family assessment: toward DSM-III-R relevancy.

The assessment of family pathology never has been integrated into current individual diagnostic theory and DSM-III-R; it usually has followed idiosyncratic family treatment theories or has not been emphasized extensively. The purpose of the present study is to extend individual DSM-III-R personality disorder assessment to family assessment. The Personality Adjective Check List was given to 65 subjects along with a traditional family assessment inventory. The Personality Adjective Check List exhibited high reliabilities across all personality disorders and appropriate and substantial validity estimates against the traditional family assessment inventory.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

A multi-test alcoholic taxonomy: canonical coefficient clusters.

Little convergence has been found in the area of subtyping alcoholic personalities. Prior work has suffered from the use of single inventories, inventories with large distress factors, or inventories that lack broad theoretical appeal. The present work (N = 89) transcends idiosyncratic cluster solutions through the use of canonical correlation of the Basic Personality Inventory and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory. The resulting global canonical variates are cluster analyzed to a six-cluster solution. These subtypes are described through their scores on the canonical variates and the underlying psychometric inventories.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

An MCMI-II item-level component analysis: personality and clinical factors.

The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, Version 2 (MCMI-II) was released to replace the MCMI-I. Research into the factor structure of the items of the MCMI-I showed components consistent with the underlying construction theory. No such work has been done with the new MCMI-II. For this study, we analyzed the personality disorder and clinical syndrome items across two subject samples. For 579 Veterans Administration patients and 492 normal college students, six personality factors were identified. The samples shared Hostility, Histrionic/Schizoid, Dependent, Compulsive, and a Sadistic variant. For the clinical syndrome items, eight factors were isolated for veterans and seven for normals. Depression, Alcohol Abuse, Drug Abuse, Crying, and Mania were shared factors. Most of the factors were found to be highly consistent with MCMI-II scale keyings.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Factor-based special scales for the MCMI.

Factor analytic work with the Million Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) has shown a remarkably stable factor structure. The eight Basic Personality scales have a three-factor structure: Aloof/Social, Submissive/Aggressive, and Labile/Restrained. These dimensions appear to be the same as those suggested by the DSM-III-R advisory committee on personality disorders. The MCMI as a whole has a five-factor structure: Detached, Submissive, Suspicious, High Social Energy, and General Distress. The present work operationalizes these two sets of factors into scales for use by clinicians and researchers. The resultant scales show excellent reliabilities across three subject samples (N = 253, N = 185, N = 184) and demonstrate appropriate convergent and divergent validity estimates against the MCMI itself.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

MCMI-II scoring: weighted and unweighted algorithms.

This brief report examines the relationship between the scale scores derived through weighted and unweighted item scoring on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II). The inventories of 356 subjects across three samples were scored using weighted and unweighted algorithms. Correlations between the weighted and unweighted MCMI-II scales were found to approach unity. This casts doubt on whether the weighting system has substantial effect on the profiles that are generated or on reducing interscale correlations.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Active-duty and veteran alcoholics: differences in psychopathology presentation.

The present study examines the differences in the presentation of psychopathology between active duty military and veteran patients enrolled in alcohol rehabilitation programs. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory was used to assess personality disorders, clinical syndromes, and substance abuse. Most veterans were seen as having avoidant and dependent personality disorders as well as a great deal of anxiety and depression. Forty-seven percent were above cutoff scores for alcohol abuse. Air Force patients were predominantly narcissistic and antisocial with much less distress. Only 9% were classified psychometrically as abusers. The results indicate that not only are veteran alcoholics more chronic but that active-duty alcohol abusers are underreporting abuse and care must be used in their assessment.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

An analysis of the MCMI-I at the item level.

The study reports on principal component analyses of the MCMI-1 at the item level. The 175 items of the MCMI were separated for analysis into 100 descriptive of personality and 75 that represent clinical symptoms. The data analyzed came from a sample of 253 psychiatric outpatients and a sample of 185 inpatient alcoholics. The scree test was applied to decide on the number of factors to retain. The factors retained in the four analyses were rotated by the Varimax and Direct Oblimin procedures. The results were similar across the two samples. The six personality dimensions isolated were interpreted as Social Introversion-Extraversion, Dependency on Others, Verbal Hostility, Need to Please Others, Self-Dramatization, and Orderliness. These have some resemblance to Millon's eight personality styles. Four of the five symptom factors were similar to Millon's clinical symptom scales. In addition to a very large Depression factor, there were factors of Manic Excitement, Drug Abuse, Alcoholic Misuse, and Suicidal Ideation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Objective psychological testing of U.S. Air Force officers in pilot training.

Clinical psychologists are increasingly assisting flight surgeons in the assessment of students in pilot training. However, some psychological tests reported in the literature are ill-suited to efficient clinical evaluation of aviators. Recent advances in clinical psychometrics offer improvements in reliability, personality theory, and norms. We administered the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery, the Personality Research Form, and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory to 350 Air Force officers undergoing Undergraduate Pilot Training. We present normative data for use by practitioners assessing similar populations.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Factor structure of the MCMI basic personality scales and common-item artifact.

The eight basic personality scales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) were derived from Millon's theory of personality, but the adequacy of the MCMI for measuring Millon's personality constructs has never been assessed. One major problem with using factor analysis to illuminate the structure of the MCMI personality scales is that artifactual structure may result from item overlap among the scales. To analyze this, item-overlap coefficients were factored and compared to the factor structures of five subject samples. For the eight basic personality scales, three factors emerged for the overlap matrix and each of the five sample matrices: Aloof-Social, Aggressive-Submissive, and Lability-Restraint. It was concluded that these three factors are inconsistent with Millon's theory and that they will be found artifactually across a wide variety of populations due to overlapping items.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

The operating characteristics of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory.

The operating characteristics of the 20 scales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) were analyzed with respect to the construction sample data as presented in the test manual. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive power, negative predictive power, and overall diagnostic power of each scale were derived. Results indicated that eight scales show excellent characteristics, nine were classified as fair, and three were determined to have poor positive predictive power for identifying the presence of a syndrome in an individual patient. Five scales had good positive predictive power for identifying the most prominent syndrome in a patient's clinical picture, eleven scales were classified as fair, and four were seen as poor on this dimension. We suggest a method for determining the utility of individual scales for different clinical populations and discuss implications of this type of analysis of the MCMI for diagnosis of the individual case.

Humans↗
PubMed1983

Bilateral vasoconstrictive differences and body focus.

Body focus as a function of an S's cognitive schema has been shown to be associated with bilateral differences in skin conductance. This relationship between body focus and physiological activity has been extended by other investigations studying Raynaud's patients to include bilateral differences in digital temperature. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether these results generalize to a population of normal Ss. Differential digital finger temperatures were recorded for 28 male and 28 female Ss. An association was not found between body focus and bilateral digital temperature differences in the normal Ss. It is concluded that the previous relationship found was the result of the Raynaud's disease or the body focus of a Raynaud's victim.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Verbal estimation, production, and reproduction of time intervals by type A individuals.

The purpose of the study was to determine by means of the classical time-estimation procedures if Type A persons estimate the passage of time differently than Type B persons. 42 male undergraduates were classified Type A or Type B on the basis of the student's version of the Jenkins Activity Survey. Subjects were asked to estimate verbally, produce, and reproduce 8 and 17 sec. as well as estimate verbally 6.5 min. There were no significant differences between the two groups on the time estimations; compared to the standards the two groups performed similarly.

Achievement↗
PubMed1981

Paradoxical instruction in the treatment of encopresis and chronic constipation: an experimental analysis.

The purpose of the present single-case experimental investigation was to examine the efficacy of paradoxical instruction in the treatment of exacerbation-based discontinuous encopresis and chronic constipation. The subject, a 9-yr old male, complained of infrequent bowel movements and daily soiling. In addition, toileting and related activities appeared to cause considerable anxiety. An ABAB reversal design with 1-yr follow-up was used as a means of evaluating treatment effectiveness. Dependent measures included weekly parental records of soiling and appropriate bowel movements. Results indicated a clear demonstration of functional control and consistent improvement in the encopretic disturbance. These findings were maintained at 1-yr follow-up.

Behavior Therapy↗