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Biomedical subjects

R P Lorion

Publications and source records attributed to R P Lorion.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Applying our medicine to the psychopharmacology debate.

Reasonable arguments can and should be made in favor of and in opposition to psychologists seeking prescription privileges. The debate presents psychology with the opportunity to converge rather than fractionate. An APA Task Force established in 1991 recognized that a number of preliminary issues would have to be addressed before the question of prescription privileges could be answered, and made recommendations for the types of training various psychologists would need. This article describes that training and discusses how psychologists in training may be affected by the current debate.

Curriculum↗
PubMed1993

Counting the stitches that count: preventive intervention promises and public health.

Continued public support for the design, implementation, and dissemination of preventive interventions depends on achievement of four major criteria: (a) Reductions in the incidence or prevalence rates of diagnosable emotional and behavioral disorders, (b) reductions in the need for mental health services through effective primary and secondary interventions, (c) enhancement of the effectiveness of obtained services as screening and early detection efforts are implemented, and (d) reductions in the nation's health care costs associated with emotional and behavioral dysfunctions. Strategies including risk reduction, risk avoidance, health promotion, empowerment, and resource development are preventive insofar as they contribute to achievement of the aforementioned outcomes.

Community Mental Health Services↗
PubMed1993

Children's exposure to community violence: following a path from concern to research to action.

This paper discusses the antecedents and current progress of an ongoing program of research on the nature, extent, and consequences of children's direct and indirect exposure to violent events and settings. Involvement in such research has sensitized the authors to difficult ethical and methodological challenges that, we believe, merit consideration by mental health scientists and policy markers. Resolution of those challenges has substantive implications for both subsequent research and the application of resultant findings.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Targeting preventive interventions: enhancing risk estimates through theory.

Incorporation of mediational screening procedures within targeted preventive interventions must be grounded in a substantial theoretical and epidemiological knowledge base. Essential information includes an etiological model of the disorder(s) to be prevented and epidemiological confirmation that risk factors used for the selection of intervention recipients have been prospectively confirmed. Targeting these recipients using a combination of indicated and selective criteria is expected to increase the base rate at which the disorder(s) to be prevented occurs in the intervention population and thus the power of the evaluation design used to confirm reductions in proximal and distal indices of disorder(s). Caution is urged, however, to consider the potential iatrogenic effects of overly focused targeting and the potential reductions in intervention effectiveness resulting from application to homogeneous vs. heterogeneous populations. Mediational screening's heuristic contribution to theory is discussed.

Health Services Research↗
PubMed1991

Prevention and public health. Psychology's response to the nation's health care crisis.

Psychology as a scientific and applied discipline has a unique responsibility to participate in the pursuit of strategies that reduce the nation's health care needs. As a social and behavioral science, psychology can contribute to unraveling the processes underlying conditions of health and disorder. As an applied discipline, psychology can work to design effective interventions to promote human health and to avoid disease and dysfunction. Insofar as these endeavors are unsuccessful, psychology can help reduce significant contributors to the nation's morbidity and mortality. Achieving such success, however, challenges psychologists to collaborate effectively, to combine science with practice and policy, and to address complex philosophical and ethical issues concerned with individual freedom and public responsibility.

Health Behavior↗
PubMed1989

The search for effective prevention programs: what we learned along the way.

Efforts by an American Psychological Association task force to identify model prevention programs for high-risk groups throughout the life span are summarized. Criteria for selection and program content are described, and implications for the construction, implementation, and evaluation of effective programs are discussed.

Community Mental Health Services↗
PubMed1988

Multivariate approaches to the identification of delinquency proneness in adolescent males.

A sample of 337 adolescent male students were surveyed for demographic, individual, school, and familial functioning and delinquency status to investigate two questions relevant to prediction of adolescent delinquency proneness. First, three methods of scoring a delinquency self-report measure (frequency, variety, and seriousness) were compared to assess their differential relevance to the prediction of delinquency proneness. Second, a multivariate model was examined to assess its explanatory ability for identification of delinquency proneness. Findings, replicated through a series of regression analyses, demonstrate that age of onset is the best predictor. Other than family functioning, psychosocial indicators add little to the predictive model. Third, a specific factor model was preferable to a "risk count" method. Finally, the advantage of self-reports of delinquent behavior over official records is discussed as is the comparability of self-report scoring procedures. How self-reported delinquency is scored is not as critical as previously thought.

Achievement↗
PubMed1984

Correlates of death anxiety in elderly persons.

Studied the variables related to death anxiety in the elderly. The population consisted of 122 elderly persons who resided in the community and in institutions. Questionnaires that measured demographics, support systems, health, personality, and death anxiety were administered. Multiple regression analyses with death anxiety as the criterion were performed on five subsamples of the population. The results showed very little consistency in predictors of death anxiety among the subsamples. It was concluded that death anxiety response patterns are a function of the population examined, rather than existing as general characteristics of the elderly, which explains the inconsistency of previous literature on death anxiety in elderly persons.

Aged↗
PubMed1978

Referral to a school mental health project: a screening note.

The screening efficiency of two measures of school-adjustment is considered by assessing the proportion of children referred to a school mental health program whose scores fall at or above the 85th centile on one or both measures. The study's findings demonstrate that 60-90% of referred children were identifiable by a screening cutoff score procedure. The implications for using a cutoff score approach in selecting children for the intervention are discussed.

Child↗
PubMed1976

Comparison of two outcome groups in a school-based mental health project.

Two samples of school-maladjusted children responding most and least favorably to a helping program with nonprofessional child-aides were compared on demographic, referral, and program experience variables. Outcome measures other than teacher ratings used to select the samples validated the inferred improvement differences. Subjects with poor outcomes were significantly more likely to reside in the city, older, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and initially more maladjusted than those with good outcomes, but there were no group differences in age, repeat in grade, or program experience variables. Implications of these data for future program directions and modifications of aide-training procedures are discussed.

Acting Out↗
PubMed1975

Normative and parametric analyses of school maladjustment.

Format and instructional revisions were made in the TRF, a previously reported school adjustment measure, to extend its diagnostic, prescriptive, and empirical utility. Factor analyses of school adjustment ratings on the revised CARS with a normative sample of "healthy" primary graders demonstrated that while the revisions maintained the scale's original three-factor structure, they increased specific item factor loadings and accounted scale variance. To extend the screening utility of the proposed measure, normative and parametric comparisons are reported describing adjustment ratings for sex, age, and city/country subgroups. Comparisons of children who are or are not referred to a secondary prevention program provide evidence of the CARS discriminative validity and screening potential.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1975

Multiple views of a school mental health project: a needed focus in community programs.

A school-based community mental health program, emphasizing early detection and prevention of school maladaptation, was analyzed from the perspectives of participants with different roles and stakes. Program founders tended to value it more than those who carried out its "line" functions. Some differences are identified between what was valued theoretically about the program and how participants actually allocated their time. Differences in perspectives among program participants at various levels and differences between de jure and de facto aspects of program operation are viewed as sources of potential friction. Such difficulties tend to increase as initially simple program models are extended to diverse settings with different needs, problems, resources, and personnel.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗