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PubMed1983

Epigenesis in developing avian scales. II. Cell proliferation in relation to morphogenesis and differentiation in the epidermis.

Throughout the early development of chicken scale epidermis, consisting of discrete placode and interplacode cell populations, morphogenesis and differentiation were examined from the standpoints of cell proliferation. From day 9.25 to day 11, active cell proliferation was observed only in the interplacode region, whereas the number of constituent cells increased considerably within the placode. After 26 hr of continuous labeling with [3H]thymidine (3H-TdR) in ovo, three regions could be recognized: (1) unlabeled placode on the distal edge, (2) labeled placode in both lateral and proximal sites to the unlabeled placode, and (3) extensively labeled interplacode on the most proximal site of the scale. Examination of the distribution pattern of labeled cells has demonstrated that a fraction of the cells in the interplacode transits and annexes only to the proximal side of the placode. Cells transit after mitosis, accompanied with changes in morphology and proliferation activity. During the period of cell transition, orientation of mitosis paralleled completely along the proximodistal axis of the scale. Cell marking with carbon particles was carried in organ cultures from day 10, and the changes in the position of marked cells were observed. The results confirm those obtained after continuous labeling with 3H-TdR. Various combinations of pulse-chase experiments with 3H-TdR clearly demonstrated the establishment of a cell lineage in which cells were aligned along the axis of the scale according to order of their birth. Along with a sudden resumption of active proliferation after day 11, a new class of cells (suprabasal cells) differentiated upward from the basal cells on the top region of the hump scale. At the first stage of development of suprabasal cells from day 11 to day 11.75, the direction of mitoses became preferentially polarized in the direction of axis vertical to the basal lamina. The important coordination of cell proliferation in relation to morphogenesis and cell differentiation is discussed.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Reliability and validity of the Milliken Activities of Daily Living Scale.

Development of a self-report measure of activity limitation that combines measures of ability with necessity is described. The history of the Milliken Activities of Daily Living Scale (MAS) is traced, and the current measure is described. The test-retest reliability and concurrent validity of the MAS is studied. The MAS is found to have excellent reliability and good validity. The utility of the instrument to guide clinical practice is described, with a discussion of the importance of client-centered self-report measures of activity limitation.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed2001

The Forensic Inpatient Observation Scale (FIOS): development, reliability and validity.

INTRODUCTION: Re-offending, as a measure of success in forensic psychiatry, gives no information about other behaviours that may have changed. The development of the Forensic Inpatient Observation Scale (FIOS), an observation instrument to assess the non-offending functioning of forensic patients, is described. STUDY 1: In the first study the development of the initial item pool of the FIOS is described. This resulted in an instrument consisting of 78 items and seven scales. The internal reliability of the scales ranged from 0.78 to 0.91. The inter-rater reliability of the scales varied from 0.50 to 0.85 and the test retest reliability over a period of three weeks was high for most scales, ranging from 0.74 to 0.89. STUDY 2: In the second study the FIOS was developed further in another sample of forensic patients. This time exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation and post hoc reliability analysis were applied to determine the factor structure among the items. This resulted in an item pool of 35 items, among which six factors could be distinguished that closely resemble the factor structure of the FIOS in study one: (1) self-care, (2) social behaviour, (3) oppositional behaviour, (4) insight offence/problems, (5) verbal skills and (6) distress. Most items have high loadings on the factor they are assigned; 29 items have a loading of 0.60 or higher. The internal consistency of the scales ranges from 0.73 to 0.91 and the scales appear to be measuring independent constructs. Twenty-five out of the 35 items have an inter-rater correspondence of 90% or higher and 30 out of 35 items have an inter-rater correspondence of 87.5% or higher. The inter-rater reliability on the scale level, however, was somewhat less satisfying with correlations ranging from 0.50 to 0.69. DISCUSSION: It is argued that training the observers on a more regular basis will improve the inter-rater reliability. There is some evidence for the convergent validity of the FIOS. The FIOS has some advantages over existing inpatient scales in that it is developed specifically for forensic patients, it does not particularly focus on axis 1 symptoms but includes oppositional behaviour and attitudes to offending.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1995

The Emotional Eating Scale: the development of a measure to assess coping with negative affect by eating.

The development of the Emotional Eating Scale (EES) is described. The factor solution replicated the scale's construction, revealing Anger/Frustration, Anxiety, and Depression subscales. All three subscales correlated highly with measures of binge eating, providing evidence of construct validity. None of the EES subscales correlated significantly with general measures of psychopathology. With few exceptions, changes in EES subscales correlated with treatment-related changes in binge eating. In support of the measure's discriminant efficiency, when compared with obese binge eaters, subscale scores of a sample of anxiety-disordered patients were significantly lower. Lack of correlation between a measure of cognitive restraint and EES subscales suggests that emotional eating may precipitate binge episodes among the obese independent of the level of restraint.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2001

The Attitudes Toward Women with HIV/AIDS Scale (ATWAS): development and validation.

Over the past 20 years, many scales have been created to measure general attitudes toward People with HIV/AIDS (PWA). A high correlation between negative attitudes toward PWA and rejecting attitudes toward homosexuality has been demonstrated in many studies, which may suggest that although the scales posit to examine "attitudes toward PWA," they may actually tap into attitudes toward homosexuals with HIV/AIDS. These scales may be inappropriate to use for examining attitudes toward other groups of people with HIV/AIDS (e.g., heterosexual women). The present researchers developed and validated the Attitudes Toward Women with HIV/AIDS Scale (ATWAS). Principal components analysis of the ATWAS yielded a four-factor structure accounting for 48.6% of the total variance of attitudes toward women with HIV/AIDS. The four factors were Child Care, Myths/Negative Stereotypes, Reproduction/Contraception issues, and Sympathy/Transmission Route. The ATWAS was found to have good internal consistency (r = .82) and construct validity.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMed1998

Learning disability care staff's emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviours: development of a measurement tool.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the development of a rating scale measure of caregivers' emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviour, and to report preliminary psychometric data for the scale. DESIGN: Using previous research on staff working with people with learning disabilities, a range of likely emotional reactions to challenging behaviours were selected for possible inclusion in a rating scale measure. METHODS: A total of 83 care staff from 23 community residences for people with learning disabilities rated their recent emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviour using 18 emotion items. A further sample of 18 care staff participated in a test-retest study after the initial stages of scale development. RESULTS: A rating scale was developed on the basis of a factor analysis and further item analysis. The measure has two subscales: feelings of depression/anger (10 items), and feelings of fear/anxiety (5 items). The subscales have a high internal consistency, good test-retest reliability and are relatively unaffected by social desirability biases. CONCLUSIONS: The emotional reactions to aggressive challenging behaviour scale has excellent face and construct validity, and other preliminary psychometric data are promising. The scale has a number of potential research and clinical applications.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed2000

Predicting treatment-seeking behavior: psychometric properties of a brief self-report scale.

Development of a brief instrument to assess attitudes toward treatment and predict treatment-seeking behavior among out-of-treatment substance misusers is described. Exploratory factor analysis of an initial pool of 41 items identified four subscales: Perceived need for treatment: perceived drug problem severity; motivation to quit; and negative attitudes toward treatment. Psychometric analyses of data from 535 substance misusers participating in an outreach intervention project provided substantial support for the reliability and construct validity of the first three subscales, and marginal support for the fourth. Evidence of predictive validity was provided by further analyses indicating significant relationships between the three primary scales and both treatment admissions and treatment-seeking during a 3-month follow-up period. The final instrument, the Treatment Attitude Profile (TAP), contains 25 items in a self-report format suitable for use with limited literacy populations in field or office settings.

Attitude to Health↗

PubMed2001

[Developing a scale of self-management behaviors of parents with asthmatic children in Taiwan through triangulation method].

The purposes of this study were to develop a scale of self-management behaviors for parents with asthmatic children by qualitative and quantitative methods. This research included two phases: (1) to explore the self-management behaviors of successfully managing parents with asthmatic children by in-depth interviewing method. (2) To examine the reliability and validity of self-management behaviors by the quantitative survey of 133 outpatient parents with asthmatic children. The results including four categories, 10 items and 23 self-management behaviors units were inducted from the 16 parents. The four categories are named as (1) Preventive behaviors: controlling environmental factors, taking drugs, avoiding the causes of allergy, improving the body's defenses; (2) Managing behaviors: making decision based on the severity, taking pharmacological management for attacks, and selecting non-pharmacological management for attacks; (3) Assessing behaviors: observing and comparing the symptoms/signs themselves; (4) Alternative treatment. The survey research was conducted with 21 self-management behaviors after refinement by 10 experts. Based on the survey of 133 parents with asthmatic children, the reliability of the scale was shown as Cronbach's alpha .88. The construct validity was established by factor analysis by rotation method with Varimax with Kaiser normalization. Three extracting components were named as preventing behaviors, managing behaviors and assessing behaviors. The cumulative percent of variance of 3 factors was 48.2%.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Developing a scale for measuring the barriers to condom use in Nigeria.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the development of a scale for measuring the barriers to condom use in Nigeria and to evaluate its content, feasibility, reliability, and validity. METHODS: The scale consists of 22 items and is structured on three dimensions: condom sexual satisfaction; condom health hazard; and condom sexual interest. It was evaluated on a sample of 786 students attending the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. FINDINGS: The scale appears to be easy to use, and is acceptable and reliable. CONCLUSION: The scale appears suitable for obtaining estimates of personal experiences of sexual and reproductive condom use. Further, it may be employed for assessing factors that hinder condom use in sexual relationships and is useful for determining the predisposition of individuals to use condoms in future sexual encounters.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1984

Altered keratin biosynthesis follows inhibition of scale morphogenesis by hydrocortisone.

Hydrocortisone, administered onto the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) of 7- to 10-day-old chick embryos, inhibits scale development, in a dose- and stage-dependent manner. The response is also region specific in that hydrocortisone treatment, at a specific dose and time, will completely block scutellate and interstitial scale development while leaving other scale types unaffected. Using histological, biochemical, and immunofluorescence techniques, we have shown that inhibition of scutellate scale morphogenesis prevents the subsequent formation of a beta stratum and alters expression of the alpha keratins. These data support the hypotheses that each avian scale type has its own distinctive temporal, morphological, and biochemical pattern of development; and in the case of scutellate scale development, hydrocortisone treatment alters keratin biosynthesis by interfering with earlier steps in morphogenesis.

Allantois↗

PubMed2002

Chronic ethanol intake and ageing effects on cortical and basal forebrain cholinergic parameters: morphometric and biochemical studies.

Abstract Twenty-eight Wistar rats treated orally with 20% ethanol solution, were divided into two groups: adult group (n = 19) and aged group (n = 9) consisting of animals aged 4 and 12 months, respectively, at the beginning of the treatment. Neurons from the basal nucleus region were counted and the percentage of choline acetyltransferase-immunoreactive cholinergic neurons was determined in adjacent sections. Acetylcholine release and choline-acetyltransferase activity in the cerebral cortex were assessed in the same animals. Nutritional parameters of the ethanol treated animals were monitored and found to be normal. Chronic exposure to ethanol did not result in global neuronal loss or loss of cholinergic neurons in the basal nucleus region. However, a greater expression of ChAT-immunoreactivity in the basal nucleus region and a tendency toward increased ChAT activity in the cerebral cortex of the control and treated aged animals, compared respectively to adult ones, were observed. These findings suggest adaptive changes of the aged rats in response to the possible cholinergic hypofunction, manifested as a decreased release of acetylcholine under stimulated conditions.

Acetylcholine↗

PubMed1997

A combined rationally-empirically developed Variable Response Scale for detecting the random response set in the Jesness Inventory.

A Variable-Response Scale (VR) was developed for detecting randomness in the Jesness Inventory. Item pairs addressing similar content areas were identified. Pairs which showed endorsement frequencies of 5% or less in the scale development sample (250 males, 250 females) were included. Effectiveness was assessed by comparing 250 all-random and 250 part-random computer-generated protocols with those of honest subjects from a sample of 293 male delinquents classified as honest or not honest based on a matched-pair MMPI-A. VR was found to be very effective. Sensitivity, specificity, and other statistics were reported. Race differences were significant but very small. Younger children showed more inconsistency than older children. Age-based modified t-score norms were developed (1138 male, 358 female delinquents, ages 13-18).

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Apolipoprotein E genotype predicts 24-month bayley scales infant development score.

Apolipoprotein E (APOE) regulates cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism, and may mediate synaptogenesis during neurodevelopment. To our knowledge, the effects of APOE4 isoforms on infant development have not been studied. This study was nested within a cohort of mother-infant pairs living in and around Mexico City. A multiple linear regression model was constructed using the 24-mo Mental Development Index (MDI) of the Bayley Scale as the primary outcome and infant APOE genotype as the primary risk factor of interest. Regression models stratified on APOE genotype were constructed to explore effect modification. Of 311 subjects, 53 (17%) carried at least one copy of the APOE4 allele. Mean (SD) MDI scores among carriers with at least one copy of APOE4 were 94.1 (14.3) and among E3/E2 carriers were 91.2 (14.0). After adjustment for covariates, APOE4 carrier status was associated with a 4.4 point (95% confidence interval: 0.1-8.7; p = 0.04) higher 24-mo MDI. In the stratified regression models, the negative effects for umbilical cord blood lead level on 24-mo MDI score was approximately 4-fold greater among APOE3/APOE2 carriers than among APOE4 carriers. These results suggest that subjects with the E4 isoform of APOE may have advantages over those with the E2 or E3 isoforms with respect to early life neuronal/brain development.

Apolipoprotein E2↗

PubMed2003

The Tourette's Disorder Scale (TODS): development, reliability, and validity.

To address the lack of a simple and standardized instrument to assess overall illness severity of Tourette's disorder (TD), the authors developed and tested a 15-item scale to measure a broad range of common symptoms including tics, inattention, hyperactivity, obsessions, compulsions, aggression, and emotional symptoms. Independent investigators used the 15-item Tourette's Disorder Scale (TODS) to assess 60 TD patients who were taking part in a double-blind placebo-controlled multicenter 8-week treatment study. Interrater reliability, internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity, and sensitivity to change were examined. The TODS was associated with good interrater reliability, excellent internal consistency, and favorable levels of validity and sensitivity to change. Individual TODS items showed good convergent and discriminant validity against other measures. The TODS is a simple, efficient way for clinicians and parents to rate the severity of multiple symptoms commonly found in patients with Tourette's disorder.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

A replication of the MMPI-A PSY-5 scales and development of facet subscales.

McNulty, Harkness, Ben-Porath and Williams recently developed Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) scales for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-A (MMPI-A). This study examined these new scales in a sample of 545 adolescents receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment. Item-level principal components analyses were employed to determine the internal structure of each PSY-5 scale and to aid in the creation of facet subscales for each PSY-5 scale. Results suggest that the MMPI-A PSY-5 scales display adequate internal consistency and our findings generally replicate the original work of McNulty et al. but also extend this work by showing that several of the PSY-5 scales may also be subdivided into meaningful lower level dimensions. These facet subscales for each of the MMPI-A PSY-5 scales are offered for further study.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1994

The Uncertainty Stress Scale: its development and psychometric properties.

This paper describes the development and testing of a new scale--The Uncertainty Stress Scale--which measures uncertainty in illness-related situations, and the stress, threat, and positive feelings generated from the uncertain state. The theoretical and empirical basis of the scale is presented. Evidence which supports the scale's reliability and its content, concurrent, and construct validity is presented from several studies of people experiencing acute and chronic medical conditions. Descriptions and rationales for revisions are described.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Developing a tool to measure functional changes in advanced dementia.

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable tool to measure functional change in older persons with moderate to severe dementia. The process was a collaborative one, drawing on the skills of both nurse researchers and clinicians. In Phase I of this study, 20 nursing assistants and 3 licensed nurses volunteered as subjects to develop the new scale. Phase II of the study involved 27 subjects with a known diagnosis of dementia to test the scale's interrater reliability and criterion validity. The results demonstrated significant correlation among the raters and between the instruments. The investigators reported promising results from both the method of using staff expertise in scale development and the scale itself.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed1995

The Nurses' Attitudes About AIDS Scale (NAAS): development and psychometric analysis.

This article describes the development and psychometric evaluation of the Nurses' Attitudes About AIDS Scale (NAAS). Based on a review of the literature on attitude theory and measurement and on HIV/AIDS, 273 items were developed for inclusion in the scale. Content validity was established by a panel of ten nurses in current practice, six experts in AIDS education and adult health nursing, and one expert in attitude and scaling theory and measurement. On this basis, 60 items were selected and pilot tested for face validity on 33 practicing nurses. Responses from a purposive sample of 731 working RNs were evaluated. A factor analysis yielded a single homosexuality factor explaining 53% of the variance in the 2 1 -item measure. This subscale was labeled attitudes about people with AIDS. Alpha reliability coefficient was .96. Two subscales were identified in the AIDS dimension: attitudes about nursing care concerns (12 items; alpha = .83) and attitudes about social-professional concerns (8 items; alpha = .72). These subscales explained 38.5% of the variance. Additional evidence of construct validity as well as predictive validity were established.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗