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A breast cancer fear scale: psychometric development.

Fear of breast cancer has been inversely associated with participation in screening. However, investigators have generally used only one item or global scales to measure fear. This report describes development of a fear scale specific to breast cancer. Data from a large study involving mammography adherence were used to test the breast cancer fear scale for validity and reliability. Construct validity was verified through factor analysis and regression analysis predicting mammography. All items loaded on a single factor and theoretical relationships were verified by linear and logistic regression. The Cronbach alpha for the scale was.91.

Aged↗

Butterfly wing pattern mutants: developmental heterochrony and co-ordinately regulated phenotypes.

Butterfly wings are colored late in development, when pigments are synthesized in specialized wing scale cells in a fixed developmental succession. In this succession, colored pigments are deposited first and the remaining areas are later melanized black or brown. Here we studied the developmental changes underlying two wing pattern mutants, firstly melanic mutants of the swallowtail Papilio glaucus, in which the yellow background is turned black, and secondly a Spotty mutant of the satyrid Bicyclus anynana, which carries two additional eyespots. Despite the very different pattern changes in these two mutants, they are both associated with changes in rates of scale development and correspondingly, the final color pattern. In the melanic swallowtail, background scales originally destined to become yellow (normally developing early and synthesizing papiliochrome) show delayed development, fail to make papiliochrome, and subsequently melanize at the same time as scales in the wild-type black pattern. In the B. anynana eyespot, scale maturation begins with the central white focus, then progresses to the surrounding gold ring and later finishes with melanization of the black center. Mutants showing additional eyespots display accelerated rates of scale development (corresponding to new eyespots) in wing cells not normally occupied by eyespots. Thus by either delaying or accelerating rates of scale development, the final color, or position, of a wing pattern element can be changed. We propose that this heterochrony of scale development is a basic mechanism of color pattern formation on which developmental mutants act to change lepidopteran color patterns.

Animals↗

Methodological issues in developing a scale to measure social support.

In recent years there has been considerable research and clinical interest in developing instruments to assess social supports available to individuals. There is, however, a notable deficiency of attempts to evaluate the psychometric properties of these questionnaires. The present article describes efforts made to evaluate the properties of a Social Relationship Scale (SRS) that was developed as part of a prospective study of the psychosocial influences on the health status of a population. Some descriptive scale statistics are also presented.

Female↗

Future time orientation and relationships with the opposite sex.

This study is an examination of future time orientation (FTO) and relationship satisfaction. Undergraduate students (N = 244) from Middle East Technical University were given a general FTO scale developed by T. Gjesme (1979) and a scale developed by this study's researcher to measure FTO in terms of romantic relationships. Participants were asked to rate their relationship satisfaction on a 9-point Likert-type scale. Although a general FTO was adaptive in terms of romantic relationships, a high concern for future commitment to a romantic relationship had a negative effect on reported relationship satisfaction. Research implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

Achievement↗

State of the art of alexithymia measurement.

The purpose of this study using hypertensive patients was to examine the validity and reliability of the current measures of alexithymia. Instruments investigated were the MMPI Alexithymia Scale developed in Denver, the Schalling-Sifneos Scale developed in Boston, and the Beth Israel Hospital Questionnaire (BIQ). Based on the sample of 53 outpatient subjects, no additional estimates of validity were gained to recommend the use of the MMPI Alexithymia Scale or the Schalling-Sifneos Scale as acceptable research instruments at this time. Inter-rater reliability of the BIQ was strong and supports its continued use. Recommendations for further standardization in alexithymia research are discussed.

Adult↗

The relationship between a diagnosis of antisocial personality and hostility: development of an Antisocial Hostility scale.

An antisocial hostility scale was developed by correlating items of the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory with a diagnosis of antisocial personality (ASP) as determined by a computerized version of the DSM-III. Fifty-two male volunteers for drug-related studies at the Addiction Research Center were used for a preliminary test development sample. The scale developed thereby was related significantly to a diagnosis of antisocial personality in a cross-validation sample of 28 drug abusers. A final scale was developed by obtaining correlations between ASP and Buss-Durkee items using the subjects from both of these preliminary samples. Items that comprise the scale were predominantly behaviorally oriented hostility items covered by the Assault scale rather than affective items such as those in the Resentment scale. In a 122 cross-validation sample the scale was related significantly to a diagnosis of antisocial personality. The study confirms the generality of the criterion of overt aggression as a condition for meeting DSM-III criteria for antisocial personality.

Adult↗

The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. I. Development, use, and reliability.

The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale was designed to remedy the problems of existing rating scales by providing a specific measure of the severity of symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder that is not influenced by the type of obsessions or compulsions present. The scale is a clinician-rated, 10-item scale, each item rated from 0 (no symptoms) to 4 (extreme symptoms) (total range, 0 to 40), with separate subtotals for severity of obsessions and compulsions. In a study involving four raters and 40 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder at various stages of treatment, interrater reliability for the total Yale-Brown Scale score and each of the 10 individual items was excellent, with a high degree of internal consistency among all item scores demonstrated with Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Based on pretreatment assessment of 42 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, each item was frequently endorsed and measured across a range of severity. These findings suggest that the Yale-Brown Scale is a reliable instrument for measuring the severity of illness in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder with a range of severity and types of obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Adult↗

Canadian Acute Respiratory Illness and Flu Scale (CARIFS): development of a valid measure for childhood respiratory infections.

Although acute respiratory infection (ARI) is the most frequent clinical syndrome in childhood, there is no validated measure of its severity. Therefore a parental questionnaire was developed: the Canadian Acute Respiratory Illness Flu Scale (CARIFS). A process of item generation, item reduction, and scale construction resulted in a scale composed of 18 items covering three domains; symptoms (e.g., cough); function (e.g., play), and parental impact (e.g., clinginess). The validity of the scale was evaluated in a study of 220 children with ARI. Construct validity was assessed by comparing the CARIFS score with physician, nurse, and parental assessment of the child's health. Data were available from 206 children (94%). The CARIFS correlated well with measures of the construct (Spearman's correlations between 0.36 and 0.52). Responsiveness was shown, with 90% of children having a CARIFS score less than a quarter of its initial value, by the tenth day.

Acute Disease↗

Towards the development of scales to measure 'will' to promote heart health within health organizations in Canada.

This paper describes the development and psychometric evaluation of scales measuring the dimensions of 'will' (belief, confidence, prior action and desire) for heart health promotion specifically and health promotion in general at both an individual and organizational level. Content validity was established through a series of focus groups and expert opinion assessments, based on a compilation of capacity-assessment instruments developed by other provinces involved in the Canadian Heart Health Initiative and the literature. Psychometric analyses of questionnaire data provided empirical evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the 16 individual and 21 organizational level 'will' scales. A series of principal component analyses assisted in verifying the unidimensionality of the measures and all scales yielded high internal consistencies with Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging between 0.73 and 0.96. These measures can be used by both researchers and practitioners for assessing the 'will' to promote heart health specifically and health promotion in general.

Alberta↗

Child's health self-concept scale: its development and psychometric properties.

The Child's Health Self-Concept Scale (CHSCS) is an instrument designed to measure the collection of perceptions a child has concerning health and health-related behaviors. Its development was based on perceptions of children regarding "healthy" and "unhealthy" children. The original instrument was critiqued, revised, and tested. The estimation of reliability and validity was accomplished through a sample of 940 children. Critical analyses of the findings led to the conclusions that the CHSCS had moderate stability and high internal consistency reliability, evidence of content validity, but no evidence of construct validity. Additional research is needed to evaluate its potential usefulness for nursing research and practice.

Adolescent↗

Concurrent validity of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development II (BSID-II) Motor Scale and the Peabody Developmental Motor Scale II (PDMS-2) in 12-month-old infants.

PURPOSE: This study was designed to examine concurrent validity of the Peabody Developmental Motor Scale II (PDMS-2) and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development II (BSID-II) Motor Scale. METHODS: The PDMS-2 and the BSID-II Motor Scale were administered to fifteen 12-month-old infants who were developing typically. PDMS-2 raw scores were converted to the Gross Motor Quotient (GMQ), the Fine Motor Quotient (FMQ), and the Total Motor Quotient (TMQ). BSID-II raw scores were converted to the Psychomotor Development Index (PDI). Age equivalent scores were obtained for all PDMS-2 Gross and Fine Motor Subscales and for the BSID-II Motor Scale and compared using the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient. RESULTS: Low correlations were found between the PDMS-2 FMQ, GMQ, TMQ, and the PDI of the BSID-II. Low correlations were found between age equivalent scores of the PDMS-2 subtests for grasp, stationary, and Visual Motor Integration and the BSID-II Motor Scale. A low negative correlation was found between age equivalent scores of the PMDS-2 subtest for Object Manipulation and the BSID-II Motor Scale. A high correlation (r = 0.71, P < 0.05) was found between age equivalent scores of the PDMS-2 subtest for locomotion and the BSID-II Motor Scale. CONCLUSIONS: There is a lack of concurrent validity between the PDMS-2 standard scores and standard scores of the BSID-II Motor Scale and a lack of agreement between age equivalent scores of the BSID-II Motor Scale and the PDMS-2 subtests except for Locomotion. The investigators caution about using only one standard score or age equivalent score for decisions about the need for early intervention for children at 12 months of age when using the BSID-II or the PDMS-2.

Child Development↗

Family coping with childhood cancer.

Previous studies using nonstandardized instruments measuring coping with childhood cancer, suggested families coped well. The concepts of encapsulation and at-risk behaviors were derived from this literature as coping strategies. Encapsulation strategies normalize the experience and control the meaning of the illness. At-risk strategies include complying with treatment and protecting the child. Three purposes of this paper are (a) describe parents' coping in 45 families whose child has cancer using a standardized instrument (CHIP), (b) compare the findings from this study with previous studies, and (c) explore the concepts of encapsulation and at-risk as family coping strategies using selected items on the CHIP. Internal reliabilities ranged from .71 to .79 on the CHIP's three scales. In this study, correlational and descriptive analysis were conducted. The CHIP's psychometric properties in this study ranged from .76 to .84. The newly developed scales of encapsulation and at-risk had internal reliabilities of .74, .74, .74, and .46 for the fathers and mothers. Using the CHIP scales parents' coping was similar to other samples in which the CHIP was used. With the exception of the mothers' at-risk scale, a cohesive family coping measure was evidenced by the acceptable internal reliabilities on the newly developed scales. Further development of the encapsulation scale will provide a family coping measure useful in testing conceptually based nursing interventions.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Development and scale up of a capture step (expanded bed chromatography) for a fusion protein expressed intracellularly in Escherichia coli.

A capture step was developed using the expanded bed adsorption technology to separate a protein of interest on a cation exchanger from a crude Escherichia coli homogenate. This method was developed in bench-top scale using a STREAMLINE 25 column (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, Sweden) and STREAMLINE SP. The development was based on earlier experiments performed in a packed bed column (SP-Sepharose FF) to investigate the conditions for sample application, wash and elution. The packed bed method was transformed into an expanded bed method by slightly modifying the wash procedure and cleaning in place (CIP). This method was then scaled-up to pilot scale and used for production of the fusion protein according to cGMP. The yield over the step in pilot scale was 70-85% compared with only 30-50% in small scale. Pressure build-up, attachment of biomass to the adsorbent and collapses of the expanded bed were phenomena seen in small scale but not in pilot scale. The scale-up of the step significantly improved the performance of the step.

Cation Exchange Resins↗

The content validity index: are you sure you know what's being reported? Critique and recommendations.

Scale developers often provide evidence of content validity by computing a content validity index (CVI), using ratings of item relevance by content experts. We analyzed how nurse researchers have defined and calculated the CVI, and found considerable consistency for item-level CVIs (I-CVIs). However, there are two alternative, but unacknowledged, methods of computing the scale-level index (S-CVI). One method requires universal agreement among experts, but a less conservative method averages the item-level CVIs. Using backward inference with a purposive sample of scale development studies, we found that both methods are being used by nurse researchers, although it was not always possible to infer the calculation method. The two approaches can lead to different values, making it risky to draw conclusions about content validity. Scale developers should indicate which method was used to provide readers with interpretable content validity information.

Humans↗

Development of scales to measure perceived physical education class climate: a cross-national project.

Motivational research in the classroom has adopted a social cognitive perspective but has mainly been restricted to the study of individual achievement cognitions. In addition to this, there is a need to study and assess the perception children have of the class climate. Using social cognitive theory as a base, this research reports the development of class climate scales in French and English for use in physical education classes. Psychometric development with the French scale was shown to be satisfactory, including adequate factorial structure assessed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and good internal and test-retest reliability. A parallel English scale demonstrated a less adequate fit to the proposed model when using CFA, but shortened scales assessing just mastery and performance dimensions of climate were shown to predict important motivational measures in a structural equation modelling analysis.

Adolescent↗

Epigenesis in developing avian scales. I. Qualitative and quantitative characterization of finite cell populations.

Throughout a period from day 8.5 to day 12.5 of incubation of a chick embryo, a finite cell population of scale epidermis was characterized from various view points such as cellular organization, position, shape, area, number of constituent cells, density, and cell proliferation activity. In this study, the preparation of whole mount specimens was found to be quite valuable. On day 8.5, cells in the prospective scale region could be morphologically distinguished in the tarsometatarsus at a certain distance proximally away from the tarsometatarsal-phalangeal joint. --On day 9.25, about 1,100 cells became highly columnar in shape and densely associated, forming a placode structure. In both distally and proximally adjacent regions of this placode, the cells were semiquadrate in shape and loosely associated, leading to the formation of the interplacode structures. Such contrasting difference in cell organization between placode and interplacode was preserved from day 9.25 to day 11. During this period, both the area and number of constituent cells increased greatly in the placode and only slightly in the interplacode. However, cell proliferation activity was completely suppressed in the placode, and quite active in the interplacode. The activity in cell proliferation proved to be inversely correlated with the density of basal cells. Throughout the present study, it has been demonstrated that the early development of scale epidermis is achieved through a coordinated activity of the two discrete cell populations: the placode and interplacode.

Animals↗

Addiction counseling self-efficacy scale (ACSES): development and initial validation.

This article reports on the development of the Addiction Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (ACSES) through two studies. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a five-factor solution that accounted for 65% of the variance. The five factors obtained assess various aspects of addiction counselors' perceived self-efficacy for working with clients in the areas of (a) specific addiction counseling skills, (b) assessment, treatment planning, and referral skills, (c) co-occurring disorders skills, (c) group counseling skills, and (d) basic counseling skills. Reliability estimates suggest that the ACSES is internally reliable. Initial criterion validity is supported through comparisons of certified/licensed and noncertified/licensed addiction counselors on ACSES scores and among level of expertise in the addiction field, specific work activities, and ACSES scores. Preliminary evidence indicates that the ACSES is a reliable and valid instrument to use when assessing addiction counselors' self-efficacy for working with clients. The next steps in the development of ACSES are also discussed.

Adult↗

Infant vision screening predicts failures on motor and cognitive tests up to school age.

In a population-based infant vision screening programme, 5295 infants were screened and those with significant refractive errors were followed up. To assess the relationship between the development of vision and other domains, we report a longitudinal study comparing infants with significant hyperopia, identified at age 9 months ('hyperopes') with infants with normal refractions ('controls'). Children are included who completed at each age a broad set of visual, cognitive, motor and language measures taken over a series of follow-up visits up to age 5.5 years. Hyperopes performed significantly worse than controls on the Atkinson Battery of Child Development for Examining Functional Vision at 14 months and 3.5 years and the Henderson Movement Assessment Battery for Children at 3.5 and 5.5 years. The Griffiths Child Development Scales, MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory and British Picture Vocabulary Scales showed no significant differences. Exclusion of those infants who became amblyopic and strabismic did not substantially alter these results, suggesting that the differences between groups were not a consequence of these disorders. These results indicate that early hyperopia is associated with a range of developmental deficits that persist at least to age 5.5 years. These effects are concentrated in visuocognitive and visuomotor domains rather than the linguistic domain.

Cognition Disorders↗