E-ISSN : 2733-4538
The purpose of this study was to develop a Children's Executive Function Deficits Inventory(CEFDI), and examine its reliability and validity. In the first part of the study, the factors of CEFDI were categorized based on a review of both the literature and a number of existing inventories, and then CEFDI was developed through content and face validity. The CEFDI was then conducted for 1022 students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades at four elementary schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea, the inventories of 931 of these children were subsequently analyzed. The item validity of CEFDI was proved by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. In the second part of the study, the internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity were analyzed. In order to verify convergent validity, self-report scales, such as ‘Self Regulation Scale, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale Ⅱ, and ADHD Children's Scale’, and neuropsychological tests, such as ‘Tower of Hanoi Test, Stroop Color and Word Test, Children's Color Trails Test, and Digit Span’, were executed. Subjects for the second part of the study included 159 students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades in elementary school in Seoul. The CEFDI consisted of 29 questions and was confirmed to be a reliable and valid assessment tool to measure executive function deficits in children.
This study was conducted to investigate facilitation and inhibition effects in obsessive-compulsive subjects and to examine the difference between OC subtypes. 902 undergraduate university students were asked to complete the Padua Inventory-Washington State University Revision (PI-WSUR). Based on their PI-WSUR scores, 22 students were assigned to obsessive-compulsive group and 21 were assigned to the control group. Subjects performed visuospatial priming tasks under two emotional conditions: neutral and threat. The priming tasks had three conditions: positive priming, baseline, negative priming. The results of 2 (groups: OC, control) x 2 (emotion: neutral, threat) x 3 (priming: positive, baseline, negative) mixed ANOVA showed a significant main effect of emotion and priming and a significant interaction effect of emotion and priming. Based on the priming condition, the facilitation and inhibition effects were calculated. Facilitation is the strength of stimulus activation and inhibition effect refers to the ability to suppress an irrelevant stimulus. There was no statistically significant difference between the total OC group and the control group. According to factor analysis of PI-WSUR, the OC group was divided into two different subtypes: autogenous obsession and reactive obsession. In a neutral emotion condition, the autogenous obsession group showed increased facilitation and decreased inhibition compared with the reactive obsession group. On the other hand, the performance patterns of the reactive obsession group were similar to those of the control group. These findings support heterogeneity in the OC group and the usefulness of subtyping.
Child and adolescent psychotherapy has progressed considerably, as reflected in the number of controlled studies. Despite the progress, the methodological soundness and effectiveness of child and adolescent psychotherapy has not been confirmed in Korea. The purpose of the first study was to critically review the youth psychotherapy outcome studies involving treatment of anxiety, depression, ADHD and conduct or addiction-related problems and disorders. Eighty two studies, conducted from 1995 through 2010, were selected. The analysis revealed that many studies failed to use well-standardized procedures to ensure appropriate sample selection, measurement and experimental design. The purpose of the second study was to use mata-analysis to analyze the effects of well-designed children and adolescent psychotherapy that were selected in studies from 1995-2010. The overall mean effect size was .80 indicating that children and adolescent psychotherapy was highly effective overall. When mean effect sizes were compared according to moderator, the effect of therapy type and outcome type were significantly affected. The implications and limitations were discussed.
In this paper, the relationships between childhood abuse(emotional abuse and neglect), alexithymia, and personality were examined. Participants were 649 university students. The Childhood Abuse Questionnaire, The Korean Alexithymia Scale, and The Korean Personality Disorders Test were administered. The results are summarized as follows: 1) Emaotional abuse and neglect were associated with alexithymia and personality disorders(paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, and borderline, avoidant, and dependent); 2) Alexithymia had a mediating effect on the relationship between childhood abuse and personality disorders(paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, avoidant, and dependent). These results suggest that childhood emotional abuse and neglect are risk factors for alexithymia and personality disorders. The meaning and limitations of this study and suggestions for further studies are discussed.
The purposes of this study were to investigate the onset and developmental changes of gender differences in depression and anxiety among Korean adolescents, and to explore specific features of the gender differences by using a clinical group and subscale analyses. A total of 3,236 adolescents in grades 4-12 completed the measures of CDI and RCMAS. Results showed that: (1) the gender differences in depression and anxiety started to appear in grades 7 and 8;, (2) the gender differences were statistically significant in middle school students, but not in high school students; and (3) the gender differences were examined in the total sample, but not in the clinical sample only. Also, the CDI subscales of ‘negative mood’ and ‘anhedonia’ as well as the RCMAS subscale of ‘worry/oversensitive’ had a relatively important influence on the gender differences. Clinical implications and limitations were also discussed.
Based on the cognitive approach to test anxiety, we conducted two studies in order to develop the Automatic Thoughts of Test Questionnaire (ATTQ) to assess cognitive content associated with test anxiety and to examine its psychometric properties. In Study 1, 95 preliminary items were initially drawn from automatic thoughts collected with the thought-listing method, as well as from existing scales of test anxiety, and then 37 items were selected through an examination of content validity. The preliminary 37-item version of the ATTQ was administered to 223 undergraduate students during an actual test. The final version of the ATTQ consisted of 21 items that were selected using a series of exploratory factor analyses. Factor analyses of the ATTQ revealed a five-factor structure: ‘Negative Prediction of Test Scores’, ‘Catastrophic Interpretation of Test Results’, ‘Concerns about Others’ Negative Evaluation’, ‘Worry about Unexpected Questions on an Exam’, and ‘Fear of Having One's Mind Go Blank’. Study 2 aimed to replicate the initial factor structure found in Study 1 and to examine the reliability and validity of the ATTQ in a sample of 292 undergraduate students. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the correlated five-factor model had a better goodness-of-fit than other models. The ATTQ showed high internal consistency, acceptable test-retest reliability over a five-week period, and good convergent, criterion, and incremental validity. Consistent with the cognitive model of test anxiety, automatic thoughts as measured by the ATTQ partially mediated the association between cognitive test anxiety and state anxiety during an actual test, thus providing support for its construct validity. In conclusion, these findings suggest that the ATTQ is a highly reliable and valid instrument for assessing the automatic thoughts associated with test anxiety in undergraduate students. Finally, the theoretical and clinical implications as well as the limitations of the present research were discussed.
The purposes of this study were to prove the validity of the integrated model of insomnia including cognitive process and stress, and to examine the mediating effects of thought suppression on the relationships of stress, dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep, cognitive arousal and insomnia. The study included 423 subjects from the general population aged 20-59(males=183, females=240). For this study, DBAS- 16(Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep Scale-16), DHS-Revised(The Daily Hassle Scale-Revised Version), WBSI(White Bear Suppression Inventory), PSAS(Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale), and ISI(Insomnia Severity Index) were carried out. The data were statistically analyzed using structural equation modeling(SEM). The results of the study validated the integrated model of insomnia including stress and cognitive process. This study also showed that thought suppression had a significant role in the cognitive process contributing to insomnia. The specific results of the study were as follows. The mediating effect of thought suppression was significant on 1) the path from stress to insomnia via cognitive arousal, and 2) the path from dysfunctional beliefs about sleep to insomnia via cognitive arousal.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between adolescents' cellular phone use motivation, peer relationships, emotional factors and cellular phone addictive use. Participants were 705 middle school and high school students. First, the participants were classified as cellular phone addictive use high-risk groups and low-risk groups, and then the variables related to the difference between the two groups were examined through an independent samples t-test. The results showed significant differences between groups in all variables. Second, multiple regression analysis was conducted in the cellular phone addictive use high-risk groups in order to investigate what best describes cellular phone addictive use. Results indicated that the factor that best described cellular phone addictive use was motivation to alleviate boredom. Third, based on previous studies, partial and full dual mediation models were proposed, in which loneliness and depression would sequentially mediate the relationship between peer relationships and cellular phone addictive use. In order to compare two mediation models and alternative models, path analysis was used. The path analysis revealed that the full dual mediation model fit the data well. Implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for future studies were discussed.
The purpose of this study was to examine how emotional experience and emotional expressivity differ among three groups: a group with high-negative symptoms including anhedonia (high-negative symptoms group), a group with low-negative symptoms including anhedonia (low-negative symptoms group) among patients with schizophrenia, and a normal group. With the criteria of PANSS and anhedonia scales, 15 persons for high-negative symptoms and 15 for low-negative symptoms were chosen. And to examine the mental health status of the normal group, the anhedonia scale was conducted and 15 persons were chosen to the exclusion of those with SCL-90-R and anhedonia. For emotional experience, this study utilized the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) containing various ranges of contents. This research had the participants see positive and negative emotional photos for 6-15 seconds from a notebook. After that, they were made to rate their emotional state they experienced from 1 to 9 according to the appraisal method of SAM (Self-Assessment Manikin). For emotional expressivity, this paper used the Emotional Expressivity Scale (EES), a self-reporting questionnaire. According to the result of this research, schizophrenia patients rated positive emotion less positively and negative emotion more negatively than the normal group, and they gained lower scores in emotional expressivity. And among the schizophrenia patients, the high-negative symptoms group rated positive emotion less positively and negative emotion more negatively than the low-negative symptoms group, and they gained lower scores in emotional expressivity. The implications and limitations were discussed along with some suggestion for the future studies.
This study evaluated the efficacy of the Children of Divorce Intervention Program (CODIP) for Korean children. The CODIP was a 12-week preventive intervention program designed to mitigate behavioral and emotional problems. The structure and content of the original program was tailored to fit the needs of Korean families. The program was shortened to 10 sessions. In this study, the children in the control group also received a 10-week program. Subjects were 4th-6thgradechildren(N=70)from child welfare institutions: 26 CODIP participants, 32 divorce controls, and 12 non-divorced controls. The children’s problem behaviors were rated by their parents and teachers using the Child Behavior Check List. Children were asked to fill out the Children’s Attitudes and Self-Perception Scale, the State Anxiety Inventory for Children, the Kovac’s Children’s Depression Inventory, and the Aggression Scale. Pre- and post-assessments were administered to the children, their parents, and teachers, and analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. Results showed that children in the CODIP groups improved significantly on the CBCL rated by teachers and on the Children's Attitudes and Self-Perception Scale. This finding implies that children of divorced families could benefit from CODIP.
Based on three web-based neuropsychological tasks, this study examined the characteristics of attention deficits in children with ADHD. Specifically, we examined whether or not the experimental indices from a continuous performance task, a change-blindness task, and an inhibition-of-return task would successfully discriminate ADHD children from normal ones. According to the results, 1) significant differences were obtained among normal and ADHD sub-groups, 2) 71.2% of the cases were correctly classified as predicted using the indices of the three tasks, and 3) standard deviations of response time from the change-blindness task were among the most useful indices for classification. Further research would be needed to generalize our results to other clinical cases, especially with comorbid symptoms.
This study aimed to address the controversy of whether or not the CPGI(Canadian Problem Gambling Index), which was developed to discriminate those in the general population with a gambling problem, accomplishes its stated purpose. The first controversy is that the items of the CPGI are not much different from existing scales, which are intended to discriminate people who have severe gambling problem. The second controversy is that the items of the CPGI are not appropriate for those people who have a less severe gambling problem or minor gambling problem. Quantitative evaluation through multi-level and multi-group analysis demonstrated configural invariance, metric invariance, scalar invariance, and invariance of factor variances. However, the factor variances of the low-level groups were less than .100 which is much smaller than the value (between .569 and .665) observed in the high-level groups. The distribution of scores seemed to be positively skewed with an apparent floor effect. When cross-level analyses were performed, metric invariance hardly held. Several items satisfying metric invariance did not show scalar invariance. Thus, CPGI is not appropriate to use for high and low level groups since most items of the CPGI showed differential functioning across the two groups. The strengths and weaknesses of the study as well as future research directions are discussed.
Social exclusion has been recognized as a significant problem because of its negative influence on physical and psychosocial well-being. In this study, we had investigated that degree of social exclusion and their effects on emotional well-being and depressive mood in neurotic outpatients compared with general adults, and moderating effect of pro-social experience in two groups. Data were obtained from 62 neurotic outpatients who were diagnosed neurosis including anxiety disorder, depressive spectrum disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder by two psychiatrists except psychotic and personality disorder group and 67 general control people who was matched gender and age. In our study results, social exclusion of neurotic patients was significantly higher and prosocial experience of neurotic patients was lower compared with the control group, Among social exclusion, whereas effect of bullying exclusion was small or not-significant, insult exclusion was factor that decreases life-satisfaction and induces depressive symptom. Isolation exclusion was significant effect on increasing depressive mood and decreasing sense of emotional well-being in both groups expect bullying exclusion. Also, their impact was higher in the neurosis than normal control and especially isolation pattern of exclusion had a great impact on depressive symptoms and emotional well-being in neurotic group. However, moderate effect of pro-social support experience wasn't significant to alleviate effect of social exclusion on depression and emotional well-being. Finally, meaning, suggestion and limitation of this studies were discussed.
The aims of this study were to investigate factors that predict trauma-related symptoms and mental health among women acquitted from prostitution. The subjects were 120 women who previously worked as sex workers. Women in various rehabilitation agencies in metro-regions such as Gwangju, Daegu, Daejeon, Pusan, Yeosu, Incheon, and Jeonju participated in this questionnaire study. The questionnaire was composed of scales measuring socio-demographic factors, age at the start of prostitution, time period of sexual work in brothels, degree of human rights abuses, stress level, active coping strategy, passive coping strategy, positive social support, degree of trauma-related symptoms, and the SCL-90-R. The results showed that the levels trauma-related symptoms and mental health were not affected by socio-demographic factors such as marital status, education, current job type, or current monthly income. The women acquitted from prostitution were found to have experienced forced unwanted prostitution, verbal violence, and forced prostitution during menstruation most frequently. It was shown that degrees of human rights abuses, stress level, passive coping strategy, trauma-related symptoms, and mental health were positively related. The significant predicting factors of trauma-related symptoms were the degree of human rights abuses and passive coping strategy, and the significant predicting factors for mental health were stress level and passive coping strategy. Meanwhile, passive coping strategy had a mediating effect on the relationship between degree of human rights and mental health.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a self-love program combined with cognitive- behavioral therapy(CBT) on the alcohol dependences. The subjects were 25 men who showed alcohol dependence and were hospitalized in an alcohol clinic. 8 eight sessions of a self-love program combined with cognitive-behavioral therapy(CBT) were provided to 13 patients in the experimental group and 8 eight sessions of CBT without a self-love program were provided to 12 patients in the control group for 4 weeks. All subjects completed the Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale (SOCRATES-K), Alcohol Abstinence Self-Efficacy Scale(AASES), Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS), and Beck Depression Inventory(BDI), both pre- and post-intervention. The data of from 16 subjects (9 nine in the experimental group and seven in the control group) who participated in the program without stopping were finally analyzed. The paired t-test was used for the comparison of scales before and after the treatment within each group and independent t-test was used for the comparison between groups. The results of this study were as follows. First, cognition, ambivalence, and taking step factors of SOCRATES-K after the self-love program with CBT showed positive improvement. Second, there were no statistically significant changes in self-efficacy and compulsive drinking drive after the treatment but mean differences between pre and post test showed positive impact of self-love program with CBT on them. Finally, depression after self-love program with CBT decreased.
The purpose of this study was to explore the prognostic value of injury severity and lateralization of lesion for cognitive deficits following severe traumatic brain injury(TBI) while controlling for the effects of time postinjury and demographic variables. Patient demographics, injury severity, lateralization of lesion, time postinjury and neuropsychological test results were collected prospectively from 92 patients aged 16-60 years diagnosed with severe closed head injury. Nine cognitive functions(Verbal IQ(VIQ), Performance IQ(PIQ), Full Scale IQ(FSIQ), Memory Quotient(MQ), confrontational naming, complex construction, nonverbal eductive ability, freedom from distractibility and psychomotor speed) were analyzed. Injury severity had strong prognostic value for PIQ, MQ and complex construction but was not significantly related to VIQ, confrontational naming and freedom from distractibility. Lateralization of lesion had a significant impact on PIQ, MQ, nonverbal eductive ability and complex construction. There were implications of cognitive profiles specific to lateralization of lesion. The results suggest that especially memory and construction ability related to frontal lobe may be good indices of injury severity and lateralization of lesion. The findings of this study supply information about the important risk factors and dominant cognitive deficits of severe TBI that warrant attention from clinicians.
Adler and Fagley(2005) defined that ‘an appreciating something such as an event, a person, a behavior, and an object involves noticing and acknowledging its value and meaning and feeling a positive emotional connection to it’ and developed a multidimensional scale to measure it. The purpose of this study was to translate and adapt the Appreciation Scale to Korean culture. The results of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the Korean version of the Appreciation Scale consisting of six factors, including 23 items, was appropriate to the data on Korean college students. Six factors were ‘Have focus’, ‘Ritual’, ‘Expression’, ‘Nature/Daily life’, ‘Downward comparison’, and ‘Loss/Adversity’. Korean version of the Appreciation Scale and its subscale showed good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and they displayed convergent and discriminant validities via measurement of gratitude trait, optimism, hope, spirituality, appreciation of beauty, and excellence. These scales correlated with measure of life satisfaction and emotional well-being, Especially, appreciation significantly predicted to individual happiness even after the effects of social desirability, Big-Five personality, and individual's positive traits and states were statistically controlled. Conceptualizing gratitude and exploring components of gratitude would be valuable for understanding the nature of gratitude and its effects on well-being, and suggesting more effective psychological intervention in a diverse population.
The purpose of present study was to examine the attentional bias for threat stimuli in high-trait anxious individuals after watching an emotionally arousing film using an eye-tracker on the basis of the vigilance- avoidance hypothesis in order to investigate cognitive attentional-processing in anxiety. For this, 29 female university students (14 high-trait anxious and 15 low-trait anxious participants) watched an emotionally arousing film, which included a traumatic scene of a fire accident, and then were presented with threatening and neutral pictorial stimuli for measurement of attentional bias using an eye-tracker. Results indicated that, in comparison with low-trait anxious participants, high-trait anxious individuals detected threat stimuli automatically faster at an initial orienting fixation, but they showed shorter dwelling time on the threat compared to neutral stimuli at sustained attention over time. These findings indicate that high-trait anxious individuals after experiencing a traumatic event may use an automatic attentional bias which is characterized by higher vigilance of the threat for a shorter exposure duration, and strategic mechanism, which is characterized by avoidance of the threat for a longer duration.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in neuropsychological characteristics and the conversion rate to dementia between early onset MCI (EOMCI) and late onset MCI (LOMCI) patients. We enrolled 150 patients with MCI (59 EOMCI, 91 LOMCI). At baseline, EOMCI obtained significantly higher scores in confrontational naming and semantic word fluency test than LOMCI. Compared to baseline, the follow-up data showed that the immediate recall score for visual memory was improved in EOMCI but declined in LOMCI. The annual conversion rate was 9.8% in EOMCI and 17.5% in LOMCI. To predict the conversion from MCI to dementia, we also compared the baseline neuropsychological data between converters and non-converters within the groups. The converters performed significantly low in memory tests in both MCI groups and the EOMCI converters showed additional impairment in semantic word fluency. This study suggests that EOMCI may differ from LOMCI in terms of patterns of cognitive impairment and that EOMCI may be a heterogeneous group, which includes patients with not only a prodromal state of EOAD but also cognitive impairment due to various problems such as depression.
The purpose of this study was to examine the profiles of K-CBCL and MMPI-A in adolescents with internalizing or externalizing disorders. Parents of adolescents with internalizing disorders(n=34) and those with externalizing disorders(n=29) completed the Korean Child Behavior Checklist(K-CBCL). Adolescents in both groups completed the Korean MMPI-A. The subscales of K-CBCL well reflected the behavioral problems of each group. In the MMPI-A profiles, the internalizing disorders group showed elevated scores on F, Hs, D, Hy, Pd Pa, Pt, Sc, and Si. Moreover, in all subscales of MMPI-A except L and K, they showed higher scores than the externalizing disorders group, and the difference in some scales was statistically significant. Any subscales of MMPI-A was not elevated over 60T score in the profiles of the externalizing disorders group. MMPI-A profiles showed the emotional and psychological characteristics of adolescents with internalizing disorders but did not reflect well those of adolescents with externalizing disorders. It could be attributed to the personality characteristics of adolescents with externalizing disorders. Further studies need to recruit participants with more specific diagnosis. The results of the logistic regression analyses revealed that Pt scale was especially important in discriminating between the two groups. According to the pearson correlation analysis, some subscales of K-CBCL and those of MMPI-A showed mild correlation. Lastly, the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research are discussed.