Development, use, and factor analysis of a self-report inventory for mania.

This report describes the development and initial psychometric evaluation of a 47-item self-report inventory for mania developed by the authors. Twenty-five subjects with a diagnosis of mania and 82 subjects with other diagnoses were tested during a hospital admission. The manic group scored significantly higher than the nonmanic group. The questionnaire correctly classified 71% of subjects. Manic patients who lacked insight endorsed as many items as manic patients with insight. A reliability analysis indicated that the items comprising the questionnaire are homogeneous. Test-retest reliability was high. A rotated factor analysis produced two factors, energized dysphoria and hedonistic euphoria. The authors discuss diagnostic, research, and clinical implications and applications of the Self-Report Manic Inventory.

Social desirability and irritable bowel syndrome.

The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, a 33-item self-report questionnaire, was administered to an age-matched sample of twenty-five irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients, twenty-four psychiatric patients meeting a diagnosis of major depression, and nineteen controls. As predicted, planned comparisons analysis showed a significant group effect: IBS group scores were significantly higher than both depressed and control group scores (p less than .05). Implications of this social desirability response set for the psychological assessment and treatment of IBS are discussed.

Thought disorder and verbal recall in acutely psychotic patients.

This study examined the relationship between thought disorder and verbal recall in schizophrenic, manic, and schizoaffective inpatients. Based on previous research, it was predicted that subjects who demonstrated only positive thought-disorder would differ from those with positive and negative thought-disorder in terms of their ability to encode short descriptive passages. Unlike controls, who were able to encode organized material better than unorganized material, neither thought-disorder group improved its encoding when the material to be remembered was more organized. Both thought-disorder groups remembered more when the material was less organized. These findings raise a number of issues with regard to the interrelationship among thought disorders, psychiatric diagnoses, and information-processing deficits.

Pattern of substance abuse in psychiatric inpatients.

This study examined the pattern of substance abuse in a sample of 114 psychiatric inpatients using a standardized diagnostic interview. As predicted, psychiatric inpatients reported a significantly higher rate of substance abuse than a randomly selected community sample. Approximately three-quarters of the inpatients abused at least one substance. Almost one-half of the patient sample reported abusing more than one substance. These findings emphasize the need to screen psychiatric inpatients for substance abuse using a standardized diagnostic instrument and to develop treatment programs for substance abuse in psychiatric patients.

Self-schema in irritable bowel syndrome and depression.

Some investigators have suggested that irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) represents a physiologic expression of an affective disorder. This study investigated whether IBS patients differed in their self-schema from depressed patients. Self-schema refers to a cognitive framework of the individual's beliefs, attitudes, and self-perceptions which is stored in memory and which influences incoming information. The sample consisted of 21 IBS patients, 21 psychiatric outpatients with major depression (MD), and 19 normal controls. All groups were age matched. Subjects completed a structured psychiatric interview (Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) and a Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), in addition to a test of self-schema, which involved rating and recall of a variety of "depressed" and "nondepressed" content adjectives. Consistent with previous work on self-schema, the MD group recalled significantly more depressed adjectives rated under the self-referent task than the Control group (p less than 0.05) and, also, the IBS group (p less than 0.05). Most striking was the finding that a subgroup of IBS patients who met criteria for MD (43% of the sample) recalled significantly more self-referent nondepressed words (and less self-referent depressed words) than the MD group (p less than 0.05). In other words, IBS patients with MD do not view themselves as depressed. These findings suggest that while some IBS and depressed psychiatric outpatients may share depressive symptoms, these groups can be differentiated by their self-schema.