Seasonal variation of depression and other moods: a longitudinal approach.

The present study examined the effect of season of the year on depression and other moods. Previous work, primarily cross sectional or retrospective in design and involving clinically depressed or seasonally affective disordered samples, has suggested that mood changes as a function of season. However, the literature also shows conflicting and/or inconsistent findings about the extent and nature of this relationship. Importantly, these prior studies have not adequately answered the question of whether there is a seasonal effect in nondepressed people. The present study employed a longitudinal design and a large sample drawn from a normal population. The results, based on those participants for whom mood measures were collected in each season, demonstrated strong seasonal effects. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores were highest in winter and lowest in summer. Ratings on scales of hostility, anger, irritability, and anxiety also showed very strong seasonal effects. Further analyses revealed that seasonal variation in BDI scores differed for females and males. Females had higher BDI scores that showed strong seasonal variation, whereas males had lower BDI scores that did not vary significantly across season of the year.

Development and testing of a seven-day dietary recall. Dietary Assessment Working Group of the Worcester Area Trial for Counseling in Hyperlipidemia (WATCH).

Using multiple 24-hr recalls (24HR) we tested the Seven Day Dietary Recall (7DDR) developed to assess nutrient exposures, especially lipids, in dietary interventions and other clinical trials requiring measurement of effect over moderate time periods. A total of 261 individuals in three studies completed a 7DDR at the end of a 3- to 5-week period during which 3 to 7 24HR were telephone-administered on randomly selected days. One of these studies and data from one additional study (total n = 678) allowed us to test the ability of the 7DDR to predict serum lipid changes in an intervention setting. In correlation and linear regression analyses, high levels of agreement between 7DDR and 24HR were obtained. For total energy: r = 0.67 and b = 0.69, and for total fat intake (g/day): r = 0.67 and b = 0.80. When 7 days of 24HR were available agreement tended to be higher. For total energy: r = 0.69 and b = 0.95, and for total fat (g/day): r = 0.71 and b = 1.04. Data derived from the 7DDR and fit to the Keys and Hegsted equations closely predicted actual changes in total serum cholesterol (within 15% and 10%, respectively). The 7DDR is a relatively easily administered, sensitive method to assess short-term changes in dietary fat consumption in individuals.

Clinical psychology graduate education in the study of suicide: availability, resources, and importance.

Psychologists run the risk of losing a patient to suicide and of experiencing the traumatic impact of this event. The present study examines current levels of training in the study of suicide in the member-departments of the National Council of Schools of Professional Psychology (NCSPP--N = 33), comparing these findings with the level of training in member-departments (N = 115) of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology programs (CUDCP). Eighty percent of the CUDCP departments (N = 92) responded, and of these, only 35% offer formal training in the study of suicide; whereas in the 76% of the NCSPP programs that responded, 56% offer formal training. Although the NCSPP programs seem attitudinally more receptive and supportive of formal training (graduate and postgraduate) in the study of suicide, the NCSPP programs do not significantly differ from their CUDCP counterparts in the actual availability of such formal training. Even when all training efforts of the CUDCP and NCSPP programs are combined, only 40% of all graduate programs in clinical psychology offer formal training in the study of suicide.

Length of stay and behavior patterns of hospitalized schizophrenics.

A behavioral observation system, which consists of a series of objectively described behavior categories and an apparatus for recording the duration and frequency of ongoing behaviors in each category, was used to study the behavior on the ward of 21 long-term and 21 short-term matched hospitalized schizophrenics. Results of the study supported the major hypothesis that long-term hospitalized schizophrenics show more withdrawn and inappropriate behaviors and fewer social and appropriate behaviors than short-term hospitalized schizophrenics. Among the short-term patients, those hospitalized from four months to one year showed the most adaptive behaviors and the fewest inappropriate behaviors.

Enhanced Faraday effect and its application to optical communication.

This paper shows that the enhanced Faraday effect of optical resonance lines can be applied to optical communication. A secure optical communication system was designed and successfully tested. It used the integrated enhanced Faraday effect at low fields to produce polarization modulation and the high dispersion of the enhanced effect at high fields to scramble and unscramble the transmitted messages.

Gathering naturalistic, objective data on the behavior of schizophrenic patients.

A behavioral observation system, consisting of 12 behavior categories and an apparatus for recording them, was designed as a tool for gathering objective, naturalistic data on the ongoing behavior of hospitalized schizophrenics. After the system was tested and evaluated, it was used to draw behavioral profiles of 62 schizophrenics on two psychiatric wards of a Veterans Administration hospital. The results indicate the labeled schizophrenic is typified by a lack of adaptive behavior, a blankness, and a failure to get involved with his environment.