Inhibitory Control, Conduct Problems, and Callous Unemotional Traits in Children with ADHD and Typically Developing Children.

Compared children with CP/ADHD, CPCU/ADHD, ADHD-only, and controls on two measures of inhibitory control: a Simon/flanker task that measured response selection and a stop signal task that measured response inhibition. Results showed: (a) ADHD was associated with both measures of inhibitory control; (b) control children had better overall performance and ADHD-only had worse response selection than the CP groups; and (c) children with CPCU/ADHD had better response inhibition than children with ADHD-only or CP/ADHD. Results suggest inhibitory control dysfunction is associated with ADHD rather than CP and that response inhibition dysfunction distinguishes children with CP/ADHD from children with CPCU/ADHD.

Building mental health literacy: opportunities and resources for clinicians.

Youth mental health is increasingly recognized as a key concern with significant impact on youth and society. School is the one setting where professionals are consistently available to monitor how children are functioning and learning and intervene and support. School psychiatry has expanded beyond individual mental health problems to school-wide and community issues including school violence, sexual harassment, bullying, substance abuse, discrimination, and discipline. This article describes the importance of mental health literacy in health outcomes and research in school-based mental health programs to better position the clinician to advocate at the individual and/or system level.

Maximizing the uptake and sustainability of school-based mental health programs: commercializing knowledge.

Clear benefits of school-based interventions focusing on health and mental health promotion or illness have been documented. A number of permanent repositories that rate and list effective school-based programs have been established. However, efforts to implement programs on a mass scale have not succeeded. There is a need to balance program development and improvement with uptake and implementation. This article outlines what is known about knowledge exchange and mobilization and introduces a business lens for school-based mental health programs uptake and sustainability. Individual clinicians can have significant impact by promoting strategies for both patients and the whole school population.

Canadian Experts' Views on the Importance of Attributes within Professional and Community-Oriented Primary Healthcare Models.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to rate the importance of primary healthcare (PHC) attributes in evaluations of PHC organizational models in Canada. METHODS: Using the Delphi process, we conducted a consensus consultation with 20 persons recognized by peers as Canadian PHC experts, who rated the importance of PHC attributes within professional and community-oriented models of PHC. RESULTS: ATTRIBUTES RATED AS ESSENTIAL TO ALL MODELS WERE DESIGNATED CORE ATTRIBUTES: first-contact accessibility, comprehensiveness of services, relational continuity, coordination (management) continuity, interpersonal communication, technical quality of clinical care and clinical information management. Overall, while all were important, non-core attributes - except efficiency/productivity - were rated as more important in community-oriented than in professional models. Attributes rated as essential for community-oriented models were equity, client/community participation, population orientation, cultural sensitivity and multidisciplinary teams. CONCLUSION: Evaluation tools should address core attributes and be customized in accordance with the specific organizational models being evaluated to guide health reforms.

Validation of instruments to evaluate primary healthcare from the patient perspective: overview of the method.

UNLABELLED: Patient evaluations are an important part of monitoring primary healthcare reforms, but there is little comparative information available to guide evaluators in the choice of instruments or to determine their relevance for Canada. OBJECTIVE: To compare values and the psychometric performances of validated instruments thought to be most pertinent to the Canadian context for evaluating core attributes of primary healthcare. METHOD: AMONG VALIDATED INSTRUMENTS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, WE SELECTED SIX: the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS); the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Short Form (PCAT-S); the Components of Primary Care Index (CPCI); the first version of the EUROPEP (EUROPEP-I); the Interpersonal Processes of Care Survey, version II (IPC-II); and part of the Veterans Affairs National Outpatient Customer Satisfaction Survey (VANOCSS). We mapped subscales to operational definitions of attributes. All were administered to a sample of adult service users balanced by English/French language (in Nova Scotia and Quebec, respectively), urban/rural residency, high/low education and overall care experience. The sample was recruited from previous survey respondents, newspaper advertisements and community posters. We used common factor analysis to compare our factor resolution for each instrument to that of the developers. RESULTS: Our sample of 645 respondents was approximately balanced by design variables, but considerable effort was required to recruit low-education and poor-experience respondents. Subscale scores are statistically different by excellent, average and poor overall experience, but interpersonal communication and respectfulness scores were the most discriminating of overall experience. We found fewer factors than did the developers, but when constrained to the number of expected factors, our item loadings were largely similar to those found by developers. Subscale reliability was equivalent to or higher than that reported by developers. CONCLUSION: These instruments perform similarly in the Canadian context to their original development context, and can be used with confidence. Interpersonal and respectfulness scores are most discriminating of excellent, average or poor overall experience and are crucial dimensions of patient evaluations.

Differential item functioning in primary healthcare evaluation instruments by french/english version, educational level and urban/rural location.

UNLABELLED: Evaluating the extent to which groups or subgroups of individuals differ with respect to primary healthcare experience depends on first ruling out the possibility of bias. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether item or subscale performance differs systematically between French/English, high/low education subgroups and urban/rural residency. METHOD: A sample of 645 adult users balanced by French/English language (in Quebec and Nova Scotia, respectively), high/low education and urban/rural residency responded to six validated instruments: the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS); the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Short Form (PCAT-S); the Components of Primary Care Index (CPCI); the first version of the EUROPEP (EUROPEP-I); the Interpersonal Processes of Care Survey, version II (IPC-II); and part of the Veterans Affairs National Outpatient Customer Satisfaction Survey (VANOCSS). We normalized subscale scores to a 0-to-10 scale and tested for between-group differences using ANOVA tests. We used a parametric item response model to test for differences between subgroups in item discriminability and item difficulty. We re-examined group differences after removing items with differential item functioning. RESULTS: Experience of care was assessed more positively in the English-speaking (Nova Scotia) than in the French-speaking (Quebec) respondents. We found differential English/French item functioning in 48% of the 153 items: discriminability in 20% and differential difficulty in 28%. English items were more discriminating generally than the French. Removing problematic items did not change the differences in French/English assessments. Differential item functioning by high/low education status affected 27% of items, with items being generally more discriminating in high-education groups. Between-group comparisons were unchanged. In contrast, only 9% of items showed differential item functioning by geography, affecting principally the accessibility attribute. Removing problematic items reversed a previously non-significant finding, revealing poorer first-contact access in rural than in urban areas. CONCLUSION: Differential item functioning does not bias or invalidate French/English comparisons on subscales, but additional development is required to make French and English items equivalent. These instruments are relatively robust by educational status and geography, but results suggest potential differences in the underlying construct in low-education and rural respondents.

What Patients Tell Us about Primary Healthcare Evaluation Instruments: Response Formats, Bad Questions and Missing Pieces.

UNLABELLED: Instruments have been developed that measure consumer evaluations of primary healthcare using different approaches, formats and questions to measure similar attributes. In 2004 we concurrently administered six validated instruments to adults and conducted discussion groups to explore how well the instruments allowed patients to express their healthcare experience and to get their feedback about questions and formats. METHOD: We held 13 discussion groups (n=110 participants): nine in metropolitan, rural and remote areas of Quebec; four in metropolitan and rural Nova Scotia. Participants noted critical incidents in their healthcare experience over the previous year, then responded to all six instruments under direct observation and finally participated in guided discussions for 30 to 40 minutes. The instruments were: the Primary Care Assessment Survey; the Primary Care Assessment Tool; the Components of Primary Care Index; the EUROPEP; the Interpersonal Processes of Care Survey; and part of the Veterans Affairs National Outpatient Customer Satisfaction Survey. Two team members analyzed discussion transcripts for content. RESULTS: While respondents appreciated consistency in response options, they preferred options that vary to fit the question. Likert response scales functioned best; agreement scales were least appreciated. Questions that average experience over various providers or over many events diluted the capacity to detect critical negative or positive incidents. Respondents tried to answer all questions but stressed that they were not able to report accurately on elements outside their direct experience or in the provider's world. They liked short questions and instruments, except where these compromise clarity or result in crowded formatting. All the instruments were limited in their capacity to report on the interface with other levels of care. CONCLUSION: Each instrument has strengths and weaknesses and could be marginally improved, but respondents accurately detected their intent and use. Their feedback offers insight for instrument development.

An overview of confirmatory factor analysis and item response analysis applied to instruments to evaluate primary healthcare.

This paper presents an overview of the analytic approaches that we used to assess the performance and structure of measures that evaluate primary healthcare; six instruments were administered concurrently to the same set of patients. The purpose is (a) to provide clinicians, researchers and policy makers with an overview of the psychometric methods used in this series of papers to assess instrument performance and (b) to articulate briefly the rationale, the criteria used and the ways in which results can be interpreted. For illustration, we use the case of instrument subscales evaluating accessibility. We discuss (1) distribution of items, including treatment of missing values, (2) exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to identify how items from different subscales relate to a single underlying construct or sub-dimension and (3) item response theory analysis to examine whether items can discriminate differences between individuals with high and low scores, and whether the response options work well. Any conclusion about the relative performance of instruments or items will depend on the type of analytic technique used. Our study design and analytic methods allow us to compare instrument subscales, discern common constructs and identify potentially problematic items.

Interpersonal communication from the patient perspective: comparison of primary healthcare evaluation instruments.

UNLABELLED: The operational definition of interpersonal communication is "the ability of the provider to elicit and understand patient concerns, to explain healthcare issues and to engage in shared decision-making if desired." OBJECTIVE: To examine how well interpersonal communication is captured in validated instruments that evaluate primary healthcare from the patient's perspective. METHOD: 645 adults with at least one healthcare contact in the previous 12 months responded to instruments that evaluate primary healthcare. Eight subscales measure interpersonal communication: the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS, two subscales); the Components of Primary Care Index (CPCI, one subscale); the first version of the EUROPEP (EUROPEP-I); and the Interpersonal Processes of Care Survey, version II (IPC-II, four subscales). Scores were normalized for descriptive comparison. Exploratory and confirmatory (structural equation) factor analysis examined fit to operational definition, and item response theory analysis examined item performance. RESULTS: Items not pertaining to interpersonal communication were removed from the EUROPEP-I. Most subscales are skewed positively. Normalized mean scores are similar across subscales except for IPC-II Patient-Centred Decision-Making and IPC-II Hurried Communication. All subscales load reasonably well on a single factor, presumed to be interpersonal communication. The best model has three underlying factors corresponding to eliciting (eigenvalue = 26.56), explaining (eigenvalue = 2.45) and decision-making (eigenvalue = 1.34). Both the PCAS Communication and the EUROPEP-I Clinical Behaviour subscales capture all three dimensions. Individual subscales within IPC-II measure each sub-dimension. CONCLUSION: The operational definition is well reflected in the available measures, although shared decision-making is poorly represented. These subscales can be used with confidence in the Canadian context to measure this crucial aspect of patient-centred care.

Accessibility from the patient perspective: comparison of primary healthcare evaluation instruments.

UNLABELLED: The operational definition of first-contact accessibility is "the ease with which a person can obtain needed care (including advice and support) from the practitioner of choice within a time frame appropriate to the urgency of the problem"; accommodation is "the way healthcare resources are organized to accommodate a wide range of patients' abilities to contact healthcare providers and reach healthcare services, that is to say telephone services, flexible appointment systems, hours of operation, and walk-in periods." OBJECTIVE: To compare how well accessibility is measured in validated subscales that evaluate primary healthcare from the patient's perspective. METHOD: 645 adults with at least one healthcare contact in the previous 12 months responded to six instruments that evaluate primary healthcare with four subscales that measure accessibility: the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS), the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Short Form (PCAT-S, two subscales) and the first version of the EUROPEP (EUROPEP-I). Scores were normalized to a 0-to-10 scale for descriptive comparison. Exploratory and confirmatory (structural equation modelling) factor analysis examined fit to operational definition, and item response theory analysis examined item performance on common constructs. RESULTS: The subscales demonstrate similar psychometric measures to those reported by developers. The PCAT-S First-Contact Utilization subscale does not fit the accessibility construct. The remaining three subscales load reasonably onto a single factor, presumed to be accessibility, but the best-fitting model has two factors: "timeliness of obtaining needed care" (PCAT-S First-Contact Access, some EUROPEP-I items) and "how resources are organized to accommodate clients" (PCAS Organizational Access and most of EUROPEP-I organization of care). Items in the PCAS and PCAT-S subscales have good discriminability. CONCLUSION: Only three of the four subscales measure accessibility; all are appropriate for use in Canada. The PCAT-S First-Contact Access subscale is the best measure for first-contact accessibility, and PCAS Organizational Accessibility has good metric properties and measures for accommodation.

Management continuity from the patient perspective: comparison of primary healthcare evaluation instruments.

UNLABELLED: Management continuity, operationally defined as "the extent to which services delivered by different providers are timely and complementary such that care is experienced as connected and coherent," is a core attribute of primary healthcare. Continuity, as experienced by the patient, is the result of good care coordination or integration. OBJECTIVE: To provide insight into how well management continuity is measured in validated coordination or integration subscales of primary healthcare instruments. METHOD: Relevant subscales from the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS), the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Short Form (PCAT-S), the Components of Primary Care Instrument (CPCI) and the Veterans Affairs National Outpatient Customer Satisfaction Survey (VANOCSS) were administered to 432 adult respondents who had at least one healthcare contact with a provider other than their family physician in the previous 12 months. Subscales were examined descriptively, by correlation and factor analysis and item response theory analysis. Because the VANOCSS elicits coordination problems and is scored dichotomously, we used logistic regression to examine how evaluative subscales relate to reported problems. RESULTS: Most responses to the PCAS, PCAT-S and CPCI subscales were positive, yet 83% of respondents reported having one or more problems on the VANOCSS Overall Coordination subscale and 41% on the VANOCSS Specialist Access subscale. Exploratory factor analysis suggests two distinct factors. The first (eigenvalue=6.98) is coordination actions by the primary care physician in transitioning patient care to other providers (PCAS Integration subscale and most of the PCAT-S Coordination subscale). The second (eigenvalue=1.20) is efforts by the primary care physician to create coherence between different visits both within and outside the regular doctor's office (CPCI Coordination subscale). The PCAS Integration subscale was most strongly associated with lower likelihood of problems reported on the VANOCSS subscales. CONCLUSION: Ratings of management continuity correspond only modestly to reporting of coordination problems, possibly because they rate only the primary care physician, whereas patients experience problems across the entire system. The subscales were developed as measures of integration and provider coordination and do not capture the patient's experience of connectedness and coherence.

Relational continuity from the patient perspective: comparison of primary healthcare evaluation instruments.

UNLABELLED: The operational definition of relational continuity is "a therapeutic relationship between a patient and one or more providers that spans various healthcare events and results in accumulated knowledge of the patient and care consistent with the patient's needs." OBJECTIVE: To examine how well relational continuity is measured in validated instruments that evaluate primary healthcare from the patient's perspective. METHOD: 645 adults with at least one healthcare contact in the previous 12 months responded to six instruments that evaluate primary healthcare. Five subscales map to relational continuity: the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS, two subscales), the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Short Form (PCAT-S) and the Components of Primary Care Index (CPCI, two subscales). Scores were normalized for descriptive comparison. Exploratory and confirmatory (structural equation modelling) factor analysis examined fit to operational definition, and item response theory analysis examined item performance on common constructs. RESULTS: All subscales load reasonably well on a single factor, presumed to be relational continuity, but the best model has two underlying factors corresponding to (1) accumulated knowledge of the patient and (2) relationship that spans healthcare events. Some items were problematic even in the best model. The PCAS Contextual Knowledge subscale discriminates best between different levels of accumulated knowledge, but this dimension is also captured well by the CPCI Accumulated Knowledge subscale and most items in the PCAT-S Ongoing Care subscale. For relationship-spanning events, the items' content captures concentration of care in one doctor; this is captured best by the CPCI Preference for Regular Provider subscale and, to a lesser extent, by the PCAS Visit-Based Continuity subscale and one relevant item in the PCAT-S Ongoing Care subscale. But this dimension correlates only modestly with percentage of reported visits to the personal doctor. The items function as yes/no rather than ordinal options, and are especially informative for poor concentration of care. CONCLUSION: These subscales perform well for key elements of relational continuity, but do not capture consistency of care. They are more informative for poor relational continuity.

Comprehensiveness of care from the patient perspective: comparison of primary healthcare evaluation instruments.

UNLABELLED: Comprehensiveness relates both to scope of services offered and to a whole-person clinical approach. Comprehensive services are defined as "the provision, either directly or indirectly, of a full range of services to meet most patients' healthcare needs"; whole-person care is "the extent to which a provider elicits and considers the physical, emotional and social aspects of a patient's health and considers the community context in their care." Among instruments that evaluate primary healthcare, two had subscales that mapped to comprehensive services and to the community component of whole-person care: the Primary Care Assessment Tool - Short Form (PCAT-S) and the Components of Primary Care Index (CPCI, a limited measure of whole-person care). OBJECTIVE: To examine how well comprehensiveness is captured in validated instruments that evaluate primary healthcare from the patient's perspective. METHOD: 645 adults with at least one healthcare contact in the previous 12 months responded to six instruments that evaluate primary healthcare. Scores were normalized for descriptive comparison. Exploratory and confirmatory (structural equation modelling) factor analysis examined fit to operational definition, and item response theory analysis examined item performance on common constructs. RESULTS: Over one-quarter of respondents had missing responses on services offered or doctor's knowledge of the community. The subscales did not load on a single factor; comprehensive services and community orientation were examined separately. The community orientation subscales did not perform satisfactorily. The three comprehensive services subscales fit very modestly onto two factors: (1) most healthcare needs (from one provider) (CPCI Comprehensive Care, PCAT-S First-Contact Utilization) and (2) range of services (PCAT-S Comprehensive Services Available). Individual item performance revealed several problems. CONCLUSION: Measurement of comprehensiveness is problematic, making this attribute a priority for measure development. Range of services offered is best obtained from providers. Whole-person care is not addressed as a separate construct, but some dimensions are covered by attributes such as interpersonal communication and relational continuity.

Respectfulness from the patient perspective: comparison of primary healthcare evaluation instruments.

UNLABELLED: Respectfulness is one measurable and core element of healthcare responsiveness. The operational definition of respectfulness is "the extent to which health professionals and support staff meet users' expectations about interpersonal treatment, demonstrate respect for the dignity of patients and provide adequate privacy." OBJECTIVE: To examine how well respectfulness is captured in validated instruments that evaluate primary healthcare from the patient's perspective, whether or not their developers had envisaged these as representing respectfulness. METHOD: 645 adults with at least one healthcare contact with their own regular doctor or clinic in the previous 12 months responded to six instruments, two subscales that mapped to respectfulness: the Interpersonal Processes of Care, version II (IPC-II, two subscales) and the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS). Additionally, there were individual respectfulness items in subscales measuring other attributes in the Components of Primary Care Index (CPCI) and the first version of the EUROPEP (EUROPEP-I). Scores were normalized for descriptive comparison. Exploratory and confirmatory (structural equation modelling) factor analyses examined fit to operational definition. RESULTS: Respectfulness scales correlate highly with one another and with interpersonal communication. All items load adequately on a single factor, presumed to be respectfulness, but the best model has three underlying factors corresponding to (1) physician's interpersonal treatment (eigenvalue=13.99), (2) interpersonal treatment by office staff (eigenvalue=2.13) and (3) respect for the dignity of the person (eigenvalue=1.16). Most items capture physician's interpersonal treatment (IPC-II Compassionate, Respectful Interpersonal Style, IPC-II Hurried Communication and PCAS Interpersonal Treatment). The IPC-II Interpersonal Style (Disrespectful Office Staff) captures treatment by staff, but only three items capture dignity. CONCLUSION: Various items or subscales seem to measure respectfulness among currently available validated instruments. However, many of these items related to other constructs, such as interpersonal communication. Further studies should aim at developing more refined measures - especially for privacy and dignity - and assess the relevance of the broader concept of responsiveness.

Self-harm reasons, goal achievement, and prediction of future self-harm intent.

Self-harm may have several reasons, and these reasons may have corresponding implied goals. The current study examined reasons for self-harm and whether the a priori goals intended by these reasons were achieved. Fifty-seven individuals with a history of self-harm were recruited online and volunteered their time to complete a series of online questionnaires assessing past self-harm frequency, self-harm reasons, whether the goal associated with these reasons was achieved, and future self-harm intent. Reasons to reduce tension and dissociation associated with more past self-harm, a higher intent to self-harm again, and it was reported that the goals associated with reasons were achieved (i.e., these internal states were extinguished). Achievement of these goals (i.e., reported reductions in tension and dissociation) mediated the relation between corresponding self-harm reasons and intent to self-harm in the future. Findings support the view that self-harm is a maladaptive coping strategy and the reinforcement component of the experiential avoidance model of self-harm. Results have clinical implications and heuristic value for future research, which are discussed.

The mediating role of automatic thoughts in the personality-event-affect relationship.

Although cognitive theory gives automatic thoughts a causal role in the onset of negative mood and depressive symptoms, little research has directly tested this relationship, and no research has examined whether automatic thoughts explain the effects of personality factors, life events, and positive mood on negative affect. Accordingly, automatic thoughts were prospectively tested as a mediator of the effects of personality vulnerability factors, positive affect, and hassles on mood. Measures of self-criticism and dependency were administered at baseline, and measures of automatic thoughts, hassles, and positive and negative affect were administered once per week for 4 weeks to 102 college students. Automatic thoughts fully mediated the effects of self-criticism and partially mediated the effects of dependency and hassles on mood. Findings suggest that negative thoughts only partially account for the relationship among personality, hassles, and mood. Results also showed that the impact of positive affect on negative affect may be mediated by the presence or absence of automatic thoughts.

Development and validation of the self-harm reasons questionnaire.

Understanding the reasons for self-harm (SH) may be paramount for the identification and treatment of SH behavior. Presently, the psychometric properties for SH reason questionnaires are generally unknown or tested only in non-inpatient samples. Existing inpatient measures may have limited generalizability and do not examine SH apart from an explicit intent to die. The present study examined a newly developed, self-report measure of reason for self-harm. The Self-Harm Reasons Questionnaire (SHRQ) was administered to 143 undergraduate students. Results indicated that SH reasons covaried in meaningful and internally consistent ways, with subgroups of SH reasons correlating with hypothesized concomitants of SH, such as depressive symptoms. Findings have implications for prevention and intervention and the SHRQ offers a new, albeit preliminary, means by which to examine SH reasons in a non-inpatient sample.

Optimizing the ability of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale to discriminate across levels of severity and between antidepressants and placebos.

Efforts to improve the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) have included shortening the scale by selecting the best performing items, lengthening the scale by assessing additional symptoms, modifying the format and scoring of existing items, and developing structured interview guides for administration. We defined item performance exclusively in terms of the ability of items to discriminate differences among levels of depressive severity which has not be used to guide any revisions of the HRSD conducted to date. Two techniques derived from item response theory were used to improve the ability of the HRSD to discriminate among individuals with different degrees of depressive severity. Item response curves were used to quantify the ability of items to discriminate among individual differences in depressive severity, on the basis of which the most discriminating items were selected. Maximum likelihood estimates were used to compute an optimal depressive severity score, using all items, but which weighted highly discriminating items more so than items that did not discriminate well. The utility of each method was evaluated by comparing a subset of optimally discriminating items and maximum likelihood estimates of depressive severity to the Maier Philipp subscale of the HRSD, in terms of how well scales discriminate treatment effects. Effect sizes for overall change in depression severity as well as effect sizes differentiating response to treatment versus placebo were evaluated in a sample of 491 patients receiving fluoxetine and 494 patients receiving placebo. Results of analyses identified a new subset of items (IRT-6), selected on the basis of their ability to discriminate among differences in depressive severity, that accounted for more variance in full-scale HRSD scores and was better at detecting change in illness severity than the Maier Philipp subscale of the HRSD. The IRT-6 subscale was equally good as the Maier Philipp subscale in differentiating treatment from placebo response. No evidence supporting the benefits of using maximum likelihood estimates to develop optimally performing subscales was found. Implications of the results are discussed in terms of strategies for optimizing the assessment of change in overall depression severity as well as differentiating treatment response.

Item response analysis of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale.

BACKGROUND: Statistical models based on item response theory were used to examine (a) the performance of individual Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) items and their options, (b) the effectiveness of various subscales to discriminate among individual differences in symptom severity, and (c) the appropriateness of cutoff scores recently recommended by Andreasen and her colleagues (2005) to establish symptom remission. METHODS: Option characteristic curves were estimated using a nonparametric item response model to examine the probability of endorsing each of 7 options within each of 30 PANSS items as a function of standardized, overall symptom severity. Our data were baseline PANSS scores from 9205 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who were enrolled between 1995 and 2003 in either a large, naturalistic, observational study or else in 1 of 12 randomized, double-blind, clinical trials comparing olanzapine to other antipsychotic drugs. RESULTS: Our analyses show that the majority of items forming the Positive and Negative subscales of the PANSS perform very well. We also identified key areas for improvement or revision in items and options within the General Psychopathology subscale. The Positive and Negative subscale scores are not only more discriminating of individual differences in symptom severity than the General Psychopathology subscale score, but are also more efficient on average than the 30-item total score. Of the 8 items recently recommended to establish symptom remission, 1 performed markedly different from the 7 others and should either be deleted or rescored requiring that patients achieve a lower score of 2 (rather than 3) to signal remission. CONCLUSION: This first item response analysis of the PANSS supports its sound psychometric properties; most PANSS items were either very good or good at assessing overall severity of illness. These analyses did identify some items which might be further improved for measuring individual severity differences or for defining remission thresholds. Findings also suggest that the Positive and Negative subscales are more sensitive to change than the PANSS total score and, thus, may constitute a "mini PANSS" that may be more reliable, require shorter administration and training time, and possibly reduce sample sizes needed for future research.

Online health promotion, early identification of difficulties, and help seeking in young people.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the use and impact of a dedicated health information Web site for adolescents. METHOD: Five hundred fifty-eight (27.2%) of all students in grades 7 through 12 from 4 schools logged onto the Web site; 1775 (86.4%) of all students in these grades completed a year-end health survey, with 455 (81.5%) of the students who used the Web site completing the survey. Dependent variables were help seeking and satisfaction ratings plus visits to specific Web site sections. Predictor variables were demographic characteristics, mental health, and psychosocial difficulties assessed at years' end. RESULTS: Students logged on >11,000 times during the year. Female students, students wanting professional help, those scoring higher on depressive vulnerability measures, and students reporting more severe mood problems were related to logging on frequently over longer periods of time, as well as viewing information sheets, posting and viewing questions and answers, and completing the symptom screen. Students accessing the Web site from 1 to 7 A.M. reported higher levels of distress than did students who accessed the Web site at other times of the day. Visits to the Web site were positively associated with visits to school health centers and guidance counselors and referrals to a health professional. CONCLUSIONS: Results are consistent with a health-needs model of utilization of this Internet-based health resource. A school-based health information Web site holds significant promise for health promotion and early self-identification for emotional problems.