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Biomedical subjects

A T Beck

Publications and source records attributed to A T Beck.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Depression versus anxiety: a test of the content-specificity hypothesis.

Beck's cognitive model predicts that depressed and anxious individuals can be differentiated on the basis of their cognitions regarding their self, world, and future. The present experiment used a trait-rating and incidental recall paradigm to test this "content-specificity" hypothesis. Clinically depressed, anxious, and psychiatric control subjects were presented with depression-relevant and anxiety-relevant trait adjectives, and initially judged whether the adjectives were self-descriptive prior to a free-recall task. Depressed subjects judged and recalled more negative depression-relevant stimuli than did the anxious and control subjects, and they were the only group to judge and recall more negative than positive depression-relevant stimuli. The anxious subjects recalled more negative than positive anxiety-relevant adjectives. The depressed subjects, however, also showed evidence of biased processing for anxiety-relevant stimuli. The findings were interpreted as providing support for the content-specificity hypothesis for depression, and minimal support of the hypothesis for anxiety.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Prediction of eventual suicide in psychiatric inpatients by clinical ratings of hopelessness.

A 9-point clinical rating scale was used to assess the severity of hopelessness in 141 patients hospitalized with suicidal ideation. The patients were followed from 5 to 10 years, and 10 (7.1%) eventually committed suicide. The mean hopelessness rating for the patients committing suicide was significantly higher than that for the patients not committing suicide. A cutoff score of 6 or above successfully predicted 9 (90.0%) of those committing suicide. The results supported previous findings in which self-reported hopelessness on the Beck Hopelessness Scale was reported to predict suicide in both psychiatric outpatients and inpatients.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Cognitive mediation in general psychiatric outpatients: a test of the content-specificity hypothesis.

We investigated the degree of content specificity evident in the negative cognitions associated with anxiety and depression in two large samples of general psychiatric outpatients. Standardized measures of affect and cognition were analyzed in a multiple regression design. As predicted by Beck's (1967, 1976, 1987) cognitive theory of psychopathology, thoughts of loss and failure were specifically associated with depression, whereas cognitions of harm and danger were uniquely predictive of anxiety. In addition, hopelessness was specific to depression and not to anxiety. Dysfunctional beliefs showed no consistent association with either mood state. The implication of these results, as well as related findings, is discussed in terms of a cognitive perspective on the differentiation of emotional disorders. Also discussed are the methodological difficulties encountered in research on cognitive-affective relationships.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Cognitive therapy of panic disorder. A nonpharmacological alternative.

A naturalistic study with no predetermined duration of treatment was undertaken in order to examine the effectiveness of cognitive therapy in the treatment of panic disorder. Seventeen patients diagnosed as having panic disorder according to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III Personality Disorders received a mean of 18 individual cognitive therapy sessions. Patients with personality disorder or depression required a longer duration of treatment to become symptom-free. As measured by a self-report weekly panic log, the mean number of panic attacks was reduced significantly to zero at the end of treatment. There was a concomitant reduction in self-report measures of depression and anxiety. Further, there was a significant reduction on a measure of cognitive dysfunction during panic attacks. Treatment results were maintained at 12-month follow-up.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Sex differences on the revised Beck Depression Inventory for outpatients with affective disorders.

The revised Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was administered to 174 male and 276 female psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with affective disorders. The mean BDI scores, mean number of symptoms claimed, and corrected item-total correlations were comparable for both sexes, and the coefficient alpha for each sex was .88. Principal components analyses found four dimensions of depression underlying both sexes' BDI item-intercorrelation matrices. Although men and women had comparable dimensions with respect to weight loss, self-blame, and somatic-performance symptoms, men had affective and performance symptoms loading on the same factor, whereas women had affective and cognitive symptoms loading on the same dimension.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Alcohol abuse and eventual suicide: a 5- to 10-year prospective study of alcohol-abusing suicide attempters.

Of 161 alcohol-abusing patients who were hospitalized for suicide attempts (attempters) between 1970 and 1975 and followed until 1982, 18 eventually committed suicide. The 143 nonsuiciders were compared to the 18 with respect to 27 background characteristics including their psychiatric diagnosis, Beck Depression Inventory, Hopelessness Scale, and Suicidal Intent Scale (SIS) scores. Only the SIS precautions subscale differentiated those who did and did not eventually commit suicide: the patients who eventually killed themselves had described taking more precautions against discovery at the time of their index attempts than did those who did not commit suicide. Possible explanations for the absence of a relationship between hopelessness or depression with ultimate suicide are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Scale for Suicide Ideation: psychometric properties of a self-report version.

A self-report version of the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI) was administered to 50 inpatients diagnosed with mixed DSM-III psychiatric disorders and 55 outpatients with affective disorders. The self-report SSI was written for both paper-and-pencil and computer administration. The correlations between the self-reported and clinically rated versions for both inpatients and outpatients were greater than .90, which suggests strong concurrent validity. The Cronbach coefficient alphas for the paper-and-pencil and computer versions were also in the .90s and indicated high internal consistency. Furthermore, the mean SSI scores of the computer version for both the inpatients and outpatients were higher than the mean SSI scores of the clinical ratings; the patients described more severe suicide ideation than clinicians reported.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Attempted suicide and pregnancy.

Women who attempted suicides who were pregnant did not differ from nonpregnant women who attempted suicide in measures of depression, hopelessness, or suicidal intent. Three themes were noted in the pregnant women who attempted suicide: prior loss of children (by miscarriage, adoption, or death), potential loss of their lover, and the desire for an abortion.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Eventual suicide in interrupted and uninterrupted attempters: a challenge to the cry-for-help hypothesis.

A total of 499 patients hospitalized for suicide attempts (attempters) between 1970 and 1975 were followed until 1982; of this group, 28 (5.6%) eventually committed suicide. Six (14.6%) of the 41 patients who had been interrupted during their initial attempts eventually committed suicide, whereas only 22 (4.8%) of the 458 patients who had not been interrupted eventually committed suicide. The interrupted attempters were approximately three times more likely to commit suicide than the uninterrupted attempters.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Reliability of DSM-III diagnoses for major depression and generalized anxiety disorder using the structured clinical interview for DSM-III.

This study examined the interrater reliability of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) diagnoses derived from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III (SCID). Using videotaped interviews, paired raters made independent diagnoses of 75 psychiatric outpatients. The percent agreement of the raters was 82% for MDD and 86% for GAD; the respective kappa values were .72 and .79. The results indicated that the SCID can be employed reliably to differentiate MDD from GAD. The SCID is recommended for further research with these disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Self-reported depressive symptoms that differentiate recurrent-episode major depression from dysthymic disorders.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was administered to 168 outpatients diagnosed with recurrent-episode, major-depression disorders and 99 outpatients diagnosed with dysthymic disorders. The mean ratings of 18 BDI items, except for Sense of Failure, Punishment, and Crying, were comparable in both groups; the mean total-BDI score and mean number of BDI items rated were higher for the major depressive disorders than for the dysthymic disorders. A backward stepwise-discriminant analysis revealed that Suicidal Ideas and Loss of Appetite were the two symptoms that most meaningfully distinguished between the two groups. The major depressive patients described more suicidal ideation and loss of appetite than did the dysthymic patients. The results supported the contention that self-report instruments may be useful in differentiating recurrent-episode major depression from dysthymic disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Taking the measure of anxiety and depression. Validity of the reconstructed Hamilton scales.

The ability of the Hamilton Psychiatric Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) and the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) to discriminate major depressive disorder (MDD) from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) was studied in 120 psychiatric outpatients and cross-validated with another 71 outpatients. Factor and discriminant analyses were used to develop revised anxiety and depression scales that were less positively correlated with each other, showed greater internal consistency, and differentiated MDD and GAD better than the original scales. The recombined scales also displayed higher rates of correctly assigning the samples to these disorders than did the original scales.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Differentiation of depressive disorders from generalized anxiety by the Beck Depression Inventory.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was administered to 35 outpatients diagnosed according to the DSM-III as primary generalized anxiety disorders and 101 outpatients diagnosed as primary major-depression and dysthymic disorders. A backward stepwise-discriminant analysis revealed that Sadness and Loss of Libido were the only two symptoms that meaningfully distinguished between the two groups. The depressed patients were sadder and complained of more loss of libido than did the anxious patients. It was concluded that the BDI is a powerful tool for differentiating the depressive from generalized anxiety disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Treatment of depression with cognitive therapy and amitriptyline.

Thirty-three outpatients with primary nonbipolar depression received individual treatment with either cognitive therapy alone (n = 18) or cognitive therapy plus amitriptyline hydrochloride pharmacotherapy (n = 15). All patients were treated according to a protocol specifying a maximum of 20 sessions during a 12-week period. Both groups showed statistically significant and clinically meaningful decreases in depressive symptoms. No differences emerged between the two groups in terms of the magnitude of the decrease in depressive symptoms. The addition of tricyclic antidepressant medication did not improve the response obtained by cognitive therapy alone, during the short-term treatment phase. Although there was a nonsignificant trend suggesting greater stability of gains for the combined treatment at a one-year follow-up, the patients had more therapy during the follow-up period. There was no evidence of any negative interaction between cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy, although evidence for any positive additive or interactive effect was meager.

Adult↗