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Biomedical subjects

A T Beck

Publications and source records attributed to A T Beck.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Depressive symptoms differentiating between heroin addicts and alcoholics.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was self-administered to 105 outpatient alcoholics and 211 methadone maintenance patients seeking treatment at a large community mental health center to determine whether or not specific depressive symptoms differentiated the groups. Canonical correlations were first calculated between the set of 21 BDI items and the patients' demographic characteristics of sex, race and age to ascertain if these characteristics should be controlled before making comparisons between the two types of substance abusers. Age and sex were significantly related to self-reported depressive symptomatology and were entered first into a stepwise discriminant analysis with the 21 BDI items followed by type of substance abuse. Four symptoms contributed at least 5% to the overall discrimination between the alcoholics and the heroin addicts; these were sense of failure, weight loss, somatic preoccupation, and loss of libido. The alcoholics described themselves as feeling more like failures and having more somatic preoccupation than the heroin addicts, whereas the heroin addicts reported more weight loss and loss of libido. To estimate the efficiency with which these four symptoms could differentiate between the alcoholics and heroin addicts, discriminant classification analysis was employed; 69.3% of the substance abusers were correctly assigned to their type of addiction. The results were discussed as supporting the contention that alcoholics and heroin addicts may display different depressive symptoms.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Hopelessness and eventual suicide: a 10-year prospective study of patients hospitalized with suicidal ideation.

The authors intensively studied 207 patients hospitalized because of suicidal ideation, but not for recent suicide attempts, at the time of admission. During a follow-up period of 5-10 years, 14 patients committed suicide. Of all the data collected at the time of hospitalization, only the Hopelessness Scale and the pessimism item of the Beck Depression Inventory predicted the eventual suicides. A score of 10 or more on the Hopelessness Scale correctly identified 91% of the eventual suicides. Taken in conjunction with previous studies showing the relationship between hopelessness and suicidal intent, these findings indicate the importance of degree of hopelessness as an indicator of long-term suicidal risk in hospitalized depressed patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Hopelessness in alcohol- and heroin-dependent women.

Administered the Beck Hopelessness Scale to 20 alcoholic and 20 heroin-addicted women. A Weighted G analysis then was performed with the 20 dichotomous items of this scale to determine whether specific items differentiated between the two types of women. The samples were assigned randomly to 20-person test and calibration groups, and each subgroup was represented by 10 whites and 10 blacks. Based on the classification estimates yielded by the Weighted G analysis for the test sample, 18 of the 20 women in the calibration sample were assigned correctly to their type of substance abuse (i.e., the hit rate was 90.0%). The 5 items that most saliently differentiated between the women were representative of future time perspective and achievement. The alcoholic women believed that they might be happier in the future and accomplish more than the heroin-addicted women.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Internal consistencies of the original and revised Beck Depression Inventory.

Studied internal consistencies of the 1961 and 1978 versions of the Beck Depression Inventory in two different samples of psychiatric patients. The alpha coefficient for the 598 inpatients and outpatients who were administered the 1961 version was .88, and the alpha coefficient for the 248 outpatients who were self-administered the 1978 version was .86. The patterns of corrected item-total correlations were also similar, and it was concluded that the internal consistencies of both versions were comparable.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Severity of psychiatric symptoms as a predictor of benefits from psychotherapy: the Veterans Administration-Penn study.

One hundred ten nonpsychotic opiate addicts were randomly assigned to receive paraprofessional drug counseling alone, counseling plus cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, or counseling plus supportive-expressive psychotherapy. Patients were classified low-severity, mid-severity, or high-severity on the basis of the number and severity of their psychiatric symptoms. Overall, the addition of professional psychotherapy was associated with greater benefits than was drug counseling alone. Low-severity patients made considerable and approximately equal progress with added psychotherapy or with counseling alone. Mid-severity patients had better outcomes with additional psychotherapy than with counseling alone, but counseling did effect numerous significant improvements. High-severity patients made little progress with counseling alone, but with added psychotherapy made considerable progress and used both prescribed and illicit drugs less often.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Psychotherapy for opiate addicts. Does it help?

Opiate addicts beginning a new treatment episode on a methadone maintenance program were offered random assignment to drug counseling alone or to counseling plus six months of either supportive-expressive psychotherapy or cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. Sixty percent of patients meeting the study criteria expressed an interest and 60% of these actually became engaged. One hundred ten subjects completed the study intake procedure and kept three or more appointments within the first six weeks of the project. Measures including standardized psychological tests, independent observer ratings, and continuous records of licit and illicit drug use were done at baseline and seven-month follow-up. All three treatment groups showed significant improvement, but patients receiving the additional psychotherapies showed improvement in more areas and to a greater degree than those who received counseling alone, and with less use of medication. More than a third of opiate addicts in our treatment program thus both were interested in professional psychotherapy and apparently benefitted from it. Certain administrative procedures appear necessary to maximize the chances that psychotherapy can be used effectively with drug-addicted patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Correlates of self-reported and clinically assessed depression in outpatient alcoholics.

Used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Hamilton Psychiatric Rating Scale for Depression (Hamilton, 1960) to assess the levels of depression presented by 76 male and 29 female alcoholics. To estimate overall depression from the self-report and clinical instruments, the Z scores for both measures were summed. Correlations then were calculated between the composite scores and the alcoholics' background characteristics. Self-reported prior suicide attempts, severity of the current drinking problem, and being white were associated positively with depression. A stepwise multiple-regression analysis indicated that the self-reported occurrence of a prior suicide attempt was the only meaningful correlate. A combined cut-off score analysis of the BDI and Hamilton ratings indicated that 33.3% of the sample was moderately to severely depressed. The more depressed alcoholics were also more likely to have described previous suicide attempts.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Cognitive therapy of depression: theory and practice.

Cognitive therapy is based on the premise that cognition, the process of acquiring knowledge and forming beliefs, is a primary determinant of mood and behavior. After reviewing the basic theories of cognitive therapy, the authors discuss its application to the treatment of depression. They theorize that cognitive therapy can improve depressive mood and behavior by focusing on the depressed patient's cognitive disorder. This disorder includes impaired learning and memory function and a systematic negative bias in thinking. The authors note the encouraging results of preliminary outcome studies of this new treatment of depression; such results, they conclude, warrant further development and testing of cognitive therapy.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1983

Psychotherapy for opiate addicts.

An opportunity to receive a six-month course of professional psychotherapy in addition to paraprofessional counseling was offered to opiate addicts who were beginning a new treatment episode on a methadone maintenance program. The treatments offered were drug counseling alone (DC), counseling plus supportive-expressive psychotherapy (SE), or counseling plus cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy (CB). Sixty percent of patients meeting the study criteria expressed an interest in the psychotherapy program and 60% of these actually became engaged. One hundred and ten subjects completed the study intake procedure, were randomly assigned to one of the three treatment conditions and kept three or more appointments within the first six weeks of the project. A variety of outcome measures showed that patients in all three treatment groups improved. Patients receiving the additional psychotherapies improved in more areas and to a greater degree than those who received counseling alone. The specific improvements seen appear to be related to the focus of the therapy used. Patients with antisocial personality disorder, as defined by Research Diagnostic Criteria, did not benefit significantly from therapy, but those with depression did. Patients with high levels of psychiatric symptoms made many significant gains if they received additional therapy, but improved only in drug use if they received counseling alone. Patients in all three treatment groups having low levels of psychiatric symptoms improved significantly in many areas. We conclude that more than a third of opiate addicts in our treatment program are interested in psychotherapy and many of these can benefit from it. Certain administrative procedures appear necessary to maximize the chances that psychotherapy can be used effectively with drug addicted patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Comparison of the effects of cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy on hopelessness and self-concept.

The authors examined the effects of cognitive therapy and imipramine on hopelessness and self-concept in 35 unipolar nonpsychotic depressed outpatients who were treated with either modality over approximately 11 weeks. Compared with imipramine, cognitive therapy resulted in significantly greater improvements in hopelessness and more generalized gains in self-concept. Thus, cognitive therapy may offer a particular advantage in reducing hopelessness and improving low self-concept in depression.

Attitude↗
PubMed1981

Depressed outpatients treated with cognitive therapy or pharmacotherapy. A one-year follow-up.

Using a controlled, clinical-trial format, 44 nonpsychotic, nonbipolar, depressed outpatients were treated with cognitive therapy or imipramine hydrochloride over a 12-week period. Although both interventions were associated with significant reductions in levels of depression, the cognitive-therapy patients showed greater symptomatic improvement and a higher treatment-completion rate. A one-year naturalistic follow-up of the 35 subjects who completed the protocol revealed that although many of the patients had a variable clinical course, both original treatment groups remained generally well. Self-rated depressive symptomatology was significantly lower for those who, one year earlier, had completed cognitive therapy than for those who had been in the clinical trial's pharmacotherapy cell. While there were several other interesting trends in favor of the cognitive-therapy patients, none of the between-group differences were significant. The pragmatic and clinical implications of the followup results are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Differential effects of cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy on depressive symptoms.

Patterns of symptoms change were examined in 35 unipolar depressed outpatients treated with either cognitive therapy or pharmacotherapy (imipramine HCl). Cross-lagged panel analyses were used to evaluate the temporal relationships among changes in views of the self, hopelessness, mood, motivation and vegetative symptoms during treatment weeks 1-4. During cognitive therapy improvements in hopelessness, views of the self and mood generally preceded changes in vegetative and motivational symptoms. On the other hand, no consistent pattern of change was associated with pharmacotherapy. While these results are compatible with the notion that cognitive therapy initially alters negative thinking and mood, which secondarily leads to improvements in vegetative and motivational symptoms, further studies with a placebo or wait-list group are needed to determine if this is a unique effect of cognitive therapy.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1981

Depression, hopelessness, and suicidal intent among heroin addicts.

Heroin addicts have an exceedingly high rate of suicide. Recent studies with other clinical populations have found that hopelessness is a mediating variable between depression and suicidal behaviors. The present study attempted to discover if this same relationship held with heroin addicts. To test this relationship, 191 addicts were administered the Beck Depression Inventory, the Hopelessness Scale, and the Suicide Contemplation Scale. Suicide intent was found to be significantly correlated with hopelessness, but not with depression. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Adult↗