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C C Berry

Publications and source records attributed to C C Berry.

81 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1979

Health status index: category rating versus magnitude estimation for measuring levels of well-being.

Levels of Well-Being are social preferences, or weights that members of society associate with time-specific states of function. A Weighted Life Expectancy, which can be used to measure program outputs, is created by summing the levels across diverse cases and multiplying them by probable transitions (prognoses) among the states and levels. This operation requires however, that the Levels of Well-Being be measured on underlying metric scale. The present analysis compares preference measurements from a simple category rating procedure with those obtained using the more complex and difficult magnitude estimation method which has been claimed to yield ratio level measures. In a randomly counterbalanced design, 65 college students rated 30 case descriptions representing the range of the Well-Being continuum. The results exhibit the classical logarithmic relation observed for a prothetic continua. When transformed to a meaningful 0-1 unit scale, however, the magnitude responses are compressed at the lower end of the scale near death. Such results are inconsistent not only with category rating, but also with intuitive notions of the relative importance of the function states, with the results of rating procedures that simulate social choice, and with evidence that confirms the interval properties of the category ratings themselves. Furthermore, the ease of administration of category rating means that multiple attributes of cases can be considered jointly, avoiding the need to aggregate scale values for different attributes by arbitrary rules. In sum, magnitude estimation is inappropriate as a measurement method for a Health Status Index and is probably also inappropriate for other measures of utility and social choice.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1976

Health status: types of validity and the index of well-being.

The concept of validity as it applies to measures of health and health status is examined in the context of a set of standard, widely accepted definitions of validity. Criterion validity is shown to be irrelevant to health status measures because of the lack of a single specific, directly observable measure of health for use as a criterion. To overcome this problem, the Index of Well-being has been constructed to fulfill the definition of content validity by including all levels of function and symptom/problem complexes, a clearly defined relation to the death state, and consumer ratings of the relative desirability of the function levels. Data from a two-wave household interview survey provide convergent evidence of construct validity by demonstrating an expected positive correlation of the Index of Well-being with self-rated well-being and expected negative correlations with age, number of chronic medical conditions, number of reported symptoms or problems, number of physician contacts, and dysfunctional status. Discriminant evidence of construct validity is demonstrated by predicted differences in correlation between concurrent Index of Well-being scores and self-assessed overall health status, and between the Index of Well-being scores and self-rated well-being on different days. A simple method of estimating a currently usable comprehensive population index of health status, the Weighted Life Expectancy, is described.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Prevalence of postburn depression following burn injury.

We examined the prevalence of depression after burn injury in 139 adults treated at a major burn center. Interviews were held from one to eight years following the burn. Our subsample, taken from 882 patients treated over a six-year period, comprised all patients with 30% total body surface area burns and a random sample of those with burns of lesser severity. We considered 17 possible predictors of depression (including the severity and placement of the burn and the patient's age, educational background, medical history, employment status, income level, and emotional and psychiatric history). We found that it is the person, rather than the injury, that best predicts postburn depression. The factor most strongly linked with depression was a past history of emotional disturbance. However, after being burned, a significant number of even previously well-adjusted patients show clinical postburn depression.

Adjustment Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Beta-adrenergic receptors predict heart rate reactivity to a psychosocial stressor.

We examined the ability of baseline measures of receptors (lymphocyte beta-adrenergic) and nonreceptors (plasma catecholamines, heart rate, and blood pressure) to predict cardiovascular responses to a mental arithmetic task. Twenty-five male volunteers served as subjects. Nonreceptor measures predicted the heart rate response to stress poorly (p = 0.67). However, beta receptor density and sensitivity explained 48.4% of the variance in heart rate response (p = 0.007). When both receptor and nonreceptor measures were used together, they predicted 76.6% of the variance (p = 0.005), which was more than was explained by either receptor or nonreceptor baseline measurements alone (p = 0.001). Receptor measures may thus greatly improve the prediction of reactivity.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neuropsychological effects of one-week continuous positive airway pressure treatment in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a placebo-controlled study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether 1-week continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment, compared with placebo CPAP, improves cognitive functioning in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). METHODS: 36 OSA patients (aged 32-60 years, respiratory disturbance index [RDI] > 15) were monitored 2 nights with polysomnography, then randomized for 1-week treatment to CPAP or placebo (CPAP at 2 cm H2O with holes in mask). Participants completed Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Symbol and Digit Span, Trailmaking A/B, Digit Vigilance, Stroop Color-Word, Digit Ordering, and Word Fluency tests pre- and posttreatment. These produced 22 scores per participant, which were analyzed by use of repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a rank-sum test. RESULTS: In ANOVA, only 1 of the 22 scores showed significant changes specific to CPAP treatment, a number that could be expected by chance alone: Digit Vigilance-Time (p = .035). The CPAP group improved their time (from 7.5 to 6.9 minutes. p = .013). The rank-sum test revealed that the CPAP group had significantly better overall cognitive functioning posttreatment than the placebo group (mean ranks of 17.8 vs. 20.2, respectively; p = .022). CONCLUSIONS: Although results suggest overall cognitive improvement due to CPAP, no beneficial effects in any specific cognitive domain were found. Future studies of neuropsychological effects of CPAP treatment should include a placebo CPAP control group. Placebo studies that use longer-term treatment might demonstrate additional effects. It is also possible that, even at 2 cm H2O, CPAP conveys some beneficial neuropsychological effects.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Which adolescent experimenters progress to established smoking in the United States.

INTRODUCTION: This study examined the adolescent smoking uptake process, specifically, the progression from experimentation to established smoking. Although adolescent smoking uptake has been described as consisting of five stages (preparation, initial trying, experimentation, regular smoking, and addiction), there is no accepted method of identifying which experimenters will proceed to become addicted. METHODS: Using a nationally representative sample of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 at baseline, we examined their transition from experimentation (had at least a puff but has not smoked 100 cigarettes) to established smoking (smoked at least 100 cigarettes in lifetime) four years later. RESULTS: At follow-up, 31% of the experimenters at baseline had progressed to established smoking. Baseline level of smoking experience was the strongest independent predictor of established smoking, with current experimenters (smoked in the past 30 days but less than 100 cigarettes in lifetime) having the greatest risk of progressing to established smoking compared to puffers (puffed but have not smoked a whole cigarette). Furthermore, this effect was modified by age; older current experimenters at baseline had more than double the risk of younger current experimenters of progressing to established smoking at follow-up. Absence of a firm commitment not to smoke was a significant predictor among older experimenters but not in younger experimenters. Other important predictors of the transition from experimentation to established smoking were exposure to other smokers and perceived school performance. CONCLUSIONS: We found that, even among experimenters, there is an identifiable group of adolescents who are at higher risk of progressing to established smoking that can be targeted for intervention.

Adolescent↗