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Biomedical subjects

E S Schaefer

Publications and source records attributed to E S Schaefer.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1988

Validation of key Denver Developmental Screening Test items: a preliminary study.

Three sequential studies were undertaken to identify a subset of 39 key Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) items covering the ages from birth to 6 years. The first study used binary integer programming with a sample of 2343 children evaluated with the DDST in Denver's Neighborhood Health Program. It identified 35 DDST items that would identify 100% abnormal and 97.9% abnormal and questionable DDSTs. A further validation with 113 Pitt County, North Carolina, children indicated that the addition of four more DDST items to the previous 35 would identify 100% abnormal and 92.6% abnormal and questionable DDSTs. A third study cross-validating the 39 items with a sample of 180 children at "high risk" identified 100% abnormal and 91.7% abnormal and questionable DDSTs. The 39 key DDST items ranged throughout the entire age span and among the DDST's four sectors. Use requires the administration of approximately four items at any one age, on average. Those children with suspect scores on the key DDST items (about 19% of a low-income population) should be screened with the remainder of the DDST to decrease overreferrals. For accuracy, the key DDST items must be administered in the manner prescribed in the DDST manual.

Child↗
PubMed1987

Quality and quantity of social support as correlates of psychosomatic symptoms in mothers with young children.

Associations between psychosomatic symptoms and two measures of social support, the quantity of social ties and the quality of primary intimate relationships, were investigated. The sample consisted of 214 predominantly low-income mothers of young children. The quality of relationships with family members was inversely associated with psychosomatic symptoms, whereas the quality of husband and boyfriend relationships was not. In contrast, the quantity of social ties was inversely related to psychosomatic symptoms among all the women. The quantity of social ties, the quality of relationships as modified by type of intimate, and the baseline level of symptoms measured five years earlier were significant predictors of psychosomatic symptoms among this sample of women.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Stability and predictability of quality of women's marital relationships and demoralization.

This longitudinal study was motivated by cross-sectional, clinical, and survey research on marital relationships and individual well-being. Perceptions of husbands' behavior toward themselves and self-reports of demoralization were collected from 51 low-income women during their children's kindergarten year and 3 years later. Longitudinal correlations of specific components and aggregated scores of perceptions of husbands' behavior and of demoralization revealed significant stability. Both initial and later marital relationship scores had higher correlations with later than with initial demoralization scores. Longitudinal correlations and multiple regression analysis supported the hypothesis that initial marital relationship would predict later demoralization. Quality of perceived marital relationship apparently has different immediate and long-term effects on components of individual adjustment. Integrated longitudinal studies of relationships and personality and their intercorrelations are needed to understand stability and change in adult personality and well-being.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1987

Maternal prenatal, infancy and concurrent predictors of maternal reports of child psychopathology.

RESEARCH on parent perceptions of infant temperament and child maladjustment has evolved from an initial interpretation of parent reports as objective, veridical descriptions of the child to an interpretation of parent reports as social perceptions that reflect both objective qualities of children and personality characteristics of parents (Bates 1983). Evidence that parents' descriptions reflect generalized behavior of their children is provided by modest correlations between parent and teacher reports of child behavior (Becker and Krug 1964; Glidewell et al. 1959; Rutter et al. 1970). Although limited agreement of parents and teachers in descriptions of child behavior might be interpreted as evidence of situational specificity of behavior (Mischel 1968), an alternative interpretation is that characteristics of parents influence their perceptions of child behavior. This longitudinal study tests hypotheses that maternal characteristics during pregnancy and infancy, prior to the development of stable child characteristics, predict mothers' reports of child psychopathology during the kindergarten year.

Child↗
PubMed1980

Hospital and home support during infancy: impact on maternal attachment, child abuse and neglect, and health care utilization.

Effects of early and extended postpartum contact and paraprofessional home visits on maternal attachment, reports of child abuse and neglect, and health care utilization were determined by random assignment of 321 low-income women to intervention or control groups immediately after delivery. Observations of maternal attachment were made at four months and 12 months. Hospital, health and welfare agency records, and interviews were used to determine reports of child abuse and neglect and health care utilization. After establishing a control for maternal background variables, early and extended contact explained statistically significant but small amounts of variance in several of the attachment measures. There were no statistically significant effects of the home visit interventions on maternal attachment, and neither intervention was related to reports of child abuse and neglect and health care utilization. Although the study supported earlier findings that early and extended contact has a significant effect, additional interventions are needed to support mother-infant attachment.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Risk factors for low birth weight in a rural community in southern Brazil].

This paper reports a study assessing risk factors for low birth weight (LBW), preterm and intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) in a sample of 936 mothers who delivered babies in the Canguçu Hospital, a rural area of southern Brazil. Traditional risk factors for delivering LBW, preterm and IUGR were examined. The relative importance of the risk factors was studied through risk calculation and logistic regression analysis. Some risk factors for LBW such as low maternal education and number of prenatal consultations were not associated with the risk of delivering babies in any of the three risk groups. Hospitalization during pregnancy and maternal age less than 20 years were confirmed as risk factors for LBW. In the preterm group, low maternal weight and hospitalization during pregnancy showed significant association after control for confounders. The results suggest that there are specific targets for intervention in each of the three groups, and some traditional risk factors must be redefined according to the characteristics of each population.

English Abstract↗