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Biomedical subjects

Frank P Deane

Publications and source records attributed to Frank P Deane.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

The Driving Cognitions Questionnaire: development and preliminary psychometric properties.

Recent research has suggested that fear of driving is common in the general population. People may have various concerns when driving, and instruments for the assessment of these concerns are lacking. The present paper describes the development and preliminary evaluation of the Driving Cognitions Questionnaire (DCQ). The DCQ is a 20-item scale that measures three areas of driving-related concerns--panic-related, accident-related, and social concerns. In three separate samples from different countries (n=69, 100, and 78), the scale showed good internal consistency and substantial correlations with measures of the severity of driving fear. It discriminated well between people with and without driving phobia. It also showed convergent validity with other measures. The questionnaire shows promise for use in research and clinical practice.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2006

Driving fear and driving skills: comparison between fearful and control samples using standardised on-road assessment.

The present study explores driving skills in a group of 50 media-recruited driving-fearful and 50 control drivers, all of whom were women. Participants completed an on-road practical driving assessment with a professional driving instructor. Diagnostic as well as pre-post self-report and instructor driving assessments were conducted. Fearful drivers made more errors on the driving assessment than controls. However, the pattern of errors was identical for both groups, indicating that fear and anxiety may be associated with the number rather than the type of driving errors made. These differences remained when factors such as driving history, current driving frequency, and diagnosis were controlled using case selection. More research is needed to replicate the findings in more diverse samples. Additional work should also aim to clarify the specific role of driving skills in driving fear, which will facilitate treatment planning for exposure-based treatments and help identify cases where driving skills assessment may be appropriate.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2006

Social-cognitive determinants of help-seeking for mental health problems among prison inmates.

BACKGROUND: Prisoners experience high rates of mental health problems and suicidal behaviours. Failure to seek help may exacerbate these problems and limit opportunities to participate in offending-related programmes. AIMS: To assess whether prisoners'; intentions to seek help for a personal-emotional problem, including suicidal feelings, can be predicted using variables from the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). These TPB variables were supplemented by measures of emotional distress, prior contact with a psychologist and demographic variables. METHODS: Male inmates from six New Zealand prisons were asked to participate, with approximately 50% (n = 527) of those who initially expressed an interest in the study completing the self-report questionnaire. Most participants completed the questionnaire in small-group meetings in the prison units and returned them to the researchers immediately after completion.Results On average, participants reported higher levels of current emotional distress than comparison student samples. TPB variables predicted help-seeking intentions for suicidality and personal-emotional problems. Those with prior contact with prison psychologists had lower intentions to seek help for suicidal feelings than prisoners without such contact. Older prisoners, those with more years of education, and those who had previous contact with a psychologist outside prison tended to have higher intentions to seek psychological help. CONCLUSIONS: Social-cognitive factors predicted intentions to seek help among New Zealand prisoners but prison-specific issues, such as relative reluctance to seek help when suicidal and reluctance to seek help from prison psychologists, were also identified. Implications for practice Prisoners'; access to services could be improved, for example, through directly working on attitudinal barriers. Strategies to ensure access to specialized forensic mental health in-reach services could also be an alternative or additional route to ensure that this disadvantaged group seeks appropriate help.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Challenges in implementing evidence-based practice into mental health services.

This paper highlights challenges in implementing mental health policy at a service delivery level. It describes an attempt to foster greater application of recovery-orientated principles and practices within mental health services. Notwithstanding a highly supportive policy environment, strong support from service administrators, and an enthusiastic staff response to training, application of the training and support tools was weaker than anticipated. This paper evaluates the dissemination trial against key elements to promote sustained adoption of innovations. Organisational and procedural changes are required before mental health policies are systematically implemented in practice.

Australia↗
PubMed2006

Effectiveness of a collaborative recovery training program in Australia in promoting positive views about recovery.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the impact of a two-day, recovery-based training program for mental health workers on knowledge, attitudes, and hopefulness related to the recovery prospects of people with enduring mental illness. METHODS: A self-report pre-post training repeated-measures design was used with 248 mental health workers from the community-based government health sector (N=147) and nongovernment organizations (N= 101) in eastern Australia. RESULTS: Staff attitudes and hopefulness improved after training. Trainees significantly increased their knowledge regarding principles of recovery and belief in the effectiveness of collaboration and consumer autonomy support, motivation enhancement, needs assessment, goal striving, and homework use. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary evidence indicates that staff recovery orientation can improve with minimal training.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Collaborative goal technology: theory and practice.

Goal striving promotes hope and enhances motivation, which is important for psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery. The Collaborative Goal Technology (CGT) is a new goal striving intervention that is used to support the autonomy and recovery processes of the person with a psychiatric disability. The CGT protocol and its utility are outlined. Theory and research from goal striving, motivation and mental health recovery domains that informed the development of CGT are described. A case example is also provided.

Case Management↗
PubMed2005

Can hopelessness and adolescents' beliefs and attitudes about seeking help account for help negation?

Avoidance of appropriate help is common in acutely suicidal samples and has been confirmed in nonclinical samples but factors that contribute to this help negation effect remain unclear. In a sample of 269 nonclinical Australian high school students, the current study examines the impact of hopelessness, previous mental health care, beliefs, and attitudes toward professional psychological help on the help negation relationship. Results revealed that suicidal ideation significantly predicted lower help seeking intentions and that although hopelessness could not explain the help negation effect, it moderated the effect for seeking help from family. They also revealed that although previous mental health care was unable to explain the effect fully for professional mental health sources, beliefs and attitudes about professional psychological help could. Implications of the findings for prevention, primary health care, and professional psychological practice are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

A national survey of practicing psychologists' use and attitudes toward homework in psychotherapy.

Homework assignments have been studied extensively in psychotherapy research, but there is little data on the way in which homework is transferred to clinical practice. A survey was conducted of 827 practicing psychologists nationwide regarding their use and attitudes toward homework. Overall, 68% of the present sample indicated that they "often" or "almost always" used homework assignments. Factor analysis revealed that practitioners have a range of attitudes that can be classified as reflecting the notion that homework has (a) a negative impact on in-session therapeutic work and (b) a positive effect on therapy outcomes. More positive attitudes were reported among those with a cognitive-behavioral theoretical orientation. Nevertheless, the use of homework among psychodynamic/analytic practitioners reported in the present sample was unexpected and suggests that theoretical and empirical work is required to examine homework's effects in a range of psychotherapy approaches.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2004

Assessing compliance with homework assignments: review and recommendations for clinical practice.

Despite the emphasis of homework assignments in psychotherapy research and practice, methods to assess homework compliance have been relatively neglected. This article presents a brief review of 32 studies that described the assessment of homework compliance, and evaluated homework compliance in relation to treatment outcome. More than half of the studies relied on a single source of compliance data (n = 23), eight studies involved retrospective accounts, and only four studies used the same measure of homework compliance. The vast majority of studies focused on the assessment of "homework compliance" without consideration of the "quality of homework completion" or other key factors. A more comprehensive framework for homework compliance is discussed, and a new Homework Rating Scale (HRS) is proposed as the first step towards assisting the field in a more reliable and valid assessment of homework compliance.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

General practitioners' detection and management of patients with a dual diagnosis: implications for education and training.

General practitioners (GPs) are in a unique position to detect and manage patients with co-morbid mental health and substance use disorders (dual diagnosis). It has been estimated that over 30% of patients presenting to general practice have a diagnosable mental disorder and 12% have dual diagnosis. Unfortunately, between 30 and 50% of these problems go undetected in general practice. Limited GP education and training in mental health may account for this deficit, with a little over 8% of GPs receiving any formal postgraduate training in mental health. Prior to developing an educational resource for GPs, the present study aimed to establish baseline estimates of GP treatment practices with patients who have dual diagnosis. Two GP division-wide surveys of screening, assessment and treatment for dual diagnosis were conducted one year apart. In addition, five GPs conducted a clinical audit of 508 patient consultations. Results indicate that without ongoing targeted interventions, patient management activities such as GP counselling, use of screening devices, referral to specialist services, coordination and use of EPC items are not likely to improve and are at risk of declining.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Enhancing medication adherence: clinician outcomes from the Medication Alliance training program.

OBJECTIVE: Patient nonadherence to psychiatric medication is a key cause of relapse but clinicians do not appear to possess specific adherence skills. We sought to demonstrate that a brief training program on medication adherence strategies could improve the adherence skills, attitudes and knowledge of mental health clinicians. METHODS: Twenty-three Tasmanian mental health workers were provided a 3 day training workshop on strategies to enhance patient adherence to medications (Medication Alliance). Pre- and post-training measures were taken of clinician knowledge about adherence strategies, ability to identify predictors of nonadherence, attitudes toward working with nonadherent patients, and optimism about treatment outcomes for patients. Videotapes of clinicians demonstrating key adherence therapy skills were also collected before and after training and blind-rated by two experienced therapists. RESULTS: A series of paired samples t-tests indicated significant improvements in skills, knowledge and attitudes. CONCLUSIONS: Compared with similar studies in the UK, Medication Alliance was found to be an effective and efficient training program. However, there is a need for further research to assess maintenance of training effects over time and patient outcomes.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Client and therapist reasons for termination: a conceptualization and preliminary validation.

While the comparison of client and therapist reasons for termination might shed light on their respective views of outcome and process, only one published study has examined directly the reasons given by therapist-client pairs. One barrier to such research is the absence of a systematic conceptualization of reasons for termination that incorporates both therapist and client perspectives. This article describes a comprehensive conceptualization, drawn from the existing literature, and applies a coding system based on that conceptualization to naturalistic clinical data from 123 therapist-client pairs in a psychology training clinic. Coders were able to categorize reliably open-ended client data into reasons for termination. For therapist and client data, the relationships between coding categories and participants' outcome ratings, generally were consistent with expectations, providing limited validation. Some support was found for concordance between therapist and client reasons, especially for those related to therapist or client departures, which were prominent in this setting. As expected, however, therapists were more likely than clients to endorse success as a reason for termination. Negative client feelings about therapy, including dissatisfaction, were reported infrequently as reasons for termination, and with little agreement between clients and therapists, but this may be due to methodological limitations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

What influences patients' medication adherence? Mental health nurse perspectives and a need for education and training.

This paper explores the role of mental health nurses in medication adherence and their perspective of what influences patients' medication non-adherence. Forty-eight mental health nurses with active patient caseloads completed a comprehensive questionnaire assessing a number of variables related to medications, including whom they felt was primarily responsible for monitoring the side-effects of medication, their knowledge skills and confidence in dealing with medication adherence and their prior education and training in medication adherence strategies. Lack of patient insight was endorsed as the strongest influence on patient non-adherence. Over 84% of nurses indicated they did not have any prior education or training in medication adherence strategies. Implications of the findings for education and training and nurses' roles in supporting medication adherence are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Sources of information when rating the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales.

Mental health nurses will play an important role in the administration of the routine outcome measures currently being implemented across Australia, including the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS). Prior research has implied that sources of information may be responsible in part for the mixed reliability and validity of the HoNOS. This study examines which sources of information clinicians use when making a HoNOS rating. Twenty-one mental health clinicians that had been using the HoNOS routinely for 2 years were surveyed to determine the sources of information they used when making a rating. In addition, 12 specific HoNOS ratings were reviewed to obtain data about 'actual' sources utilized. More than half of all information used when completing a HoNOS rating was obtained from interviewing the client or from direct observation of the client. The main secondary sources used included medical records and consulting with family and carers and other staff. Collateral information from general practitioners and police was used in only a small percentage of cases. There was high variability amongst clinicians with regard to how much each source was used. Training mental health workers in routine use of the HoNOS should encourage clinicians to use a range of sources of information when making a rating.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Development of a short form of the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI).

The Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) is widely used in research and practical settings and has particular application to the assessment and treatment of test anxiety in student populations. However, there are a number of instances in which a short version of the TAI would be more appropriate, especially when time constraints preclude the use of the full form. Similar short forms have been developed for other measures such as the State scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; T. M. Marteau & H. Bekker, 1992). The authors of the present study aimed to develop a short form of the TAI. The TAI was completed by 333 undergraduate psychology students. Item-remainder correlations were used to compare short forms with varying numbers of items. Internal consistency and concurrent and construct validity were assessed in hypothetical and actual examination conditions. A 5-item short form produced optimal reliability and validity, and a balance of items from the Worry and Emotionality subscales of the TAI. Further research is needed to replicate these results, but the 5-item short form of the TAI shows promise, particularly for contexts in which time demands preclude the use of longer versions.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Effects of videotaped preparatory information on expectations, anxiety, and psychotherapy outcome.

This study examined whether preparation decreases clients' state anxiety and improves therapy outcome and clarified the relations among preparation, expectations, and state anxiety. Ss were 138 adults referred for outpatient psychotherapy. Half of the Ss viewed an 11-min preparatory videotape, while the control group waited an equivalent period before their 1st appointment. Pre-post measures confirmed that Ss who viewed the videotape had more accurate expectations about psychotherapy and lower levels of state anxiety than the control Ss. However, at 2-month follow-up, the prepared group had significantly better outcomes on only 1 of 10 outcome measures. It is suggested that more powerful designs may be necessary to detect long-term effects of preparation and that the short-term benefits demonstrated warrant further study.

Adolescent↗