Biomedical subjects

H Merckelbach

Publications and source records attributed to H Merckelbach.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

It was not me: attribution of blame for criminal acts in psychiatric offenders.

The current article addresses the psychometric qualities of the German Version of Gudjonsson's Blame Attribution Inventory (GBAI), a self-report scale for measuring attribution of blame for crime. The GBAI was administered to a criminal sample of forensic and criminal inmates (n=107). Findings indicate that the German version of the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory possesses acceptable test-retest stability and good internal consistency. Factor analysis reproduced the three basic dimensions of the GBAI: external attribution, mental-element attribution, and guilt-feeling attribution. Forensic patients had higher mental-element attribution and guilt-feeling attribution scores than the prison inmates. Interestingly, sexual offenders who were prisoners, showed the lowest guilt-feeling attribution, while sexual offenders who were forensic patients had the highest guilt-feeling attribution scores. Since earlier research reported a tendency of faking good in sexual offenders, we suggest that the forensic sexual offenders may demonstrate a social desirable response tendency in an attempt to gain sympathy and/or earlier parole. All in all, our data show that the German version of the GBAI is a valuable tool for measuring attributional styles of offenders.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Enhanced memory performance on an internal-internal source monitoring test following acute psychosocial stress.

Research on the effect of acute stress and high levels of glucocorticoids on memory has largely focused on memory tasks involving the medial temporal lobe (e.g., declarative memory). Less is known, however, about the effects of stress and glucocorticoids on more strategic memory processes regulated by the prefrontal cortex (e.g., source monitoring). In the current study, the authors investigated whether exposure to acute psychosocial stress would result in altered source monitoring performance relative to the performance of a nonstressed control group. To this end, the authors assigned nonsmoking, healthy, young men to either a stress (n = 22) or a control (n = 18) condition, after which the men were given an internal source monitoring test. Results show that relative to control participants, stressed participants made fewer source monitoring errors. This study suggests that stress may have differential effects on memory, depending on whether the memory test is regulated by the prefrontal cortex or the medial temporal lobe.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

[Dissociative symptoms and sleep].

There is a widespread view among psychiatrists that dissociative experiences such as depersonalisation, derealisation, absorption, and psychogenic amnesia have a traumatic etiology. This view is subjected to a critical evaluation. We also discuss an alternative interpretation namely that dissociative experiences are caused by a labile sleep-wake rhythm. We evaluated this alternative view in two exploratory studies. In study 1 we looked at the relationship between the Dissociative Experience Scale (DES) and the Iowa Sleep Experiences Survey (ISES) and in study 2, we checked this relationship when the response bias was controlled for. Dissociative experiences (measured with the DES) correlated with the ISES. The correlation between DES and ISES remained completely intact even when we controlledfor response bias. Our findings show that dissociative symptoms are associated with typical sleep experiences such as nightmares and strange dreams. The association is not the by-product of the positive response bias which generally characterises persons with dissociative symptoms.

Circadian Rhythm↗

PubMed2005

[The causal relationship between dissociation and trauma. A critical review].

This article discusses the accepted view that trauma causes dissociation. We critically evaluate studies that explored this relationship and discuss their shortcomings. In addition, individual differences related to dissociative experiences are discussed. In doing so, we focus on their potential to create pseudo-correlations between dissociative symptoms and self-reports of childhood trauma. After concluding that the causal link between trauma and dissociation is far from self-evident or empirically substantiated, we suggest some avenues for further research.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Psychological characteristics of patients with newly developed psychogenic seizures.

OBJECTIVES: To assess psychopathological symptoms and history of childhood trauma in patients with newly developed psychogenic seizures. METHODS: Using validated scales, 178 patients from the general population diagnosed with newly developed seizures were assessed, at a point in time when the nature of their seizures was yet unknown to either doctors or patients. After standardised neurological examination, 138 patients were diagnosed with non-psychogenic seizures (NPS), while 40 patients were found to have psychogenic seizures (PS). To evaluate possible differences between the genders and the diagnostic groups, univariate analyses of variance were done. RESULTS: PS patients reported significantly more comorbid psychopathological complaints, dissociative experiences, anxiety, and self-reported childhood trauma than NPS patients. In addition, PS patients had lower quality of life ratings than NPS patients. These effects were not modulated by gender. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study indicate that patients with newly developed PS constitute a group with complex psychopathological features that warrant early detection and treatment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

[The German version of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology: SIMS].

The current article addresses the psychometric qualities of the German version of the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS), a self-report measure of malingering. The SIMS was administered to a heterogeneous sample of forensic patients (n=62) and undergraduate students (n=204). Within the student sample, some undergraduates were instructed to feign certain pathological conditions, while others were asked to respond honestly to the SIMS items. The findings indicate that the German version of the SIMS demonstrates adequate test-retest stability and internal consistency. In the patient sample, the SIMS was found to correlate strongly with manipulative and antisocial personality features. More specifically, SIMS scores were higher in sexually delinquent patients with antisocial personality disorders. Our findings support the SIMS as a valuable screening tool for malingering of psychiatric symptoms.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

The emotional reasoning heuristic in children.

A previous study by Arntz, Rauner, and Van den Hout (1995; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33, 917-925) has shown that adult anxiety patients tend to infer danger not only on the basis of objective danger information, but also on the basis of anxiety response information. The current study examined whether this so-called emotional reasoning phenomenon also occurs in children. Normal primary school children (N = 101) first completed scales tapping anxiety disorders symptoms, anxiety sensitivity, and trait anxiety. Next, they were asked to rate danger levels of scripts in which objective danger versus objective safety and anxiety response versus no anxiety response were systematically varied. Evidence was found for a general emotional reasoning effect. That is, children's danger ratings were not only a function of objective danger information, but also, in the case of objective safety scripts, by anxiety response information. This emotional reasoning effect was predicted by levels of anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety. More specifically, high levels of anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety were accompanied by a greater tendency to use anxiety-response information as an heuristic for assessing dangerousness of safety scripts. Implications of these findings are briefly discussed.

Anxiety↗

PubMed2003

Dissociative experiences are related to commissions in emotional memory.

Two rival hypotheses of the link between dissociative experiences and emotional memory were tested: 1) the defence mechanism hypothesis that assumes that dissociation promotes fragmentation of emotional memory; and 2) the fantasy proneness hypothesis that claims that because of its overlap with fantasy proneness, dissociation is related to commissions in emotional memory. Undergraduates scoring high (n = 19) or low (n = 19) on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) listened to an aversive story. Next, a free recall task was administered. While high dissociators made more commission errors in their free recall than did low dissociators, fantasy proneness did not account for this difference.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

[The connection between trauma and dissociation: a critical evaluation].

Dissociation is often considered to be a psychological defense mechanism used by victims of traumatic events (e. g., sexual abuse, physical punishment, or emotional abuse). Evidence for this view comes from studies that found a connection between self-reported traumatic childhood experiences and high levels of dissociation. However, there are some problems with this causal interpretation. The aim of this review is to summarize evidence that casts doubts on the commonly voiced view that the connection between self-reported trauma and dissociation is a simple and robust one. First, we briefly summarize studies that looked at the link between trauma and dissociation as well as studies that identified factors that may modulate this link. Second, we review studies that explored the psychological correlates of dissociation. Over the past few years, our knowledge of these correlates has increased considerably. Some of these correlates (e. g., fantasy proneness, suggestibility, and frontal lobe dysfunction) are especially relevant because they may undermine the accuracy of retrospective self-reports of trauma. Finally, we conclude that the link between trauma and dissociation is more complex than many clinicians seem to assume. In particular, the possibility that dissociation acts as an antecedent of self-reported trauma warrants serious attention.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

The other side of malingering: supernormality.

Supernormality refers to the tendency to systematically deny the presence of common symptoms (e.g., intrusive thoughts). The current article describes the psychometric qualities of a 37-item self-report measure of supernormality (i.e., Supernormality Scale; SS). The SS was administered to nonclinical individuals (n=95), noncriminal psychiatric patients (n=28), nonpsychiatric delinquents (n=49), and a heterogeneous sample of forensic patients (n=59). Within the healthy control sample, some employees were instructed to feign supernormal behaviour, while others were asked to respond honestly to SS items. Findings indicate that the SS demonstrates adequate test-retest stability and internal consistency. In the forensic patient sample, elevated SS scores were significant related to denial of intrusive thoughts in a thought suppression paradigm. However, accuracy parameters for the SS (i.e., sensitivity and specificity) showed that there is room for improvement. Nevertheless, our findings indicate that the SS might be a useful research tool for measuring denial of common symptoms.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Psychiatric comorbidity of gender identity disorders: a survey among Dutch psychiatrists.

OBJECTIVE: In the Netherlands, it is considered good medical practice to offer patients with gender identity disorder the option to undergo hormonal and surgical sex reassignment therapy. A liberalization of treatment guidelines now allows for such treatment to be started at puberty or prepuberty. The question arises as to what extent gender identity disorder can be reliably distinguished from a cross-gender identification that is secondary to other psychiatric disorders. METHOD: The authors sent survey questionnaires to 382 board-certified Dutch psychiatrists regarding their experiences with diagnosing and treating patients with gender identity disorder. RESULTS: One hundred eighty-six psychiatrists responded to the survey. These respondents reported on 584 patients with cross-gender identification. In 225 patients (39%), gender identity disorder was regarded as the primary diagnosis. For the remaining 359 patients (61%), cross-gender identification was comorbid with other psychiatric disorders. In 270 (75%) of these 359 patients, cross-gender identification was interpreted as an epiphenomenon of other psychiatric illnesses, notably personality, mood, dissociative, and psychotic disorders. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that there is little consensus, at least among Dutch psychiatrists, about diagnostic features of gender identity disorder or about the minimum age at which sex reassignment therapy is a safe option. Therapy options proposed to patients with gender identity disorder appear to depend on personal preferences of psychiatrists. These results underline the need for more specific diagnostic rules in this area.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

What is the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children measuring?

The Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R) is a widely used self-report questionnaire that purports to measure the number of fears and the overall level of fearfulness in children. A number of studies have shown that the ten most common childhood fears can be found on the Danger and Death subscale of the FSSC-R, with upwards of 50% of children endorsing such fears. However, some researchers (e.g., H. McCathie & S.H. Spence, 1991; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29, 495-502) have questioned the validity of these findings, suggesting that these items do not reflect actual childhood fears that children have or experience on a daily or regular basis. Rather, they suggest that children are responding to these fear items as if they were actually occurring to them in the here and now. The current study examined the occurrence of five Danger and Death fears from the FSSC-R (i.e., "Not being able to breathe", "Being hit by a car or truck", "Falling from high places", "Bombing attacks or being invaded", and "Fire or getting burned") in a sample of normal school children aged eight to 12 years (N=102). More specifically, we used three different methods to asses these fears: (1). prevalence as determined by the standard FSSC-R procedure, (2). prevalence as determined by a fear list procedure, and (3). actual occurrence or prevalence of these fears in the past week, as determined by a diary method. Results indicated that while these fears ranked high when using the standard FSSC-R procedure, they were considerably less common when using the fear list procedure, and had a low probability of actual occurrence on a daily basis, as well as possessing a short duration and low intensity. Implications for the assessment of fears and the use of self-report measures like the FSSC-R are briefly discussed.

Child↗

PubMed2002

Prediction of aggression on a locked psychiatric admissions ward.

OBJECTIVE: The present study evaluates the accuracy of clinical and archival predictors of patients' aggressive behaviour on a locked admissions ward. METHOD: Over a 9-month period, staff members estimated the likelihood that patients would become aggressive during their stay in the ward. These unaided clinical assessments were obtained with Visual Analogue Scales (VASs) administered before the end of the first full day of admission. Archival predictions were based on demographic variables (e.g. gender, number of previous admissions, diagnosis) derived from patients' admission forms. Aggressive behaviour was recorded with the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R). RESULTS: Clinical predictions of aggression were found to be moderately accurate. On the basis of clinical estimates, 75% of the patients were correctly classified as becoming aggressive or not. CONCLUSION: Although a body of evidence indicates that unaided clinical prediction of violent recidivism after hospital discharge does not perform well, it may be quite accurate in estimating short-term aggression risks during acute psychiatric admission.

Aggression↗

PubMed2001

Another White Christmas: fantasy proneness and reports of 'hallucinatory experiences' in undergraduate students.

In the current experiment, 44 undergraduate students were asked to listen to white noise and instructed to press a button when they believed hearing a recording of Bing Crosby's White Christmas without this record actually being presented. Fourteen participants (32%) pressed the button at least once. These participants had higher scores on fantasy proneness and the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) compared to participants without hallucinatory reports. Both groups did not differ in terms of imagery vividness or sensitivity to social demands. Logistic regression suggested that fantasy proneness is a better predictor of hallucinatory reports than are LSHS scores. This might imply that hallucinatory reports obtained during the White Christmas test reflect a non-specific preference for odd items rather than schizophrenia-like, internal experiences.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Correlates of autobiographical memory specificity: the role of depression, anxiety and childhood trauma.

The present study examined the role of childhood trauma, major depressive disorder (MDD), and anxiety disorder (AD) in overgeneral autobiographical memory. Ninety-three outpatients and 24 healthy controls completed a childhood trauma questionnaire and an autobiographical memory test (AMT). Results showed that MDD diagnosis rather than trauma history predicted AMT-performance. Memory specificity was not related to AD diagnosis, recovered MDD, or self-rated depression severity. The present findings cast doubts on theories that emphasize the role of childhood trauma in overgeneral autobiographical memory.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

The thought-action fusion scale: further evidence for its reliability and validity.

Thought-action fusion (TAF) refers to a set of cognitive biases that are thought to play a role in the development of obsessional phenomena. To measure these biases, R. Shafran, D. S. Thordarson, and S. Rachman (1996; Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 10, 379-391) developed the TAF-scale. They concluded that the TAF-scale possesses adequate psychometric qualities. The current study sought to further explore the reliability and validity of the TAF-scale. Results indicate that the TAF-scale has good internal consistency. TAF-scores correlated with self-reports of obsessional problems. Furthermore, mean scores in a mixed sample of anxiety disordered patients were higher than those in a normal sample. However, temporal consistency was somewhat disappointing. Also, the question remains whether TAF is specific to obsessive-compulsive disorder or taps more pervasive biases that play a role in a variety of disorders.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Thought-action fusion and thought suppression in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

To examine the significance of thought-action fusion (TAF) and thought suppression tendencies, the present study obtained pre- and post-treatment questionnaire data on these constructs in a sample of OCD patients (n=24) and non-OCD anxiety patients (n=20). Results indicate that TAF and suppression are correlated with severity of psychopathology. Yet, the associations between TAF and psychopathology are not typical for OCD, but do also occur in other anxiety disorders (e.g., panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and social phobia). As well, mean scores on the TAF and thought suppression measures dropped significantly from pre- to post-treatment, indicating that TAF and thought suppression are susceptible to change during psychotherapy.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Thought-action fusion and anxiety disorders symptoms in normal adolescents.

The present study examined thought-action fusion (TAF) in a large sample of normal adolescents (n=427). Participants completed the Thought-Action Fusion Questionnaire for Adolescents (TAFQ-A) and scales measuring trait anxiety, symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, other anxiety disorders, and depression. Results showed that the TAFQ-A is a reliable instrument assessing two dimensions of TAF, viz. Morality (i.e., the belief that unacceptable thoughts are morally equivalent to overt actions) and Likelihood (i.e., the belief that thinking of an unacceptable or disturbing situation will increase the probability that that situation actually occurs). Furthermore, TAF was not only associated with symptoms of OCD, but also with symptoms of other anxiety disorders and depression. However, when controlling for levels of trait anxiety, most connections between TAF and anxiety disorders symptoms disappeared. Symptoms of OCD and generalised anxiety remained significantly related to TAF. Altogether, the data are supportive of the notion that TAF is involved in a broad range of anxiety disorders and in particular OCD.

Adolescent↗