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Biomedical subjects

R J Kirkby

Publications and source records attributed to R J Kirkby.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Epidemiology of injury in elite and subelite female gymnasts: a comparison of retrospective and prospective findings.

OBJECTIVES: An 18 month prospective injury survey was conducted on 64 Australian elite and subelite female gymnasts. The aims were to determine the rate of injury, anatomical location, and types of injury incurred by female competitive gymnasts, and to compare the findings with data collected retrospectively from the same sample of gymnasts. METHODS: The gymnasts recorded (weekly) in an injury record booklet the number of hours trained and information on any injuries suffered over that week. RESULTS: The sample reported 349 injuries, a rate of 5.45 per person (6.29 for the elite and 4.95 for subelite gymnasts) over the 18 month survey. Injuries to the ankle and foot (31.2%) were the most commonly reported, followed by the lower back (14.9%). The most prevalent type of injury were sprains (29.7%), followed by strains (23.2%), and growth plate injuries (12.3%). The elite gymnasts reported that, for each injury, they missed fewer training sessions (p = 0.01), but modified more sessions (p = 0.0001) than their subelite counterparts. Further, the elite gymnasts spent 21.0% of the year training at less than full capacity because of injury. Although a significantly higher number of injuries were recorded in the prospective study (p = 0.0004), no differences were found between the distribution of injury by anatomical location or type between the two methods of data collection. CONCLUSIONS: The findings have important implications in terms of training procedures and periodic screening of gymnasts.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Precompetition anxiety in Chinese athletes.

Precompetition anxiety and self-confidence were investigated in a sample of 132 male and 103 female Shanghai college athletes. The participants were administered the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 of Martens, et al. 30 to 40 min. before competing in important track and field events or basketball games. Analysis by independent t tests showed that there were no sex differences in scores on the Cognitive Anxiety, Somatic Anxiety, or Self-confidence subscales; however, compared to those in team sports (basketball), athletes competing individually (track and field) scored significantly higher on the Somatic Anxiety subscale and significantly lower on the Self-confidence subscale. Comparisons with data from comparable North American samples indicated that Chinese athletes reported lower scores on Cognitive Anxiety and Somatic Anxiety but similar scores on Self-confidence.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1999

Participation motives of young Australian and Chinese gymnasts.

Reasons for participating in gymnastics were investigated with 280 Australian and 103 Chinese youth. The participants, aged 8 to 15 years, completed modified versions of the Participation Motivation Questionnaire. Treatment of the scores by principal components analysis yielded seven factors. Further analyses showed that the samples differed significantly on six of these factors. Comparisons of individual items indicated that the Australian gymnasts rated having fun and liking the rewards as more important than did the Chinese respondents. Chinese athletes allocated higher ratings to being part of a club, having a good body, liking to win, and wanting to be popular. Both groups assigned high values to reasons associated with improving skills, being fit, and getting exercise. It was suggested that the findings reflected cultural differences between Australian and Chinese societies as well as particular characteristics of the Chinese sample.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Cultural factors in exercise participation of older adults.

Participation motives were investigated in 81 Australian-born and 42 overseas-born older Australians (M age = 67.8 yr.) involved in community-organised exercise programs. Australians born overseas scored significantly higher on factors of Affiliation/Personal, Recognition/Achievement, and Exercise Involvement of the Participation Motivation Questionnaire but not on Fitness.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Sports participation in individuals with spinal cord injury: demographic and psychological correlates.

The factors associated with involvement in sport were surveyed in a sample of 121 adults (aged 16 to 60 years) with spinal cord injury. The subjects responded to a questionnaire requesting data on personal characteristics and injury variables, and completed measures of depression (Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale) and trait anxiety (Spielberger's State Trait Anxiety Inventory). Univariate analysis showed that although sport participants (n = 67) did not differ significantly from nonparticipants (n = 54) on any of the psychometric measures, they were younger, had sustained their injury at an earlier stage, reported higher incomes, and were less likely to have sustained cervical-level damage. A hierarchical discriminant function analysis revealed that the significant predictors discriminating sport participants from nonparticipants were age and income. These findings suggested that, at least for this sample of individuals with spinal cord injury, post-injury involvement in sport was not specifically associated with indices of psychological adjustment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Comparison of self-assessment of premenstrual symptoms with scores on the modified Menstrual Distress Questionnaire.

Premenstrual symptoms were assessed in a sample of 267 women (M age 31.4 yr.) using a single self-identification question and the modified Menstrual Distress Questionnaire of Clare and Wiggins. The-self-identification question asked to what degree the women experienced premenstrual symptoms. The responses were 34 (13%) for none, 116 (43%) for slight, 99 (37%) for moderate, and 18 (7%) for severe. The mean score on the questionnaire was 23.5 (SD = 17.5). Correlations indicated significant relationships between self-identification and questionnaire scores (rho = .76, p < .001). When the women were classified according to Clare's (1983) criterion, almost a third of them assessed their symptoms differently, i.e., while they classified themselves as "nonsufferers" on the self-identification question, their responses on the questionnaire identified them as "sufferers."

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Exercise dependence: the relationship between two measures.

A volunteer sample of 158 aerobics instructors, 46 competitors, and 102 general participants completed 2 assessments of exercise dependence, the Negative Addiction Scale and the Commitment to Running Scale. Pearson rs showed scores on the measures related significantly for the total sample (.33), the participants (.35), and the instructors (.36), but the correlation of .23 for scores of competitors was not significant. Although scores on the two scales were significantly correlated, each test accounted for less than 11% of the variance for the total sample. While there is some commonality, these instruments largely measure different qualities and care should be taken when comparing "exercise dependence" across samples if assessed by different tests.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Association of prelesion sports participation and involvement in wheelchair sports following spinal cord injury.

116 individuals with spinal cord injury were surveyed to investigate the relationship between prelesion sports participation and involvement in wheelchair sports following injury. While 89 reported they had been involved in sport prior to their injury, only 38 (43%) of these were involved since injury. 27 respondents said that they had not participated in sport preinjury; however, 13 (48%) of these reported that they had become involved since injury. Analysis by chi 2 showed that, for this sample at least, the tendency for an individual with spinal cord injury to be involved in wheelchair sports was not related to preinjury history of sports involvement.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Gender differences in competitive stress.

Stress experienced in competitive basketball was investigated in a sample of 84 men and 49 women recruited from players engaged in regular, organized, competitive grade basketball. Subjects were administered the Stressful Situations in Basketball Questionnaire which provides measures on 5 types of stress in competitive basketball. Analyses of gender differences showed that men reported more stress than female players on the "Team performance" scale. Research is required to evaluate whether this difference is due to a perception of women that they have less influence over the performance of the team or whether it is due to men having a higher stake in the results of competition.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Coping processes in competitive gymnasts: gender differences.

The Ways of Coping with Sport questionnaire was used to investigate coping with performance problems in a sample of 115 adolescent gymnasts. The coping processes reported most frequently by the total sample of gymnasts were Increased Effort and Resolve, Wishful Thinking, Seeking Social Support, and Problem-focused Coping. Analysis of gender differences by multivariate analysis of variance indicated that, compared with males, the female gymnasts were more likely to use Seeking Social Support to cope with slumps in performance. The findings were consistent with previous research on coping in sporting and nonsporting populations.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1994

Changes in premenstrual symptoms and irrational thinking following cognitive-behavioral coping skills training.

Women reporting severe premenstrual symptoms were allocated nonrandomly to a cognitive-behavioral coping skills treatment (n = 13), a nonspecific treatment (n = 12), or a waiting-list group (n = 12). Repeated measures analyses of variance showed that, compared with control subjects, the coping skills group reported significant reductions in premenstrual symptomatology and irrational thinking at posttreatment and at 9-month follow-up. There were no significant differences between the waiting-list and control intervention groups at any time of testing. It was suggested that the increased irrationality reported at pretreatment should be viewed not as a "cause" of premenstrual problems but as a product of the stresses experienced in the premenstruum phase. The findings of this study indicated that cognitive-behavioral coping skills treatments can reduce the negative effects of premenstrual symptoms and that those reductions can be maintained over time.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1994

Injury, anxiety, and mood in competitive gymnasts.

Psychological factors related to injury were investigated in 115 competitive gymnasts. The subjects were administered the Profile of Mood States-Bipolar Form (POMS-BI) and Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). Direct discriminant function analysis showed that the best predictors for distinguishing between gymnasts with four or more injuries and those with fewer than four injuries were CSAI-2 Cognitive Anxiety and the POMS-BI Composed-Anxious and Energetic-Tired scores. The more-injured gymnasts were more anxious and tired, and reported higher scores on the CSAI-2 Cognitive Anxiety scale. Males could be differentiated from females by scores on the CSAI-2 Self-confidence and the POMS-BI Composed-Anxious, Confident-Unsure, Energetic-Tired, and Clearheaded-Confused scales. The female gymnasts were more anxious, unsure, tired, and confused, and reported lower levels of CSAI-2 Self-confidence. The findings were interpreted as further evidence of the anxiety-injury link in athletes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Long-term comparison of brief versus unlimited psychodynamic treatments with children and their parents.

Thirty children and their parents were assigned randomly to either time-unlimited or time-limited (12 sessions) psychodynamically oriented treatments or to a minimal-contact control group. All groups showed significant improvements from pretest to posttest. Comparisons between groups at posttest on parental measures of family functioning showed that changes reported by the minimal-contact control group were significantly greater than those of the time-unlimited group. When assessments from pretest to 4-year follow-up were compared, all groups improved significantly on therapist measures of goal attainment, but only the minimal-contact control group reported significant improvements on severity of target problems and measures of family functioning. The results of this study suggest that long-term therapy does not necessarily provide more effective therapy. These findings have important implications for clinical practice, service delivery, and research, particularly in the present climate of financial restraint in health care.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Premenstrual symptoms: the role of irrational thinking.

104 women, between the ages of 18 and 45 years, were surveyed to investigate the relationship between premenstrual symptomatology, as measured by the Modified Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, and irrational thinking, as measured by the General Attitude and Belief Scale. The women who reported greater premenstrual symptomatology also reported significantly higher scores in the "need for comfort" irrationality subscale. This indicated that these women had particular difficulty dealing with hassles and the resulting feelings of tension and irritability in the premenstruum. It was suggested that the absence of significant effects for other rationality-irrationality subscales could be associated with testing at different times during the menstrual cycle. Irrationality, like other conditions (such as anxiety and depression) prevalent in the premenstruum, could change in intensity across phases of the menstrual cycle.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Relationship between anxiety and premenstrual syndrome.

The relationship between symptoms of the premenstrual syndrome and anxiety was assessed for 68 women. The syndrome as measured by a modified version of the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, was correlated significantly with trait anxiety, as measured by Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Trait anxiety was correlated with all three subtypes from the questionnaire: behavioral, psychological, and physical, most strongly for the psychological subtype. These findings suggest a role for stress-management training in the treatment of the premenstrual syndrome.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Caudate nucleus lesions impair the ability of rats to learn a simple straight-alley task.

Learning to run down a straight alley for a food reward was investigated in rats with lesions of the telencephalon. Over 84 trials the running latencies of rats with lesions of the caudate nucleus were significantly greater than those of subjects with lesions of the frontal cortex or sham-lesioned rats. The running latencies of the cortical- and the sham-lesioned groups were not significantly different. It was suggested that the performance of the caudotomized rats reflected a learning deficit.

Animals↗
PubMed1979

Attitudes of medical practitioners to mental illness.

The O.M.I. Scale was used to evaluate the attitudes to mental illness of a sample of 50 Australian medical practitioners. Although the scores of the Australian subjects did not differ from those of previously-tested British medical practitioners, they were significantly different to those obtained in a study of Czechoslovakian practitioners. The Australian, British and Czechoslovakian medical practitioners scored similarly on Mental Hygiene Ideology which reflects a medical model of mental illness. It was suggested that there were several disadvantages in supporting the medical model and that, through undergraduate and continuing education programs, medical practitioners should be exposed to alternative models of mental illness.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗