The subpoena and a day in court: guidelines for nurses

Psychiatric nurses or therapists may be subpoenaed to appear as direct or expert witnesses. The response must be carefully prepared, and nurses must be aware that testifying in court can be an anxiety-provoking experience. Testifying often involves being an advocate for a client. Clients who have a mental illness, are developmentally disabled, or have a history of abuse or recent violence deserve a conscientious response. The legal process is the avenue for providing safety or empowerment, for assuring that needs are met, and rights are obtained, and being part of that process is an important role. Being prepared for the role is essential.     

Examination of variable errors of measurement in a survey-based social indicator

The sample survey, involving the use of specially developed questionnaires and instruments, is an important source of data regarding individual experiences and social-psychological characteristics for use in social indicator research. Variable errors of measurement are often given only cursory attention in presentations of survey sampling and social indicator theory and in the analysis of such data. These errors may, however, result in reduced precision of estimates and may affect statistical inferences drawn from the data. Some procedures for assessing the extent of variable measurement error are described and examples of their use in evaluating a survey instrument and data collected are discussed.     

Examining the link between program implementation and behavior outcomes in the lifestyle education for activity program (LEAP)

Lifestyle Education for Activity Program (LEAP) was a comprehensive, school-based intervention designed to promote physical activity in high school girls. The intervention focused on changes in instructional practices and the school environment to affect personal, social, and environmental factors related to physical activity. Multiple process evaluation tools and an organizational assessment tool were developed to monitor program implementation from a framework called the LEAP essential elements, which characterized complete and acceptable intervention delivery; secular trends were also monitored. Using process data, LEAP intervention schools were categorized into low- and high-implementing groups and compared with control schools on nine essential elements assessed at the organizational level. The Wilcoxon scores test revealed that low- and high-implementing intervention, and control schools differed significantly on two of nine administrator-reported organizational-level components: having a physical activity team and having a faculty-staff health promotion program. A mixed-model analysis of covariance indicated that, compared to control schools, a greater percentage of girls in high-implementing schools reported engaging in vigorous physical activity. Process evaluation can be used to understand the relationship between level of implementation and successful program outcome.     

The Social Work Assessment Tool (SWAT)

This paper reports on the last of three National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization initiatives to move hospice and palliative care social workers into the patient/family outcomes arena: the development of the Social Work Assessment Tool. The experience of a team of practitioners and researchers is described, including results of two pilot studies and subsequent SWAT revisions. The major focus is on the current model performance improvement project, in which 19 social workers from 14 hospice and palliative care programs used the SWAT with 101 patients and 81 primary caregivers for a median of 44 days. Quantitative analysis indicated significant improvement in SWAT scores for patients from the first to the second social work visit (t = -2.60, df = 47, p .01). Qualitative interviewing of the social workers indicated some lack of readiness in the field to conduct quantitative outcomes measurement. Additional measures are needed in addition to the SWAT, including qualitative measures, and measures of mezzo and macro practice. Participants indicated that the SWAT was appropriate for use with economically and culturally diverse clients.     

Some multiple comparison procedures for comparing treatments within several groups

Multiple comparison procedures are extended to designs consisting of several groups, where the treatment means are to be compared within each group. This may arise in two-factor experiments, with a significant interaction term, when one is interested in comparing the levels of one factor at each level of the other factor. A general approach is presented for deriving the distributions and calculating critical points, following three papers which dealt with two specific procedures. These points are used for constructing simultaneous confidence intervals over some restricted set of contrasts among treatment means in each of the groups. Tables of critical values are provided for two procedures and an application is demonstrated. Some extensions are presented for the case of possible different sets of contrasts and also for unequal variances in the various groups.     

Photographs of disasters. An ethnomethodological approach

The essay analyses the photographs produced and circulated during the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake disaster in Japan, which show destroyed buildings, flooded landscapes, desperate people. Disaster destroys existing order. On first sight, the photographs of disaster depict this dissolution of order. The empirical analysis shows that the disastrousness of disaster is (also) created through the pictures of the disasters. The paper discusses why and in what way certain pictures reveal themselves to be iconographic of disaster and how they enter the visual memory as its representative. To achieve this, the study will invoke ethnomethodology. At the centre of the analysis is the question of the particular means with which these images illustrate the destructive force of the disasters and how pictures showing destruction and pain (‘pictures of pain’) turn into pictures effecting pain in the viewer (‘painful pictures’). The empirical study demonstrates: the photographs show the destruction of order; however, they do this in an orderly manner.

for Jörg Bergmann’s 70th birthday     

Estimation of Several Intraclass Correlation Coefficients

An intraclass correlation coefficient observed in several populations is estimated. The basis is a variance-stabilizing transformation. It is shown that the intraclass correlation coefficient from any elliptical distribution should be transformed in the same way. Four estimators are compared. An estimator where the components in a vector consisting of the transformed intraclass correlation coefficients are estimated separately, an estimator based on a weighted average of these components, a pretest estimator where the equality of the components is tested and then the outcome of the test is used in the estimation procedure, and a James-Stein estimator which shrinks toward the mean.     

Reactive and proactive aggression in children with and without ADHD and negative emotional lability

Children with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit marked difficulty with frequent and intense shifts in negative or positive emotions, referred to as emotional lability. This study examines the relationships between negative emotional lability (NEL), ADHD, and reactive and proactive aggression. A community sample of 96 children (53 with ADHD, 43 control) ages 8–12 and their parents completed a baseline session include a diagnostic structured interview and the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPAQ). Parents then rated their child's NEL using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale as part of an Ecological Momentary Assessment protocol 3 times a day for 28 days. Seventy‐three participants (37 with ADHD, 36 control) completed the RPAQ at follow‐up. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that NEL significantly and independently estimates reactive aggression at baseline and follow‐up, regardless of ADHD status. NEL and ADHD status significantly estimates concurrent proactive aggression, but not at follow‐up. Results of this study suggest that NEL accounts for a significant amount of the variability in reactive aggression, a common difficulty in children with ADHD. Further, individuals that are reportedly emotionally labile become more reactively aggressive over time. Both ADHD diagnostic and NEL are predictors of proactive aggression at baseline, although no interaction occurred.