The purposes of the study were to develop an instrument for family value and to identify the relationships of family value, family hardiness, and family adaptation by appling the family value scale to family with cancer children. The study was conducted in three phases. 1) A survey was conducted from July 20 to August 20, 1999 and 18 items of general family value scale was modified from the data of 153 fathers and 164 mothers. 2) In-depth interviews were made with 29 parents of cancer children from April 20, 1998 to May 20, 1999 to develop family value scale with cancer children, and 12 statements were developed. 3) The final survey was conducted from July 18, 2000 to August 30, 2000 and the data from 309 parents of children who are diagnosed as cancer, 18 or less years of age, and treated either hospitalized or at the outpatient clinics were analyzed to identify the relationships of the concepts. The data analysis utilized SAS 6.12 and LISREL 8 for descriptive statistics, correlation, and Regression for path analysis. The study findings are as follows. The psychometric testing of general family value scale was Cronbach's alpha = 0.78. The reliability of the family value scale with cancer children showed the reliability as Cronbach's alpha = 0.73. Demographic characteristics showing significant correlations were cancer children's age, period of illness, period after completing treatment, mother's age, mother's education level, monthly income, payment type, confidence with health professional, and severity of children's illness. The correlation coefficients among major variables showed that family stressor was positively related with family strains(r=0.33, p < .001), and negatively related with family hardiness(r=-0.21, p < .001). Family strains was negatively related with family hardiness(r= -0.41, p < .001) and family adaptation(r=-0.46, p < .001). Correlations of family hardiness was positive with family value with cancer children(r=-0.31, p < .001), and negative with general family value(r=-0.16, p < .01). Family hardiness was positively related with family adaptation(r=0.35, p < .001). The causal relationship between study variables showed that family strains predicts general family value( gamma =0.12, t=2.02), family value with cancer children predicts family hardiness( gamma =0.31, t=6.30), family strains predicts family hardiness( gamma =-0.40, t=-7.70), family value with cancer children predicts family adaptation( gamma =-0.23, t=-4.11), and family hardiness predicts family adaptation( gamma =0.43, t=7.78).
Ambulatory Care Facilities ; Child* ; Education ; Fathers ; Health Occupations ; Humans ; Mothers ; Parents ; Psychometrics ; Statistics as Topic ; Child Health

PURPOSE: In this study, relationships between symptom experience and quality of life in a cross-sectional sample of patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) were investigated. METHODS: This descriptive study involved a convenience sample of AF patients from S university hospital, C city. One hundred and two AF patients completed psychometric validated measures of AF related symptoms and quality of life. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficients with SPSS WIN 14.0 were used for data analysis. RESULTS: Of 16 atrial arrhythmia-related symptoms, the patients reported 'tiredness' as the most frequent and 'shortness of breath' as the most severe. The level of overall quality of life for patients with AF was 53.92. There were significant differences in symptom frequency according to religion, New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification and left ventricular ejection fraction ; symptom severity according to monthly income and stroke ; quality of life according to age, job, alcohol intake, NYHA class and stroke. Quality of life for these patients was positively correlated with symptom frequency and symptom severity. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that patients with more frequent and severe symptoms perceive poorer quality of life than patients with less frequent and less severe symptoms. Symptom experience should be assessed early to improve quality of life for patients.
Atrial Fibrillation ; Heart ; Humans ; New York ; Psychometrics ; Quality of Life ; Statistics as Topic ; Stroke ; Stroke Volume

PURPOSE: The reliability and validity of a Korean version of the Obsessive-Compulsive-Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) was examined in non-clinical student samples. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Korean version of OCI-R was administered to a total of 228 Korean college students. The Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (MOCI), Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), and Beck's Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were administered to 228 students. RESULTS: The total and each of subscale of the Korean OCI-R demonstrated excellent internal consistency, good test-retest reliability, moderate convergent validity and good divergent validity. CONCLUSION: It was concluded that the Korean version of the OCI-R has strong psychometric properties as the original version.
Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder/*diagnosis ; *Psychological Tests/statistics & numerical data ; Psychometrics ; Questionnaires ; Reproducibility of Results ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the reliability and validity of parent proxy-report scales of Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQL 4.0) Generic Core Scales, the Chinese Version.

METHODS3493 school students aged 6-18 years were recruited using multistage cluster sampling method. Health-related quality of life was assessed using the above-mentioned PedsQL 4.0 scales. The internal consistency was assessed, using Cronbach's a coefficient, while its validity was tested through correlation analysis, t-test and exploratory factor analysis.

RESULTSThe internal consistency reliability for Total Scale Score (Cronbach's alpha = 0.90), Physical Health Summary Score (alpha= 0.81), and Psychosocial Health Summary Score (alpha= 0.89) were excellent. Six major factors were extracted by factor analysis which basically matched the designed structure of the original version accounting for nearly 66% of the variance. The total Scale Score significantly decreased by 3.5 to 13.3 (P < 0.05) in children and adolescents who had diseases including cold, skin hypersensitiveness, food allergy, courbature or arthralgia, breathlessness with a frequency of 6 times or more per year or had asthma as compared to those with lower frequency (< or = 5 times/y) of the diseases or without asthma. We found moderate to high correlations between items and the subscales. Correlation coefficients ranged between 0.45 to 0.84 (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONThe reliability and validity of the parent proxy-report scales of PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales of the Chinese Version were as good as the original version. Our findings suggested that the scales could be applied to evaluate the health-related quality of life in childhood children in similar Chinese regions to Guangzhou.

Adolescent ; Child ; Child Welfare ; psychology ; statistics & numerical data ; China ; Humans ; Psychometrics ; methods ; Quality of Life ; Students ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVETo introduce the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) to China, we created ASQ-Chinese (ASQ-C) and carried out studies of its norm and the psychometrical properties in Shanghai children aged 3-66 months in collaboration with the author of the ASQ with the permissions from the publisher.

METHODThe 19 ASQ intervals were translated into Chinese, to make the ASQ-C culturally relevant, and back translated into English. The project used a stratified cluster sampling method and recruited children aged 3 - 66 months with respect to demographic characteristics that were representative of Shanghai census data, and excluded the children whose mother tongue was not Chinese and/or diagnosed with disabilities by the authoritative hospitals in Shanghai. Parents/caregivers of the 8472 children either independently completed the age-appropriate ASQ-Cs or completed with help from the researchers for the normative samples. Among them, professionals completed the age-appropriate ASQ-C again for 519 children within six days after the parents/caregivers completed the ASQ-C for inter-rater reliability. In terms of test-retest reliability, 651 parents completed another age-appropriate questionnaires within a 10- to 23-day interval. For concurrent validity, BSIDII were administered with 255 children from 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30-month ASQ-C age intervals. The cutoffs of the ASQ-C and the BSIDII were all set at the two standard deviations below the means. The statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 13.0.

RESULTThe ASQ-Cs were independently completed by 85.25% of the parents/caregivers; the percentage of gender, family income and region of residence were similar to the Shanghai population census conducted in the recent years. Two standard deviations below the means were used as the cutoff scores of the ASQ-Cs across the age intervals. In terms of internal consistency of the ASQ-C, Cronbach standardized alpha was 0.77. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the ASQ-C total scores of the two testers was 0.84 (P < 0.0001). The Pearson correlation coefficient between the ASQ-C total scores of the two tests was 0.82 (P < 0.0001). The percentage of the agreement between the ASQ-C and the BSID II was 84.31%, the sensitivity of ASQ-C was 85.00%, and the specificity of ASQ-C was 84.26%.

CONCLUSIONIt is practicable that the ASQ-C can be completed by the parents/caregivers of Shanghai children. ASQ-C has solid psychometric properties and is worthy of further research and introduction to China.

Age Factors ; Child Development ; Child, Preschool ; China ; Humans ; Infant ; Models, Psychological ; Psychometrics ; statistics & numerical data ; Surveys and Questionnaires

INTRODUCTIONOver the years, performance assessment (PA) has been widely employed in medical education, Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) being an excellent example. Typically, performance assessment involves multiple raters, and therefore, consistency among the scores provided by the auditors is a precondition to ensure the accuracy of the assessment. Inter-rater agreement and inter-rater reliability are two indices that are used to ensure such scoring consistency. This research primarily examined the relationship between inter-rater agreement and inter-rater reliability.

MATERIALS AND METHODSThis study used 3 sets of simulated data that was based on raters' evaluation of student performance to examine the relationship between inter-rater agreement and inter-rater reliability.

RESULTSData set 1 had high inter-rater agreement but low inter-rater reliability, data set 2 had high inter-rater reliability but low inter-rater agreement, and data set 3 had high inter-rater agreement and high inter-rater reliability.

CONCLUSIONInter-rater agreement and inter-rater reliability can but do not necessarily coexist. The presence of one does not guarantee that of the other. Inter-rater agreement and inter-rater reliability are both important for PA. The former shows stability of scores a student receives from different raters, while the latter shows the consistence of scores across different students from different raters.

Clinical Competence ; Curriculum ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Psychometrics ; Reproducibility of Results ; Statistics as Topic ; Statistics, Nonparametric ; Students, Medical ; Task Performance and Analysis ; Validation Studies as Topic

INTRODUCTIONA knowledge-attitude dissociation often exists in geriatrics where knowledge but not attitudes towards elderly patients improve with education. This study aims to determine whether a holistic education programme incorporating multiple educational strategies such as early exposure, ageing simulation and small group teaching results in improving geriatrics knowledge and attitudes among medical students.

MATERIALS AND METHODSWe administered the 18-item University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Geriatric Knowledge Test (GKT) and the Singapore-modified 16-item UCLA Geriatric Attitudes Test (GAT) to 2nd year students of the old curriculum in 2009 (baseline reference cohort, n = 254), and before and after the new module to students of the new curriculum in 2010 (intervention cohort, n = 261), both at the same time of the year.

RESULTSAt baseline, between the baseline reference and intervention cohort, there was no difference in knowledge (UCLA-GKT Score: 31.6 vs 33.5, P = 0.207) but attitudes of the intervention group were worse than the baseline reference group (UCLA-GAT Score: 3.53 vs 3.43, P = 0.003). The new module improved both the geriatric knowledge (UCLA-GKT Score: 34.0 vs 46.0, P <0.001) and attitudes (UCLA-GAT Score: 3.43 vs 3.50, P <0.001) of the intervention cohort.

CONCLUSIONA geriatric education module incorporating sound educational strategies improved both geriatric knowledge and attitudes among medical students.

Curriculum ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; Educational Measurement ; Educational Status ; Geriatrics ; education ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Humans ; Psychometrics ; Singapore ; epidemiology ; Statistics as Topic ; Students, Medical

OBJECTIVETo explore the relationship between procrastinate behavior of college students and bad personality disposition.

METHODS566 college students were selected and followed through adopting the measurement on the procrastination scale of college students and Personality Disorders Questionnaire (PDQ-4).

RESULTSResults showed that male and female college students did not have remarkable difference in terms of procrastination. High level procrastinators had a higher level of scores on bad personality disposition. In addition, College students' procrastination had close relationship with bad personality disposition (r = 0.341, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONCollege students' procrastination had close relationship with bad personality disposition which did not match the findings from McCown's results on american college students.

China ; Cross-Cultural Comparison ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Personality ; Personality Disorders ; Personality Inventory ; statistics & numerical data ; Psychometrics ; Students ; psychology ; Time Management ; psychology ; United States ; Universities

PURPOSE: The purpose was to develop a preliminary scale to measure Korean adolescents' health behaviors through a qualitative approach, to evaluate the scale psychometrically, and to develop a final scale. METHODS: Participants were 61 adolescents for qualitative interviews and 1,687 adolescents for the psychometric evaluation. Procedure included content analysis of interviews to identify health behavior categories for Korean adolescents, pre-test to confirm that preliminary scale items were understandable, content validity by an expert panel, development of the web-based computer-assisted survey (CAS), and psychometric analysis to determine reliability and validity of the final scale. RESULTS: A final scale was developed for both paper-and-pencil and CAS. It consisted of 14 health behaviors (72 items), including stress and mental health (10), sleep habits (5), dietary habits (12), weight control (4), physical activity (4), hygiene habits (5), tobacco use (5), substance use (2), alcohol consumption (4), safety (4), sexual behavior (9), computer use (3), health screening (4), and posture (1). CONCLUSION: The scale's strong points are: 1) Two thirds of the final scale items are Likert scale items, enabling calculation of a health behavior score. 2) The scale is appropriate to Korean culture. 3) The scale focuses on concrete health behaviors, not abstract concepts.
Adolescent ; Adolescent Psychology ; Female ; *Health Behavior ; Humans ; Internet ; Interviews as Topic ; Male ; Program Development ; Program Evaluation ; Psychometrics/*statistics & numerical data ; Questionnaires ; Surgery, Computer-Assisted

The present study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Korean version of Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire (SASRQ). A Korean version of the SASRQ was produced through forward translation, reconciliation, and back translation. A total of 100 healthy, non-clinical participants were selected through screening and clinical interview, and they each were given a set of questionnaires including SASRQ. Psychometric properties of SASRQ were then examined through statistical analyses. Full-scale and subscales of SASRQ yielded excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.98 and 0.78-0.95, respectively). Test-retest reliability at 2-week intervals was satisfactory, with coefficient r ranging between 0.47 and 0.71. Convergent validity was also demonstrated by strong correlations between SASRQ and other trauma-related questionnaires. Correlation with Social Desirability Scale, however, was not found to be significant; thus evidenced divergent validity. The Korean version of SASRQ appears to be a reliable and valid measurement tool for assessing symptoms of acute stress disorder. Including clinical samples for comparison with controls would be necessary in future studies.
Adult ; Disability Evaluation ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Psychometrics/*statistics & numerical data ; Questionnaires ; Reproducibility of Results ; Republic of Korea ; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/*diagnosis ; Stress Disorders, Traumatic, Acute/*diagnosis