The development and testing of the patient record pain management assessment tool.

The article reports a study whose purpose was to develop and test the Patient Record Pain Management Assessment Tool, an instrument to evaluate compliance with the American Pain Society's quality assurance standards on acute pain and cancer pain in chart documentation. Content validity, overall validity, and interrater reliability were all found to be acceptable. The instrument is therefore a useful tool for documenting the level of pain management practice in institutional settings.

What's so unhealthy about hostility? Construct validity and psychosocial correlates of the Cook and Medley Ho scale.

The Cook and Medley (1954) Hostility (Ho) scale, a measure of hostility derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), was recently found in one cross-sectional study to be related to the severity of coronary artery disease and in two prospective studies to predict the development of coronary heart disease. Unfortunately, little information is available to clarify the meaning of the scale, and little is known about the psychosocial characteristics of individuals with high Ho scores. As a result, interpretation of the previous studies is difficult. Our two studies attempted to address these concerns. In Study 1, the Ho scale demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity. Data indicated that the scale primarily assesses suspiciousness, resentment, frequent anger, and cynical distrust of others rather than overtly aggressive behavior or general emotional distress. In Study 2, individuals with high scores displayed comparatively more anger, less hardiness, more frequent and severe hassles, and fewer and less satisfactory social supports. Thus, we propose that the Ho scale assesses cynical hostility and conclude that high scores are associated with a particularly unhealthy psychosocial risk profile. These findings refine our understanding of the Ho scale and assist in the interpretation of previous studies using this measure.

Opiate effects on isolation-induced hyperthermia.

The effect of brief separation from companions on temperature was studied in 24-day-old chickens. It was found that socially isolated animals became hyperthermic. Alternatively, control animals maintained in groups larger than 6 animals displayed no differences in temperature between the pre- and post-test. Injections of naloxone produced dose-dependent temperature increases in socially housed animals. Finally, while morphine reversed isolation hyperthermia, it had little or no effect on temperature in animals that remained in social groups throughout the experiment. The findings are discussed in terms of endogenous opioid involvement in separation distress and social bonding.