Comparison between the brief seven-item and full eating disorder examination-questionnaire (EDE-Q) in clinical and non-clinical female Norwegian samples.

BACKGROUND: The Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is among the most widely used self-report measures of eating disorder (ED) psychopathology. There is a need for brief versions of the EDE-Q that can be used for general assessment and screening purposes. A three-factor 7-item version (EDE-Q7) seems particularly promising but there is a need for more well-powered studies to establish the psychometric properties in both patient and community samples. Moreover, comparing the EDE-Q7 with the full EDE-Q would be beneficial in determining its utility. In the present study, we provide a psychometric comparison between the brief EDE-Q7 and the full EDE-Q in a large sample of both patients and community comparisons. METHODS: We pooled available datasets collected in Norway to amass a large female sample comprising both patients (n = 1954, Mage = 28 years) and community comparisons (n = 2430, Mage = 31 years). We investigated the psychometric properties of both versions, including their internal consistency, factor structure, and ability to discriminate between patients and community comparisons. RESULTS: The EDE-Q7 showed similar distributions of scores compared to the full EDE-Q but produced higher scores. Results indicated that the EDE-Q7 have acceptable internal consistency and is adequately able to discriminate between clinical and non-clinical samples. A cut-off threshold of 3.64 was optimal in discriminating between patients and comparisons. We also found support for the three-factor solution for the EDE-Q7, indicating good structural validity. In contrast, we did not find support for the originally proposed four-factor solution of the full EDE-Q. CONCLUSIONS: We find that the brief EDE-Q7 performs close to the full EDE-Q in several respects. Our findings indicate that the brief EDE-Q7 may be a viable alternative to the full EDE-Q in situations where response burden is an issue (e.g., epidemiological studies). However, the EDE-Q7 may hold limited value over the full EDE-Q in clinical settings, due to the small number of items and lack of assessment of behavioral features.

The Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is a widely used self-report measure to assess eating disorder symptoms in clinical and research settings. One limitation of the EDE-Q is its length (28 questions), which can preclude its use in research studies where assessments need to be short. A brief seven-question version has been proposed (referred to as the EDE-Q7), but few studies have evaluated its usefulness in comparison to the full EDE-Q. In our study we aimed to provide a comparison between the brief EDE-Q7 and the full EDE-Q among female Norwegian patients and non-patients. The brief EDE-Q7 produced similar responses compared to the full EDE-Q and performed well in tests of its integrity as a measure. Our findings suggest that the EDE-Q7 may serve as a viable alternative to the full EDE-Q for brief assessment and screening purposes.

Decomposing the effect of hardiness in military leadership selection and the mediating role of self-efficacy beliefs.

Psychological hardiness is a set of personality characteristics that is linked to better health, performance, and leadership in demanding environments. Research indicates that candidates who score high on hardiness have an advantage during military leadership selection. In this study, we deconstruct the effect of hardiness into three separate measures of leadership performance: interview performance, field performance, and the probability of voluntary withdrawal from a challenging field exercise. Additionally, we hypothesize that the dispositional effect of hardiness is partly due to an indirect effect of contextual self-efficacy beliefs regarding military leadership ability. We test our hypotheses in a sample of candidates seeking admission to officer training in the Norwegian Armed Forces during a three-week selection process. The results confirm that hardiness was associated with successful admission and showed that hardy candidates scored somewhat higher on the interview and field exercises and were notably less likely to drop out of the field exercise. Using generalized structural equation modeling and mediation analysis, we find that the effect is partly mediated by self-efficacy beliefs, but the direct effect of hardiness is more pronounced than the indirect effect of self-efficacy. Overall, the results add to the growing body of hardiness as a predictor of military leadership performance and shows that this advantage is partly, but not primarily associated with contextual self-efficacy beliefs.

The psychometric properties and norm data of the Norwegian military personality inventory (NMPI).

The five-factor structure is a well-established model for personality. The five traits covary with job-performance and work-relevant outcomes. The practical administration of existing big-five measurement scales is, however, somewhat limited, in a Norwegian setting, as existing scales are impractically large or have unknown psychometric properties. Because of this, a new brief Norwegian personality assessment tool has been developed by the Norwegian Armed Forces. This study aims to uncover the psychometric properties of the 50-item Norwegian military personality inventory (NMPI-50) and establish norm data for practical use. The inventory was administered to the 2002 cohort of Norwegian 17-year olds (N = 54,355), and analyzed with factor analysis, graded response models and tests of gender invariance. The five scales of the NMPI-50 showed satisfactory internal consistency, yielded high information across a broad range of the five traits, and conformed to a bi-factor structure with one general factor and five specific factors. The general factor was positively associated with motivation for military service, indicating some measurement bias. The openness scale is less clearly psychometrically defined, compared to the other scales, and both extroversion and openness show some evidence of multidimensionality. The scales also showed scalar invariance between genders except for the openness scale. Overall, the results support the use of NMPI-50 in personnel assessment and research.

Friends, Lovers or Nothing: Men and Women Differ in Their Perceptions of Sex Robots and Platonic Love Robots.

Physical and emotional intimacy between humans and robots may become commonplace over the next decades, as technology improves at a rapid rate. This development provides new questions pertaining to how people perceive robots designed for different kinds of intimacy, both as companions and potentially as competitors. We performed a randomized experiment where participants read of either a robot that could only perform sexual acts, or only engage in non-sexual platonic love relationships. The results of the current study show that females have less positive views of robots, and especially of sex robots, compared to men. Contrary to the expectation rooted in evolutionary psychology, females expected to feel more jealousy if their partner got a sex robot, rather than a platonic love robot. The results further suggests that people project their own feelings about robots onto their partner, erroneously expecting their partner to react as they would to the thought of ones' partner having a robot.

The challenge of keeping it off, a descriptive systematic review of high-quality, follow-up studies of obesity treatments.

The aim of this systematic review is to answer the question: Is substantial, stable, and long-term weight loss a viable goal for adults with obesity? To answer this question, we conducted a broad systematic search of non-surgical and non-pharmacological obesity treatment studies with the following strict criteria: (a) minimum 3-year follow-up, (b) 5% body mass lost, (c) no continued interventions in the follow-up-period, (d) prospective design, and (e) less than 30% attrition from the start of the follow-up period. While the search revealed a very large number of published articles, only eight studies met the inclusion criteria. Several of the nonincluded studies report a majority of participants achieving satisfactory weight loss and little regain, especially among studies with continued interventions during the follow-up period. In contrast, the eight high-quality studies included in this study demonstrate a trend of weight regain towards pretreatment baseline. This review concludes that the majority of high-quality follow-up treatment studies of individuals with obesity are not successful in maintaining weight loss over time. The results suggest that excess weight can be lost but is likely regained over time, for the majority of participants.

Mental Health During Naval Deployment: The Protective Role of Family Support.

INTRODUCTION: Minor mental health problems among service members deployed in combat areas are relatively common, but social support is a protective factor. With the advent of digital communication, as well as more frequent family separations, a stable family support system may be more important than before. In this exploratory study, we aimed to test the relationship between perceived family support and the development of minor psychiatric symptoms during a 4-month naval counter piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We measured minor mental health problems with the general health questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12) and family support at three intervals, 3 weeks before deployment, 2 months into the mission, and at the end of deployment. We used mixed multilevel regression analysis to analyze the main effects of family support and time, as well as their interaction. All analyses were controlled for military rank. RESULTS: We found that minor psychiatric symptoms increased at both midway (B = 0.51, P < 0.05) and toward the end of the mission (B = 0.72, P < 0.01). The results also showed that receiving more family support is associated with fewer psychiatric symptoms (B = -0.87, P < 0.01). Family support also moderated the development of symptoms toward the end of the mission (B = -0.73, P < 0.01). The buffering effect was such that service members with a high degree of family support experienced no increase in minor psychiatric symptoms during the deployment. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that naval deployment is associated with a small increase in minor mental health problems and that having a high degree of family support buffers this effect. Efforts to increase support among military families may positively influence the wellbeing of naval sailors during combat missions.

Daily sleep quality and naval work performance: the role of leadership.

BACKGROUND: Poor sleep is a growing concern in naval settings. Previous research has demonstrated that both civilian and military naval work strains sleep quality as well as a negative relationship between sleep quality and crew work performance. Variables moderating this relationship, such as leadership are of interest. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present paper investigates how sailors' daily variations in sleep quality influence self-rated naval work-performance and interacts with perceived daily transformational leadership during a 30-day naval training mission. RESULTS: Using multi-level analysis, we found significant positive main effects of sleep quality and transformational leadership on naval work performance. Transformational leadership moderated the sleep quality-work performance link. Individuals who experienced higher levels of leadership were less prone to reductions in performance after poor sleep. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the results suggest that leadership can partly negate some of the reduction in performance that often accompanies poor sleep, and that leadership becomes more important as the crew becomes sleepier.

A Brief Report on a Reduced Preference for Passive-Avoidant Leadership After a Restless Night.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of fragmented sleep on followers' leadership preferences. In a counterbalanced experimental study involving 39 followers, changes in leadership preferences were recorded after one night of fragmented sleep (awakened every 80 min during the night), compared to a rested condition with the conditions separated by seven nights. The results showed that the participants rated passive-avoidant leadership less ideal, after one night of fragmented sleep. No differences regarding preference for transactional or transformational leadership occurred. Thus, negative perceptions of leaders may partly stem from reduced sleep patterns. However, further studies are needed to confirm this finding.

The effect of hardiness on symptoms of insomnia during a naval mission.

BACKGROUND: Sleep is increasingly being recognised as important for the health and well-being of sailors. The aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between hardiness and reported insomnia-symptoms in a maritime military setting during a 4-month counter piracy naval mission in the Gulf of Aden. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A sample of 281 officers, sailors, and enlisted personnel were measured on levels of hardiness before the mission. The participants were split into low and high hardiness groups based on the group level mean. Insomnia-symptoms were measured before, midway and at the end of the mission. RESULTS: The results showed a significant main effect of time and a significant main effect of hardiness. The crew experienced the most insomnia symptoms in the middle of the mission and the high hardy group experienced less insomnia symptoms, in total, during the mission. There was also found a significant interaction effect of time and hardiness. The high hardiness group experienced less insomnia symptoms before and towards the end of the mission. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that high levels of hardiness may be a protective factor between the stressors of a naval mission and symptoms of insomnia.