Web resources for transplant candidates, recipients, and donors.

Many valuable Web-based resources for transplant candidates, donors, and recipients exist; however, high-quality Web sites that are appropriate for patient use can be difficult to find. This article describes how patients can benefit from the use of transplant-specific Web sites and highlights Web resources that medical professionals can recommend to Internet-literate patients and their families. General guidelines for finding accurate and unbiased transplant-related information on the Internet are provided and 6 Web sites that offer features such as comprehensive educational information and opportunities for patient-to-patient interaction are detailed.

Psychometric properties of Darryl, a cartoon based measure to assess community violence-related PTSD in children.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the reliability and validity of Darryl, a cartoon-based measure of PTSD symptoms and a screening tool for identifying children and adolescents with a PTSD diagnosis. METHOD: Exposure to community violence, PTSD symptoms and diagnostic status were assessed in a sample of 49 children and adolescents at an urban outpatient psychiatry clinic. RESULTS: Darryl has good internal consistency for the full scale and adequate reliability for each DSM-IV PTSD symptom cluster. Darryl correlates significantly (r = 0.64, P < 0.001) with the most frequently used measure for assessing PTSD in children (CPTSD-RI). As a screening tool, Darryl has excellent sensitivity and specificity in relationship to the KID-SCID. CONCLUSIONS: In comparison to other child PTSD measures, Darryl has comparable or better psychometric properties and assesses PTSD symptoms in a more developmentally appropriate manner, especially in the domain of community violence. The value of Darryl as a screening tool remains preliminary given the limited number of diagnosed cases of PTSD in the study sample. Full scale efforts at replication are warranted.