Evaluation of the SIPAT instrument to assess psychosocial risk in heart transplant candidates: A retrospective single center study.

OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the reliability of the Stanford Integrated Psychosocial Assessment for Transplantation (SIPAT) in heart transplant (HT) recipients and explored its usefulness in predicting post-transplant outcomes. BACKGROUND: Pre-transplant psychosocial and behavioral risk is associated with post-transplant clinical outcomes. SIPAT is a risk assessment tool created for pre-transplant psychosocial evaluation. METHODS: Via retrospective chart review, three examiners applied the SIPAT to 51 adult HT recipients. Examiners blinded to SIPAT scores extracted data and interviewed clinicians for one-year post-transplant outcomes. Analysis included Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), Pearson's correlation coefficient and Chi-square. RESULTS: SIPAT demonstrated strong inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.76-0.96). Compared to those with SIPAT ratings of "Excellent/Good", the "Minimally Acceptable Candidate/High Risk" group was more likely to miss clinic visits (p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: The SIPAT tool had strong IRR. Less favorable SIPAT ratings were associated with nonadherence to clinic visits. Further study is warranted to determine association of SIPAT ratings to clinical outcomes.

Current perceptions of marital rape: some good and not-so-good news.

The current study extends previous research on marital rape and acceptance of general rape myths by comparing the perceptions of undergraduate college students (n = 85) to those of college alumni/ae (n = 44) who graduated from the same university three decades earlier. Participants read a hypothetical rape scenario that depicted the perpetrator as either the victim's husband or neighbor and completed three measures of different aspects of rape myth acceptance. Results indicated that although participants reported fairly low levels of support for different aspects of rape myths, certain rape myths were more strongly endorsed than were others. Furthermore, rape myth acceptance was stronger for marital rape than for acquaintance rape and for undergraduates than for college alumni/ae. Practical and theoretical implications of this study are discussed.