Proposed Cut-Off Score for the Japanese Version of the Fear of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Scale (FCV-19S): Evidence from a Large-Scale National Survey in Japan.

The Fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Scale (FCV-19S) is a seven-item self-administered psychological scale for measuring the fear of this disease. The scale has been widely adapted and validated worldwide. This study aimed to propose a cut-off score for the validated Japanese version of the FCV-19S. We conducted a nationwide online survey and included 26,286 respondents in the analysis. Respondents answered questions on their sociodemographic characteristics, and using the FCV-19S and six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, we measured psychological distress and assessed whether the fear of COVID-19 interfered with their daily lives. A total score of ≥21 points was considered adequate to identify those with psychological distress or difficulties in daily living because of the fear of COVID-19. This cut-off score will contribute to mental health assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Application and analysis of psychological scale based on genetic algorithm in sports psychology / Aplicação e análise da escala psicológica baseada no algoritmo genético em psicologia desportiva / Aplicación y análisis de la escala psicológica basada en algoritmos genéticos en psicología deportiva

ABSTRACT With the rapid development and application of computer technology, the study of sports psychology is one of the major research tasks in current universities. The psychological scales need to be converted according to current computer technologies. Because the old-fashioned methods cannot meet the increasing demand, application of psychometric scale based on genetic algorithm in sports psychology is applied to construct the research model. Analytic hierarchy process is used to compare the weights of indicators. In the research mode of sports psychology, the auxiliary ability of college psychological scale is applied to improve the application of sports psychology ability.

RESUMO Com o rápido desenvolvimento e aplicação da tecnologia da computação, o estudo da psicologia esportiva é uma das principais tarefas de pesquisa nas universidades atuais. As escalas psicológicas precisam ser convertidas de acordo com as tecnologias da informação atuais. Tendo em vista que os métodos antigos não satisfazem a demanda crescente, aplica-se a escala psicométrica baseada no algoritmo genético no campo da psicologia esportiva para construir o modelo de pesquisa. Utiliza-se o processo de hierarquia analítica para comparar os pesos dos indicadores. No modo de pesquisa da psicologia esportiva, aplica-se a capacidade auxiliar da escala psicológica para melhorar a aplicação da psicologia esportiva.

RESUMEN Con el rápido desarrollo y la aplicación de la tecnología de la computación, el estudio de la psicología deportiva es una de las principales tareas de investigación en las universidades actuales. Las escalas psicológicas precisan ser convertidas de acuerdo con las tecnologías de la información actuales. Teniendo en vista que los métodos antiguos no satisfacen la demanda creciente, se aplica la escala psicométrica basada en el algoritmo genético en el campo de la psicología deportiva para construir el modelo de investigación. Se utiliza el proceso de jerarquía analítica para comparar los pesos de los indicadores. En el modo de investigación de la psicología deportiva, se aplica la capacidad auxiliar de la escala psicológica para mejorar la aplicación de la psicología deportiva.

[Research advances on depression and anxiety disorders in burn patients].

As a stressor, burn not only causes physical damage to the patient, but also causes depression and anxiety, which is not conducive to the rehabilitation and restoration of normal life of the patient. The results of studies on the incidence of depression and anxiety disorders in burn patients are different, and the possible pathogenesis remains to be studied. Whether the screening scales of depression and anxiety disorders that are suitable for the general population are equally suitable for burn patients remains questionable. The efficacy of non-pharmaceutical therapy for depression and anxiety disorders in burn patients remains to be studied. This article reviews the possible pathogenesis of depression and anxiety disorders in burn patients, the commonly used screening scales, and the progress of non-pharmaceutical therapy in recent years, aiming to provide a reference for accurately assessing depression and anxiety disorders in burn patients.

Brief HIV stigma scale for Japanese people living with HIV: validation and restructuring using questionnaire survey data.

This study aimed of validating a ten-item HIV stigma scale that was originally developed in the U.S.A. and adapting it for Japanese adults with HIV. To adapt the HIV stigma scale for Japanese adults with HIV, a forward-backward translation method was employed. We assessed its validity and reliability using questionnaire survey data collected from 463 Japanese adults with HIV between August 2017 and February 2018. Although the validity was acceptable, the internal consistency in two subcategories in the Japanese version of the HIV stigma scale was low (ω: 0.63, 0.60). Therefore, we performed exploratory factor analysis, which suggested a different model consisting of two subcategories. Then, we assessed the reliability and validity of the scale. The omega values were between 0.83 and 0.89, the absolute correlations (|r|) to other psychological scales for external validity were between 0.34 and 0.51, and the non-response rates for feasibility were between 0.9 and 1.8. The Japanese version of the HIV stigma scale therefore had sufficient reliability and validity. This questionnaire may help identify individuals that need increased care, which may improve their quality of life.

Investigation on Mental Health Status of Digestive Tract Symptomatic Population in Beijing Urban Community Based on SCL-90 Psychological Scale / 胃肠病学

Background: The impact of mental health status on digestive tract symptoms has attracted more attention, however, the mental health status in people with long-term digestive tract symptoms is not yet clear. Aims: To investigate the mental health status of Beijing urban community residents with digestive tract symptoms. Methods: A total of 205 urban community residents who voluntarily participated in the community general examination of digestive tract from March 2016 to December 2017 in six communities around Fuxing Hospital were enrolled, and were divided into digestive tract symptoms group and without digestive tract symptoms group. Symptom checklist 90 (SCL-90) was used to measure the psychological status. Results: Compared with the residents without digestive tract symptoms, score of somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, hostility were significantly increased in digestive tract symptoms group (P0.05). Further analysis showed that score of somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, anxiety, hostility were significantly increased in residents with abdominal distention than those without abdominal distention (P<0.05); score of all the 9 factors were significantly increased in residents with acid regurgitation, heartburn, eructation than those without acid regurgitation, heartburn, eructation (P<0.05); score of somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, depression were significantly increased in residents with postprandial distress than those without postprandial distress (P<0.05). Education had some effects on somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, hostility in the residents with digestive tract symptoms (P<0.05). Conclusions: The urban community residents with digestive tract symptoms in Beijing have obvious mental health problems when compared with those without digestive tract symptoms, especially somatization and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

A simple test to assess the emotional status of smokers.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Smokers exhibit a high prevalence of psychological abnormalities, and these factors may contribute to smoking initiation, its maintenance, and quitting difficulties. This study reports the development of a scale aiming at evaluating the emotional status of smokers in face of tobacco. METHODS: Levels of Anxiety, Depression, Perceived Stress, Self-esteem, and Loneliness of 120 smokers (age: 54.6 years; 74 women) were compared with those of 76 nonsmokers (age: 45.5 years; 47 women). Correlations between psychological scores, plus the feature Attachment to Cigarettes, and Fagerström test of nicotine dependence (FTND) counts were explored. Features showing the best correlations with FTND were selected to be part of a 6-item scale called Smoker's Emotional Test (SET). SET scores of this group and of an additional sample of smokers (n = 102; age = 52.6; women = 63) were submitted to psychometric analyses and validation tests. RESULTS: SET showed a structure of two factors, Anxiety/Depression and Attachment to Cigarettes. SET showed significant correlations with FTND (r = 0.418), number of smoked cigarettes (r = 0.299), time to urge for a new cigarette (r = -0.441), and pleasure of smoking (r = 0.346). The internal consistency of SET was higher than that of FTND scores (Cronbach's alpha: respectively .712 and .542). The test-retest reliability of SET was excellent (ICC = 0.944). SET scores higher than four distinguished smokers from nonsmokers with sensitivity of 87.3% and specificity of 92.7%. CONCLUSIONS: SET is a simple instrument that gives an estimative of smoking-related emotional status and may define a new valuable construct of tobacco addiction.

Student placement and skill ranking predictors for programming classes using class attitude, psychological scales, and code metrics.

In some situations, it is necessary to measure personal programming skills. For example, often students must be divided according to skill level and motivation to learn or companies recruiting employees must rank candidates by evaluating programming skills through programming tests, programming contests, etc. This process is burdensome because teachers and recruiters must prepare, implement, and evaluate a placement examination. This paper tries to predict the placement and ranking results of programming contests via machine learning without such an examination. Explanatory variables used for machine learning are classified into three categories: Psychological Scales, Programming Tasks, and Student-answered Questionnaires. The participants are university students enrolled in a Java programming class. One target variable is the placement result based on an examination by a teacher of a class and the ranking results of the programming contest. Our best classification model with a decision tree has an F-measure of 0.912, while our best ranking model with an SVM-rank has an nDCG of 0.962. In both prediction models, the best explanatory variable is from the Programming Task followed in order by Psychological Sale and Student-answered Questionnaire. Our classification model uses 9 explanatory variables, while our ranking model uses 20 explanatory variables. These include all three types of explanatory variables. The source code complexity, which is a source code metrics from Programming Task, shows best performance when the prediction uses only one explanatory variable. Contribution (1), this method can automate some of the teacher's workload, which may improve educational quality and increase the number of acceptable students in the course. Contribution (2), this paper shows the potential of using difficult-to-formulate information for an evaluation such as a Psychological Scale is demonstrated. These are the contributions and implications of this paper.

Factor structure of the Persian version of general, social, and negative self-consciousness of appearance domains of Derriford Appearance Scale 59: an application in the field of burn injuries.

BACKGROUND: The Derriford Appearance Scale 59 (DAS59) is a widely used measure of the spectrum of psychological distress and dysfunction that is characteristic of disfigurement. Also, disfigurement due to burn injury leads to feeling guilty or less socially competent, avoiding social situations, suicide, poor self-esteem, sexual difficulties, and depression. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to translate and culturally adapt three subscales of DAS59 into Persian language and to investigate its factor structure for Iranian burned patients. METHOD: Translation-back translation of the scale into Persian was done. The internal consistency of the translated scale was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha. Next, construct validity of the translated instrument was assessed by exploratory factor analysis using principal components and rotation of varimax methods. This research involved a convenience sample of 189 adult burned patients with disfigurement in their face, head, ears, neck, hands, and legs. RESULT: The Cronbach's alpha for overall scale, subscales 1, 2, and 3 were 0.93, 0.93, 0.89, and 0.80, respectively. The best solution from the principal components analysis of the 40 items of the DAS59 revealed three factors corresponding to the three subscales with 20 items: factor 1 (general self-consciousness of appearance) consisted of 9 statements accounting for 33.23% of the variance (eigenvalue =9.23); factor 2 (social self-consciousness of appearance) consisted of 7 statements accounting for 22.91% of the variance (eigenvalue =1.53); and factor 3 (negative self-concept) consisted of 4 statements accounting for 14.98% of the variance (eigenvalue =1.13). CONCLUSION: The factor structure of the three subscales of DAS59 provides a widely acceptable, psychometrically robust, factorial self-report scale to assess distress and dysfunction in problems of appearance among Iranian burned patients, and facilitates further research into the efficacy of treatment approaches for problems of appearance and early investigation of therapeutic outcome.

Adaptation of the Psychological-Behavioral Acculturation Scale to a Community of Urban-based Mexican Americans in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: To report the psychometric properties of the Psychological-Behavioral Acculturation Scale (P-BAS), a tool gauging behavioral and psychological acculturation after adapting it through formative research to people of Mexican origin in the United States. METHODS: We analyzed data from adapted P-BAS questionnaires in the TalaSurvey study, using standard methods to establish internal consistencies (Cronbach's alpha), construct validity, and ascertain if the value orientation profile differed by ethnic group. RESULTS: In 2012-13, 505 respondents (mean age 45.2 ± 14.1, 56% female) participated: 250 European Americans (EA) and 255 people of Mexican origin (MA). CONCLUSIONS: Although internal consistencies of 15 value orientation measures were occasionally low, overall results were encouraging. A weighted combination of value orientation scores strongly discriminated between EA and MA. Additionally, the pattern of relationships among MAs identified between acculturation scores and the validity contrasts supported the construct validity of the proposed dual framework. The trend was particularly evident for most behavioral variables.