Development of the Anxiety, Depression and Coping (ADAF) screening tool for emotional and coping problems in cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: Clinical guidelines recommend psychological screening in cancer patients. However, most scales cover many items and hamper detection. In addition, patients are generally referred from routine consultations. The specific objective of the present study was to develop and validate a tool, Anxiety, Depression, Coping (ADAF), to screen for anxiety and depression and assess coping in cancer patients. METHODS: Cross-sectional, multicenter study performed in the medical and radiotherapy-oncology services of five hospitals in Madrid and coordinated by the Medical Oncology Service of Hospital Clínico San Carlos (CEIC nº19/265-E). To determine psychometric properties, the ADAF screening questionnaire ADAF was administered. ADAF includes five items (1 related to anxiety symptoms, 2 related to depressive symptoms, 1 for helplessness coping, and 1 for avoidance coping). Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer scale were used as the gold standards. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves constructed. A p value of <0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: A total of 186 patients completed the evaluation. The correlation coefficients were significant for all dimensions (anxiety, depression, helplessness coping, and avoidance coping) (p < 0.001). The statistical analysis of the ROC curves suggested that the cut-off point for screening was >2 points (3 in the case of depression), with a sensitivity and specificity between 62% and 90%, and an area under the curve above 0.8 for the first 4 items. CONCLUSIONS: ADAF screening has adequate reliability and good sensitivity and specificity. This instrument is useful and can be easily applied to identify emotional and coping problems in cancer patients.

Sensibilidad a la recompensa y al castigo, personalidad, impulsividad y aprendizaje: un estudio en un contexto de violencia de pareja / Sensitivity to reward and punishment, personality, impulsivity, and learning: A study in a context of intimate partner violence

El objetivo de la presente investigación es estudiar los patrones de sensibilidad a la recompensa y al castigo en una tarea de aprendizaje y su relación con distintas dimensiones de personalidad en una muestra de 81 mujeres víctimas de violencia de pareja. Se evalúa la sensibilidad a la recompensa y al castigo, el afecto positivo y negativo, la impulsividad y la personalidad de los participantes mediante pruebas de auto-informe. En relación al aprendizaje, realizan una tarea de aprendizaje de inversión afectivo. Los análisis de varianza muestran la escasa relación entre medidas de autoinforme y lo que deberían ser sus correlatos conductuales en el paradigma de inversión afectiva, discutiéndose tanto sus implicaciones teóricas como aplicadas

The aim of this research is to study sensitivity to reward and punishment patterns in a learning and their relation to different personality dimensions in a sample of 81 female victims of intimate partner violence. Sensitivity to reward and punishment, positive and negative affection, impulsivity and personality of the articipants are all evaluated through self-report evidence. In order to assess the impact upon learning, an emotional reversal learning task is performed. The ANOVA (analysis of variance) tests that were run show little relationship between self-report measures and what their behavioral correlates should be in the affective reversal learning paradigm, discussing both theoretical and applied implications

Control Cognitivo en Trastornos de Ansiedad: Creencias y Estrategias Metacognitivas / Cognitive Control and Anxiety Disorders: Metacognitive Beliefs and Strategies of Control Thought in GAD and OCD

In the present paper the relevance that cognitive control processes may have in anxiety disorders such as GAD and OCD is assumed. It is pretended to identify the metacognitive beliefs deriving from S-REF model by Wells and Mathews (1996; Wells, 2000) specially in GAD and TOC, and explore the effect that those beliefs may have when using cognitive control strategies. A sample of 75 participants, 24 of them diagnosed with GAD or TOC and 51 of them without mental disorders, were assessed through MCQ-30 and TCQ. ANOVAanalysis found that subjects with anxiety disorders obtained higher scores in beliefs about the dangerousness of not controlling their worries than subjects without mental disorders. Regression analysis found that this kind of beliefs led to the use of desadaptative cognitive control strategies, such as the self-punishment (AU)

En el presente trabajo se asume la relevancia que los procesos de control cognitivo pueden tener en trastornos de ansiedad como el GAD o el TOC. Se pretende identificar las creencias metacognitivas derivadas del modelo S-REF (Wells y Mathews, 1996, Wells, 2000) que se vincularán en mayor medida al espectro del trastorno de ansiedad generalizada y del trastorno obsesivo-compulsivo y el efecto que dichas creencias pueden tener en el uso de estrategias de control cognitivo. Para ello, una muestra de 75 participantes, 24 con diagnósticod de GAD o de TOC, y 51 sin diagnóstico mentales, fueron evaluados mediante el MCQ-30 y el TCQ. El ANOVA entre los grupos permitió encontrar significativas las mayores puntuaciones en creencias sobre la peligrosidad de no controlar las preocupaciones por parte de los participantes con trastorno de ansiedad. Los análisis de regresión permitieron comprobar que ese tipo de creencias favorecían, además, el uso de estrategias de control cognitivo poco adaptativas, como el castigo (AU)