Student engagement is a key factor in academic achievement and degree completion, though there is much debate about the operationalization and dimensionality of this construct. The goal of this paper is to describe the development of an psycho-educational oriented measure -the University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI). This measure draws on the conceptualization of engagement as a multidimensional construct, including cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement. Participants were 609 Portuguese University students (67 % female) majoring in Social Sciences, Biological Sciences or Engineering and Exact Sciences. The content, construct and predictive validity, and reliability of the USEI were tested. The validated USEI was composed of 15 items, and supported the tri-factorial structure of student engagement. We documented evidence of adequate reliability, factorial, convergent and discriminant validities. USEI's concurrent validity, with the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student Survey, and the predictive validity for self-reported academic achievement and intention to dropout from school were also observed.

Introduction:Burnout is a psychological syndrome, characterized by a state of high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization and low personal accomplishment, which leads to erosion of personal, professional and health values. This study reports the incidence of burnout in Portuguese Healthcare professionals. Material and Methods: Burnout in Portugal's health professionals was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory -Human Services Survey, using a zero (never) to six (always) ordinal scale, on a sample of 1 262 nurses and 466 physicians with mean age of 36.8 year (SD = 12.2) and 38.7 (SD = 11.0), respectively. Participants came from all national districts (35% Lisbon, 18% Oporto, 6% Aveiro, 6% Setúbal, 5% Coimbra, 5% Azores and Madeira), working in hospitals (54%), Families' Health Units (30%), Personalized Health Units (8%) and other public or private institutions (8%).Results: Analysis of MBI-HSS scores, stratified by district, revealed that both types of professionals had moderate to high levels of burnout (M = 3.0, SD = 1.7) with no significant differences between the two groups. Vila Real (M = 3.8, SD = 1.7) and Madeira (M = 2.5, SD = 1.5) were the regions where burnout levels were higher and lower, respectively. Burnout levels did not differ significantly between Hospital, Personalized Health Units and Families' Health Centers. Professionals with more years in the function were less affected by Burnout (r = -0.15). No significant association was observed with the duration of the working day (r = 0.04). The strongest predictor of burnout was the perceived quality of working conditions (r = -0.35). Discussion: The occurrence of the burnout syndrome in Portuguese health professionals is frequent, being associated with a poor working conditions perception and reduced professional experience. The incidence of the burnout syndrome shows regional differences which may be associated with different and suboptimal conditions for health care delivery. Results suggest the need for interventions ARTIGO ORIGINAL

Objective: This longitudinal study tested the effectiveness of a group intervention designed to facilitate posttraumatic growth (PTG).Methods: Sample consisted of 205 women diagnosed with non-metastatic breast cancer who were either assigned to an intervention group (n = 58) or to a control group (n = 147). PTG, challenge to core beliefs, and rumination (intrusive and deliberate) were assessed at baseline (T1), at 6 months (T2), and at 12 months after baseline (T3). Results:Results from the Latent Growth Modeling suggested that participants from the intervention group have higher levels of PTG. The challenge to core beliefs and the intrusive rumination have a moderator role on PTG, since group intervention is also linked to the enhancement of both variables.Conclusions: Participation in the intervention group increase PTG. Challenge to core beliefs and intrusive rumination are improved by group intervention, which to a certain extent facilitate PTG. KEYWORDSbreast cancer, cancer, challenge to core beliefs, group intervention, oncology, posttraumatic growth, rumination 1 | BACKGROUND Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women, 1 and it is recognized as a stressful life event as it is considered a threat to one 0 s life and well-being. Several negative psychological reactions such as anxiety, depression, helplessness, hopelessness, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 2 may arise during the disease process.Despite the fact that these features have been well documented in the literature, a growing body of evidence suggests that adverse life circumstances such as cancer can also encourage positive outcomes. 3 The perceived positive changes resulting from personal coping efforts with traumatic events are described as PTG. 4,5 Research confirmed that women with a diagnosis of breast cancer reported personal growth in the aftermath of a life-threatening cancer experience. In addition, PTG has been consistently documented within 5 years of a breast cancer diagnosis. 3,6,7 In fact, it is the seismic nature and perceived stressfulness of the event that threat the individual 0 s core belief system, which in turn sets in motion the restructuring of one 0 s life. 8 Core beliefs are the "general set of beliefs a person has about the universe, how it works, and the individual 0 s place in it" 9(p16) . In the aftermath of a stressful event, core beliefs might be challenged, and the previous foundations of a person 0 s assumptive world become unstable, uncontrollable, and unpredictable. 9 In order to manage distress (also created by challenge to core beliefs) and reappraise the pretrauma cognitive schemas, the survivor initiates various cognitive mechanisms such as using coping strategies, seeking social support, and engaging in cognitive processing (intrusive and deliberate thinking), in an attempt to give meaning to the stressful experience. 10,11 Cognitive processing, and more specifically rumination, is a crucial process of the posttrauma individual adaptation. 12 Rumination encompasses 2 ...

This study evaluated the effect of item inversion on the construct validity and reliability of psychometric scales and proposed a theoretical framework for the evaluation of the psychometric properties of data gathered with psychometric instruments. To this propose, we used the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which is the most used psychometric inventory to measure burnout in different professional context (Students, Teachers, Police, Doctors, Nurses, etc…). The version of the MBI used was the MBI-Student Survey (MBI-SS). This inventory is composed of three key dimensions: Exhaustion, Cynicism and Professional Efficacy. The two first dimensions-which have positive formulated items-are moderate to strong positive correlated, and show moderate to strong negative correlations with the 3rd dimension-which has negative formulated items. We tested the hypothesis that, in college students, formulating the 3rd dimension of burnout as Inefficacy (reverting the negatively worded items in the Efficacy dimension) improves the correlation of the 3rd dimension with the other two dimensions, improves its internal consistency, and the overall MBI-SS' construct validity and reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis results, estimated by Maximum Likelihood, revealed adequate factorial fit for both forms of the MBI-SS (with Efficacy) vs. the MBI-SSi (with Inefficacy). Also both forms showed adequate convergent and discriminant related validity. However, reliability and convergent validity were higher for the MBI-SSi. There

The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) is frequently used to assess positive changes following a traumatic event. The aim of the study is to examine the factor structure and the latent mean invariance of PTGI. A sample of 205 (M age = 54.3, SD = 10.1) women diagnosed with breast cancer and 456 (M age = 34.9, SD = 12.5) adults who had experienced a range of adverse life events were recruited to complete the PTGI and a socio-demographic questionnaire. We use Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to test the factor-structure and multi-sample CFA to examine the invariance of the PTGI between the two groups. The goodness of fit for the five-factor model is satisfactory for breast cancer sample (χ2(175) = 396.265; CFI = .884; NIF = .813; RMSEA [90% CI] = .079 [.068, .089]), and good for non-clinical sample (χ2(172) = 574.329; CFI = .931; NIF = .905; RMSEA [90% CI] = .072 [.065, .078]). The results of multi-sample CFA show that the model fit indices of the unconstrained model are equal but the model that uses constrained factor loadings is not invariant across groups. The findings provide support for the original five-factor structure and for the multidimensional nature of posttraumatic growth (PTG). Regarding invariance between both samples, the factor structure of PTGI and other parameters (i.e., factor loadings, variances, and co-variances) are not invariant across the sample of breast cancer patients and the non-clinical sample.