Questionnaires were distributed to 346 fourth-year students in nine medical schools. The students were asked to state their selected specialty and to rank the importance that each of 25 influences, listed as questionnaire items, had had in making their choice of specialty. Factor analysis showed that particular items were significantly associated with particular factors. The first factor emphasized perceived lifestyle (items in this category gave importance to remuneration, personal time, and prestige); the second factor emphasized cerebral activities and a practice orientation; and the third factor stressed altruistic values and attitudes. The authors classified the selected specialties into three groups: those characterized as having a non-controllable lifestyle (NCL), those with a controllable lifestyle (CL), and surgery. (CL specialties were defined as those that allow the physician to control the number of hours devoted to practicing the specialty.) Data were analyzed using factor analysis, and analysis of variance, and the Scheffé method. Analysis indicated that the perceived lifestyle factor was most closely associated with the responses of those students choosing CL specialties. Furthermore, this factor received the highest total loading of the three factors from all the students, thus indicating the level of interest in lifestyle factors. Responses to items that defined the cerebral and practice factor were highest from the group of students choosing CL specialties and lowest from the group choosing NCL specialties. The NCL students scored highest in the altruism factor and the CL students scored the lowest. The surgery and NCL groups were similar in attitude patterns, and both were substantially different in attitude patterns from those of the CL groups.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

RECENT INVESTIGATIONS have demonstrated that there is a strong positive correlation between poor oral hygiene and periodontal disease (1-9). An awareness of this relationship has stimulated dentists to place greater emphasis on teaching patients the importance of good oral hygiene and the best methods for obtaining it. It has also stimulated additional study of the role of oral debris in dental disease. The current emphasis on patient education and on research in oral hygiene has underlined the need for a simple and accurate method for measuring the oral hygiene of dental patients. The simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S) developed by Greene and Vermillion for measuring oral hygiene (10) has proved a reliable instrument for large epidemiologic studies. The need, however, for a simpler and more sensitive measurement device both for research and for use by the dental practitioner has stimulated the development of the patient hygiene performance (PHP) method (11, 12). This paper reports the results of an investiga

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To delineate homogenous subgroups among hospitalized opiate addicts, a multivariate correlational clustering technique was applied to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profiles of 1,500 addicts, subdivided into 10 subsamples (5 for each sex) representing four different categories of admission into treatment (civilly committed, volunteers, probationers, prisoners). Within each subsample, two homogeneous and replicable profile types were isolated. Type I (33% of all addicts) showed elevations on Scales 2, 4, and 8, suggesting marked subjective distress, nonconformity, and disturbed thinking. The much smaller Type II (about 7% of addicts) showed a single peak on Scale 4. Sixty percent of addicts thus were unclustered. The two basic types, however, were very effectively discriminated on a variety of other psychometric indexes and were consistent with the two major profile types found among alcoholics in prior research. Recent psychometric characterizations of hospitalized opiate addicts, employing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), have cast doubt on the relevance of the stereotype of sociopathy (the 4-9 or 9-4 profile) to addicts as a group (Berzins, Ross, & Monroe, 1971). A grand mean MMPI profile with peaks on Scales 4, 2, and 8, obtained in a sample of over 800 male addicts, for example, placed the addicts' nonconformity in the context of acute subjective distress and disturbed thinking. It is important, however, to determine the principal homogeneous subgroups of addicts whose characteristics may or may not be consistent with overall group profiles. The number, size, and nature

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