The 10-item Center for the Epidemiological Studies of Depression Short Form (CES-D-10) is a widely used measure to screen for depression in primary care settings. The 10-item measure has demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including predictive accuracy and high correlations with the original 20-item version, in community populations. However, clinical utility and psychometric properties have yet to be assessed in an acutely symptomatic psychiatric population. This study examined the psychometric properties of the CES-D-10 in a sample of 755 patients enrolled in a psychiatric partial hospital program. Participants completed a diagnostic interview and a battery of self-report measures on admission and discharge. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis suggested that a one-factor structure provided a good fit to the data. High item-total correlations indicated high internal consistency, and the CES-D-10 demonstrated both convergent validity and divergent validity. Previously suggested cutoff scores of 8 and 10 resulted in good sensitivity (.91 and .89, respectively) but poor specificity (.35 and .47). These data suggest that although the CES-D-10 has generally strong psychometric properties in this psychiatric sample, the measure should be primarily used to assess depression symptom severity rather than as a diagnostic screening tool.

Prevalence rates of nonsuicidal self-injury among college students range from 17% to 38%. Research indicates that individuals with borderline personality disorder who self-injure sometimes report an absence of pain during self-injury. Furthermore, self-injury in the absence of pain has been associated with more frequent suicide attempts. The present study examined pain thresholds and tolerance among 44 college students (11 who engaged in self-injury and 33 who did not). Pain thresholds and tolerance were measured using an algometer pressure device that was used to produce pain in previous laboratory research. Participants who engaged in self-injury had a higher pain tolerance than those who did not. In addition, participants who engaged in self-injury rated the pain as less intense than participants who did not. ANCOVAs revealed that depression was associated with pain rating and pain tolerance.

The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) was administered to 427 (204 male and 223 female) incarcerated offenders and 393 (177 male and 216 female) college students in order to assess the latent structure of the PICTS under conditions conducive to the formation of a pseudotaxon. Objective and subjective analyses of 3 different taxometric procedures—mean above minus below a cut (MAMBAC), maximum covariance/maximum eigenvalue (MAXCOV/ MAXEIG), and latent mode (L-Mode) factor analysis—in the total sample and 4 subgroups of participants were conducted. Results revealed modest to moderate support for a dimensional interpretation of the latent structure of the PICTS, despite wide differences in age, race, criminality, and PICTS scores between the groups in each subsample. The implications of these results for the lifestyle theory of criminal behavior are discussed.

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