This study evaluated the psychometric characteristics of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; A. T. Beck, R. A. Steer, & G. K. Brown, 1996) in a primary care medical setting. A principal-components analysis with Promax rotation indicated the presence of 2 correlated factors, Somatic-Affective and Cognitive, which explained 53.5% of the variance. A hierarchical, second-order analysis indicated that all items tap into a second-order construct of depression. Evidence for convergent validity was provided by predicted relationships with subscales from the Short-Form General Health Survey (SF-20; A. L. Stewart, R. D. Hayes, & J. E. Ware, 1988). A receiver operating characteristic analysis demonstrated criterion-related validity: BDI-II scores predicted a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD), as determined by the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). This study demonstrated that the BDI-II yields reliable, internally consistent, and valid scores in a primary care medical setting, suggesting that use of the BDI-II in this setting may improve detection and treatment of depression in these medical patients.

Deficits on two continuous performance test versions and the forced-choice span of apprehension task, which are potential vulnerability factors for schizophrenic disorders, were examined in relationship to particular symptoms of schizophrenic disorders, with emphasis on hypothesized relationships to formal thought disorder and negative symptoms. These interrelationships were determined concurrently within a group of 40 schizophrenic patients at an inpatient point. In addition, 32 of these patients were retested at a stabilized outpatient point to address the extent to which continued attentional deficits were associated with specific symptomatology during the hospitalized period. Signal-discrimination deficits on the three tasks were consistently associated with inpatient negative symptoms of schizophrenia as measured by the Anergia factor of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), across both the inpatient and outpatient assessments. The outpatient signal-discrimination deficits also showed significant, but less consistent, correlations with inpatient schizophrenic modes of thinking measured by the Rorschach Thought Disorder Index and with formal thought disorder measured by the BPRS Conceptual Disorganization rating. In contrast, no relationship with inpatient hallucinations or delusions was found. Combined with previous findings from high-risk samples, these results are consistent with the view that signal-discrimination deficits in situations demanding high levels of effortful processing are enduring vulnerability factors for schizophrenic negative symptoms and possibly for certain schizophrenic forms of thought disorder.

This study assessed the validity of active and passive coping dimensions in chronic pain patients (n = 76) using the Coping Strategies Questionnaire and the Vanderbilt Pain Management Inventory. The validity of active and passive coping dimensions was supported; passive coping was strongly related to general psychological distress and depression, and active coping was associated with activity level and was inversely related to psychological distress. In addition, the Coping Strategies Questionnaire was found to be a more psychometrically sound measure of active and passive coping than the Vanderbilt Pain Management Inventory.

The results of this investigation suggest that the presence of dementia per se does not predict inaccurate depression self-reports. Deficit awareness, which covaries with dementia, appears to account for the majority of the variance in self-report accuracy. These findings were stable across informant- and clinician-rated depression criteria and multiple analyses.