Clinical psychology review
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Meta Analysis
Attentional bias towards pain-related information in chronic pain; a meta-analysis of visual-probe investigations.
Research investigating the presence of attentional bias in chronic pain has produced mixed results. The purpose of this review is to summarise former research using the visual-probe task to explore attentional bias in pain populations, and meta-analyse the results of controlled investigations comparing individuals with chronic pain to healthy controls. Ten eligible studies were included in this analysis (chronic pain n=515, control n=314). ⋯ The time-course of attentional bias was also explored, with evidence found for significant bias during stages of initial orienting of attention (effect size .29) and maintained attention (effect size .42). Bias therefore appears more pronounced during later stages of attention, possibly arising from processes of rumination. It is important for future research to fully explore the role attentional bias plays in the causation and maintenance of chronic pain, and the potential consequences bias may have upon quality of life.
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Review Meta Analysis
Etiology of obsessions and compulsions: a meta-analysis and narrative review of twin studies.
The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms is unclear. Cognitive-behavioral models propose that shared environment (e.g., parenting style) is important. ⋯ Results indicated that in terms of mean effect sizes, (a) additive genetic effects and nonshared environment accounted for most of the variance in OC symptoms, (b) shared environment and nonadditive genetic effects made little or no contribution; (c) these findings did not vary with sex or symptom severity; (d) variance due to nonshared environment increased with age; (e) gene-environment interactions play an etiologic role; (f) OC symptoms are shaped by etiologic factors common to all types of OC symptoms but also have symptom-specific etiologies; and (g) OC symptoms are also shaped by very general etiologic factors (e.g., those influencing negative emotionality). Overall, the findings indicate that OC symptoms have a complex etiologic architecture that is not adequately explained by contemporary etiological models.
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Review Meta Analysis
A comparative study of violence risk assessment tools: a systematic review and metaregression analysis of 68 studies involving 25,980 participants.
There are a large number of structured instruments that assist in the assessment of antisocial, violent and sexual risk, and their use appears to be increasing in mental health and criminal justice settings. However, little is known about which commonly used instruments produce the highest rates of predictive validity, and whether overall rates of predictive validity differ by gender, ethnicity, outcome, and other study characteristics. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of nine commonly used risk assessment instruments following PRISMA guidelines. ⋯ A tool designed to detect violence risk in juveniles, the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), produced the highest rates of predictive validity, while an instrument used to identify adults at risk for general offending, the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), and a personality scale commonly used for the purposes of risk assessment, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), produced the lowest. Instruments produced higher rates of predictive validity in older and in predominantly White samples. Risk assessment procedures and guidelines by mental health services and criminal justice systems may need review in light of these findings.
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Two decades of research demonstrate the efficacy of exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The efficacy of prolonged exposure (PE), a specific exposure therapy program for PTSD that has been disseminated throughout the world, has been established in many controlled studies using different trauma populations. However, a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of PE for PTSD has not been conducted to date. ⋯ Effect sizes were not moderated by time since trauma, publication year, dose, study quality, or type of trauma. The average PE-treated patient fared better than 86% of patients in control conditions at post-treatment on PTSD measures. PE is a highly effective treatment for PTSD, resulting in substantial treatment gains that are maintained over time.
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Nine incidents of multiple-victim homicide in American secondary schools are examined and common risk factors are identified. The literature dealing with individual, family, social, societal, and situational risk factors for youth violence and aggression is reviewed along with existing risk assessment methods. Checklists of risk factors for serious youth violence and school violence are used in reviewing each school shooting case. Commonalties among the cases and implications for psychologists practicing in clinical and school settings are discussed.