Considering that the intersexual condition has a negative impact on the individual, their family, and society, health professionals and researchers have dedicated themselves to studying and assisting families faced with such an experience. The purpose of this study is to describe and understand the perceptions of primary caregivers regarding intersexuality and its developmental aspects. Six mothers and one grandmother of school age children were interviewed. The data indicated that living with the stigma of intersexuality can mean a permanent state of crisis within the family system. Issues such as guilt about the child's suffering and questions related to the choice of gender follow the family from the moment of diagnosis. It is suggested that the therapeutic follow-up should foster the necessary conditions for the family group to be organized as a model of competence, replacing the model of guilt.

In this work, we analyze various consequences of the phenomenon of mobbing on the health of a work sector with special characteristics: the agro fruit sector. For this purpose, we collected data from a sample of 396 workers (61 men and 331 women) belonging to this sector in the Region of Murcia (Spain). A questionnaire with the following measurement instruments was administered: a Spanish adaptation of the revised Negative Acts Questionnaire (Sáez, García, & Llor, 2003), the Psychosomatic Problems Questionnaire (Hock, 1988), and a measure of absenteeism. The results revealed a significant and positive relation between workplace mobbing and psychosomatic symptoms, but not with absenteeism. The implications of the results for future research are discussed.

The objective of the present study was: (a) to identify the concerns, verbally expressed, of 50 mothers regarding their preterm infants (PT) and then compare their verbal expression with those of 25 mothers of full-term infants (FT); and (b) to correlate the mothers' verbal expressions with maternal and infant variables. The following instruments were used to compose and characterize the sample: Structure Clinical Interview for DSM III-R Non-Patient (SCID/NP), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and medical charts. Results showed that there was no difference between groups in term of mothers' expectations and conceptualizations; both groups exhibited predominantly positive expectations and concepts. In comparison with FT mothers, PT mothers verbally expressed more feelings and reactions predominantly negative or conflicting in relation to infant birth. Higher levels of maternal anxiety and depression in the PT Group were correlated with more verbal expressions about negative or conflicting emotions. In addition, lower birth weight, higher neonatal risk and longer length of stay in intensive care nursery of the infants were related with more negative or conflicting concepts by the mothers.

It was hypothesized that individuals of low socioeconomic status are exposed to a greater number of stressful events and therefore have a higher incidence of psychological disorders. However, the way they interpret, evaluate and cope with these stressful situations may either cause them to maintain, intensify or eliminate their overall stress. Past research indicates that the poorest individuals tend most frequently to falsely minimize or avoid stressful situations, which lowers the probability of resolving their problems. The objective of this study is to discover and compare the situations that have produced a high level of stress in subjects of three different socioeconomic groups over the last three months, as well as the strategies they used to cope, and their perceived effectiveness. The sample included 900 subjects of both sexes living in Mexico City. Among them, 346 were extremely poor, 260 were moderately poor and 312 were not poor. The results indicate that socioeconomic status is related to the frequency with which subjects report certain kinds of stressful situations. It was also found that non-poor subjects use problem-focused coping methods more than the other groups, while the poor use more emotionally-focused coping strategies. This article analyzes the strategies used by each group in each type of stressful situation reported.

The aim of this investigation is to analyze the psychological differences of patients and their relatives according to the formers' post-transplantation anxiety. We used two groups of participants: transplant patients (n = 166) and close relatives (n = 166). Four questionnaires were applied: a Psychological Survey (to both groups), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Quality of Life Questionnaire (to the transplant patients), and the Leeds Scales for the Self-Assessment of Anxiety and Depression (to the relatives). Participants were assessed twice: post-Intensive Care Unit (ICU; when patients were moved from the ICU to the Transplantation Unit) and post-hospital (one year after transplant). Results showed that high anxiety in patients just after organ transplant was related to an increase of anxiety and depression symptoms both in patients and relatives one year after transplant; it was also related to a decrease in the quality of life of these patients.

Objectives: estimate the prevalence and track the risk factors associated with, Maternity blues (MB).

Methods: a transversal study was performed with 113 women, on the tenth day of puerperium. The following instruments were used: Pitt Scale (1968), Stein (1980), Inventory for stressful life events by Holmes & Rahe (1967), and a questionnaire with sociodemographic and obstetric data.

Results: the prevalence of MB was 32.7% according to the Stein scale. In the univariated analysis, civil status and tobacco use were associated with MB. Legally married women and nonsmokers showed a risk approximately 4 times lower of experiencing the problem.

Conclusions: MB was very prevalent in this sample. Obstetricians must be aware of this condition which may be associated with postpartum depression.

The purpose of this study was: (a) to assess and to compare anxiety and depression symptoms in mothers of pre-term neonates during hospitalization in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, after discharge, and at the end of the infants' first year of life; and (b) to assess the child's development at 12 months of chronological corrected age (CCA). Thirty-six mothers, with no psychiatric antecedents assessed with the SCID-NP, were evaluated by STAI and BDI. The infants were assessed with Bayley-II Scales. There was a significant decrease in clinical symptoms of state-anxiety in mothers (p = .008), comparing the period during hospitalization and after discharge of the infants. Clinical symptoms of anxiety and depression were observed in 20% of the mothers at the end of the infants' first year of age. The majority of the infants exhibited normal development on Bayley-II at 12 months CCA; however, 25% of the infants displayed cognitive problems and 40% motor problems. The mothers' anxiety and depression symptoms decreased at the end of the first year of life of the pre-term infants and the children showed predominately normal development at this phase.

The aim of this study is twofold: to determine whether (and how) gender stereotypes have changed over time through a comparison of two different sets of data collected in 1993 (N = 1255) and 2001 (N = 1255) from a representative sample of the Spanish population, and to examine the relation between gender traits and roles and its stability over time. In addition, special attention is paid to the psychometric properties of the measures of gender traits and roles used in the study. The content of gender stereotypes was found to remain stable over the target period of time, confirming the classical typology (a higher assignment of expressive-communal traits to women and of instrumental-agentic traits to men). The structure of the gender-role questionnaire allows us to distinguish between family-role and work-role stereotyping. Gender-role stereotyping shows a marked decline between 1993 and 2001, a result that contrasts with the stability of trait-role stereotyping. The fact that a very low correlation is observed at the two time points between these two components of gender stereotyping strongly suggests their independence.

Halpern (1998) proposed a four-component model for promoting the transfer of critical thinking. One of them, the “structural component,” focuses on how to organize teaching so that critical thinking skills can be generalized. Here, we assess the efficiency of that type of organization. Thus, one group of university students received instruction following the suggestions specified in that component and their performance was compared with that of other university students who received instruction in the same skills but using a different procedure, and with that of a control group. In comparison with the control group, the performance of both instructed groups was better after training. However, no significant differences were observed between either instruction group; both forms of instruction afforded very similar results.

University students' academic achievement measured by means of academic progress is modeled through linear and logistic regression, employing prior achievement and demographic factors as predictors. The main aim of the present paper is to compare results yielded by both statistical procedures, in order to identify the most suitable approach in terms of goodness of fit and predictive power. Grades awarded in basic scientific courses and demographic variables were entered into the models at the first step. Two hypotheses are proposed: (a) Grades in basic courses as well as demographic factors are directly related to academic progress, and (b) Logistic regression is more appropriate than linear regression due to its higher predictive power. Results partially confirm the first prediction, as grades are positively related to progress. However, not all demographic factors considered proved to be good predictors. With regard to the second hypothesis, logistic regression was shown to be a better approach than linear regression, yielding more stable estimates with regard to the presence of ill-fitting patterns.

If examinees were to know, beforehand, part of the content of a computerized adaptive test, their estimated trait levels would then have a marked positive bias. One of the strategies to avoid this consists of dividing a large item bank into several sub-banks and rotating the sub-bank employed (Ariel, Veldkamp & van der Linden, 2004). This strategy permits substantial improvements in exposure control at little cost to measurement accuracy. However, we do not know whether this option provides better results than using the master bank with greater restriction in the maximum exposure rates (Sympson & Hetter, 1985). In order to investigate this issue, we worked with several simulated banks of 2100 items, comparing them, for RMSE and overlap rate, with the same banks divided in two, three… up to seven sub-banks. By means of extensive manipulation of the maximum exposure rate in each bank, we found that the option of rotating banks slightly outperformed the option of restricting maximum exposure rate of the master bank by means of the Sympson-Hetter method.

This is the first study that provides normative, reliability, factor validity and discriminant validity data of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988) in the Spanish general population. Sanz and Navarro's (2003) Spanish version of the BAI was administered to 249 adults. Factor analyses suggested that the BAI taps a general anxiety dimension comprising two related factors (somatic and affective-cognitive symptoms), but these factors hardly explained any additional variance and, therefore, little information is lost in considering only full-scale scores. Internal consistency estimate for the BAI was high (α = .93). The BAI was correlated .63 with the BDI-II and .32 with the Trait-Anger scale of the STAXI 2, but a factor analysis of their items revealed three factors, suggesting that the correlations between the instruments may be better accounted for by relationships between anxiety, depression, and anger, than by problems of discriminant validity. The mean BAI total score and the distribution of BAI scores were similar to those found in other countries. BAI norm scores for the community sample were provided from the total sample and from the male and female subsamples, as females scored higher than males. The utility of these scores for assessing clinical significance of treatment outcomes for anxiety is discussed.

The article features a brief overview of theoretical and empirical studies in communication psychology and sociability of men and women, boys and girls. Russian and foreign studies are summarized to point out that girls and women place greater emphasis on communication and interpersonal relations than do boys and men. Moreover, female communication is more emotional. The article presents the results of the author's own empirical study of male and female communicative activity. Communicative activity is viewed as a complex psychological phenomenon, a degree of the subject's willingness to interact. Communicative activity was studied with the test proposed by the Russian psychologist, Krupnov, and designed to detect the following components of communicative activity: dynamic (natural), emotional, motivational, cognitive, regulatory, productive, and two sorts of communication difficulties (operational and personal). Gender differences in communicative activity are shown on a sample of 480 participants aged 18-40 (240 men and 240 women). The article then describes communicative styles of adolescents (130 boys and 130 girls, aged 19-24). Various communicative styles are featured, including “energetic, businesslike,” “conformal, emotional,” “diplomatic, externally oriented” for boys and “energetic, sociable,” “emotional, difficult,” and “complaisant, expressive” for girls. Every person's individuality and gender identity are shown to impact their communicative style.

The object of this study is to assess informative possibilities of some technical indicators of the Test of Photos of Professions (BBT – Berufsbilder test), a projective method to clarify professional inclination, proposed by Martin Achtnich. This psychological evaluation technique is composed of 96 photos of professionals, performing various types of activities. The test subject classifies the photos into three groups: positive (agreeable), negative (disagreeable) and indifferent (neutral). Among those chosen positively, five preferences are chosen and a story is developed that includes them, an activity that is requested two times during the Vocational Guidance process: in the beginning (or middle) and at the end of the intervention. In this study, 160 stories were created by 80 youths, between 15 and 20 years of age, in public and private schools in a mid-sized Brazilian city. The stories were compared in three analytical categories: protagonist, professional conflict and resolution. The results were submitted to Wilcoxon nonparametric statistical analysis (p < .05), significant and relevant indicators of resolution being found in the process of occupational choice. This technical resource was shown, from this empirical evidence, to be promising for use in evaluation of intervention processes of Vocational Guidance.

The factor structure of the Reynolds Child Depression Scale (RCDS; Reynolds, 1989), analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis and the scale's psychometric characteristics in a sample of 315 participants (140 boys and 175 girls) and a clinical sample of 62 participants (37 boys and 25 girls) between 10 and 12 years old, are presented. Two models are tested with confirmatory factor analysis: a one-factor model and a five-factor model. Both models show a good fit, but the one-factor model was chosen because it is the most parsimonious. The reliability coefficient ranged from .87 (at test) to .89 (at retest) in the community sample, and was .90 in the clinical sample (at test). Test-retest reliability was .66 in the community sample. Concurrent validity with other self-reports that measure depressive symptomatology was high, both in the community sample (.76) and the clinical sample (.71). There were no significant sex differences but there were differences due to age (school grade).

This paper introduces the validation of the Spanish adaptation of the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI) by Wegner and Zanakos (1994). A sample of 833 people from the general population completed the WBSI along with other questionnaires. The exploratory factor analysis and the confirmatory factor analysis supported a two-factor solution accounting for 51.8% of the cumulative variance. This structure is comprised of the two following factors: unwanted intrusive thoughts (α = .87, r = .70) and actions of distraction and suppression of thoughts (α = .80, r = .60). Both internal consistency reliability (α = .89) and test-retest reliability (r = .71) showed adequate homogeneity, sound consistency, and stability over time. The results are discussed bearing in mind both isolated factors and the possible relationships of the suppression factor with automatic negative thoughts and insomnia.

The aim of the present study was to examine the internal reliability, content validity, construct validity, and concurrent validity of the Persian translation/Farsi version of the Oxford Happiness Inventory. The Oxford Happiness Inventory and Fordyce Happiness Inventory were completed by a sample of 727 Iranian university students. Findings confirmed the internal reliability, construct, and concurrent validity of the Oxford Happiness Inventory. Thus, it can be recommended for use as a trait-measure of happiness among Iranian samples.

Stepparent role strain refers to the fragile position of these family members in stepfamilies due to the lack of clear social expectations about their roles. This ambiguity facilitates family conflict and a lack of stepparents' integration into the family system. The aim of this paper is to adapt a pioneer measure of stepparent role strain—the Stepparent Role Strain Index of Whitsett and Land (1992)—in a Spanish sample and to analyze its construct validity. The final instrument is made up of 26 items which have good internal consistency (α = .89) and an underlying six-factor structure, explaining 64.50% of the total variance.

The purpose of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Flow State Scale (FSS; Jackson & Marsh, 1996). This instrument is used to assess the Flow State in participants of physical activity, although it can be adapted to other contexts (such as work, educational contexts, etc.). This construct can be considered the optimal psychological state to carry out an activity, being closely related to motivation and personal enjoyment (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). A sample of 2036 athletes was recruited from diverse sports activities. The results revealed satisfactory validity and internal consistency of the instrument, obtaining a factor model made up of a main factor and nine subscales. The correlations between motivational orientations and the flow state are highlighted. The Spanish translation of this instrument is found to be acceptable, with similar psychometric properties as the original scale, although future research in other contexts is needed to support these outcomes.