In the practice of our department at the Middlesex Hospital, the need has been felt for a means of rapid quantification of common symptoms and traits relevant to the conventional diagnostic categories of psychoneurotic illness. Until now, none of the available British scales have fulfilled this requirement. The most widely used is the Maudsley Personality Inventory (Eysenck, 1959) with its subsequent modifications. This, however, although scientifically based, is limited to the assessment of broad categories such as “neuroticism” and “extraversion” which appear to go only a small way towards describing the wide variability of psychoneurotic disturbances. Foulds and his co-workers (Foulds, 1965) have for a number of years developed personality scales in which clinical sophistication and a rigorous methodology are combined. Their Symptom-Sign Inventory, however, consists of eighty questions which have to be presented orally. Furthermore, although the inventory covers psychotic disturbances, it is necessary to use an additional questionnaire, the Hysteroid-Obsessoid Questionnaire (Caine & Hawkins, 1963) to complete the spectrum of psychoneurotic illness. Moreover, the concept of psychiatric illness developed by these workers is individual rather than conventional in a number of respects. The Tavistock Self-Assessment Inventory (Sandler, 1954) is too long for the present purposes (876 items in six booklets). The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1953) is short and convenient, but it measures one dimension only. As many doctors, including psychiatrists, find it useful to think in terms of orthodox clinical categories for diagnostic, therapeutic, prognostic and research purposes, it was decided to design and attempt to validate a self-rating scale adapted to these categories, taking the patient 5–10 minutes to complete and capable of being rapidly scored by the doctor or an assistant.

SummaryThe relation between fatness and aspects of psychological status was investigated in a representative sample (339 men and 400 women) of a middle-aged suburban population. A significant positive relation was found between substantial obesity and low levels of anxiety (in men and women) and depression (in men).

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The MHQ is a brief self-rating inventory purporting to measure aspects of six distinct categories of psychoneurosis and affective status. It has been found to be a reliable instrument and also valid as a profile measure. Two individual scales have also previously been explored in respect of validity. The present report describes a further attempt to examine the validity of individual scales in relation to pertinent single clinical diagnostic entities in a study involving 800 patients. The phobic and obsessional scales are found to be particularly accurate and differentiating in this respect. Patients variously diagnosed as suffering from anxiety states, depressive states and personality disorder tend to score very highly on several scales. The instrument serves overall to distinguish satisfactorily between such populations and others suffering from schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa. It also markedly differentiates them from 'normal' populations.

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SummaryA very careful enquiry within adequate sub-samples of the general population of a market town and its surrounding villages has revealed (a) no special relationship between so-called tension headaches and migraine as defined; (b) a two-year prevalence of migraine more or less similar to that reported elsewhere, i.e. approximately 10% of males and 25% of females being affected; (c) a greater prevalence of migraine amongst professional and managerial classes; (d) similar clinical features to those commonly described before; (e) that approximately 50% of the subjects had consulted their general practitioners and/or other doctors on account of the headache; (f) that actual migraine female subjects are significantly more anxious and depressed than normal subjects whilst at the same time reporting themselves as more sociable than others; they also complain more of other functional somatic disturbance; (g) that such differences were not always detected in the smaller male sample who showed similar tendencies only in respect of anxiety and other somatic complaint; (h) that subjects who described themselves on the questionnaire as having migraine but who were not on careful scrutiny always found to have it, showed as a population a higher degree of neurotic disability, including phobic avoidance patterns, than the population who actually have the condition.This study supports the view that migraine is associated with certain psychological characteristics, especially amongst females. The profile is that of undefended dysphoria coupled with a definite tendency to be outgoing and engaging in the world. The price is migraine and other somatic complaint.

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of moderate-load (10 RM) and low-load (20 RM) resistance training schemes on maximal strength and body composition. Sixteen resistance-trained men were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups: a moderate-load group (n = 8) or a low-load group (n = 8). The resistance training schemes consisted of 8 exercises performed 4 times per week for 6 weeks. In order to equate the number of repetitions performed by each group, the moderate load group performed 6 sets of 10 RM, while the low load group performed 3 sets of 20 RM. Between-group differences were evaluated using a 2-way ANOVA and independent t-tests. There was no difference in the weekly total load lifted (sets × reps × kg) between the 2 groups. Both groups equally improved maximal strength and measures of body composition after 6 weeks of resistance training, with no significant between-group differences detected. In conclusion, both moderate-load and low-load resistance training schemes, similar for the total load lifted, induced a similar improvement in maximal strength and body composition in resistance-trained men.