No abstract

Women must make important adjustments in their sleep patterns during the postpartum period. In the study group, these adjustments were largely successful, particularly after the first week postpartum, in avoiding the negative consequences of sleep disturbances such as dysphoric mood and impaired cognitive function. Nevertheless, the significant associations between sleep indices and mood and objective measures of cognitive function point to the importance of encouraging appropriate amounts of sleep for recently delivered women.

Reproducibilities of blood pressure and heart rate (HR) reactivity reported in studies assessing responses to the same laboratory stressors across occasions were reviewed with meta-analytic techniques. Changes in HR had the greatest reproducibility (r = .555), followed by systolic blood pressure (SBP) (.407) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (.348). Both SBP and HR response reproducibility was higher at shorter test-retest intervals, whereas DBP values varied unsystematically with length of test-retest interval. Older samples exhibited higher SBP and DBP reproducibility to stressors. SBP and DBP reproducibilities were better for tasks that did not make speech demands. The reliability of reactivity assessment was higher when based on three or more measurements. On the basis of available evidence, the drop in stress reproducibility, as test-retest interval increases, places limits on the viability of BP reactivity as a strong marker or risk factor for coronary heart disease.

The sample consisted of 125 male inpatients admitted to one of two substance abuse treatment centers in Iowa. They were diagnosed by means of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule Screening Interview-Quick-DIS version, the Structural Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorder (PD), revised, and the Substance Abuse Reporting System. The most frequently diagnosed comorbid Axis I conditions were anxiety and mood disorders, while the most frequently observed Axis II disorders were in Cluster B, borderline PD, and antisocial PD followed by Cluster C, avoidant PD, passive-aggressive PD and obsessive-compulsive PD; and then Cluster A; schizoid PD. Subjects diagnosed with Borderline PD showed the highest rate of comorbid psychopathology, including Axis I disorders of generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, cocaine dependence, and inhalant dependence. The most likely comorbid diagnosis for antisocial PD subjects was bipolar disorder. The schizoid PD and the NoPD groups were less likely to meet criteria for other Axis I disorders. A high rate of comorbid Axis II pathology was also found. Polysubstance dependent subjects were more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorder or bipolar disorder than were those who were not polysubstance dependent or were dependent only on alcohol. Polysubstance dependent men were at highest risk for Axis II disorders: 56% of them met criteria for a Cluster B PD, with borderline PD and histrionic PD most frequent.

The purpose of this study was to compare two clinical samples of women substance abusers, one from Iowa and one from Norway, along several dimensions: "substance abuse" history, current "abuse" pattern, parental and spouse drinking history, symptoms of psychological distress, and "vulnerability" to relapse. A higher percentage of women substance abusers from Iowa were divorced and lived alone, were "vulnerable" to relapse, and reported more life problems secondary to their substance use than women from Norway. The Iowa women had used more substances in addition to alcohol than had the Norwegian women. The Norwegian women reported greater intensity of emotional distress than the women from Iowa.