This study considered the role of social support in mitigating depression among bone marrow transplant (BMT) patients. Eighty-six BMT patients completed the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Scale (MOS-SSS) and the Centers for Epidemiological Studies of Depression Scale (CES-D) before transplant and again at one year posttransplant. Results showed moderate levels of depressive symptoms in BMT patients, with 29.1 percent and 27.6 percent meeting the suggested criterion for clinical depression at pre-BMT and one year post-BMT, respectively. Overall, patients experienced a reduced level of depression post-BMT, although females reported more depression than males. Social support pre-BMT predicted depression levels post-BMT controlling for initial levels of depression. Clinical implications for health care providers working with cancer patients and their families are discussed.

No abstract

counseling center staff and directors have argued that there has been an increase in severity of psychological concerns among university counseling center clients (R.

This study reports the results of six factor analyses (alpha factoring, direct oblimin rotation, Delta= .4) on six items from the Smith Irrational Beliefs Inventory. Six independent samples of 1851 college students (521 men, 1,280 women, 50 sex unstated) were tested. Three factors emerged with identical content for each analysis. Distorted Egocentrism was defined by two items reflecting feelings of entitlement and the naive assumption that events should always turn out favorably the way one desires; Task Exaggeration/Catastrophizing was defined by two items directly depicting a tendency to view challenges as overwhelming and catastrophic; and Isolated Low Self-esteem was defined by two items expressing the feeling that one has unacceptable feelings that could lead to isolation or rejection. Previous research on other irrational belief inventories has yielded inconsistent results, with multifactorial solutions emerging for clinical samples and unifactoral solutions for student samples. That the present six factor analytic studies yielded a consistent multifactoral set of irrational beliefs for a very large student sample suggests that factors do emerge when items are initially screened and the subject population is carefully defined.

Right-hemisphere strokes are associated with a number of neurobehavioral deficits. The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) is a relatively new, but widely used screening battery; however, there is little published research in patients who have sustained strokes. We present a rare case of stroke in a 22-year-old psychiatric patient, who received neuropsychological evaluations before and after sustaining a right middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke. The RBANS demonstrated sensitivity to post-stroke changes despite pre-stroke cognitive impairments and a complex psychiatric overlay, with the Visuospatial/Constructional index being one of the most sensitive indicators of right hemisphere dysfunction. Line Orientation fell from normal to defective levels; these findings were associated with decline in related standard neuropsychological measures.