The objectives of the study were to design and develop a questionnaire to measure individuals' perceptions of the impact of diabetes on their quality of life (QoL). The design of the ADDQoL (Audit of Diabetes Dependent QoL) was influenced by patient-centred principles underlying the SEIQoL interview method. Respondents rate only personally-applicable life domains, indicating importance and impact of diabetes. Fifty-two out-patients with diabetes and 102 attending diabetes education open days provided data for psychometric analyses. Each of the 13 domain-specific ADDQoL items was relevant and important for substantial numbers of respondents. Factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency (0.85) supported combination of items into a scale. Insulin-treated patients reported greater impact of diabetes on QoL than table/diet-treated patients. People with microvascular complications showed, as expected, greater diabetes-related impairment of QoL than people without complications. Unlike other QoL measures, the ADDQoL is an individualized questionnaire measure of the impact of diabetes and its treatment on QoL. Preliminary evidence of reliability and validity is established for adults with diabetes. Findings suggest that the ADDQoL will be more sensitive to change and responsive to differences than generic QoL measures.

SYNOPSISThis study found similar prevalence of case depression among men as among women in a sample of 339 Jews affiliated to orthodox synagogues (157 men and 182 women). There were significant gender differences in several social–situational factors and symptoms, mostly in the direction that would suggest that case depression would be higher among women than among men. That this was not so is suggested to be the result of the cultural milieu: social factors that have been found to be associated with depression in other groups of people did not function as risk or vulnerability factors among the Jews studied. In particular, the evidence indicates the importance of specific cultural–religious values in contributing towards the prevalences that were observed. These values included the esteem attached to women's central role in family management and the low use of alcohol and suicide as escape routes from depression.

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Twenty-five music students taking classes in performance were randomly assigned either to an experimental group who received a course of 15 lessons in the Alexander technique, or to a control. A variety of measures were taken on four occasions: in both high and low stress situations before and after treatment. The experimental group showed improvement relative to the control on the following measures: overall music and technical quality as judged by independent experts blind to subjects' condition assignment, heart rate variance, self-rated anxiety and positive attitude to performance. However, with the exception of heart rate variance, these effects were restricted to performance in the low stress class situations. There were no significant effects on height, peak flow or misuse as judged on the basis of videorecordings of behaviour by independent experts in the Alexander technique.

This study used contextual stress measurement to look at the occupational sequelae of stress. One hundred and five civil aviation pilots were interviewed. Events and difficulties were dated and rated for contextual threat; dating information was also obtained for distress symptoms and air traffic incidents. There were significant relationships between stress and air incidents, between stress and distress, and between distress and incidents. Some symptoms (sleep disturbances, loss of energy and tiredness) were more likely to be associated with reported incidents than others. The results are in line with previous suggestions that the effect of stress on job performance is via distress. Distress‐related sleep disturbances may be particularly crucial. Further work using contextual stress measurement is needed to clarify the causal pathways involved. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.