There is a need for a short form questionnaire with known psychometric characteristics that may be used as an indicator of level of global mental distress. A weighted sum of 5 questions from the Symptom Check List (SCL) anxiety and depression subscales (SCL-25) correlates at r = 0.92 with the global SCL-25 score. The alpha reliability for the (5-item) short form questionnaire was 0.85%. Age differences seemed to be trivial, and sex differences were moderate. Descriptive statistics for short form scores in a large, representative sample are given.

The psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of FSS were satisfactory. To avoid over-diagnosing people for high level of fatigue, the threshold for high fatigue probably should be 5 on the FSS scale instead of 4 as had been suggested originally, but further validation of the cut-off point is needed.

PCs of both genders had significantly more anxiety than norm samples. Health care personnel in contact with PCs should consider screening them for mental symptoms and QOL and, if necessary, recommend further evaluation by their doctors.

The definition of case is a core issue in psychiatric epidemiology. Psychiatric symptom screening scales have been extensively used in population studies for many decades. Structured diagnostic interviews have become available during recent years to give exact diagnoses through carefully undertaken procedures. The aim of this article was to assess how well the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) predicted cases by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), and find the optimal cut-offs on the HSCL-25 for each diagnosis and gender. Characteristics of concordant and discordant cases were explored. In a Norwegian two-stage survey mental health problems were measured by the HSCL-25 and the CIDI. Only 46% of the present CIDI diagnoses were predicted by the HSCL-25. Comorbidity between CIDI diagnoses was found more than four times as often in the concordant cases (case agreed upon by both instruments) than in the discordant CIDI cases. Concordant cases had more depression and panic/generalized anxiety disorders. Neither the anxiety nor the depression subscales improved the prediction of anxiety or depression. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves confirmed that the HSCL-25 gave best information about depression. Except for phobia it predicted best for men. Optimal HSCL-25 cut-off was 1.67 for men and 1.75 for women. Of the discordant HSCL-25 cases, one-third reported no symptoms in the CIDI, one-third reported symptoms in the CIDI anxiety module, and the rest had symptoms spread across the modules. With the exception of depression, the HSCL-25 was insufficient to select individuals for further investigation of diagnosis. The two instruments to a large extent identified different cases. Either the HSCL-25 is a very imperfect indicator of the chosen CIDI diagnoses, or the dimensions of mental illness measured by each of the instruments are different and clearly only partly overlapping.

No abstract

Until June 2004, thirty-eight scrapie cases with unusual features, designated Nor98, have been diagnosed in Norway. This study investigated the distribution of PrP genotypes among Nor98 cases, their flock-mates and a random sample of Norwegian slaughtered sheep. The PrP genotype distribution of Nor98 cases differed markedly from that of previous cases of classical scrapie. A leucine/phenylalanine polymorphism at codon 141 with hitherto unknown significance to scrapie was strongly associated with Nor98 cases. Twenty of 38 (52?6 %) cases were either homozygous or heterozygous for phenylalanine at codon 141. In contrast, this allele was present in only 10?5 % of the flock-mates and 4?5 % of the random sample of slaughtered sheep. Moreover, the H 154 allele was represented in 24 of 38 (63?2 %) of Nor98 cases, as opposed to 27?0 % of Nor98 flock-mates and 17?0 % of the slaughtered sheep.

Psychological well-being, Parental status, Childlessness, Norway, Cognitive, Affective, Moderating effects,

Diabetic foot ulcer patients had much worse HRQL compared with the diabetes population and the general population, especially in physical health. Foot ulcer patients were more often men living alone, and obesity was a problem in both the foot ulcer patients and the diabetes population.