Jesús Varela Mallou

Evaluation and early detection of problematic Internet use in adolescents

BACKGROUND Problematic Internet use in adolescents has become an issue of concern for a growing number of researchers and institutions over the past years. Behavioural problems, social isolation, school failure and family problems are some of the consequences of psychological and behavioural impact on teenagers. Taking into account the interest that this issue has generated at many levels, the aim of this paper is to develop a screening tool for early detection of problematic Internet use in teenagers. METHOD A survey of Compulsory Secondary School students from Galicia involving a total of 2,339 individuals was carried out. RESULTS The results obtained allow (1) gauging the magnitude of the problem, establishing the risk levels among the adolescents, and (2) presenting a new, simple and short screening instrument. CONCLUSIONS The present scale has sufficient theoretical and empirical support, including good psychometric properties (a = .83; specificity = .81; sensitivity = .80; ROC curve = .90), making it an interesting applied tool.

Estimación de la respuesta de los "no sabe/no contesta" en los estudios de intención de voto

La historia electoral en Espana nos pone en evidencia, generalmente desfavorable, la escasa validez, exactitud y sentido de algunas predicciones hechas por las encuestas electorales. Junto con problemas de representatividad sociopolitica o errores en la estructura de la entrevista, una fuente de error en dicha prediccion es el escaso tratamiento estadistico de la falta de respuesta o datos missing. En este trabajo utilizaremos una encuesta preelectoral llevada a cabo en la Comunidad Gallega en julio de 1998, para evaluar la eficacia de cuatro tratamientos habituales de la falta de respuesta. Los procedimientos que vamos a evaluar son: listwise, asignacion proporcional, analisis discriminante y Hot-Deck. Los resultados muestran que el Hot-Deck, combinado con el analisis discriminante, es el metodo mas eficaz para estimar el voto probable de los sujetos que no se han pronunciado sobre la intencion de voto.

Study on Active Ageing at Individual Level Based on Active Ageing Index

Active Ageing Index (AAI) evaluates the strategies developed throughout the European Union. Its indicators are mostly addressed from a macro level, making difficult the obtaining of regional and individual scores. This study aims to calculate the value of AAI for Galicia (Spain) and to complement it with its individual equivalent, for deeper segment the results and create personal profiles. For this, a representative sample of 404 Galician community-dwelling older adults (aged 60 and over) is interviewed. AAI and AAI-adapted global and domain-specific scores are calculated. This study also provides policy makers and practitioners with an individualized tool which quantifies and monitors the personal level of active ageing. Its implementation could improve the adaptation of programmes to older people’s needs and the assessment of its effectiveness.

HABI: UNA HERRAMIENTA PARA LA REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA IMAGEN DE UN PRODUCTO O SERVICIO *

RESUMEN La imagen de un producto o servicio es un concepto capital que ha suscitado un enorme interes por parte de los investigadores relacionados con el ambito del consumidor o usuario, con desarrollos y avances en los ultimos anos tanto a nivel teorico como metodologico. Tan importante como la medicion de la imagen es su posterior representacion grafica, que facilita un analisis rapido y preciso de toda la informacion relativa a este constructo. En este trabajo se presenta una nueva herramienta de representacion de la imagen de un producto o servicio denominada HABI. Este instrumento pretende compendiar los principales elementos evaluativos de la imagen de un producto o servicio (imagen global, sus atributos y dimensiones fundamentales, informacion de tipo cualitativo, cuantitativo), superando asi las limitaciones de anteriores planteamientos graficos. Su construccion y funcionamiento se ejemplifica mediante un analisis de la imagen que tienen de una ciudad sus residentes y los habitantes de las zonas aledanas a Santiago de Compostela (n1=601, n2=601). Los resultados muestran que puede ser una herramienta fiable y util para representar de manera clara y sencilla la imagen de un producto o servicio.

QUAD: una escala sencilla, válida y fiable para evaluar la calidad asistencial en el ámbito de las adicciones

Different studies in the field of addictions have highlighted the importance of providing a good quality health care. Perceived quality as well as being an indicator of the degree of excellence achieved by an organization, is also an excellent predictor of the individuals attitude towards treatment and adherence. 931 users of public Galician health care services were interviewed in order to develop an empirical validation and a reliability study on a perceived quality scale. The SEM analysis carried out made possible to offer a simple and brief scale (only 14 items) with excellent psychometric properties (α=0,84; criterion validity=64%), to be used to assess the quality of health care in the field of drug addiction.

Category accessibility: An alternative explanation for the effects of “Patterning” on aggressive behavior

Since Banduras theories of social learning were published [Social Learning Theory, 1977; Am Psychol 34:439, 1979], several explanations have been given to account for the fact that observers tend to do the same thing as an observed person. This effect of patterning facilitation was studied. The role that Bandura [Am Psychol 34:439, 1979] attributes to patterning as an augmentor of aggressiveness was studied starting from the position of Carver et al. [J Exp Soc Psychol 19:403, 1983]. They suggest that an aggressive pattern will provide a given subject with a number of conceptual schemes to interpret any other information or situation. In order to assess this hypothesis, different subject groups were exposed to different sequences of patterning and were observed in a later situation similar to the one presented in the pattern. The effect of patterning basically depended on the subjects interpretation of the situation, and this guided their subsequent motivations.

La percepción de la conducta agresiva: Un estudio taxonómico de las diferencias inter e intraculturales

This study empirically attempts to offer contributions for the classification of aggressive episodes. The proximity data approach is followed. Under this perspective, aggressive episodes are mapped as points in a n-dimensional space. Data were collected for two different spanish subcultures: undergraduates and prisoners. An individual differences multidimensional escaling model and method (Carroll and Chang, 1970) was used co analyze the data. The four-dimensional solution was retained. Differences between subcultures are found.