Rolf Sandell

The factor structure of Antonovsky's sense of coherence scale in swedish clinical and nonclinical samples

Abstract Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses of Antonovskys Sense of Coherence Scale (SOCS) were run on two clinical and two non-clinical Swedish samples (N = 915). Confirmatory factor analyses did not support the hypothesis of a single common factor measured by all SOCS items, nor the three SOC components posited by Antonovsky. Exploratory factor analysis structures were similar enough across samples to propose the existence of three more or less stable factors. Although simple structure was not obtained, the first two factors were basically equivalent to Antonovskys meaningfulness and comprehensibility components, respectively. On the basis of the high-loading items meaningfulness was interpreted as a zest—depression dimension and comprehensibility as intolerance vs tolerance for emotional conflict. The third factor was only distantly related to manageability, with the items involved all reflecting interpersonal trust and mistrust. The validity of these interpretations was supported by differential correlations between these factors and the Depression, Anxiety and Paranoia subscales of SCL-90.

Assessing the Effects of Psychotherapy

Ratings of ‘Change after Psychotherapy’ (CHAP) in a group of psychologists and a group of psychology students are found to have generally acceptable or high reliability and concordant validity. Factor analyses of the change scales yield basically a common factor, splitting at a higher level into an outer, behavioral, and an inner, intrapsychic change factor, the former indicated by the ‘symptoms’ and ‘adaptive capacity’ scales and the latter by the ‘self-insight’ and ‘basic conflict’ scales. Factor analyses also support the construct validity of the ‘extratherapeutic conditions’ scale. This indicates that summing the change scales will yield a measure of nonspecific change, like global change ratings, whereas the adjusted sum will measure more specifically psychotherapeutic change. A scalogram analysis of the change scales reveals a cumulative pattern that is open to theoretically opposed interpretations about the process relations between inner and outer change.

Treatment utilization and personality organization among drug abusers in sweden

Treatment utilization and personality organization in a case-finding sample of 1824 drug abusers in the greater Stockholm area were assessed by using a standardized questionnaire, with the clients contact persons as informants. Level of personality organization was strongly associated, negatively with the number of concurrent treatment contacts, problems of coordination between concurrent treatment agents, and was positively correlated with agreement between treatment agents in the assignment of principal treatment responsibility and their opinions about the appropriateness of this assignment. Psychiatric ICD-9 diagnosis was not associated with any of these variables.

A closer look at the ability to predict psychotherapeutic outcome

Abstract On the basis of previous findings on the varying ability clinically to predict the outcomes of psychotherapy, this study is focussed on the judgmental processes of good and not-so-good judges. To chart the mechanisms of predictive accuracy, the relations between the ratings of each judge and the criteria have been modelled in terms of structural equations. Further, the predictions of one good and one not-so-good judge have been analysed by multiple regression, with aspects of patient information as independent variables. The analyses suggest that, compared to the not-so-good judge, the good judge utilises more information and has more adequate ideas about its validity but not about its internal correlational structure. While not neglecting secondary process thinking, the good judge still leaves room for intuitive, non formalised judgment and also utilises available information in a more discriminating, or radical, manner. The not-so-good judge appears as an overly conscious and cautious person, n...

Our Varying Ability to Predict the Outcomes of Psychotherapy

The general inability to make clinical predictions of psychotherapeutic change, which has been suggested by previous research, is questioned in this study. It is argued and empirically demonstrated in a sample of 8 experienced psychologists and 8 psychology students that there are reliable individual differences in the ability to make accurate predictions. Above-chance accuracy is significantly frequent in the former group of judges (and nonexistent in the latter group), and performance also appears to be influenced by the conditions of the prediction task.