Month: January 2014

Bipolar Disorder

The Rescuer Becomes the Tormentor

January 24, 2014 dbsasgv_gskvnc Comments Off on The Rescuer Becomes the Tormentor

Something was terribly wrong with me when I allowed him to practice unsafe sex with me, later finding out I had caught an STD. When I questioned him about it, he announced that “everyone has that! Don’t make a big deal about it. I got it from the ocean”. He’d get angry when I questioned further about how he really got it. […]

Bipolar Disorder

Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale/Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A)

January 16, 2014 dbsasgv_gskvnc Comments Off on Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale/Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A)

The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) is a psychological questionnaire used by clinicians to rate the severity of a patient’s anxiety. Anxiety can refer to things such as “a mental state…a drive…a response to a particular situation…a personality trait…and a psychiatric disorder.” […]

Bipolar Disorder

Structured Interview Guide for the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale

January 16, 2014 dbsasgv_gskvnc Comments Off on Structured Interview Guide for the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale

The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) is the most widely used scale for patient selection and follow-up in research studies of treatments of depression. Despite extensive study of the reliability and validity of the total scale score, the psychometric characteristics of the individual items have not been well studied. In the only reliability study to report agreement on individual items using a test-retest interview method, most of the items had only fair or poor agreement. Because this is due in part to variability in the way the information is obtained to make the various rating distinctions, the Structured Interview Guide for the HDRS (SIGH-D) was developed to standardize the manner of administration of the scale. A test-retest reliability study conducted on a series of psychiatric inpatients demonstrated that the use of the SIGH-D results in a substantially improved level of agreement for most of the HDRS items. […]