Economic hardship (EH) may link to poorer child diet, however whether this association is due to resource limitations or effects on family functioning is unknown. This study examines whether parenting stress mediates the association between EH and child consumption of foods high in saturated fats and added sugars (SFAS).

Data were collected from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. EH was assessed using eight items collected when children were between 1–9 years old. Mothers reported parenting stress and frequency of child consumption of high SFAS foods when children were 9 years old. Latent growth curve modelling (LGCM) and structural equation modelling tested direct associations between the starting level/rate of change in EH and high SFAS food consumption, and parenting stress as a mediator of the association.

Twenty US cities.

Mothers/children (n 3846) followed birth through age 9 years, oversampled ‘high-risk’, unmarried mothers.

LGCM indicated a curvilinear trend in EH from ages 1–9, with steeper increases from ages 3–9 years. EH did not directly predict the frequency of high SFAS foods. Average EH at 3 and 5 years and change in EH from ages 1–9 predicted higher parenting stress, which in turn predicted more frequent consumption of high SFAS foods.

Findings suggest it may be important to consider parenting stress in early prevention efforts given potential lasting effects of early life EH on child consumption of high SFAS foods. Future research should explore how supports and resources may buffer effects of EH-related stress on parents and children.

This instrumental work aims to replicate the exploratory factor analysis about the Referential Thinking Scale (REF scale) already developed by Lenzenweger et al. (1997) to examine its multidimensionality.

Participants: The analyzed sample consisted of 193 participants (67.36% women, mean 28.36 years old, SD = 10.35), of whom 131 were patients.

Design, materials and procedure: We used the REF-scale (Lenzenweger et al., 1997) adapted to Spanish language. This questionnaire consists of 34 items that assess the frequency of referential thinking on a dichotomic scale (true/false). We used SPSS 15.0 to conduct a principal-components factor analysis with a varimax and oblimin rotation.

The principal-components factor analysis method led to 5 factors that explain 37.35% of variance for the rotated solution. Because of inter-factors correlations are small, we considered these factors as being independent. The five factors were labeled as: Laughter, Commentaries (it accounted for 8.92% of variance); Guilt (it accounted for 8.77% of variance); Causal Explanations (it accounted for 7.17% of variance); Songs, Newspapers, Books (it accounted for 6.44% of variance); and Attention, Appearance (it accounted for 6.04% of variance).

It's obtained the five factors isolated in previous studies (Lenzenweger et al., 1997; Rodríguez-Testal et al., 2001). However, the multidimensionality of the REF scale must be viewed with caution because of a small percentage of explained variance.

Kernberg's classification of personality disorders (1987) differentiates psychic organization according to the severity: neurotic, borderline and psychotic. Lenzenweger et al. (2001) used a reduced version of IPO with 57 items developed by Kernberg and Clarkin (1995).

IPO was applied in a sample of patients and a control group. We expected to find an adequate reliability and validity of the inventory. Scales adequately distinguish content borderline, neurotic and psychotic.

Participants: 288 subjects (64.9% women), 116 patients attended to private clinical practice from February 2007 to September 2009. 172 control subjects matched by sex, social class and sincerity (EPI).

Transversal design, a measure collective in the comparison group and individual in patients ones. A group of patients was selected for the retest (n = 88).

Instruments. We applied IPO, the BPRS, MCMI-II and MIPS. Diagnoses according to DSM-IV-TR.

Internal consistency (Cronbach) was adequate for the three scales: .83; .90 and .89. The testretest reliability was correct for a mean interval of 44 days (.78; .81; .78). The validity analyses differed between diagnostic groups in Axis I (p< .05), but not in the clusters of personality (p>.05). No differences in BPRS with scale of borderline, but yes with neurotic and psychotic ones. The MCMI-II was properly differentiated by the three scales of the IPO.

The IPO is an useful scale with reliability and validity. The main drawback concerns certain aspects of the borderline scale.

Sexuality is a crucial area of human life. A proper examination to assess and detect problems in this field, it seems imperative to intervene when transsexual patients. Therefore accurately known, the sexual practices of these patients, allows us to work directly on possible alterations in the functioning of sexual life during the therapeutic process.

Describe patterns of sexual behavior in patients diagnosed with transsexualism

Gender and Identity Disorder Unit (GIDU)

Selected by consecutive sampling, 200 transsexuals treated at GIDU Malaga, aged between 20 and 40 years and who agreed to participate in the study. Comprising 142 transgender male-to-woman (MtW) and 58 women-to-man (WtM).

Was conducted through a heterocompleted questionnaire that included questions about sexuality, personality traits and demographic characteristics. These were filled in the consultation and were anonymous.

11.6% of MtW transsexuals have never had sex. 26.8% of the MtW and 29% of WtM are more than 3 months without masturbating. 54.1% of the MtW avoid having sex due to the rejection of his genitals, lack of sexual desire and previous traumatic experience. Transgender respondents had secondary education, stable jobs and they were single.

It is vital that we explore the sex lives of transsexual patients. This information must be integrated in a systematic and rigorous evaluation process. According to the results presented, the hyposexuality would be the most significant feature that describes sexuality for this population.

In this study we intended to analyse if the REF Scale is a good indicator to differentiate the two subtypes of paranoia “Bad Me” and “Poor Me” (Trower & Chadwick, 1995).

Participants: We analyzed data from a different sample of previous studies with 326 participants (64.11% women, mean age 30.8, SD = 10.84), of whom 212 were patients.

Design, materials and procedure: We used the REF-scale (Lenzenweger et al., 1997) adapted to Spanish language, of which we deleted two items because of psychometric criteria, resulting 32 dichotomic items. We used SPSS 15.0 to conduct a principal-components factor analysis with a varimax and oblimin rotation, retaining two factors.

Two factors explained 31.32% of the variance (rotated solution). We interpreted factor through factor loadings higher than .42. Factor 1 accounted for 18.28% of the variance and it's associated with referential laughter, commentaries and guilt. Factor 2 accounted for 13.05% of the variance and it's associated with referential concerns related to the media.

Since the inter-factor correlation is moderate (.44) and there are no relevant clinical differences about the content between the two factors, the REF scale is a one-dimensional measure. Therefore, two big factors don’t emerge from the REF scale related to referential concerns about laughter-commentaries and guilt that correspond to “Poor Me” and “Bad Me”, respectively.

In previous works we demonstrated the utility of the REF scale for the assessment referential thinking (Rodríguez-Testal et al., 2001) although it wasn't specific for patients with psychotic disorder (Rodríguez-Testal et al., 2008).

We analyzed the psychometric properties of reliability and validity of the REF scale. We compared the differences in referential thinking between subjects with and without psychopathology. In the patient group we will not obtain differences in referential-thinking between diagnosis types of Axis I, Axis II, or patients with diagnoses on both axes.

Participants: 120 subjects, 70 patients attending a private center of clinic psychology, 64.3 % women, mean age = 35.21 (SD = 10.5) and 50 controls selected from the normal population, 54 % women, mean age = 33.48 (SD = 10.83).

It was applied a cross design for a correlation method of comparison between groups. All the analysis were accepted at p< .05.

We reached adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha= .90, split-half reliability= .83 and .82). The test-restest reliability was significant (mean interval of 44 days). There are significant differences in referential thinking between subjects with and without psychopathology (t=3.8; p=.001). There are significant differences in referential thinking between types of diagnoses (F=3.99; p=.001).

The REF scale has adequate psychometric properties (reliability and validity). It discriminated between patients and no-patients, and between the different types of diagnoses, especially for those who suffer psychotic disorders.

Stress and trauma have been reported as leading contributing factors in schizophrenia. And certainly child abuse (neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse among others) has a lasting negative impact, which is well established in literature.

To consider the presence of infant trauma and its relationship with psychopathology in paranoid schizophrenics.Methods. 37 patients (mean age 29±6.3; years from onset 9.20±4.7), meeting DSM IV paranoid schizophrenia criteria, undergoing treatment in a university hospital are studied. The PANSS is administered in order to rate psychopathology.

27 patients had infant trauma (55.8%). Main traumas are: sexual abuse (12.8%), child abuse (7.7%), both sexual and child abuse (5.18%), parental separation (7.7%), extra-rigid parents (2.6%), alcoholic parents (18.2%), child abuse and mother's death in childhood (2.6%). Infant trauma and psychopathology showed a significant relationship concerning Hostility (No 1.75±1.209, Yes 2.26±1.759), Unnatural Movements and Posture (No 1.55±0.945, Yes 1.16±0.545), Depression (No 1.25±0.550, Yes 1.74±1.284) and Preoccupation (No 2.75±1.410, Yes 3.26±1.996).

Infant trauma is common in paranoid schizophrenia and our findings give some evidence to a relationship with psychopathology, especially with dimensions as Hostility, Unnatural Movements and Posture, Depression and Preoccupation. Despite sample size, a high proportion (55.8%) of the patients presented infant trauma and future research is needed in order to open new avenues in this field, particularly studies concerning infant trauma and symptomatology specificity will be greatly appreciated as well as the plausible link to personality traits and personality disorders.

In previous works we used the REF scale of referential thinking as criterion of therapeutic evolution (Benítez-Hernández et al., 2006; Rodríguez-Testal et al., 2009).

We designed a group therapy of social skills for monitoring and modification of the referential thinking. We predict a decrease of referential thinking (frequency and intensity) both in pretest and posttest measures for each session, as in the progress of the all sessions as a whole.

Participants: 5 women from 24 to 38 years old with the diagnoses: Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia and history of Sexual Abuse; generalized Social Phobia; Avoidance Personality Disorder; Bipolar I Disorder; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Avoidance Personality Disorder. It's employed a longitudinal design (brief time-series) of REF measurement (frequency and intensity) at a weekly interval. C Young (p < 0.01) was used for the statistical analysis of the data, t (paired samples) and the method of least squares to obtain the trend line.

• #1: frequency-posttest (p=.01).

• #2: intensity-pretest (p =.01); intensity-posttest, C =.663 (p< .01).

• #3: intensity-pretest, C =.772 (p< .01), intensity-posttest, C =.681 (p< .01).

• #4: frequency-pretest, C =.695 (p< .01), frequency- posttest, C =.74 (p< .01).

• #5: frequency-pretest and frequency-posttest (p>.01).

Preliminary analysis indicates an improvement of referential thinking in the frequency and intensity both intra and inter-sessions. More therapy sessions are needed to reflect a change statistically significant.

In this study we assess the sensitivity of REF scale to detect the disorganization of patient's mental state longitudinally.

Participants: It's a 35-year-old man diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder. He had a psychotic breakdown and he is being treated with haloperidol. The psychological intervention is cognitive type.

Design, materials and procedure: We used an experimental adaptation of the REF-scale. This self-applied scale consists of 34 items that evaluate the referential thinking in Likert format. We employed a longitudinal design (brief time-series). C Young (p < 0.01) was used for the statistical analysis of the data and the method of least squares to obtain the trend line. We included 103 measures registered at an interval of 3 days.

It's observed a significant declining trend in the whole of the measures both intensity and frequency from the beginning of therapy. However, we observed a significant declining trend in intensity but not in frequency when we analyzed the data from the 50th measurement, which was the period during which the patient got worse.

It's confirmed again that the REF-scale is a stable and reliable measure. It's able to detect changes in the patient's evolution of the referential thinking from the beginning of therapy. In addition, the REF-scale is sensitive detecting decompensations in patients. Therefore, we conclude REF scale is a useful measure for the subsequent decision-making therapeutic.

We created an experimental adaptation of the REF scale (Lenzenweger et al., 1997), in a Likert format for discriminate between frequency and intensity of referential thinking (Rodríguez-Testal et al., 2008).

We try to verify if the Likert format of the REF discriminates between controls and patients, and also in patients with different diagnoses. We predict that there will be differences in frequency and intensity between patients and controls.

Participants: 108 subjects, 40 patients from a private center of clinical psychology, 55% women, mean age = 35.70 (SD = 12.42) and 68 controls selected from the normal population, 50% women, mean age = 36.35 (SD = 12.99).

It was applied a cross design for a correlation method of comparison between groups. All the analysis were accepted at p< .05.

No differences in referential thinking between patients and controls with Likert format in frequency (t = 1.496, P = 1.14), although there were differences in intensity (t = 2.30, p =.023). No significant differences in referential thinking between types of diagnoses with the Likert format (X2 = 6.63, p =. 249).

The Likert format of the REF scale adequately discriminates between patients and controls in intensity but not in frequency. This format doesn't discriminate between different diagnoses. The Likert format induces and overestimates the response.