Top PDF Psychometric properties of the Slovene version of the Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire

Vprašalnik usmerjenosti k sre či OTH (Orientations to Happiness; Peterson idr., 2005) meri tri možne na čine oz. poti k sreči, in sicer usmerjenost k užitku, usmerjenost k smislu in usmerjenost k vpletenosti. Vsaka od treh lestvic vsebuje po šest postavk. Primeri postavk vklju čujejo »Ko se odločam, kaj bom počel, vedno pomislim, ali bo to koristilo drugim ljudem.« za smisel, »Življenje je prekratko, da bi se odrekali užitkom, ki jih nudi.« za užitek in »Delu ali igri se ponavadi tako predam, da pozabim na vse drugo.« za vpletenost. Udeleženci na 5-stopenjski lestvici ocenjujejo, kako dejansko živijo svoje življenje (1 - sploh ni zna čilno zame; 5 - zelo značilno zame). Višje število to čk predstavlja višjo usmerjenost k doseganju sre če na določen način. Avtorji izvirnika (Peterson idr., 2005) navajajo alfa koeficiente notranje skladnosti 0,82 za smisel, 0,82 za užitek in 0,72 za vpletenost, ustrezno notranjo skladnost pa so podprli (alfa koeficienti preko 0,74) tudi pri vzorcu preko 13 tiso č udeležencev iz 112 držav (Schueller in Seligman, 2010). Vprašalnik sta avtorici pri čujočega članka neodvisno prevedli iz originalne angleške razli čice v slovenščino, primerjali prevoda in ju združili, nato je dipl. anglistka prevedla vprašalnik nazaj v angleški jezik. Ta prevod smo nato primerjali z originalom in vsebinsko uskladili manjša neskladja med njima.

This definition of empathy seems to be an elegant way to overcome the old division between those psychologists who believed that empathy was mainly an affective state and those who claimed that it was a cognitive asset. The first group of authors saw empathy as a reaction in the empathizer that is similar to the original one in the perceived person, further differing among themselves regarding the hypothesised extent of that similarity. Among the instruments developed to measure emotional arousal to other people’s experience the most prominent was the „Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy” (Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972), later revised by one of the authors and named the „Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale” (see Lawrence et al., 2004). The second group defined empathy as a capacity for non-self-centred perception and understanding of other people’s inner world, and its proponents constructed several instruments with hope that it may be possible to measure someone’s ability to take other people’s perspective. The once most widely used was the questionnaire aimed at measuring cognitive empathy (Hogan, 1969), but it later came under a lot of

strategies measured by the CERQ are: 1) self-blame (thoughts about being the one to blame for the negative experience); 2) other-blame (thoughts about the others being the ones to blame for the negative experience); 3) rumination (excessive focus on thoughts associated to the negative aspects of the experience); and 4) catastrophizing (thoughts emphasizing the terror of the negative experience). On the contrary, the adaptive strategies measured by the instrument are: 1) putting into perspective (thoughts relativizing the experience and putting aside its seriousness when comparing it to other experiences); 2) positive refocusing (more pleasant and joyful thoughts instead of thoughts about the negative experience); 3) positive reappraisal (thoughts about giving a new positive meaning to the experience in terms of personal goals); 4) acceptance (thoughts about accepting the experience); and 5) refocus on planning (thoughts about which steps are necessary to be taken to deal with the negative experience). 4,5

One-hundred and seventy four patients, all over 18 years old, with chronic musculoskeletal pain from seven health care institutions in northern and central Portugal completed the study protocol. In- clusion criteria included: (1) experiencing pain due to a diagnosed musculoskeletal condition for at least 3 months; (2) being at least 18 years old; (3) and being willing to participate in a research. Ex- clusion criteria included: (1) having a physical or cognitive disability which prevented participation, (2) known/diagnosed severe depression or other severe mental health condition, and (3) pain due to fibromyalgia. As can be seen in Table I, the participants’ ages ranged from 23 to 90 years (M = 59.18, SD = 16.11), 60.2% were married or li - ving with a significant other, 26.3% were either sin- gle or divorced/separate and 8.8% of the partici- pants were widowed. The majority of the partici- pants were female (60.2%). Most participants had a history of chronic pain for at least two years (65.3%), and 38.8% reported having had pain for more than 10 years.

Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the official Brazilian Portuguese-language version of the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) in a representative group of Brazilian children and adolescents with asthma. Methods: A total of 125 individuals with asthma, aged 8-17 years and being monitored at a pediatric pulmonology outpatient clinic in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, completed the PAQLQ. Validity was assessed by means of convergent validity (correlation between PAQLQ domains and those of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 4.0. Reliability was assessed by determining internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient), reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient), sensitivity to change (effect size), and discriminatory power (floor/ceiling effects). Results: The mean age was 11 years, and 75 (60%) of the participants were male. The mean PAQLQ total score was 5.1, with floor/ceiling effects < 10%. Correlations between PAQLQ domains and the PedsQL 4.0 domains were acceptable (r = 0.37-0.40). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the total score was 0.93, ranging from 0.72 to 0.88 for the domains. The overall effect size was 0.60 (range: 0.45-0.60), whereas the overall intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.80 (range: 0.66-0.79). Conclusions: The official Brazilian Portuguese- language version of the PAQLQ showed good psychometric performance, confirming its cultural adequacy for use in Brazil.

Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the official Brazilian Portuguese-language version of the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) in a representative group of Brazilian children and adolescents with asthma. Methods: A total of 125 individuals with asthma, aged 8-17 years and being monitored at a pediatric pulmonology outpatient clinic in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, completed the PAQLQ. Validity was assessed by means of convergent validity (correlation between PAQLQ domains and those of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 4.0. Reliability was assessed by determining internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient), reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient), sensitivity to change (effect size), and discriminatory power (floor/ceiling effects). Results: The mean age was 11 years, and 75 (60%) of the participants were male. The mean PAQLQ total score was 5.1, with floor/ceiling effects < 10%. Correlations between PAQLQ domains and the PedsQL 4.0 domains were acceptable (r = 0.37-0.40). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the total score was 0.93, ranging from 0.72 to 0.88 for the domains. The overall effect size was 0.60 (range: 0.45-0.60), whereas the overall intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.80 (range: 0.66-0.79). Conclusions: The official Brazilian Portuguese- language version of the PAQLQ showed good psychometric performance, confirming its cultural adequacy for use in Brazil.

In order to overcome some of the limitations of the current study, future research should examine the discriminant validity of the instrument regarding enjoyment and boredom in greater depth, for example using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM), as recommended by Marsh et al. (2014). Since the AEQ-ES_P is a self-report instrument, it is also important for future studies to complement the data provided by Portuguese students with data provided by their teachers. Data on students’ academic achievement and other academic outcomes should also be gathered, and their reciprocal relationship with emotions should be examined longitudinally. Further, students’ achievement emotions in different academic domains and in earlier grades should also be explored. Given the strong associations between students’ emotional experiences, their control and value appraisals, and several academic outcomes (e.g., Pekrun et al., 2010, 2017; Putwain, Becker, et al., 2018; Putwain, Pekrun, et al., 2018), our results highlight the importance of studying achievement emotions as soon as students enter formal schooling. The sooner negative emotional patterns are identified, the greater the likelihood of an intervention to be effective in breaking down these cycles or, ideally, in preventing them from even forming. A first step in that direction is to develop reliable and valid instruments specific to this age group, which was the main contribution we intended to make in the current study. Our findings show that the AEQ-ES-P has good psychometric properties and support the validity and adequacy of this instrument to measure Portuguese elementary students’ achievement emotions in the domain of mathematics.

The Resilience Scale (RS), developed by Wagnild and Young (1993), is a 25-item self-report questionnaire to identify the degree of individual resilience. The RS has performed as a reliable and valid tool to measure resilience. It has been used with a wide range of study populations and has been regarded as the best assessment method to evaluate resilience in the adolescent population, due to good psychometric properties and applications in a variety of age groups (for reviews see Ahern et al., 2006; Wagnild, 2009b). The items of the RS were drawn from interviews with persons who characterized the generally accepted definitions of resilience. Thus, the RS has been argued to have a priori content validity (Wagnild & Young, 1993). According to previous studies, resilience measured by the RS has a positive correlation with life satisfaction, self-esteem, self-rated health, self-actualization, stress management and social support, and a negative correlation with depressive symptoms and anxiety (Abiola & Udofia, 2011; Heilemann, Lee, & Kury, 2003; Humphreys, 2003; Nishi et al., 2010; Wagnild, 2009a; Wagnild & Young, 1993).

ABSTRACT. Metamemory measures provide subjective memory information and are relevant to investigate memory ability in aging. However, there is a lack of metamemory instruments available in Brazil. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ), which evaluates different dimensions of subjective memory functioning, such as Feelings, Abilities and Strategies used in everyday life. Methods: The MMQ was translated into Portuguese and administered to 30 Brazilian elderly subjects. The participants underwent cognitive tests, mood scales and metamemory instruments. Results: Analyses revealed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α coefficient ranged from 0.75 to 0.89) and test-retest validity for each MMQ dimensions (positive correlations between two applications ranged from 0.75 to 0.8). Convergent validity evidence for the MMQ was confirmed by significant positive correlations (0.47 to 0.68) with dimensions of the Metamemory in Adulthood scale (MIA) (i.e., the Ability, Control, Self-efficacy and Strategy dimensions). Discriminant validity revealed no associations between the MMQ and cognitive performance, suggesting a weak metamemory-objective memory correspondence. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between MMQ-Ability subscale scores and mood symptoms (–0.63 for anxious symptoms, and –0.54 for depressive symptoms); and the Brazilian MMQ was comparable with MMQ translations to other languages. Conclusion: The Brazilian MMQ exhibits good psychometric properties and appears promising for clinical and research purposes. Additional studies are needed to further examine the psychometric properties of the Brazilian MMQ in a larger sample. Key words: metamemory, subjective memory, episodic memory, cognition and aging.

The data were collected from the public Maternity of the Regional Hospital in the city of São José, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, from February to May 2017. Patients hospitalized at the puerperium ward who had singletons, eighteen or more years old, at least three prenatal appointments and ability to read and write in Portuguese were included. Patients with any psychiatric disorders that could preclude their participation in responding the questionnaire, and those who conceived stillbirth or newborn with neonatal death during the admission period were excluded.

The Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ) assesses the strategies to control intrusive thoughts. In the present study we evaluated the factorial structure using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to analyze its reliability. We also analyzed the convergent and divergent validity. A sample of 558 participants from the Portuguese community replied the TCQ, the Revised Intrusions Inventory, the White Bear Suppression Inventory, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory. The CFA showed that the original five-factor model (Wells and Davies, 1994) produced an acceptable fit. However, fifteen items obtained factor loadings less than .40, whereby its reformulation would be advisable. The TCQ provided adequate levels of reliability and validity.

The strengths of this study include the large sample size and the robust statis- tical analyses employed. However, the study faced certain limitations. First, the participants were college students from an Iranian university and therefore results may not be generalized to Iranians of other ages and demographics. Future research should replicate the study with Iranian adolescents and adults from a variety of ages. Second, the BREQ-2 is focused on exercise behavior and does not address all types of physical activity behavior. Exer- cise is one type of physical activity de- signed specifically to improve health. We suggest that future studies should examine the relationship between the various as- pects of physical activity motivation and objectively measured physical activity. Additional research is needed to develop scales that include the different forms of intrinsic motivation as proposed by Valle- rand [38]. That is, intrinsic motivation to know, intrinsic motivation to accomplish, and intrinsic motivation to experience sti- mulation.

Descriptive analysis (minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviations) were obtained for all TSRQ-PA items. Internal consistency of the TSRQ-PA questionnaire was calculated, using Cronbach’s alphas. Subsequently, the validity of the TSRQ factorial structure was analyzed by conducting a Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA; Arbuckle, 2005), using the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation method. The following goodness of fit indices were used to determine the adequacy of the model: Comparative Fit Index (CFI; Bentler, 1990), Root-Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA; Steiger, 1990) and χ 2 statistics. CFI values close to 1 indicate a very good adequacy of the measurement model (Bentler, 1990) and RMSEA values of .08 or less indicate a reasonable fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993). Results less than 2 for the χ²/df are considered to be adequate (Byrne, 1989). For further validation of the TSRQ-PA, Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to examine associations between physical activity and behaviour regulatory style.

Although the Subjective Happiness Scale is an integral instrument for assessing individual well-being, the research currently available reports the validation of the scale in just a few populations: the North American and the Russian populations (Lyubomirski and Lepper 1999), Japanese (Shimai et al. 2004), Chinese and Malays (Swami 2008), Austrian and Tagalog (Swami et al. 2009). Research, therefore, is needed to validate the SHS in other countries. In particular, a validation of the scale in a Latin language country is still lacking. According to Swami et al. (2009), the translation and the validation of the SHS for use in diverse samples will aid cross-cultural research on subjective happiness. Research in this field pointed out that although happiness is valued in different cultures (e.g., Diener and Diener 1995; Ryan et al. 1999) there might be cross-cultural differences in the meaning of happiness and variables associated with happiness (Swami et al. 2009). Thus, the aim of the present paper is to present the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Subjective Happiness Scale by assessing its construct validity across five diverse groups of Portuguese working adults balanced for age and gender. Evidence of the relationship between the con- struct of Life Satisfaction and Happiness in the Portuguese culture is also provided. This evidence provides information regarding the criterion-validity of the SHS.

All the patients included in this prospective, multicentric, open label trial underwent sling procedure and King’s Health Questionnaire was applied before and after it. The results from the internal responsiveness study are shown in Table-4 and confirm that the Portuguese version of King’s Health Questionnaire captures changes over time. Responsiveness expressed in terms of the Standardized Effect Size (SES or ES I) and Standardized Response Mean (SRM or ES II) showed large values for effect size studies, for all the domains in King’s Health Questionnaire, except for the domains general health perception and sleep/energy, both with values under 0.8, which denotes only moderate responsiveness.

The essence of social economy is the inclusive function of the labor market through which the different forms of social economy that exist in the member states can play a role in the overcoming the crisis, especially in the creating of jobs, including in social services field Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the post‐ 2010 Lisbon Strategy 9, p. .

I think we can answer this question in the positive: Yes, He can, because He is the most perfect being and His omnipotence is absolutely unlimited. A very important premise underlying the answer to the last question is that the risk is not so great, or even that it is very small. It is so because the nature and mechanism of the created world ensure with a very high proba- bility that all purposes intended by God will be attained without his causal action in the processes occurring in the world. The emergence of life in the universe is almost inevitable, because the universe is large and old enough, and biochemical mechanisms are very effective. The emergence of sentient beings was also almost inevitable because of longstanding and countless mutations and adaptations of living organisms to their environment. All this was very probable and hence in a sense necessary (inevitable). The great advantage of the non-deterministic world is its own creativity, which is possible because of the chance events happening in a way restricted only by the laws of nature. Thus, if one evolutionary path fails another one is opened. Perhaps a mutation suitable for the growth and development of a given species happened by chance and enabled it to survive in hard con- ditions and further develop. Elasticity and redundancy are very typical for the world of chance, but because of these properties, this world has a large number of possibilities and abilities to develop and regenerate after various natural catastrophes (Łukasiewicz 2006).

These data suggest differences between sleep behaviors on days with schedules and on free days. The results indicated that the midsleep phase is later on free days than on days with schedules, which was expected considering that on days without imposition of schedules the subjects are expected to compensate for sleep deficits resulting from the days with schedules. It should also be noted that the MSF on FDs and on SCDs differ in 19 minutes, which did not correspond to the data obtained in previous studies (Arbabi et al. 2015; Clarisse et al. 2004; Couto 2011; Couto et al. 2014;). Moreover, the sleep inertia in both types of periods (FDs and SCDs) was also 15 minutes, without significant variation (Werner et al. 2009). On the other hand, this study presented additional data insofar as the previous study of this instrument in Portugal (Couto 2011; Couto et al. 2014) found no significant differences between the MSFc and other factors. It should be noted that in this study, variables such as nationality, mother tongue and school hours are new factors that were not examined in previous studies.

side), depending on the location of a sculpture in the overall composition of certain structures, on the skills of masters belonging to different art schools. In rare cases, the low relief (the sculpture in Surkh Kotal) [21], traditional for ancient Iran and less characteristic for the art of Kushan, was used. Thus, the "Bactrian sculpture was characterized by monumentality and st rict frontal position‖ [22, 90p]. But round, often three- quarter, always wall sculpture, had been rather an exception in the buildings of Greco-Bactrian period and Buddhist structures. According to references, the statue of Anahit [23] was located in the temple of Bactria before the arrival of the Greeks, and with the arrival of the Greek, the Hellenistic traditions began to play a significant role in the artistic culture of Central Asia [24]. In the Hellenistic period the sculpture was done in full volume and size, often exceeding the human scale (in Square Hall of Nisa, in the temple of Ai-Khanum in Surkh Kotal). For example, the sculpture of Ai-Khanum was two and a half times larger than the life size, this required from the masters an "excellent knowledge of modeling techniques and strengthening the clay mass" [25, 71p]. By the scale the sculptors emphasized the position of painted person in the hierarchy. Hellenistic traditions of erecting the statues of kings "were transformed over time into the objects of worship and were placed in sanctuaries‖ [26, 15p]. In Bactria there existed and were for a long time exercised the temples of Hellenic Gods (Temple of Dioscurus in Dilberdjin), "visited by both local descendants of Greek colonists and the Hellenized part of local population" [27, 82p]. In all probability, Greek deities were placed there (for example, in the area of

Descriptive statistics and reliability and validi- ty analyses were conducted by using SPSS 15.0 (SPSS Inc.Chicago, IL,USA). Confirmatory fac- tor analysis (CFA) was made by using LISREL 8.80 (Scientific Software International, Inc, Lincolnwood, IL,USA). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was made with principal component analy- sis and obtained results were evaluated with vari- max rotation. CFA was made with Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Root Mean Square Residual (RMR), Standardized RMR (SRMR), Normed Fit Index (NFI), x2 and x2/SD. Validity analysis