VA Palo Alto Healthcare System

About: VA Palo Alto Healthcare System is a healthcare organization based out in Palo Alto, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 2548 authors who have published 4605 publications receiving 209938 citations.

Use of somatosensory-evoked potentials and cognitive event-related potentials in predicting outcomes of patients with severe traumatic brain injury.

Abstract: Lew HL, Dikmen S, Slimp J, Temkin N, Lee EH, Newell D, Robinson LR: Use of somatosensory-evoked potentials and cognitive event-related potentials in predicting outcomes of patients with severe traumatic brain injury. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2003;82:53–61.ObjectiveThis study was performed to ev

Estimating the Efficacy of Alcoholics Anonymous without Self‐Selection Bias: An Instrumental Variables Re‐Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Observational studies of Alcoholics Anonymous' (AA) effectiveness are vulnerable to self-selection bias because individuals choose whether or not to attend AA. The present study, therefore, employed an innovative statistical technique to derive a selection bias-free estimate of AA's impact. METHODS: Six data sets from 5 National Institutes of Health-funded randomized trials (1 with 2 independent parallel arms) of AA facilitation interventions were analyzed using instrumental variables models. Alcohol-dependent individuals in one of the data sets (n = 774) were analyzed separately from the rest of sample (n = 1,582 individuals pooled from 5 data sets) because of heterogeneity in sample parameters. Randomization itself was used as the instrumental variable. RESULTS: Randomization was a good instrument in both samples, effectively predicting increased AA attendance that could not be attributed to self-selection. In 5 of the 6 data sets, which were pooled for analysis, increased AA attendance that was attributable to randomization (i.e., free of self-selection bias) was effective at increasing days of abstinence at 3-month (B = 0.38, p = 0.001) and 15-month (B = 0.42, p = 0.04) follow-up. However, in the remaining data set, in which preexisting AA attendance was much higher, further increases in AA involvement caused by the randomly assigned facilitation intervention did not affect drinking outcome. CONCLUSIONS: For most individuals seeking help for alcohol problems, increasing AA attendance leads to short- and long-term decreases in alcohol consumption that cannot be attributed to self-selection. However, for populations with high preexisting AA involvement, further increases in AA attendance may have little impact. Language: en

Integrating stage and continuum models to explain processing of exercise messages and exercise initiation among sedentary college students.

Abstract: Concepts from the transtheoretical model (J.O. Prochaska, C.C. DiClemente, & J.C. Norcross, 1992), theory of planned behavior (I. Ajzen, 1985), and the elaboration likelihood model (R.E. Petty & J.T. Cacioppo, 1986b) were used to examine how exercise readiness impacted processing of exercise messages and exercise initiation. Sedentary college students (n = 147) were assessed for exercise attitude, intent, behavior, and stage of change. Students also listed their thoughts after reading messages with either strong or weak arguments for exercise. Attitude predicted depth of message processing, but stage of change did not. Stage of change and intent at baseline predicted exercise adoption at 1- to 3-month follow-up (n = 134), with baseline activity moderating the effect of intent. Tailoring messages to recipients' depth of processing and interactive effects of intent and behavior on exercise adoption should be considered in future research.

Are emotional clarity and emotion differentiation related

Abstract: Distinct literatures have developed regarding the constructs of emotional clarity (people's meta-knowledge of their affective experience) and emotion differentiation (people's ability to differentiate affective experience into discrete categories, e.g., anger vs. fear). Conceptually, emotion differentiation processes might be expected to contribute to increased emotional clarity. However, the relation between emotional clarity and emotion differentiation has not been directly investigated. In two studies with independent, undergraduate student samples, we measured emotional clarity using a self-report measure and derived emotion differentiation scores from scenario-based (Study 1) and event-sampling-based (Study 2) measures of affect. We found that emotional clarity and emotion differentiation are: (i) associated to a very small and statistically insignificant degree; and (ii) differentially associated with trait and scenario-based/event-sampling-based measures of affect intensity and variability. These results suggest that emotional clarity and differentiation are distinct constructs with unique relations to various facets of affective experience.