Objective: This study evaluated score reliability of the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQoL) when contextualizing help to a relevant derivative. Method: The researchers evaluated score ...reliability across three datasets among school-based professionals (n = 122), teachers (n = 216), and mental health professionals (n = 543) using Cronbach’s alpha, McDonald’s omega, inter-item correlations and visual analysis. Results: Score reliability was acceptable across samples. However, item analysis indicated variability in responses indicating participants’ extracting different meaning or relevance to the items. Terminology changes may extract different meaning based on profession resulting in measurement error. Conclusions: Findings highlight use of one-word derivative changes to items may impact score reliability based on the professional activities represented. Researchers should adjust item terminology for clarity and relevance to all the professions represented in the sample. Evidence of the nature of professional activities with client or student trauma to secondary traumatic stress is presented.
The experimental determination of the properties of the newly discovered boson at the Large Hadron Collider is currently the most crucial task in high-energy physics. We show how information about ...the spin, parity, and, more generally, the tensor structure of the boson couplings can be obtained by studying angular and mass distributions of events in which the resonance decays to pairs of gauge bosons, ZZ, WW, and gamma gamma . A complete Monte Carlo simulation of the process pp arrow right X arrow right VV arrow right 4functionof is performed and verified by comparing it to an analytic calculation of the decay amplitudes X arrow right VV arrow right 4functionof. Our studies account for all spin correlations and include general couplings of a spin J = 0, 1, 2 resonance to Standard Model particles. We also discuss how to use angular and mass distributions of the resonance decay products for optimal background rejection. It is shown that by the end of the 8 TeV run of the LHC, it might be possible to separate extreme hypotheses of the spin and parity of the new boson with a confidence level of 99% or better for a wide range of models. We briefly discuss the feasibility of testing scenarios where the resonance is not a parity eigenstate.
Individuals living in poverty have higher rates of mental health disorders compared to those not living in poverty. Measures are available to assess adults' levels of psychological distress; however, ...there is limited support for instruments to be used with a diverse population. The purpose of our study was to examine the factor structure of Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 scores with an economically vulnerable sample of adults (N = 615), contributing to the evidence of validity of the measure's scores in diverse mental health settings. Implications for professional counselors are considered, including clinical usage of the brief Outcome Questionnaire-16 and key critical items. Keywords: poverty, psychological distress, factor structure, Outcome Questionnaire-45.2, validity
Since the onset of the global pandemic, rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, and substance use in the United States have risen about 20% (CDC, 2020). As rates of mental health concerns increase, ...the need for effective counseling services simultaneously grows. This increase in suffering and mental health concerns, coupled with high demand for mental health services, leaves counselors vulnerable to a range of occupational stressors, including empathy fatigue.Counselors create space for clients to share challenges associated with the pandemic, grief, loss of normal functioning and adjustment, in addition to non-COVID-19 related stressors, all of which can take a toll on a counselor’s well-being over time (Joshi & Sharma, 2020; Stebnicki, 2007). This toll, called empathy fatigue, is a state of emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and occupational exhaustion that occurs as multiple client stories of distress, trauma, grief, loss, and adversity have a cumulative adverse effect on the counselor and compromise their empathic abilities (Stebnicki, 2016). Empathy fatigue is a fatigue syndrome rooted in professional counseling, unlike others such as burnout, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue which are discussed broadly across helping professions (Stebnicki, 2007; 2016).Empathy is a core component of effective counseling practice, a strong therapeutic relationship, and necessary for meaningful client change (Rogers, 1957). Empathy fatigue can arise when practitioners empathically engage with clients in distress, reducing their empathic capabilities, and thus reducing their clinical efficacy (Figley, 1995; Stebnicki, 2016). The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self-report measure of empathy fatigue in professional counselors. The final CEFS measure included 34-items and four unique factors: 1) Decreased personal wellbeing, 2) Negative attitude toward work, 3) Psychosomatic exhaustion, and 4) Psychological detachment from the counseling process, explaining 55.04% of the variance. The total scale and all four subscales had high internal consistency and results indicated evidence of convergent validity. Implications for counselor educators, supervisors, and clinicians are offered, including directions for future research on empathy fatigue. The CEFS fills a gap in our knowledge of impairment in clinicians who engage in empathic therapeutic relationships with clients and offers a starting point for the promotion of wellness and prevention of personal and professional impairment in the helping professions.
Individuals living in poverty have higher rates of mental health disorders compared to those not living in poverty. Measures are available to assess adults' levels of psychological distress; however, ...there is limited support for instruments to be used with a diverse population. The purpose of our study was to examine the factor structure of Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 scores with an economically vulnerable sample of adults (N = 615), contributing to the evidence of validity of the measure's scores in diverse mental health settings. Implications for professional counselors are considered, including clinical usage of the brief Outcome Questionnaire-16 and key critical items.
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