This study, conducted by researchers from Canada and England in collaboration with four fire rescue services, explored Canadian and UK firefighters’ experiences of distress, coping, and resilience related to workplace traumatic events. Questions addressed in the research included: Are firefighters resilient? How do firefighters define resilience? Does stress education enhance/sustain resilience? A cross sectional, mixed methods study design was used with a qualitative theoretical drive supplemented with quantitative measures to compare and contrast firefighters’ phenomenological cross-cultural experiences. Research outcomes include: a variety of diverse and intricate definitions for resilience reflecting the complexity of the concept of resilience yet demonstrating cultural commonalities across both countries; a range of reactions to critical incidents that generally fell into one or more domains: emotional, cognitive, physical, behavioural, and ‘spiritual’; a range of strategies that are implemented to cope with stress reactions overwhelmingly ‘talking’ about the incident, reactions, and coping mechanisms is most helpful; personal and organizational attributes that assist in managing stress and stressful events within the culture of the fire service; and health promoting strategies for building resilience. The study recommendations, utilizing a health promotion lens, offer guidance in planning for, and responding to, traumatic events in high-risk professions.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss methods of capturing the impact of fire and rescue service (FRS) community safety work which directly aims to reduce the occurrence of specific incidents. Design/methodology/approach – The impact assessment method described focuses on addressing one of the major problems with regards to attributing outcomes to FRS community safety work; the influence of external factors. This paper looked to assess the incident trends within a case study UK FRS within the context of the following external data sets: first, incident trends within other UK FRSs; second, demographic trends; and third, incident data from other public services. Findings – There were instances, either across the whole region served by the case study FRS, or within specific districts, where evidence suggested a strong likelihood of the community safety work of the case study FRS contributing towards an observed reduction in incidents. These findings were established through filtering the impact of widespread external factors, which could impact upon incident figures. Research limitations/implications – The utility of this impact assessment relies upon FRS consistently recording the specific aims and focus of individual community safety activity, so that any positive outcomes can be attributed to a particular group of community safety initiatives. Originality/value – This paper discusses how an evaluation process, to determine the likelihood of community safety impacting upon incident numbers, can be practically applied to a FRS.

Coefficient alpha is the most popular measure of reliability (and certainly of internal consistency reliability) reported in psychological research. This is noteworthy given the numerous deficiencies of coefficient alpha documented in the psychometric literature. This mismatch between theory and practice appears to arise partly because users of psychological scales are unfamiliar with the psychometric literature on coefficient alpha and partly because alternatives to alpha are not widely known. We present a brief review of the psychometric literature on coefficient alpha, followed by a practical alternative in the form of coefficient omega. To facilitate the shift from alpha to omega, we also present a brief guide to the calculation of point and interval estimates of omega using a free, open source software environment.

Despite the wealth of literature on foster care, limited attention has been given to investigating the subjective, everyday experiences of the carers themselves. Lauren Pickin, Vivienne Brunsden and Rowena Hill report on research into the emotional experiences of foster carers using the photovoice method as reconfigured for psychological research (Brunsden and Goatcher, 2007). The resultant visual and verbal data were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (Smith and Osborn, 2003). Five super-ordinate themes emerged: 'Angry frustration', 'Promoting security and well-being', 'An ambiguous life', 'The impact of the children' and 'Coping?'. The research provides a greater understanding of the emotional needs of foster carers and has practical implications in terms of provision for their support.

One of the more prominent issues in the field of Internet addiction is the validity of the instrument used to assess users' level of Internet involvement. Many of the instruments used to assess Internet addiction have high face validity but have yet to be tested psychometrically. The aim of this study is to compare two of the most used Internet addiction research measures, the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and the Internet-Related Problem Scale (IRPS), along with a self-diagnostic question simply asking Internet users if they thought they were addicted to the Internet. A total of 225 Internet users participated in the study (69 males and 156 females). Participants who defined themselves as Internet addicts had higher scores on both the IAT and IRPS, and the three different Internet addiction measures were strongly correlated to each other. For the IAT, factor analysis generated three factors (emotional/psychological conflict; time management issues; mood modification) explaining 56.3% of the variance. For the IRPS, factor analysis generated four factors (negative effects of Internet use; mood modification; loss of control; increased Internet use) explaining 60.2% of the variance. The implications for these findings are discussed.

Armstrong et al. (International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 53:537–550, 2000) explored the relationship between problematic Internet use and self-esteem. They devised a questionnaire called the Internet Related Problem Scale (IRPS) in order to measure the level of problem an individual is having due to their Internet use. This questionnaire study further examined the psychometric properties of the IRPS. Participants were recruited through the Internet, yielding 79 valid responses (14 males and 65 females). Factor analysis of the IRPS revealed six factors—salience, negative effects, mood enhancement, productivity, loss of control, and lack of information. These factors showed good internal consistency and concurrent validity, with salience being the most reliable. The limitations to this study are also addressed. Despite these limitations, the findings do seem to suggest that the IRPS has good psychometric properties and can be used in future studies examining Internet addiction.

This study examined Tinto's (1975) model of student attrition, which suggests that student's dropout decisions are social and academic worlds. The model was tested with path analysis using LISREL8 software (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993a) using maximum likelihood estimation. Findings were that the model does not provide an acceptable description of the data. The findings were based on a global test of the model as a whole, as well as tests of individual paths within the model. Prior investigations into the model have been largely supportive, and reasons are considered for the disparity between previous and current findings. It is suggested that Tinto's perspective may not be the most appropriate for attrition research. Instead it is contended that interactionist and ethnographic approaches may result in a more appropriate theoretical framework.

The purpose of this study was to test the factorial invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) across sexes. After establishing an appropriate baseline model a hierarchy of successively restrictive models relating to the measurement properties of the scale were specified and estimated. In addition, tests of intercept and factor mean differences were conducted. Data from 258 undergraduates from two British universities (173 males and 85 females) was analysed using the multi-sample procedures in LISREL8. Factor loadings, unique variances and factor variance were found to be invariant across the sexes and no differences were found for the intercepts and factor means. In addition, the scale was found to have high reliability.

This study examined the factor structure of the Personal Disturbance Scale (DSSI/sAD) [Bedford, A. & Foulds, G. A. (1978). Manual of the Personal Disturbance Scale (DSSI/sAD). Windsor: NFER-Nelson] on data from a sample of 979 elderly respondents. A series of four alternative factor models were specified and estimated using weighted least squares in LISREL8 [Joreskog, K, G. & Sorbom, D. (1993a). Nee features in LISREL8, Chicago: Scientific Software]. Contrary to previous findings, and to the theoretical underpinning of the scale, a one factor model was judged to provide an adequate and parsimonious explanation of the data. The criteria on which this judgement was based were levels of overall fit, levels of component fit and model parsimony. The issue of parsimony has not been addressed in the previous examinations of the scale's structure. The findings of this study suggest that the DSSI/sAD is measuring a single factor, previously labelled general psychological distress [Bedford, A. gr Deary, I. J. (1997), The Personal Disturbance Scale (DDSI/sAD): development use and structure, Personality and individual Differences, 22(4), 493-510], rather than two distinct constructs of anxiety and depression. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Progress in reducing inpatient mortality from acute myocardial infarction is slowEditor-Brown et al report a substantial increase in the use of beneficial interventions for patients admitted to hospital with acute myocardial infarction in Nottingham from 1982 to 1992. 1 However, they found no change in inpatient mortality adjusted for age and sex.This contrasts with findings in Ontario, Canada, where hospital discharge abstracts show that inpatient mortality fell from 1981 to 1991 2 and has since fallen further (data on request).Brown et al suggest that the disparate results may reflect coding errors in the Ontario administrative data.Our group has assessed the classification of deaths from acute myocardial infarction in inpatients in the Ontario discharge abstracts.Matching Ontario administrative data to data from the GUSTO-I and LATE trials, we found the specificity of the administrative data to be 100% (1403/1403 alive), with overall sensitivity of 94% (104/111 deaths detected). 3he classification of acute myocardial infarction itself is more problematic.The sensitivity of the primary diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction is high, but specificity varies. 4 5There are two common reasons for false positive coding.Firstly, patients may be admitted to a coronary care unit with possible acute myocardial infarction but this diagnosis is ruled out and they are sent home quickly.Alternatively, patients recently admitted to hospital with acute myocardial infarction are readmitted for coronary angiography or with complications other than overt reinfarction, and the code for acute myocardial infarction is wrongly used again.Thus the analysis of outcomes in Ontario excluded both patients with a primary diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction who were discharged in under four days and patients who had been admitted to hospital for acute myocardial infarction in the preceding three months. 2t is therefore doubtful that imprecise coding explains the improving outcomes of acute myocardial infarction in Ontario.Indeed, only systematic coding errors could explain the observed trends in inpatient mortality, and we have found neither evidence nor a rationale for this.Ontario's administrative data do mirror the findings of Brown et al in two respects 2 : admissions for acute myocardial infarction, particularly among elderly patients, increased over the period studied, and inpatient mortality ranged from 16% to 21%, which is much higher than in the large randomised trials of thrombolytic treatment.Thus while the trends in Ontario are more positive than those in Nottingham, we agree with Brown et al that the cardiovascular megatrials have been enrolling skewed patient populations 3 and that progress in the battle to reduce inpatient mortality from acute myocardial infarction remains slow.