Search

The main purpose of this study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of the Medical Professionalism Scale (MPS). The definition of professionalism was developed from the review of the guidelines by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and previous scales in order to create a questionnaire assessing medical professionalism. The developed scale was then tested for content validity by experts. The participants were 695 medical students studying in the second to sixth year in faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok. They consisted of 325 males (46.8%) and 369 females (53.2%). The final version of the MPS had 32 items, with the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.932. The confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the model was fitted to the empirical data and also the 6-factors model was confirmed: altruism (factor 1); accountability (factor 2); excellence (factor 3); duty (factor 4); honour and integrity (factor 5); and finally, respect to other (factor 6) (χ2 = 2210.32, df = 458, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.074, SRMR = 0.053, GFI = 0.83). The Medical Professionalism Scale had good psychometric properties in terms of validity and reliability that reflected six elements of professionalism. It can be used to assess and cultivate professionalism in medical students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Long-term follow-up has rarely been reported after self-exposure therapy for phobias. Aims Completion of such a follow-up. Method Two-year follow-up was achieved in 68(85%) of 80 patients with phobias who had completed a previous 14-week randomised controlled trial comparing therapist-accompanied self- exposure, self-exposure or self-relaxation. Measures were self-reported ratings of symptoms, satisfaction and use of other treatment. Results Improvement at week 4 was maintained 2 years later. Clinician-accompanied exposure and self-exposure did not differ on any measure. Compliance with self-exposure homework during weeks 0-8 predicted more improvement 2 years later. Patients who failed to improve with relaxation by week 14 improved after subsequent crossover to exposure. A need for more treatment for their phobias was still felt by 33 patients (49%). Conclusions Patients with phobias maintained their improvement to 2-year follow-up after the end of self-exposure therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: "Quality of life" has become a main focus of interest in medicine. The Pictorial Thai Quality of Life (PTQL) was developed in order to measure the Thai mental illness both in a clinical setting and community., Objectives: The purpose of this study was to develop the Pictorial Thai Quality of Life (PTQL), having adequate and sufficient construct validity, discriminant power, concurrent validity, and reliability., Material and Method: To develop the Pictorial Thai Quality of Life Test, two samples groups were used in the present study: (1) pilot study samples: 30 samples and (2) survey samples were 672 samples consisting of normal, and psychiatric patients. The developing tests items were collected from a review of the literature in which all the items were based on the WHO definition of Quality of Life. Then, experts judgment by the Delphi technique was used in the first stage. After that a pilot study was used to evaluate the testing administration, and wording of the tests items. The final stage was collected data from the survey samples., Results: The results of the present study showed that the final test was composed 25 items. The construct validity of this test consists of six domains: Physical, Cognitive, Affective, Social Function, Economic and Self-Esteem. All the PTQL items have sufficient discriminant power It was found to be statistically significant different at the. 001 level between those people with mental disorders and normal people. There was a high level of concurrent validity association with WHOQOL-BREF, Pearson correlation coefficient and Area under ROC curve were 0.92 and 0.97 respectively. The reliability coefficients for the Alpha coefficients of the PTQL total test was 0.88. The values of the six scales were from 0.81 to 0:91., Conclusions: The present study was directed at developing an effective psychometric properties pictorial quality of life questionnaire. The result will be a more direct and meaningful application of an instrument to detect the mental health illness poor quality of life in Thai communities.

Background: Satisfaction with mental services is an important quality and outcome variable. The Thai Psychiatric Satisfaction Scale (TPSS) is developed in order to measure service satisfaction., Objective: The purpose of the present study was to develop the Thai Psychiatric Satisfaction Scale (TPSS), having adequate and sufficient validity and reliability., Material and Method: A sample of people with mental illness in the Department of Psychiatry, Siriraj Hospital was assessed. The TPSS was administered. Then factor analysis, internal consistency and test-retest reliability were analized., Results: The Thai Psychiatric Satisfaction Scale (TPSS) contains seven domains: Professionals' Skills and Behavior, Information, Access, Efficacy, Type of Intervention, Relative's Involvement, and Environment and Setting. The infinity coefficient for the TPSS was 0.97 (95% CI 0.94-0.97) and ranged from 0.70 (95% CI 0.68-0.76) to 0.96 (95% CI 0.94-0.97). Test-retest for TPSS was 0.82. (95% CI 0.78-0.85)., Conclusion: This TPSS is a validated and reliable multi-dimensional scale which measures the satisfaction of patients with mental health services for routine clinical practice in mental health service.

The purposes of this study were to study the prevalence and incidence of depression in elderly Thais. A field survey study was implemented. The sample consisted of 1,713 elderly people in 35 communities from 4 districts surrounding Siriraj Hospital Bangkok Noi, Bangkok Yai, Taling Chun and Bang Plud. These areas are the peripheral part of Bangkok and most of them have extended family. The Thai Geriatric Depression Scale (TGDS) and the Thai Mini Mental State Examination (TMSE) were used as screening tests, for data collection. The prevalence of depression was 12.78 per cent, of which 8.23 per cent had only depressive symptomatology (male 5.43%, female 9.63%) while 4.55 per cent had both depression and cognitive impairment (male 2.8%, female 5.54%). The point incidence (one year) of depression was 7.27 (male 1.58%, female 5.68%). The major contributing factors in depression were financial, poor family relationships and physical illness. The prevention and management of these factors may bring about a better quality of life for the elderly in Thailand.

The purposes of this study were to develop an effective manual for the early self detection of depression in the Thai elderly, to detect the comorbidity of depression (pattern of drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal idea) and to ascertain the quality of life. A quasi experimental field research methodology (Randomized Control Group Pretest-Posttest Design) was implemented. The sample consisted of 1,390 elderly people in 35 communities from 4 districts surrounding Siriraj Hospital-Bangkok Noi, Bangkok Yai, Taling Chan and Bang Phlat. These areas are the peripheral parts of Bangkok and most of them have extended families. The result showed that: 1. The internal consistency reliability of the nine criteria of the manual for the self detection of depression in the Thai elderly ranged from 0.84 to 0.94. The validity tested by epidemiological methods, disclosed that the sensitivity was 82.14 per cent and the specificity was 97.56 per cent. 2. There was a statistically significant difference in the incidence of depression between the study and the control group (p<0.000); self referred cases = 86.7 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively. The study group was able to detect depression in 42 days, while the control group did so in 122 days. In addition, in the associated comorbidity, there were differences in the patterns of drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal ideas and quality of life after the experiment. These findings showed a decreasing pattern of self medication for depression, and suicidal ideas and an improvement in the quality of life in the study group.