Department of Psychology
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Browsing Department of Psychology by Author "Arpin-Cribbie, C. A."
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Item Open Access Equivalence based tests of clinical significance: Assessing treatments for depression(Taylor & Francis Group, 2010) Nasiakos, G.; Cribbie, Robert; Arpin-Cribbie, C. A.Treatment efficacy is largely determined by statistical significance testing, and clinical significance testing is often used to quantify or qualify the efficacy of a treatment at the individual or group level. This study applies the equivalence based clinical significance model proposed by Kendall, Marrs-Garcia, Nath and Sheldrick (1999), and a revised model proposed by Cribbie and Arpin-Cribbie (2009), to the assessment of treatments for depression. Using several studies that investigated treatments for depression, we tested whether the post-treatment means were equivalent to the means for a similar normal comparison group. All of the studies had significant improvement from pretest to posttest, although for many of the studies the treated group was not equivalent to a normal comparison group at posttest. Further, there are important differences between the conclusions drawn from the Kendall et al. and Cribbie and Arpin-Cribbie methods for assessing equivalence based clinical significance.Item Open Access Equivalence tests for one-way independent groups designs(Heldref Publications, 2010) Cribbie, Robert; Arpin-Cribbie, C. A.; Gruman, Jamie A.Researchers in education are often interested in determining whether independent groups are equivalent on a specific outcome. Equivalence tests for 2 independent populations have been widely discussed, whereas testing for equivalence with more than 2 independent groups has received little attention. The authors discuss alternatives for testing the equivalence of more than 2 independent populations, and the use a Monte Carlo study to demonstrate and compare the performance of these alternatives under several conditions. The results indicate that a 1-way test (e.g., Wellek’s F test) is recommended for assessing the equivalence of more than 2 independent groups because approaches based on conducting pairwise tests of equivalence are overly conservative.Item Open Access Evaluating clinical significance through equivalence testing: Extending the normative comparisons approach(Society for Psychotherapy Research, 2009) Cribbie, Robert; Arpin-Cribbie, C. A.The field of psychology, as with many other disciplines, has been increasingly interested in being able to measure the effectiveness of behavioral interventions. This trend has led to a number of different approaches for measuring clinical significance, each addressing a slightly different aspect of the clinical outcome. Recently, clinical psychologists (and clients) have supported the contention that one of the most important therapeutic questions is whether clients are functioning equivalently to normal controls following an intervention. To address this question, Kendall, Marrs-Garcia, Nath, and Sheldrick (1999) presented an approach to measuring clinical significance that utilizes tests of equivalence. The present study clarifies the nature of the hypotheses being conducted in measuring clinical significance with tests of equivalence and extends the approach by incorporating recent advances in equivalence testing. A revised approach for evaluating clinical significance via equivalence testing is proposed, and an empirical example demonstrating this approach is provided.Item Open Access Perfectionism and psychological distress: A modeling approach to understanding their therapeutic relationship(Springer, 2008) Arpin-Cribbie, C. A.; Irvine, J.; Ritvo, Paul; Cribbie, Robert; Flett, G. L.; Hewitt, PaulThe present study assessed the effectiveness of a web-based psychoeducational intervention protocol for decreasing levels of perfectionism and psychological distress. Different levels of therapeutic intervention (no treatment, general stress management intervention, general stress management intervention plus cognitive behavioral intervention) were provided to perfectionistic participants over a 10-week period. It was found via a longitudinal structural equation model that higher levels of therapeutic intervention predicted greater improvements in perfectionism and psychological distress. Further, amount of improvement in trait perfectionism and perfectionistic automatic thoughts was highly related to amount of improvement in psychological distress. The findings attest to the potential usefulness of a web-based intervention that combines a general stress management intervention with a cognitive behavioral intervention.Item Open Access Psychological well-being in obese in patients with ischemic heart disease at entry and at discharge from a four-week cardiac rehabilitation program(Frontiers Media, 2010) Manzoni, Gian Mauro; Cribbie, Robert; Villa, Valentina; Arpin-Cribbie, C. A.; Gondoni, Luca; Castelnuovo, GianlucaThe purposes of this observational pre-post study were twofold: 1- to evaluate psychological health in obese patients with ischemic heart disease at admission to cardiac rehabilitation (CR) and 2 – to examine the effectiveness of a 4-week CR residential program in improving obese patients’ psychological well-being at discharge from CR. A sample of 177 obese patients completed the Psychological General Well-Being Inventory (PGWBI) at admission to the CR program and at discharge. The equivalence testing method with normative comparisons was used to determine the clinical significance of improvements after having established that baseline mean scores on the PGWBI scales were significantly lower than normal means. Results show that patients scored equally or better than norms on many PGWBI dimensions at admission to CR but scored significantly worse on Global Score, Vitality and Self-control. At discharge, mean scores that were impaired at baseline returned to normal levels at the more conservative equivalence interval. A 4-week CR program was thus effective in improving obese patients’ psychological well-being. The equivalence testing method allowed to establish the clinical significance of such improvement.