Psychosocial impact of newly diagnosed advanced breast cancer

The purpose of this study was to delineate the key emotional concerns of women newly diagnosed with recurrent or metastatic breast cancer. Sixty-six women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer within the previous 6 months, receiving treatment at the Medical Oncology Departments of two metropolitan teaching hospitals, completed measures of HADS, IES, CARES-SF and Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale, and participated in a semistructured interview. There were high levels of psychological morbidity, 56.7% of women younger than 55 years qualifying as 'cases' on the HADS, compared with 34.5% of women aged over 55 years. The total HADS score was significantly correlated with the Global and Physical Subscales of the MSAS and CARES. Women younger than 55 years had significantly higher levels of intrusive and avoidant symptoms than women over 55 years. Women also reported high numbers of physical symptoms. Key themes which emerged during the interviews were: difficulties in communicating with doctors, perceived delay in diagnosis, the emotional impact, concerns about the family, feelings about why the cancer developed, other life stress and trauma, and use of non-prescribed treatments. Copyright (c) 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Acoustic Correlates of Stress in Young Children's Speech

This study examined the acoustic correlates of stress in children\u27s productions of familiar words. Previous research has employed experimental words rather than familiar words to examine children\u27s phonetic marking of stress, or has not adequately controlled for phonetic environment. Subjects in this study included 22 children, aged 18-30 months, and 6 adults. Fundamental frequency, duration, and amplitude measures were extracted from stressed and unstressed syllables in two types of comparisons: one that controlled phonetic environment and syllable position (interword) and one that measured the relative effects of stress within the same word (intraword). When the tokens were analyzed on the basis of target stress pattern, results revealed no differences between adults and children in their acoustic marking of stress. Listener judgments showed that approximately 30% of children\u27s two-syllable productions were coded unreliably or were perceived as inaccurately stressed. Overall findings indicate that children control fundamental frequency, amplitude, and duration to derive perceptually identifiable stress contrasts in the majority of their productions but they are not completely adult-like in their marking of stress