Browsing by Subject "item response theory"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Delineating the maladaptive pathways of child maltreatment: A mediated moderation analysis of the roles of self-perception and social support
    (2010) Appleyard, Karen; Yang, Chongming; Runyan, Desmond K
    The current study investigated concurrent and longitudinal mediated and mediated moderation pathways among maltreatment, self-perception (i.e., loneliness and self-esteem), social support, and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. For both genders, early childhood maltreatment (i.e., ages 0-6) was related directly to internalizing and externalizing behavior problems at age 6, and later maltreatment (i.e., ages 6-8) was directly related to internalizing and externalizing behavior problems at age 8. Results of concurrent mediation and mediated moderation indicated that early maltreatment was significantly related to internalizing and externalizing behavior problems at age 6 indirectly both through age 6 loneliness and self-esteem for boys and through age 6 loneliness for girls. Significant moderation of the pathway from early maltreatment to self-esteem, and for boys, significant mediated moderation to emotional and behavioral problems were found, such that the mediated effect through self-esteem varied across levels of social support, though in an unexpected direction. No significant longitudinal mediation or mediated moderation was found, however, between the age 6 mediators and moderator and internalizing or externalizing problems at age 8. The roles of the hypothesized mediating and moderating mechanisms are discussed, with implications for designing intervention and prevention programs.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Item Response Theory Analysis of the MDS-UPDRS Motor Examination: Tremor vs. Nontremor Items.
    (Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society, 2020-05-29) Tosin, Michelle Hyczy de Siqueira; Goetz, Christopher G; Luo, Sheng; Choi, Dongrak; Stebbins, Glenn T
    BACKGROUND:In PD, tremor severity behaves differently from other core motor features. However, the most commonly used assessment of overall motor severity, total MDS-UPDRS Motor Examination (Part 3) score, does not account for this distinction. OBJECTIVES:To investigate the Motor Examination (Part 3) using Item Response Theory approaches focusing on sample-independent strategies that assess how well items measure latent models of PD motor severity. METHODS:Data from 6,298 PD patients were analyzed with graded response model Item Response Theory approaches involving two analyses all 33 Part 3 items versus the 10 tremor items and 23 bradykinesia, rigidity, gait, and posture items considered separately. The strength of relationship between items and the latent measure of parkinsonian motor severity (discrimination parameter) and calculated thresholds (location parameters) were assessed using the mirt program implemented in R (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria). RESULTS:Analyzing all Part 3 items together, nontremor items demonstrated good discrimination parameters (mean = 1.83 ± 0.37) and range of thresholds (-1.73 to +4.42), but tremor items had poor discrimination (mean = 0.52 ± 0.76) and thresholds (-0.69 to 14.29). Segregating nontremor from tremor items in two independent analyses provided markedly improved discrimination and location parameters for both. CONCLUSIONS:MDS-UPDRS Part 3 tremor and nontremor items have very different relations to the construct of PD severity. Strongly improved clinimetric properties for Part 3 are obtained when tremor and nontremor items are considered separately. We suggest that evaluating PD motor severity, as an operationalized summary measure, is best attained through separate analyses with tremor and nontremor motor scores. © 2020 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.