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PURPOSE: Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), as defined by Centers of Disease Control criteria, often have a potentially treatable sleep disorder. However, even when obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is [...]

To assess the impact of a stressor, it is desirable to evaluate affected individuals' status both prior to and following a stressful event. Because of the difficulties inherent in prospective designs, investigators often ask people who have experienced an aversive event to evaluate their prestressor adjustment retrospectively. Do such retrospective evaluations provide a reasonable alternative to prospective assessment? To answer this question we compared retrospective and prospective data gathering procedures in the evaluation of sexual adjustment after prostate surgery. One hundred fifty-two married males who had undergone prostatectomy for benign prostatic enlargement completed a battery of measures which evaluated pre- and postsurgical sexual adjustment either prospectively (i.e., before and after surgery) or retrospectively (i.e., ratings made after surgery of both pre- and postsurgical adjustment). Retrospective assessment indicated considerable sexual deterioration pre- to postsurgery. In subjects tested prospectively, however, the results showed that surgery had little impact on sexual adjustment. Moreover, direct comparisons of retrospective and prospective methodologies reveal that discrepancies are due to differences in evaluations of presurgery status, with retrospective evaluation yielding more favorable ratings than prospective assessment. The results highlight a variety of biases which may affect self-ratings of pre- and post-stressor adaptation and show that discrepancies associated with the two methodologies have important implications for understanding the impact of a stressor on adjustment.

Sexual functioning and adjustment of 72 aging married males who had undergone transurethral prostatectomy were examined retrospectively according to their pre- and postsurgery status. Results indicate that although transurethral prostatectomy was generally associated with deterioration in various aspects of sexual expression, grouping subjects according to age and presurgery sexual adjustment qualified these general findings dramatically. For example, more younger than older males retained or attained good sexual adjustment after surgery. Furthermore, while older males with good presurgery sexual adjustment maintained good couple sexual functioning, they manifested greater loss of sexual self-confidence and individual sexual capacity than did their younger counterparts. In addition, the findings suggest that the question “Does transurethral prostatectomy affect sexual function?” must be rephrased to take into account changes in the cognitive, capacity, and affective domains as well as in the couple behavior and adjustment dimensions of sexual expression.

This study investigated the nature of appropriate and inappropriate interaction behaviors between professors and college students who have physical disabilities. Thirty-eight students with physical disabilities, 74 college and university professors who had taught disabled students, and 17 professors who had not done so rated the frequency and appropriateness of a variety of interaction behaviors by both professors and students. Professors also rated their level of comfort with disabled and with non-disabled students and indicated how interested they were in teaching students with specific disabilities in the future. Results show that a) approximately 75% of professors in Montreal colleges and universities had taught disabled students, b) professors are more comfortable with able-bodied than with disabled students, and c) that professors who had taught disabled students are more comfortable with such students and more interested in teaching them in the future. Appropriate behaviors were found to be more common than inappropriate behaviors and student initiated behaviors were seen as more desirable than professor initiated ones. Nevertheless, disabled students rated most student initiated behaviors, but not professor initiated behaviors, as less appropriate than tile professors believed them to be. The implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed and concrete examples of appropriate behaviors by each group in frequently occurring interaction situations are provided.

This study investigated whether psychosexual changes found after surgery for benign prostatic enlargement relate specifically to the prostatectomy procedure or to the stresses of surgery in general. The sexual adjustment of 91 married men (ranging in age from 51 to 77) who had undergone either transurethral prostatectomy or inguinal hernia repair was compared using the same measures and experimental design. Results show that both surgeries appeared to result in relatively minor but widespread negative consequences for sexual adjustment and expression. Findings on both individual and couple sexual adjustment suggest that the psychosexual consequences of the two procedures do not differ substantially. As expected, the one exception was retrograde ejaculation, which was more likely to be experienced by men who had undergone prostate surgery. The results illustrate the necessity of conducting comparative studies when evaluating the sexual consequences of surgical procedures and highlight the importance of taking age into consideration when conducting research on the effects of surgery on older men.

this study investigated the relation of cognitions to sexual expression in aging couples where the male had undergone transurethral prostatectomy. Cognitive factors explored were sexual efficacy expectations, value of sex, sexual attitudes, and sexual knowledge. Sexual expression was defined in terms of the following three dimensions: couple sexual frequency, desired sexual frequency, and quality of sexual functioning. Subjects consisted of 32 married couples whose ages ranged from 50 to 77 years. In this sample of sexually active couples, the cognitive variables most highly correlated with all the dimensions of sexual expression were efficacy expectations for the male's sexual performance and individual sexual drive. High sexual efficacy expectations predicted high couple sexual frequency and good male and female sexual functioning. High individual sexual drive predicted high actual and desired couple sexual interaction. In general, it was the male partner's sexual confidence and drive that was highly related to couple sexual expression.

Goals for the present study were to (a) describe the sleep of healthy new mothers over a 6-month postpartum period, (b) examine how sleep quality relates to daytime levels of fatigue and sleepiness, and (c) evaluate the relationship between mothers’ and infants’ sleep parameters. The sample consisted of 37 healthy, partnered, first-time mothers who had experienced full-term vaginal birth and had a healthy infant. We investigated infants’ sleep parameters and mothers’ sleep, mood, and daytime functioning 2 and 6 months postpartum. We found that at 2 months postpartum, mothers reported sleeping 6 hours at night and just under one hour during the day. Despite relatively frequent nocturnal awakenings, mothers experienced minimal insomnia, nonrefreshing sleep, anxiety, depression, daytime sleepiness, or fatigue at either 2 or 6 months. The most robust relationship between mothers’ and infants’ sleep was in the number of nocturnal sleep-wake episodes. Of note is that none of the infant sleep parameters was related to mothers’ anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleepiness, or nonrefreshing sleep at either time period. Our results indicate that (1) selected low risk new mothers are resilient in terms of sleep quality, daytime functioning, and mood and (2) these are independent of their infants’ sleep parameters.

Sleep quality is a construct often measured, employed as an outcome criterion for therapeutic success, but never defined. In two studies we examined appraised good and poor sleep quality in three groups: a control group, individuals with obstructive sleep apnea, and those with insomnia disorder. In Study 1 we used qualitative methodology to examine good and poor sleep quality in 121 individuals. In Study 2 we examined sleep quality in 171 individuals who had not participated in Study 1 and evaluated correlates and predictors of sleep quality. Across all six samples and both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the daytime experience of feeling refreshed (nonrefreshed) in the morning and the nighttime experience of good (impaired) sleep continuity characterized perceived good and poor sleep. Our results clarify sleep quality as a construct and identify refreshing sleep and sleep continuity as potential clinical and research outcome measures.