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Jane Studeny is a 2018 graduate of the PsyD Program in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University, New England

Dissertation Committee

  • Kathi Borden, Ph.D., Committee Chair
  • Karen Holler, Ph.D., Committee Member
  • Brian Kavanaugh, Psy.D. Committee Member

Keywords

Children, Executive function, Inpatient, Factor analysis

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2018

Abstract

The aims of this study were to explore the latent factor structure of WCST performance in psychiatrically hospitalized youth, and to investigate associations between latent factors and various psychiatric, psychological, and neuropsychological variables. The results revealed a three-factor solution that is broadly attributed to executive abilities of problem solving, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. The resulting three-factor solution accounted for 96% of the variance in the present study’s sample, and was comparable to results from similar studies in adult populations. Latent factors were associated with performance on a brief test of intelligence as well as to several measures of executive functioning. Latent factors were not associated with psychiatric variables including length of hospitalization or number of diagnoses, but were associated with self-report symptom inventories for depression, anxiety, and post-trauma symptoms. The latent structure revealed in the present study, as well as the associations to self-report symptom questionnaires have important clinical implications that are discussed in detail. Continued multivariate research will be necessary to better clarify the processes underlying WCST performance and their relationships to one another as well as to other psychiatric and neuropsychological variables.

Comments

Jane S. Studeny

ORCID Scholar ID# : 0000-0002-5163-384x

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