The purpose of this study was to examine weight concerns, dieting, body dissatisfaction as well as eating behavior of German high school athletes and to compare disordered eating behavior of these athletes with regular high school students. Five hundred and seventy-six young athletes of Elite Sports Schools in the German state of Thuringia and a reference group consisting of 291 non-athletes from regular high schools completed a questionnaire regarding eating behavior and attitudes, dietary history, body image and demographics. The Eating Attitude Test was used to measure disordered eating. Athletes did not show a higher frequency of disordered eating than non-athletes. A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that gender and dietary experience, but not group (athletes vs non-athletes), were significant predictors of disordered eating. It can be concluded that dietary experience and female gender proved to be important risk factors of disordered eating. Participation in sports seems to be protective for developing serious eating problems, especially in girls. Potentially, regular monitoring of athletic performance by coaches might be a reason for this finding.

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Goal-directed measures to prevent doping and drug abuse in sports requires empirical data. In this connection, a cross-sectional analysis was carried out in 2004. The purpose of the study, on the one hand, was to register reliable data of the current situation in Thuringia, and, on the other hand it was to give information on possible interventional steps with scientific support. Within three months, 2319 adolescents from 16 Thuringian schools (5 regular schools, 4 secondary schools, 3 sport schools and 4 vocational schools) were surveyed. Three hundred and forty-six (15.1 %) students out of 2287 students (26 students without a statement) indicated use of prohibited substances from the WADA list in the previous year: 16 (0.7 %) anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS), 10 (0.4 %) growth hormones, 56 (2.4 %) stimulants, 305 (13.2 %) cannabis, 2 (0.1 %) diuretics, 52 (2.2 %) cocaine/heroin and 6 (0.3 %) erythropoeitin. Moreover, nonathletes (N = 490) reported a substance use that was approximately 5.0 % higher than that of recreational athletes (N = 1254) and nearly three times higher than that of competitive athletes (497). All three groups (nonathletes, recreational athletes and competitive athletes) performed poorly on a knowledge test regarding doping in general with an average below 60 % in each case. Another main aspect of the study was to determine factors influencing substance use in sports. Besides the doping specific knowledge (beta = 0.06, p < 0.05), age contributed (beta = 0.09, p < 0.05), as well as anti-doping attitude (beta = -0.34, p < 0.05), to the resulting variance. Gender, however, played no role. The findings of the study point towards the need for improvement of specific knowledge of doping among students and that their attitude towards doping must be altered. The goal in this case is to test the effectiveness of appropriate scientific intervention.

A regular screening of post-ICU patients after discharge from hospital should be an integral part of aftercare management. The underlying mechanisms of severe sepsis in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder need further examination.

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There are mixed findings regarding the differential efficacy of the group and individual format. One explanation of these mixed findings is that nearly all-recent meta-analyses use between-study effect sizes to test format equivalence introducing uncontrolled differences in patients, treatments, and outcome measures. Only 3 meta-analyses were located from the past 20 years that directly tested format differences in the same study using within-study effect sizes; mixed findings were reported with a primary limitation being the small number of studies. However, we located 67 studies that compared both formats in the same study. Format equivalence (g = -0.01) with low effect size heterogeneity (variability) was found in 46 studies that compared identical treatments, patients, and doses on primary outcome measures. Format equivalence (g = -0.06) with moderate effect size heterogeneity was found for 21 studies that compared nonidentical treatments; however, allegiance to a specific format moderated differences in effect sizes. There were no differences between formats for rates of treatment acceptance, dropout, remission, and improvement. Additionally, there were no differences in outcome between formats by patient diagnosis; however, differences in pre-to-post improvement were explained by diagnosis with depression, anxiety, and substance disorder posting the highest outcomes and medical and childhood disorders the lowest. Findings are discussed with reference to the practical challenges of implementing groups in clinical practice from an agency, clinician, and reimbursement perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record

Group treatments are associated with improvements in symptoms of PTSD. Particularly, the efficacy of exposure-based cognitive-behavioral group therapy (group CBT) is empirically well demonstrated. Still little is known about the effects of group treatment approaches other than CBT and the comparative efficacy to alternative treatments such as individual therapy or pharmacotherapy.