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Biomedical subjects

C A Guarnaccia

Publications and source records attributed to C A Guarnaccia.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Concerns and coping with HIV: comparisons across groups.

To develop scales measuring major concerns about being HIV-positive and how people would cope with diagnosis, items were selected from the Ways of Coping Scale (Folkman et al., 1986)and generated by county health department HIV counsellors. Psychometric scale development involved two diverse samples of HIV test clients. Study I (health department, N = 272) yielded five Concerns with HIV scales and nine Coping with HIV scales. Factor structures did not differ between gay/bisexual men, heterosexual women or heterosexual men. In Study II (private non-profit gay-identified community HIV clinic, N = 227), LISREL confirmatory factor analyses cross-validated the Study I factor structures with no notable differences found. Some mean differences between genders and by sexual orientation were explained by different numbers of HIV-positive people known. Concern and Coping with HIV Scales (CCHIVS) are discussed for HIV/AIDS research and clinical use.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1999

Introduction: The future of psychotherapy training: psychodynamic, experiential, and eclectic perspectives.

What does the future hold with regard to psychotherapy training? We posed that question to experts representing three important therapeutic approaches: Psychodynamic, Experiential, and Eclectic. In what follows we introduce this special section, provide our rationale for putting it together, and briefly highlight some interesting, substantive points made in the subsequent papers.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy↗
PubMed1998

The contribution of small life events to the psychological distress of married and widowed older women.

The contribution of small life events to the prediction of general psychological distress was examined for 50 married and 21 recently widowed older women. These two groups were contrasted as having or not having experienced an uncontrollable major life stressor (i.e., the recent death of a spouse). Negative small life events (i.e., daily hassles) contributed above and beyond general demographic factors; conjugal bereavement status; social support; other, non-conjugal bereavement, major life events; and the interaction of these life events and social support in the prediction of general psychological distress. Results support assessing negative small life events as well as major life events for both married and recently widowed older women.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1997

Locus of control perceptions among conjugally bereaved older adults: a pilot study.

While Locus of Control is typically operationalized as a single dispositional trait that generalizes across settings, it has also been conceptualized as two weakly related factors; Domain-Specific State Locus of Control and a generalized Trait Locus of Control. Malleability of these two factors was tested for recently widowed older adults in self-help support groups (n = 17) and a waiting-list control condition (n = 6). Domain-Specific State Locus of Control-Desire for Control subscale increased over the course of the three-week six-session intervention for support group participants. These group participants also showed decreased psychological distress from pre to post intervention. The change in Domain-Specific State Locus of Control-Desire for Control did not relate to this reduction in distress. As expected, Trait Locus of Control remained stable with greater Trait Internality related to less psychological symptomatology.

Aged↗
PubMed1991

Predicting the everyday life events of older adults.

Predicting the everyday life events of people is a relatively unexplored topic, although several major theoretical approaches deal with related issues. The dispositional approach would assign a causal role to personality, while the situational approach would locate causation in the person's environment. Variations on these two extreme themes invoke an interactionist interpretation. Beyond this, a genuinely transactional approach focuses on the enduring person-environment relationship established as people deal with major and everyday life events. This study investigated a wide range of predictors of daily positive, negative, and ill-health events over time in a sample of 206 older adults. Results showed that personality variables played only a minor role in predicting daily events, although an interaction between extraversion and social network size was significant. Background demographic variables and the major stressors of recent conjugal bereavement and physical disability played a role in daily event occurrences. Overall, the strongest degree of predictability of events came from the events themselves: The high degree of event stability over time indicated the value of a genuinely transactional model in understanding the occurrence of everyday events.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1990

Some everyday life consequences of disability and bereavement for older adults.

The study analyzed daily event differences between groups experiencing the major stressors of conjugal bereavement and physical disability, and analyzed the association of everyday events with self-reports of mental health for different groups across a 3-month time span. Monthly interviews were conducted with 61 recently conjugally bereaved, 62 recently physically disabled, and 123 matched-comparison older adults between the ages of 60 and 80. The purpose of these interviews was to obtain a comprehensive assessment of the monthly frequencies of everyday life events. Self-reports of mental health were obtained from paper-and-pencil measures filled out after each interview. Causal models were used to analyze the best-fitting structure of event/mental health relationships for the first 3 monthly interviews. Undesirable events showed uniformly adverse effects on mental health. Desirable events benefited the psychological well-being of the disabled the most and had no positive effects on the mental health of the bereaved. The bereaved also evidenced less stability over time than other groups in the frequency of small undesirable events.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Effects of disability and bereavement on the mental health and recovery of older adults.

We investigated the role of two major stressors, recent disability and conjugal bereavement, in older adults' self-reports of mental health and recovery from stress. A sample of 246 older adults between the ages of 60-80 was interviewed monthly for 3 months by trained elderly interviewers; Month-10 interview data were also analyzed. Control subjects, who were not experiencing the stressors, were carefully selected from a sample of adults matched on age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Dependent variables were psychological distress and psychological well-being, each with component subscales. The disabled group evidenced significantly lower positive well-being and significantly greater distress than did the other groups. Bereaved subjects demonstrated high levels of depression compared with the disabled subjects, but showed less anxiety. Bereaved subjects showed recovery on several indicators of mental health, but disabled subjects continued to show considerable psychological upset in comparison with the other groups.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1986

Measuring small life events.

The development of an inventory to assess small events is described. In the construction of the inventory specific criteria were established and existing event inventories were screened for items and new items written to fit these criteria. The event had to denote an observable change in a person's everyday life, have a discrete beginning, be classifiable as either desirable or undesirable, and be scaled as having an average of 250 Life Change Units or less using B. S. Dohrenwend, Krasnoff, Askenasy, Dohrenwend's (1978) magnitude estimation parameters. The inventory was constructed to cover events in major areas of life concern: family, work, leisure, household, financial, health/illness, nonfamily relations, crime/criminal activity, education, religion, and transportation. Two studies are reported that test the utility of the inventory.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Hematological cancer patients' quality of life: self versus intimate or non-intimate confidant reports.

Self reports of 49 outpatients with hematological cancers and matched dyad confidant reports about the patient, collected at a cancer treatment center in Lisbon, Portugal, were compared on the SF-36 quality of life (QOL) measure. These comparisons contrasted self reports and confidant reports of the 33 patients with an accompanying spouse/partner intimate confidant, and of the 16 patients with an accompanying non-intimate confidant. Intimate confidants gave lower SF-36 QOL ratings of patients' Social Functioning and Mental Health than those patients gave for themselves (p<0.05).

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A comparison of Portuguese and American patients with hematological malignancies: a cross-cultural survey of health-related quality of life.

This study investigates health-related quality of life (QoL) differences between 98 Portuguese and 109 US American outpatients with hematological malignancies. These two national groups of patients were characterized in terms of patients' QoL, and socio-demographic and clinical variables. Differences were found for several socio-demographic variables (race, marital and job status, urban residence, diagnosis, age, education, and household size). Portuguese patients reported better physical functioning, less bodily pain, more vitality, better social functioning, and better general QoL [as measured by Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLIC) total score] than American patients. Results were independent of demographic differences or mode of questionnaire administration.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Differences in Mexican-born and U.S.-born women of Mexican descent regarding factors related to breast cancer screening behaviors.

A survey on factors related to breast cancer screening was completed by 179 U.S.-resident women of Mexican descent who were either Mexican born (n = 76) or U.S. born (n = 103). The U.S.-born women had significantly higher levels of income, education. and acculturation and were significantly more likely to be covered by health insurance and to receive health professional interventions such as breast self-exam (BSE) instruction. Accordingly, these U.S.-born women engaged in BSE more frequently and were more motivated to engage in other health behaviors. In comparison, the Mexican-born women reported significantly greater beliefs that breast cancer is a serious illness and that they were relatively more susceptible to this illness. For the Mexican-born women health locus of control was significantly more geared toward powerful others and chance factors. Factor differences suggest that Mexican-born women face more breast cancer screening barriers than the U.S.-born women of Mexican descent.

Acculturation↗