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Biomedical subjects

C Winget

Publications and source records attributed to C Winget.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

The occupational hazards of jury duty.

Jurors on criminal trials carry a considerable burden of responsibility. They determine the defendant's fate. Additionally, during trials they can be exposed to stressful, frightening, and sordid aspects of life. The stressfulness varies depending upon the nature of the trial, its length, the nature of the testimony and evidence, the jurors' interpersonal relationships, the difficulty establishing guilt or innocence, the public's attitude, etc. These experiences can create psychological and/or physical discomfort that can be transient and mildly or moderately intense, or more serious and constitute illness. The authors have studied juries of four criminal trials--two murder cases, one child abuse case, and one obscenity case. Forty jurors were interviewed. Twenty-seven had one or more discomforting physical and/or physiological symptoms. These involved gastrointestinal distress (10 jurors); generalized nervousness (4 jurors); heart palpitation (6 jurors); headaches (4 jurors); sexual inhibitions (4 jurors); depression (4 jurors); anorexia (4 jurors); faintness (2 jurors); and numbness, lump in throat, chest pain, hives, and flu (1 juror each). Seven of the jurors became clearly ill. Illnesses included: peptic ulcer reactivation and hives, phobic reaction, anxiety state and increased alcohol use, hypertensive episode and visual scotomata, sexual inhibition, chills, fever, and depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Adult

Social alienation-personal disorganization assessment in disturbed and normal adolescents.

Two groups of adolescents seeking psychotherapy (N = 91 and N = 198) and a normative group (N = 112) provided 5-minute verbal behavior protocols which were content analyzed for social alienation-personal disorganization (SA-PD). The data supported the hypothesis that adolescents applying for help in 1974 to 1975 showed greater pathology than those seen in 1972 to 1973. The normative adolescents were significantly healthier than either of the two Adolescent Clinic groups. In the clinic samples, older adolescents were more disturbed than those in the younger ranges. The SA-PD scale is a useful addition to tools available for the assessment of emotional states of adolescents. The data support the idea that there appears to be an increasing severity in the problems presented by adolescents in very recent years.

Adolescent

Extended hospital care as treatment of choice.

A review of the histories of six patients who failed to adapt to community living after hospital discharge identified six factors that are predictive of serious maladjustment in the community. The are the absence of a family or soical network, repeated threats of violent behavior, previous hospitalization, poor previous functioning, inability to take responsibility for medical and mental health treatment, and suffering. Patients identified by two or more factors are likely to be unable to cope with life outside the hospital. The authors question whether attempting to maintain such patients in the community is desirable in terms of economic cost and patient suffering.

Adaptation, Psychological

A learning theory model of chronic illness behavior: theory, treatment, and research.

Over 300 patients have been treated on an inpatient psychosomatic service employing a learning model of chronic illness behavior. This model stresses social reinforcement and avoidance of occupational and social activities in the development of a syndrome characterized by somatic complaints and care-eliciting interpersonal behaviors. Preliminary studies showed that patients reinforced others for care-giving responses but showed improved tolerance of experimental pain and lower rates of drug use when care-taking responses were minimized and self-control encouraged. Treatment was designed to involve the patient in his own care, including behavior modification techniques to reduce symptomatology, social skills training, and family therapy. One-year follow-up shows that most patients achieve self-set goals, with generalization of beneficial treatment effects. Patients who return to an intact family show continuing decreases in somatic complaints and increases in achievement orientation. Treatment failures are characterized by lack of an intact family and return to the medical care system.

Adolescent

Attitudes towards euthanasia.

There are an infinite variety of attitudes to euthanasia, each individual response to the concept being influenced by many factors. Consequently there is a literature on the subject ranging from the popular article to papers in specialized journals. This study, however, has taken a well defined sample of people, inviting them to answer a questionnaire which was designed to elicit their attitudes to euthanasia in a way which could be analysed statistically. Nor surprisingly attitudes appeared to 'harden' as those answering the questionnaire grew more experienced in dealing with patients and also more professionally established. Thus it was found that of the seven groups questioned practising physicians showed more positive attitudes to euthanasia and their responses did not differ significantly from those of senior medical students. It is these groups which actually or potentially have to resolve the clinical dilemma posed by the dying patient.

Adult