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Biomedical subjects

L H Bowker

Publications and source records attributed to L H Bowker.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

Battered women: how can nurses help?

Research findings about the experience of 1,000 battered wives are presented in this paper. A total of 146 once-battered wives volunteered to be interviewed about their backgrounds, their victimization, and their use of personal strategies, informal help-sources, and formal help-sources to end the violence in their lives. As part of an article in Woman's Day magazine about this research, women who were currently or who had been previously battered were invited to respond to a questionnaire. The first 854 questionnaires returned in usable form were added to the interviews to create a 1,000-case national data base. An important finding of the study is that formal help-sources differ significantly in their effectiveness in providing service to battered women. The women in this study rated health care personnel as less effective than any other formal source of help. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research findings for nursing practice as they relate to the need for: a) awareness by the nurse of her or his own attitudes about battered women, b) understanding of the dynamics of battering, c) knowledge and skills for assessment of battering, and d) effective strategies for nursing intervention.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1987

The medical treatment of battered wives.

Knowledge gained from a literature summary was tested against data obtained from a national volunteer sample of 1,000 battered women recruited primarily through solicitation by an advertisement in Woman's Day magazine. In comparison with other help-sources (social service agencies, the clergy, the police, lawyers, women's groups, shelters), medical personnel were found to have been used fairly frequently, but they were seen by the battered women as less effective than any other group. Quotes taken from indepth interviewers with 146 of the battered wives are used to bring life to the comparative statistics. Specific reasons for the low effectiveness ratings of the medical profession are considered, and ways to improve service delivery ratings are discussed.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1983

The etiology of female juvenile delinquency and gang membership: a test of psychological and social structural explanations.

A large portion of the research carried out to date on juvenile delinquency and gang behavior has been concentrated on male delinquents. For example, Thrasher's study (1927) of 1,313 gangs in Chicago devoted less than a page to the question of whether or not females form gangs in the same way that males do. When females are included in delinquency studies, their behavior is almost always explained in psychological or social-psychological terms. The general reasoning is that females commit delinquent acts or join delinquent gangs because they are socially maladjusted, come from broken and unhappy homes, and do not relate well to the opposite sex. In this article, we juxtapose this theoretical perspective to a social structural explanation of both female juvenile delinquency and female gang membership, and then test these two alternative explanations for juvenile delinquency using data on black, female juveniles collected in Los Angeles during the mid-1960s.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Female participation in delinquent gang activities.

Data on female participation in gang and non-gang delinquent activities were collected from black male delinquents in Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall by Shimota and Klein in the mid-1960s but never published. These data are presented, and are reanalyzed to show how females were systematically excluded from the planning and action phases of delinquent activities. An unexpected finding from the research is that female presence at the site of a delinquent activity had a suppressing effect on that activity. This material forms a baseline for contemporary, post-women's movement studies of female juvenile delinquency.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

Motives for drug use: an application of Cohen's typology.

A modified version of Cohen's typology of motives leading to drug use was studied in three private schools, Grades 7 through 12, two colleges, and a random sample of adults in two cities in a rural county located in the Intermountain West. The distribution of motives for the use of 12 categories of drugs was summarized for each population and comparisons made for age and sex differences. Younger respondents reported a higher use of drugs for adventure/curiosity reasons than older respondents. Students using drugs at a college having unusually low drug use showed a higher level of general motive satisfaction than students at a college having average drug use. Females reported a somewhat higher level of general motive satisfaction than males, but the sex differences observed were not consistent with common sex role stereotypes. By applying these motive distributions in a given community or institution, and following Cohen's suggestions for alternatives to drug use, it would be possible to build an effective program aimed at the prevention of drug abuse and related problems.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The incidence of drug use and associated factors in two small towns: a community survey.

The article reports the results of a 1974 drug survey in two rural municipalities in the Pacific Northwest. Drug use in these towns was found to be similar to drug use in urban areas. It appears that towns size 2,500 to 50,000 have been absorbed into the national drug culture while only farmers and people living in very small towns still experience relatively low rates of drug use. Other findings include attitudes toward and needs met by drug use, the effect of parental drug use on perceived children's drug use, and the relationships between drug use and age, sex, and general health. In the past few years, articles have appeared describing adult drug use in the United States as a whole, or in selected urban populations. The most comprehensive study is a national survey of a representative sample of 2,552 adults completed in 1971 (1-3). Among the regional reports are studies carried out in California (4,5) and New York (6,7). What these studies have in common is the absence of data on rural or small town drug use as compared with urban drug use. A national study by Cahalan, Cisin, and Crossley (8) does analyse rural-urban differences, but only for alcohol use. No comprehensive treatment of this topic exists in the literature. The research reported in the present article represents an attempt to begin to fill in this void data on small town drug use in a rural setting.

Adolescent↗