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Biomedical subjects

M Gerrard

Publications and source records attributed to M Gerrard.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1995

Adolescent health-threatening and health-enhancing behaviors: a study of word association and imagery.

PURPOSE: To examine the ways in which perceived risks and benefits relate to health-threatening and health-enhancing behaviors by adolescents. METHOD: The study used a word association methodology to explore adolescents' thoughts and affective feelings associated with five health-threatening behaviors (e.g., drinking beer, smoking cigarettes) and three health-enhancing behaviors (e.g., exercising, using a seat belt). RESULTS: Each behavior elicited a mix of positive and negative associations. Health-threatening behaviors had many positive associations in common, such as having fun, social facilitation, and physiological arousal. Health-enhancing behaviors had much less commonality in their positive associations. Patterns of negative associations were not highly similar across behaviors. The content and affective tone of the associations were closely linked to participation in health-threatening behaviors and health-enhancing behaviors. Participants in an activity were far more likely than nonparticipants to associate that activity with positive outcomes, concepts, and affect and less likely to produce outcomes, concepts, and affect and less likely to produce negative associations. CONCLUSIONS: The word association methodology provides a useful technique for exploring adolescents' cognitions and affective reactions with regard to health-related behaviors. The data provided by this method have implications for prevention and intervention programs, as well as for future research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Predicting young adults' health risk behavior.

A prototype model of risk behavior is described and was tested in a longitudinal study of 679 college students, beginning at the start of their freshman year. Perceptions of the prototype associated with 4 health risk behaviors (smoking, drinking, reckless driving, and ineffective contraception) were assessed along with self-reports of the same behaviors. Results indicated that prototype perception was related to risk behavior in both a reactive and a prospective manner. That is, perceptions changed as a function of change in behavior, and perceptions predicted those behavior changes as well. This prospective relation was moderated by social comparison, as the link between perception and behavior change was stronger among persons who reported frequently engaging in social comparison.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Prevalence estimates and adolescent risk behavior: cross-cultural differences in social influence.

Prevalence estimates and prototype perceptions related to health risk behaviors were assessed in comparable samples of Danish and American adolescents (ages 13-15 years). Partly on the basis of observation and previous research, the assumption was made that the American sample would report more self-enhancement tendencies than would the Danish sample. Consistent with this assumption, which was supported by the data, 2 hypotheses were tested: (a) The Americans would overestimate the prevalence of the various risk behaviors (among their peers) more so than would the Danes and (b) those estimates would be more closely linked to their own risk behaviors for the American sample. Results supported both hypotheses; motivational explanations were proposed for both effects. In addition, perceptions of the prototypes associated with particular risk behaviors were assessed and were found to predict smoking behavior and willingness to engage in unprotected sexual intercourse for both samples. Implications for the study of adolescent risk behavior are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

From top dog to bottom half: social comparison strategies in response to poor performance.

Although the hypothesis that people will alter comparison behavior in response to threat is consistent with the formulation of social comparison theory, the empirical evidence for the natural occurrence of such shifts is weak. Two studies were conducted to examine this hypothesis. In the first study, adolescents' perceptions were assessed before, during, and 6 months after their participation in an academic program for gifted students. Male students who performed poorly, and also worse than they had expected in the program, demonstrated self-protective "strategies" by lowering the amount and level of academic comparison they reported engaging in and by lowering their perception of the importance of academics. Female students, who generally performed as well as expected, reported relatively little change. By follow-up, most of the male students' perceptions had returned to baseline. A second study found that both male and female college students who thought they had performed poorly academically also demonstrated these shifts in comparison. Motivations behind the strategies are discussed.

Achievement↗
PubMed1992

Perceptions of smoking risk as a function of smoking status.

Perceptions of the health risks associated with smoking in comparison with not smoking were assessed for the self and the "typical smoker" among four groups of adults: current, former and nonsmokers in the community, and smokers who had joined cessation clinics to help them quit. Comparisons across groups indicated that risk perceptions differed as a function of smoking status. Clinic attendees reported the highest smoking risk and the greatest perceived benefit of not smoking, and community smokers reported the lowest of each. In addition, community smokers were the only group to exhibit an "optimistic bias" (i.e., a perception that they were less vulnerable to health risk than was the typical smoker). Results from this cross-sectional study suggest that the decision to engage in and to stop risky behaviors is related to the perceptions of the health risk associated with those behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Complete recovery from hemorrhagic shock and encephalopathy.

We describe three infants (aged 9 weeks to 4 months) with the classic features of hemorrhagic shock and encephalopathy syndrome, including sudden onset of shock, neurologic disturbance, bleeding, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and impaired hepatic and renal function. Unlike the cases previously described, all three children recovered rapidly without evidence of long-term neurologic damage. These findings may modify the perception that this disorder has a uniformly bad outcome.

Brain Diseases↗
PubMed1992

Treatment of advanced stage T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma: results of the United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group (UKCCSG) protocol 8503.

Ninety-five unselected patients with stage III and IV T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma were treated according to the United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group protocol 8503. This was a continuous, intensive leukaemia type regimen including cranial irradiation (18 Gy in 10 fractions) and continuing chemotherapy for 2 years identical to the concurrent Medical Research Council ALL protocol. Four-year event-free survival was 65% (95% CI 50-80%) with no significant difference between stage III and stage IV cases. 4.2% of patients died of infection or non-tumour related events. Following relapse salvage was unlikely without high dose chemotherapy and bone marrow rescue. These results show an improvement over previous U.K. studies but we need to continue to search for subsets of patients with resistant disease for whom even more intensive therapy possibly combined with bone marrow rescue is required.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Effects of reviewing risk-relevant behavior on perceived vulnerability among women marines.

People generally underestimate their own vulnerability to negative events such as illness or accidents. It has been suggested that this illusion of "unique invulnerability" is due to selective focus on one's own risk-reducing behaviors, to the exclusion of others' risk-reducing behaviors and one's own risk-increasing behaviors. The current study examined the effects of reviewing sexual and contraceptive behavior on perceived vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy. Our results indicated that review of pregnancy-related behaviors decreased perceived vulnerability among two groups of subjects: those who considered unplanned pregnancy to be most undesirable and those who had the most confidence in the efficacy of their contraceptive behavior. The data also support the hypothesis that selective focus is a source of the illusion of invulnerability.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Outcome in stage III non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in children (UKCCSG study NHL 86)--how much treatment is needed? United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group.

Forty-four children aged 3-13 years with Murphy stage III B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were treated between May 1986 and December 1989. All have been followed up for at least 12 months. The primary site was the abdomen in 37 children, 24 of whom had involvement of other organs or nodal disease outside the abdomen. Twenty-eight received a standard dose regimen (regimen 1) and 16 had a more intensive regimen (regimen 2--MACHO). Fourteen patients (87%) who received MACHO had extensive multi-organ disease compared to 15 (53%) on regimen 1. Most of the latter had only pleural effusions. Thirty-four children are alive relapse free and considering the early relapse pattern in this disease are probably cured (actuarial event free survival = 76%). There has been one relapse (6%) after MACHO, but three toxic deaths. Six patients (21%) on the less intensive regimen have relapsed. Morbidity was high in terms of infection and need for haematological support and hospitalisation in the one third of children electively given the more intensive regimen. It is concluded that the vast majority of children with stage III disease who have disease limited to lymph nodes are curable with a moderately intensive regimen. Those with multiorgan involvement probably require more intensive treatment. It is therefore of importance to clarify prognostic factors in these patients to determine who can be cured with a less intensive regimen and who requires further dose intensification.

Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols↗
PubMed1991

Intra-abdominal neuroectodermal tumour of childhood with divergent differentiation.

Two cases are reported of intra-abdominal small cell tumours expressing concomitant neural and epithelial differentiation. These features were discernible on conventional microscopy and supported immunocytochemically. Immunoreactive vimentin was also revealed in both tumours, and, in addition, one showed focal desmin positivity. Epithelial differentiation in both tumours was confirmed ultrastructurally. The tumours were interpreted to represent a variant of peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumour, and the report serves to emphasize a potential among such tumours for complex differentiation. The neoplasms are compared with other similar tumours reported recently in children.

Abdominal Neoplasms↗
PubMed1988

Attitudes toward sex, arousal, and the retention of contraceptive information.

Previous research has suggested that women with a negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (i.e., erotophobia) have difficulty learning and retaining sexually relevant material such as contraceptive information. It has been hypothesized that these women become aroused by this material and that this arousal interferes with their ability to learn it. The importance of this issue led us to conduct the current study. Erotophobic and erotophilic women viewed presentations about contraception while their physiological responses were being monitored. In addition, they were tested on the information contained in the presentation before, immediately after, and again 4-6 weeks after the presentation. The results indicated that the erotophobic women knew less contraceptive information before the presentation and were more aroused by the presentation. This arousal, however, did not interfere with retention of the material. These results are discussed in terms of individual differences in reactions to sexual material and the ability to learn, retain, and use contraceptive information.

Arousal↗
PubMed1986

Variations in incidence of childhood leukaemia in South East Scotland (1970-1984).

Concern has been expressed recently about apparent increases in the incidence of leukaemia amongst young people living in certain geographical areas. We analysed the incidence of childhood leukaemia in South-East Scotland (excluding North-East Fife) from 1970 to 1984. There was a significant geographical variation in incidence of ALL with an excess in Fife concentrated in a small area of one district partly balanced by a relative decrease in Edinburgh. We feel that the variation is unlikely to be an artefact of geographically biased mis-diagnosis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

The Goldfarb Fear of Fat Scale.

These two studies introduce the Goldfarb Fear of Fat Scale (GFFS) as an assessment device for use with bulimic clients. Study I presents norms and reliability data for a high school sample, as well as pilot comparisons between anorexic and normal women. Study II demonstrates that the GFFS significantly differentiates between bulimics, repeat dieters, and non-dieting women. These results suggest that the GFFS may be utilized clinically as a diagnostic tool and indicator of change, which may assist in the early identification of bulimic individuals.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Predicting male and female contraceptive behavior: a discriminant analysis of groups high, moderate, and low in contraceptive effectiveness.

An exploratory, multivariate study was carried out to assess (a) whether three contraceptive-effectiveness groups (high, moderate, and low) could be differentiated on the basis of variables that have been theoretically and empirically associated with contraceptive behavior and (b) whether an identified set of discriminating variables could accurately classify sexually active college students into these groups. Three hundred sixty-five sexually active, never-married college students (211 males and 154 females) completed instruments measuring variables related to contraception. Four separate discriminant analyses were performed, one for each sex for both their initial sexual encounter and their current sexual interactions. Discrimination and classification of the three contraceptive groups for both males' and females' initial sexual experience was not very successful. Moderate discrimination was achieved for the female current sexual activity subsample and good discrimination and classification was made for the currently sexually active male subsample. The results are discussed in terms of the implications of the findings for understanding contraceptive behavior of males and females, problems with the dependent variable of contraceptive use, and the mounting evidence that emotional orientation to sexuality influences contraceptive behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Prevention of Unwanted Pregnancy.

These two studies explored the cognitive decision-making process which differentiate effective contraceptors form the ineffective contraceptors (Study 1), and applied these findings to the development and testing of educational and cognitive interventions aimed at a group of sexually active young women at risk of becoming pregnant (Study 2). The results identified factors related to unnecessary contraceptive risk-taking. The interventions changed attitudes and knowledge about contraception in the college population in general and increased effective contraception in the at-risk population of women who were initially using either ineffective methods of birth control or no methods at all.

Contraception↗