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Biomedical subjects

S Rosenfield

Publications and source records attributed to S Rosenfield.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

The costs of sharing: wives' employment and husbands' mental health.

Although there is general concern about the psychological effects of gender stratification, we know relatively little about the particular aspects of inequality that affect men and women's mental health. This paper proposes that inequalities in power and demands associated with gender are particularly consequential for well-being. Previous analyses on married women support this perspective: wives' employment is positive for women's well-being to the extent that it increases their income relative to husbands and decreases their domestic demands, particularly through husbands sharing in domestic labor. The present analysis extends the test of this perspective to men by examining the effects of wives' employment on husbands' psychological well-being. Results show that insofar as it decreases husbands' relative income and increases their share of domestic labor, women's employment is negative for husbands' mental health.

Adaptation, Psychological

Factors contributing to the subjective quality of life of the chronic mentally ill.

Although the deinstitutionalization of the seriously mentally ill has been severely criticized, the success of some model community programs shows that community care can enhance patients' quality of life. We lack specific knowledge, however, about the components that make these programs effective, and why. A theoretical framework for identifying these critical components is proposed. Services can enhance life satisfaction by increasing individuals' actual power through economic resources or status, thus enhancing their perceptions of mastery. An internal evaluation of a model program provides support for this hypothesis. One hundred and fifty-seven patients were interviewed about services, quality of life, and perceptions of mastery. Results show that services providing economic resources and an empowerment approach to service delivery are significantly related to overall quality of life. Furthermore, perceptions of mastery account for the impact of these components on life satisfaction. These findings suggest interventions that can be adopted by a wide range of mental health programs for the improvement of the quality of life of the chronic mentally ill.

Adult

Women and mental health: the interaction of job and family conditions.

Current research on the effects of wives' employment on their well-being focuses on the determinants of those effects. Most studies have used a gender model that concentrates on family conditions as mediators. In contrast, studies of the effects of employment on men typically use a job model and focus on work rather than family conditions as determinants. To understand fully the impact of employment on women, these models should be combined. We predict that certain work and family conditions interact, specifically, that the degree of control at work moderates the effects of demands in the family. Using two data sets on community mental health, we have found some support for this hypothesis.

Adult

The effects of women's employment: personal control and sex differences in mental health.

Married women have been found consistently to have higher rates of anxious and depressive symptoms than married men. Power explanations for this difference predict that employment for women, which is associated with greater power in the family, would reduce women's symptoms to approximate men's more closely. Results on the effects of women's employment, however, are inconsistent. One explanation for this inconsistency concerns role overload, or the greater demands experienced by women with employment. This paper proposes that overload creates greater symptoms for the same reason as low power; that is, through lowering individuals' sense of personal control. Thus employment for women is not consistently positive because it often trades one source of low control for another. We test a personal control explanation for the effects of women's employment, using community surveys of mental health. Results indicate that issues of personal control underlie the effects of both high demands and low power on sex differences in anxious and depressive symptoms.

Adolescent

Evidence for intrinsic behavioural activity of the benzodiazepine antagonist, Ro15-1788, in male mice.

It would be predicted that putative benzodiazepine should be released under anxiety-provoking conditions and that behavioural changes should be observed following pretreatment with selective antagonists of the benzodiazepine receptor. To test this hypothesis, adult male albino mice were briefly exposed to a novel, brightly-illuminated arena during the dark phase of their LD cycle. Under these test conditions, Ro15-1788 (10 mg/kg) enhanced total rearing whilst, a 5-10 mg/kg, it significantly altered the normal pattern of rearing over the test session. However, at the highest dose tested (20 mg/kg), such behavioural changes were no longer apparent. A similar, though non-significant, trend was observed for locomotor activity. These data, the first to demonstrate-low-dose intrinsic activity of Ro15-1788 in mice, suggest that benzodiazepine antagonists may prove to be powerful tools in the study of the behavioural significance of the benzodiazepine receptor.

Animals

Malabsorption in giardiasis: presence of a luminal barrier (mucoid pseudomembrane). A scanning and transmission electron microscopic study.

Investigations of the small bowel mucosa by scanning and transmission electron microscopy are reported in two coetaneous children with giardiasis. Serum immunoglobulins and mucosal architecture by light microscopy were normal in both, as well as activities of lactase, sucrase, and maltase. One of the children had suggestive evidence of malabsorption. Scanning and transmission electron microscopic examination of biopsied mucosa of the child with malabsorption suggested the following: increased secretory activity in crypts and increased cell damage, producing excess mucus containing extruded cytoplasm. It is hypothesized that the physicochemical properties of the mucoid material permitted ready interaction with the mucosal surface, the biochemical qualities of which could have been altered by the presence of the parasites. Close adherence of this mucoid layer to the surface gave it the aspect of a pseudomembrane which, by covering wide areas of the mucosal surface, probably functioned as an effective luminal barrier for nutrients. This pseudomembrane was not seen by light microscopy. Excessive secretion of mucus, its physicochemical and immunologic properties, and mucus-mucosal surface interaction could have been engendered by genetic and environmental factors, which need further study. Although some mucus was present in the mucosa of the other child, it was confined to the base of the villi, and did not cover the mucosal surface. The presence of a luminal barrier (mucoid pseudomembrane) may be added to the list of mechanisms implicated in causing malabsorption in giardiasis.

Child, Preschool