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AA and other helpseeking for alcohol problems: former drinkers in the U.S. general population.

Former drinkers comprise 18.5% of the adult U.S. population. However, no epidemiologic data has been published on the histories of seeking help for alcohol problems from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or professional or informal sources of help. Using a sample of 8,057 former drinkers surveyed in the 1988 National Health Interview Survey, prevalence and characteristics associated with histories of such helpseeking were investigated. About 7% of the former drinkers had gone to AA or sought other types of help. Characteristics associated with such helpseeking were a diagnosis of DSM-IV alcohol dependence or abuse, a sense of compulsion to drink, social pressure to cut down, and highest ever alcohol consumption. The effects of alcohol consumption were stronger among younger respondents than older ones for professional or informal helpseeking.

Adolescent↗

Minority influence: a meta-analytic review of social influence processes.

A meta-analytic review of 97 minority influence experiments evaluated the processes by which sources advocating deviant, minority opinions exert influence. Minority impact was most marked on measures of influence that were private from the source and indirectly related to the content of the appeal and less evident on direct private influence measures and on public measures. This attenuated impact of minorities on direct private and public measures suggests that in response to normative pressures, recipients avoided aligning themselves with a deviant source. Mediator analyses revealed that minorities perceived as especially consistent in the advocacy of their views were especially influential. The relation between normative and informational pressures in the minority influence paradigm was discussed.

Humans↗

Preventing harm and promoting ethical discourse in the helping professions: conceptual, research, analytical, and action frameworks.

The first in a series of 4 articles, this article provides an overview of the concepts and methods developed by a team of researchers concerned with preventing harm and promoting ethical discourse in the helping professions. In this article we introduce conceptual, research, analytical, and action frameworks employed to promote the centrality of ethical discourse in mental health practice. We employ recursive processes whereby knowledge gained from case studies refines our emerging conceptual model of applied ethics. Our participatory conceptual framework differs markedly from the restrictive model typically used in applied ethics. Our research relies on lived experiences of ethics, while our analytical framework draws attention to the multiple levels and contexts in which ethical dilemmas take place. Finally, our action framework is designed to collaborate with research participants and practitioners in making use of our data and interpretations. We demonstrate how the various frameworks inform each other in an integrative fashion. The article sets the stage for 2 case studies presented in subsequent articles.

Administrative Personnel↗

Value issues in biomedical science: public concerns and professional complacency.

Biomedical research was once an unquestioned good, and generous funding for a short time allowed researchers to work on whatever interested them. Two contradictory pressures have changed this. As costs have risen and economic rationalism has become politically dominant, governments, private corporations and granting agencies have increasingly demanded compliance with their own priorities, instrumental values and performance criteria. On the other hand, social and ethical critics have characterized biomedical research as being out of touch with real health needs and community values and as being an agent of social control that entrenches the power of a technocratic hegemony. The profession has largely acquiesced in bureaucratic and corporate intervention in exchange for continued funding, and assumed that social concerns could be allayed by 'top down' paternalistic education of the public. However, this response tends to add weight to the criticism that biomedicine is an agent of social control. What is needed is a spirited defence of the value of independent scholarship and research that is not limited to science but includes the humanities. Equally important is a process of community education in which scientists not only transmit their knowledge and enthusiasm to the public, but themselves become open to the social and ethical concerns of the community.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

Building moral communities? First, do no harm.

As concern for the oral health of vulnerable populations grows, dentistry continues to seek effective ways to respond. In August 2005, Dr. Donald Patthoff and Dr. Frank Catalanotto convened a national workshop at the American Dental Association headquarters on the ethics of access to oral health care. A series of papers were produced for the workshop and subsequently revised for publication. This one responds to the paper by Dr. David Chambers on moral communities and the discursive imperative for building community and consensus around issues affecting equitable access to oral health care. I explore three interrelated issues that ought to be considered when endeavoring to build moral communities: 1) the problem of power relations-a fundamental constituent within discourse that can impede constructive efforts; 2) the discursive disconnect between theoretical ethics and social constructs affecting dentistry; and 3) the bioethical principle of nonmaleficence as a priority in the desire for building moral communities. In essence, this article responds also to the call from ethicists who see a significant need for substantive interdisciplinary contributions to inform how people at different social levels react in ethically problematic situations in its broad social context.

Community-Institutional Relations↗

The wider social environment and mental health service use.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies associating neighbourhood context with mental health service use typically included limited sets of confounders. METHOD: A data set including patients registered in a Case Register and population controls was subjected to multilevel analyses, including neighbourhood exposures and individual level confounders. In addition, days of care consumption of patients was addressed. RESULTS: The association between socioeconomic deprivation and social capital on the one hand and mental health service use rates on the other could be attributed to individual level differences. However, number of days of service consumption was higher in neighbourhoods with more informal social control. In residentially stable neighbourhoods only, socioeconomic deprivation was associated with lower levels of service consumption. CONCLUSION: Higher levels of social control may induce patients to remain in contact with mental health services. Furthermore, higher levels of deprivation in neighbourhoods with little population mobility may result in reduced expectations of recovery and/or increased tolerance.

Adult↗

Unmanaged care: the need to regulate new reproductive technologies in the United States.

In the aftermath of allegations of the misuse of human eggs in the United States, questions are being raised about whether profitable reproductive services should continue to function in a free market under the aegis of physicians or should be regulated. Other countries in which reproductive technologies are employed to a significant degree have developed regulations governing their use, many as a result of recommendations made by inter-disciplinary commissions that solicited public input. Policy makers in the United States have been reluctant to regulate reproductive technologies, however, because their use is politically controversial, they want to whittle down government, some do not consider infertility an illness, and some believe regulation would interfere with the right to reproduce. Yet the unfettered use of reproductive technologies can create such harms as lack of informed consent, providing procedures not medically indicated for financial gain, practice by unqualified personnel, injury to patients and donors, failure to screen donated gametes, and inadequate medical record keeping. Americans place special value on the welfare of children and those who bring them into the world. Such values can outweigh individual procreative liberty when new reproductive technologies are at issue. Although the optimal course would be to establish a regulatory body to govern reproductive technologies, this is not politically feasible now. The newly established National Bioethics Advisory Commission provides a forum in which issues surrounding reproductive technologies should be addressed at this time in the United States.

Advisory Committees↗

Formal vs informal group affiliations: implications for alcohol and drug use among adolescents.

Although peer influence typically has been associated with the promotion of alcohol and drug use among adolescents, a minority of writers has argued that appropriate kinds of peer interactions may work favorably to reduce usage. This empirical study considered two kinds of peer affiliations--formal and informal group participation--and their relationships with use of alcohol and drugs. Findings suggest that ad hoc, informal group participation is related to increased substance use, whereas formal group membership is related to reduced substance use. This article reviews these findings in the context of two theoretical explanations.

Adolescent↗

Informal control networks and adolescent orientations toward alcohol use.

Utilizing panel data obtained from 345 high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors in a medium-sized community in the Pacific Northwest, this study investigated the roles parental and peer informal control structures play in predicting adolescent alcohol use and abuse. The findings suggest that the "youth world" and "adult world" control structures are predictive of adolescents' orientations toward alcohol, though generally in different directions. While the adult-world predictors tended to constrain use and abuse, those of the youth world promoted use and discouraged abstinence. Further, changes occurred in the relative importance of the parental and peer predictors across time.

Adolescent↗

Health in exchange: teachers, doctors, and the strength of informal practices in Russia.

This article explores teachers' and doctors' informal medical exchange practices in the context of the transforming health care system in post-Soviet Russia. Despite the advent of a medical marketplace, most Russians have low incomes and cannot buy the goods and services the market offers. Instead, they bypass the formal market mechanisms (such as obtaining cheaper medicine through personal connections) and official procedures (such as obtaining free or cheaper health care services despite the emergence of paid services) by using their social networks. This paper uses a network perspective to investigate how doctors' and teachers' mutual relations are formed and what resources form the basis of these informal exchange practices. Drawing on structured diary data and qualitative interviews with 20 teachers, in addition to interviews with eight doctors in St. Petersburg, the study goes beyond mere statistics on health care and attempts to depict "from below" the implications health and illness have for survival in contemporary Russia.

Delivery of Health Care↗

Faculty/student perception of organizational climates in the schools of nursing, Oyo State, Nigeria.

This study examined the influence of educational status and gender on the faculty and students' perceptions of their school climates. A self-designed questionnaire was used to elicit information from the 385 subjects (320 students and 65 tutors). Analysis using the t-test technique revealed that there were no significant differences at the 0.05 level of probability in the perceptions of: (a) faculty and students on climate variables "thrust" (t = 0.31) and "control" (t = 1.19); and (b) both sexes on climate variables "thrust" (t = 1.69), "control" (t = 1.13) and "disengagement" (t = -0.53). The conclusion therefore, is that educational status and gender have little or no influence on the peoples' perception of their school climates.

Educational Status↗