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PubMed1991

Dentists' perceptions of HIV/AIDS as an occupational hazard: a qualitative investigation.

The aim of this study was to explore in depth a sample of dentists' perceptions of HIV/AIDS in the context of an investigation into their feelings towards occupational hazards. To fulfil this aim a qualitative research method, the Repertory Grid Technique, was employed. Twenty-three dentists were involved in the study. The main findings of the research were that a complex array of views were expressed by the sample, but that issues relating to concern and control were seen as being of greatest relevance and importance. The methodological technique used enabled a two-dimensional diagrammatic image to be created representing the samples' view of HIV/AIDS. Most of the dentists perceived HIV/AIDS as being of low to moderate concern and under moderate to high control. The older male dentists expressed higher levels of concern and lower levels of control. Those dentists with the greatest experience of dealing with people affected by HIV/AIDS expressed lower concern and higher control. When compared with other occupational hazards, the sample viewed HIV/AIDS in a very similar way to eye injury, mercury, radiation and herpes, in terms of concern and control. It was evident, however, that occupational stress was the hazard that provoked the highest degree of concern for the sample, and not HIV/AIDS.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1994

[Subjective construction of psychiatric hierarchy].

A survey was undertaken amongst student nurses at a psychological clinic with the aim of reconstructing the way in which the participants project values and expectations onto the established hierarchy of the institution. The method used for the survey was the Repertory-Grid-Technique; the grids were evaluated in a formal logic way. It can be seen a) how students especially favour the team as a niche at the workplace and how they seek to dissociate it from other role-bearers at the clinic, b) how patients are categorized at the very bottom of the hierarchy of values, c) how in some grids an internalized attitude is reflected as a mountain of constructions formed of idealized work expectations, which later could crop up as "Burn Out" Syndrome.

Burnout, Professional↗
PubMed1994

Pedophiles' ratings of adult and child photographs using a semantic differential.

Recent knowledge of the widespread extent of child sexual abuse and its consequences has led to an increasing interest in the understanding and treatment of perpetrators. This study examined a group of pedophiles in an English Special Hospital to determine possible characteristics that make children attractive and adults unattractive to them, using Repertory Grid technique and Semantic Differential. A small number of significant findings suggest that pedophiles may perceive some children and women in an unusual way. The large number of insignificant findings are discussed with reference to the sensitivity of the instrument; the pedophiles' desire to give socially acceptable answers; and subject characteristics of low IQ and "psychopathic disorder." Future directions for research are suggested.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

[Internal representation of diseased organs and symbolic disguise of conflictual object relations].

Psychoanalytic-psychosomatic hypotheses assume, among other things, that patients with psychosomatic diseases tend to represent conflict-laden object relationship experiences symbolically in the diseased organ of the body. This assertion was tested on 139 patients having inflammatory and irritable bowel diseases with the help of the repertory grid technique. Univariate analysis showed that this hypothesis not only applies to the primary object, but is also valid for the partner relationship. Neither gender nor illness behaviour affect the connections observed here. Although patients with irritable bowel diseases as well as those suffering from Crohn's disease or colitis ulcerosa, have differing pathogeneses, there is a comparable tendency in all three diagnostic groups to represent object relationships leaded with conflict symbolically in the diseased organ of the body. The finding that the physical and psychological condition of the moment in the sense of a reactive component like-wise has to intervening influence, leads to the supposition that, in accordance with theoretical assumptions, this is a general factor.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The caring attitude in nursing practice: a repertory grid study of trained nurses' perceptions.

The process of caring is central to nursing practice but it remains a poorly defined concept in nursing practice and education. A small number of studies of caring in the field of nursing have been undertaken, but these have tended to be more quantitative in nature. This paper describes a qualitative study designed to explore nurses' perceptions of the concept of caring. Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory and the repertory grid interview technique were used to elicit trained nurses' views about caring in relation to the practice of nursing. A strategic informant sample of 25 nurses was chosen. A total of 200 verbal descriptions (constructs) were generated from interviews, and these were analysed into similar content areas. Seven categories emerged from the analysis to provide a detailed description of caring. These include: a) personal qualities; b) clinical work style; c) interpersonal approach; d) level of motivation; e) concern for others; f) use of time; and g) attitudes. There were very few constructs related to physical aspects of care. The findings are offered as reflection of British nurses' perceptions of caring. Some possible applications of the results for nursing practice, education and research are considered.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2000

Effective leadership within hospice and specialist palliative care units.

UNLABELLED: In this study the Repertory Grid interview technique was used to investigate constructs of leadership held by a group of male and female senior managers from within hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Units (SPCUs) in the UK. The themes that emerged were compared with those from existing research models of leadership. RESULTS: Men and women in these roles describe different constructs of effective leadership. The women's constructs that emerged were predominantly transformational, whilst the men's were predominantly transactional. Themes were also identified in this study, which differed from previous studied, i.e. those of political and environment awareness and the valuing of others' views regardless of their status. These themes do not feature highly in other research, and may be in response to the environment within which hospice and specialist palliative care functions.

Administrative Personnel↗
PubMed2000

[Reconstruction of mutism. Studies of subjective experiences of former patients with the modified Landfield categories].

OBJECTIVE: The subjective experience of catatonic patients was investigated with the repertory grid-technique after recovery from the acute state of disease and compared with non-catatonic schizoaffective and depressive patients. METHODS: The sample consists of 18 catatonic patients, 22 schizoaffective, 16 unipolar depressive, 8 unipolar manic and 23 patients with bipolar affective disorder as well as of 32 psychiatrically healthy orthopaedic controls. Interviews were held well before discharge. The contents of personal constructs was analyzed by means of modified Landfield categories. RESULTS: "Self" of catatonic patients did not differ significantly from the other groups. The "Idealself" of catatonic patients differed significantly in the categories "high self esteem" (from the controls and the non-catatonic group) and "high empathy" (from the controls). The "disease-self" ("In the acute catatonic state") was construed as isolated (lack of social contact). The results underline the importance of an active therapeutical interaction in the acute catatonic state. The modified Landfield Categories proved to be a useful psychodiagnostic instrument for the idiographic assessment of personality in particular, and for psychiatric therapy research in general.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Methods for assessing drivers' perception of specific hazards on the road.

The purpose of this research was to test a number of techniques for assessing drivers' perception of hazards. The techniques included three types of interview methods, the Q-sort method, and several variants of the repertory grid method. The techniques were judged largely on their ability to differentiate between old and young drivers, two groups with known differences in accident frequency. None of the interview techniques produced useful information regarding drivers' perception of hazards, and neither these techniques nor the Q-sort discriminated between old and young drivers. All the variants of the repertory grid differentiated between old and young drivers, in the sense that old drivers used extremes of the rating scale more often than young drivers. This phenomenon was most apparent with the fixed repertory grid. Further work on this technique revealed further differences between the age groups in terms of the correlational structure of the responses, which point to a number of hypotheses about risk perception in old and young drivers.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2007

The elaboration of personal construct psychology.

More than half a century has passed since the publication of George Kelly's (1955/1991) The Psychology of Personal Constructs. This review considers the elaboration of personal construct psychology (PCP) during this time, both by Kelly and by others who developed his ideas. Advances to the theory have principally concerned implicative relationships between constructs, construing of the self, social relationships, emotions, links with other approaches, and supporting research. With regard to methods of assessment of construing, major developments have occurred in both repertory grid and nongrid techniques, such as laddering. The principal advances in the applications of PCP have been in the clinical, educational, and organizational fields, but have by no means been limited to these areas. It can be concluded that PCP has met Kelly's own design specifications for a useful theory and that PCP can perhaps anticipate at least another half-century of elaboration.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Nurses and physicians evaluate their intensive care experiences.

OBJECTIVE: Analysis of the evaluation of intensive care experiences of nurses and physicians in relation to their educational background and degree of professionalization. DESIGN: Cross-cultural, qualitative study design: German nurses and physicians and American nurses. SETTING: German medical intensive care unit (nine beds), German surgical intensive care unit (six beds), and an American medical-surgical intensive care unit (16 beds). SUBJECTS: Thirteen German nurses (eight women, five men) of a medical intensive care unit, six German nurses (five women, one man) of a surgical intensive care unit, nine German physicians of a medical intensive care unit (two women, seven men), and 13 American nurses of a medical-surgical intensive care unit (10 women, three men). METHODS: The interviewing technique by the method of Role Repertory Grid Test by G.A. Kelly. We focused on important job experiences in intensive care and the remembered evaluation of these experiences. RESULTS: The reported experiences of intensive care unit nurses and physicians show negative as well as positive appraisals. No correlation can be shown between negative appraisals and the degree of professionalization or training of German nurses and physicians, and American nurses, respectively. The qualitative-content analysis of positively appraised experiences does indicate, for all four studied groups, that even primarily so-called "positive" experiences are closely connected with negative aspects and connotations. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that nurses and physicians experience intensive care work with extreme ambivalence. To be content with and successful on the job it appears necessary to develop a high level of ambivalence. From a methodologic point of view, the advantages of the interviewing technique (Role Repertory Grid) are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1986

The impact of structural family therapy training on conceptual and executive therapy skills.

The importance of empirical evaluations of family therapy training is gaining increased recognition. This study reports the results of a controlled assessment of a training seminar in structural family therapy. Changes in the conceptual and executive skills of 44 therapy trainees (22 family trainees and 22 controls) were assessed over a 16-week period using repertory grid and videotaped therapy simulation techniques. Results indicated significant conceptual gains in family therapy trainees, but only among those with little previous exposure to family training. Differences in the overall number as well as the type of interventions were also noted. Results generally supported the predicted impact of therapy training, but left unanswered questions regarding the unique impact of family therapy training over individual training. These qualifications are discussed and directions for future work are highlighted.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Exploring dental operators' perceptions of their clinical tasks.

Clinical variation is a result of the complex interaction of operator, operating environment and client variables. This study explores intra-operator characteristics by applying a technique from psychology known as Repertory Grid to New Zealand dental therapists, in order to elicit the ways in which they view their work. Individual interviews were conducted with 13 dental therapists to elicit the full range of tasks that they perform and the various ways that they describe them. Each therapist then rated her own work activities or tasks on her personal set of bipolar descriptions (personal constructs). Principal components analyses of each individual's set of ratings produced graphs which portrayed the pattern of meanings which therapists attributed to their work activities. Common features among the 13 therapists' work perceptions were then identified and categorised according to five types of variables (therapist, client, procedural, time and interpersonal). Common features included operator perceptions of painfulness of procedures, complexity of decision-making, interaction with people, stress for the therapist, preventive care for the client, routineness of task and challenge for the therapist. This detailed information gives a better understanding of the complex ways in which therapists view their tasks and therefore make decisions in the clinical setting. It could be conveniently used to develop a questionnaire to assess the empirical relationships between intra-operator factors and clinical outputs.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

The minimax problem of Personal Construct organization and schizophrenic thought disorder.

The minimax problem states that optimal construct organization involves two limiting levels of "too many" and "too few" available construct, dimensions for flexible, accurate discrimination of interpersonal events. Measures of thought disorder derived from personal construct theory, such as the Bannister-Fransella Grid, detect only "too many" constructs. The present study (N = 60) hypothesized that Ss with the least and most number of Functionally Independent Constructs (FIC) would evidence more thinking errors characteristic of a schizophrenic thought disorder than would Ss between the minimum and maximum groups. A grid form of the Role Construct Repertory Technique and the Whitaker Index of Schizophrenic Thinking (WIST; Forms A & B) were administered to 60 psychiatric inpatients. FIC scores were used to assign the Ss to five levels of construct organization and WIST scores served as the dependent variable. Two WIST scores confirmed the experimental hypothesis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Self-concepts and illness attitudes in chronic pain. A repertory grid study of a pain management programme.

Four patients completed a 10-session out-patient pain management programme which included didactic information, relaxation training and cognitive-behavioural techniques. At the beginning and completion of the programme a number of measures were taken, including symptom inventories and a repertory grid designed to tap the patients' self-concepts and attitudes towards illness. These two sets of before and after measures were compared. No changes in the symptom inventories nor in daily visual analogue measurements of pain were shown. Despite this, the repertory grids showed a significant increase in the distance between 'as I would like to be' and 'like a physically ill person;' suggesting that physical illness had become less desirable. At the same time the distance between 'like a physically ill person' and 'like a hypochondriac' decreased, suggesting that these two concepts were less clearly distinguished in the patients' minds. Analysis of the raw data suggested that emotional factors were considered more relevant to physical illness at the completion of the programme. It would seem, therefore, that the main impact of our programme was on the patients' attitudes towards illness rather than on symptoms. Since attitudes may partly determine subsequent illness behaviour, it is encouraging to note changes here which suggest that our patients have adopted a more healthy view of physical illness.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Identity disturbances and self-other differentiation in schizophrenics, borderlines, and normal controls.

The present study investigates identity disorders in schizophrenics and borderlines. Nineteen schizophrenics and 17 borderlines were compared with 18 normal controls. The technique used was an adapted version of the repertory grid test to describe the self and nine significant others (i.e., family members). Three indices were derived from the 10 person x 20 self-generated-attribute matrix to measure the extent to which self was differentiated from others: (1) overlap of salient attributes, (2) overlap of opposite attributes, and (3) degree of differentiation among others. Results showed that both schizophrenics and borderlines describe themselves more in terms of opposites than in terms of salient attributes. Differentiation among significant others was severely impaired in schizophrenics and preserved in borderlines. These findings were interpreted as a failure of the individuation process in schizophrenics and as an incomplete construal of self-identity in borderlines.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The repertory grid as a measure of change and predictor of outcome in the treatment of alcoholism.

Fifty male in-patients receiving treatment for alcohol dependence were studied on admission using the repertory grid and the grids analysed using the principal component technique (INGRIDA). Three self-elements were examined: self-when-sober, self-when-drunk, and ideal self. Sober-ideal self distance was below average in 90 per cent and drunk-ideal above average in 83 per cent, suggesting unrealistically favourable perceptions of sobriety and unrealistically unfavourable perceptions of drunkenness. The percentage of total variation accounted for by the first two components (VAR1 + VAR2) was generally high, suggesting tightness of construing. The first grid did not predict treatment completion. Twenty-eight subjects completed treatment and were given a second grid test on discharge. Consistent changes in grid measures with treatment were not apparent. Forty-nine subjects were followed up six months after discharge. For the 28 who had completed treatment, tightening of construing during treatment (i.e. a higher value of VAR1 + VAR2 in the second grid than in the first) was associated with drinking at follow-up. Measures derived from the first grid alone or from the second grid alone were not associated with status at follow-up.

Adult↗