[Reflections on the psychological evolution of diabetic adolescents].
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Because of the limitations resulting from the severity of heart failure, patients in the waiting list for cardiac transplantation often show a worsening in their social life. They usually present with psychological problems caused by symptoms, medical or surgical therapies and consequences on their own work. We have devised and utilized an experimental psychodiagnostic protocol to study the psychological characteristics of a sample of patients with heart failure (NYHA functional class III and IV) candidate to heart transplantation. Our study was particularly aimed at investigating the quality of life and the psychological mechanisms of adaptation. Findings show a strong attempt of denying the discomfort deriving from the disease and the expectation for transplant. Patients seem to have an adequate reaction to the illness and, otherwise, they feel anxiety and trouble that make very fragile their psychological adaptation. This behaviour is probably correlated with symptoms and the clinical history of heart failure, and does not match with a visible state of well-being that can be detected with a superficial analysis. Nevertheless patients have a good availability in receiving a psychological support from the whole medical staff (physicians, nurses): this suggests that the benefits deriving from a contemporary medical and psychological therapy are able to prevent the appearance of clear psychiatric symptoms. Additional studies involving larger samples of selected populations are needed to confirm the results of the present investigation.
The quality of life (medical, psychological, and social adaptation) of 66 chronic dialysis patients was studied cross-sectionally. The participants had similar levels of medical, psychological, and social adaptation to those found in previous studies of chronic dialysis patients. Medical, psychological, and social adaptation are independent dimensions that are only weakly intercorrelated. When categorized by specific individual or treatment characteristics, men and those over age 51 had poorer medical and psychological adaptation than did women and younger dialysis patients. Duration of dialysis was not related to quality of life. Vocationally active as compared to vocationally inactive subjects had generally superior medical, psychological, and social adaptation. Male sex, age over 51, and vocational inactivity are all associated with poorer dialysis patient adaptation. The development of profiles of groups of dialysis patients at increased risk for poor adaptation may help in targetting scarce psychosocial intervention resources. Studies of the psychosocial efficacy of differing treatment modalities need to consider non--treatment-related factors that may affect patient psychosocial outcomes.
Black (N = 26), white (N = 26) and Overseas Chinese (N = 32) college students were surveyed with Zung's Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). With the exception of two items where marginally significant differences were found, there were no quantitative differences in the results across these ethnic groups. Inter-item analyses, factor analyses and comparison of factor profiles indicated that the items clustered in different configurations for the three groups. The factors contributing the most variances differed in their item contents across the ethnic groups: a mixture of affective and somatic complaints characterizes the black group; existential and cognitive concerns characterize the white group and somatic complaints characterize the Overseas Chinese group. Discussion was focused on issues concerning cultural conception of psychological difficulties, communication styles used to communicate these difficulties and situational variables affecting performances on psychological diagnostic tests.
This study investigates the effects of coping style and cognitive hardiness on physical and psychological health status. Measures of coping styles (intrusive positive thoughts, intrusive negative thoughts, avoidance, problem-focused coping), cognitive hardiness, stress, health habits, psychological distress, and physical illness were collected for 194 professional employees. Multiple regression analyses revealed that intrusive negative thoughts and avoidance coping approaches significantly contributed to predictions of psychological distress and physical illness outcomes, respectively. Cognitive hardiness significantly contributed to predictions of psychological distress but not physical illness outcomes. Health habits were significantly related to both measures of health status. Two coping approaches, intrusive positive thoughts and problem-focused coping, did not significantly contribute to predictions of either physical or psychological health status.
In this survey study the question was asked how "life crisis," social conditions, and ratings of quality of life are related to psychological adjustment. The survey included 454 residents, and data were collected on five social conditions: income, education, age, marital status, and religious participation; four ratings of life quality: family, personal life, income, and overall quality of life; the number of recent changes in the lives of the respondents; and two indicators of psychological adjustment. These data were analyzed with multivariate analyses of variance and stepwise regression. Life crisis was associated directly with psychological adjustment. Social conditions and life quality ratings also had significant effects. People with high life-crisis scores reported more psychological distress, and poor social conditions appeared to further exacerbate their adjustment problems. Regardless of the magnitude of the crisis, quality of life ratings had sizable effects on reports of psychological adjustment.
This study examined the relationship involving children's level of anxiety, defensiveness, and play patterns 1 week prior to, during, and 1 week after hospitalization for minor surgery. A 7-month follow-up was also conducted in order to assess the children's recall for hospital events and coping style. The results suggested that two classes of children could be identified. The children in one group distinguished themselves in terms of their disposition to engage in the "work of worrying" (i.e., were low defensive prior to hospitalization, actively played with stress-related toys prior to hospitalization, and reported minimal distress and anxiety following surgery). Those in the second group were highly defensive, avoided playing with stress-related toys, and reported most anxiety following surgery. The parallel between children and adults patterns of dealing with surgery was considered in terms of Janis's (1978) model of coping with psychological stress.
The German Rheuma-Liga as the largest patient organisation presents the different ways of informing patients. Patient- education-programs are presented, with a program focussing on social and psychological issues in particular.
A prospective study was conducted with early breast cancer patients who had either been offered, or not been offered, a choice of surgery for treatment. The choice involved mastectomy or wide excision plus radiotherapy. Available evidence suggests that the medical outcome between these two options is similar; this study was designed to investigate selected psychosocial outcomes. It was found that whether or not patients were given a choice was of greater relevance to psychosocial outcomes that was the type of operation performed. Providing a choice led to improved reported adjustments with respect to the ability to undertake work, attitudes towards the future, beliefs about coping, and in physical and psychological functioning.
This paper presents empirical evidence suggesting that healthy humans can perform a two degree of freedom visuo-motor pursuit tracking task with the same response time delay as a one degree of freedom task. In contrast, the time delay of the response is influenced markedly by the nature of the motor synergy required to produce it. We suggest a conceptual account of this evidence based on adaptive model theory, which combines theories of intermittency from psychology and adaptive optimal control from engineering. The intermittent response planning stage has a fixed period. It possesses multiple optimal trajectory generators such that multiple degrees of freedom can be planned concurrently, without requiring an increase in the planning period. In tasks which require unfamiliar motor synergies, or are deemed to be incompatible, internal adaptive models representing movement dynamics are inaccurate. This means that the actual response which is produced will deviate from the one which is planned. For a given target-response discrepancy, corrective response trajectories of longer duration are planned, consistent with the principle of speed-accuracy trade-off. Compared to familiar or compatible tasks, this results in a longer response time delay and reduced accuracy. From the standpoint of the intermittency approach, the findings of this study help make possible a more integral and predictive account of purposive action.
Partners and other family members are key supports for cancer patients. Most cope well with the caregiving role, but an important minority become highly distressed or develop an affective disorder. Female carers and those with a history of psychiatric morbidity are more vulnerable, as are those who take a more negative view of the patient's illness and its impact on their lives. Carers are likely to become more distressed and develop psychiatric morbidity as the illness advances and treatment is palliative. Carers are also more at risk when they lack a support network of their own and when there are relationship difficulties with the patient. The review discusses why, given this evidence, carers fail to take advantage of interventions designed to help them and those who participate derive only limited psychological benefits.
The longitudinal relationships between aspects of cognitive coping and psychological symptoms in a group of 36 adults were examined 1, 3, and 5 years after a fatal school bus accident in Norway in 1988. The need for information about what happened in the accident was unrelated to symptoms during the period when the parents' search for facts was dominant, indicating that this is part of a normal adjustment process. However, persistent need for information after factual information had been provided was associated with poorer adjustment. People who felt they were adequately informed and who viewed the accident as a random incident showed better psychological adjustment.
The effects of circuit weight training on mood, perceived stress, job satisfaction, and physical symptoms were investigated in a sample of state law enforcement officers. Forty-three male officers who were not regularly exercising were assigned to either 4 months of circuit weight training or a wait-list control condition. Four months of circuit weight training led to a significant increase in strength on cardiovascular fitness. Subjects also demonstrated significant improvements in mood, including decreases in somatization, anxiety, depression, and hostility. Circuit weight training also resulted in a decrease in reports of physical symptoms and in improvements in job satisfaction. Results indicated that subjects who dropped out of the exercise training program evidenced significantly greater anxiety, depression, and hostility at pretreatment than subjects who completed the program. These findings suggest that circuit weight training programs may contribute to important psychological benefits.
The present study contrasted the widely cited "buffer" model of social support with an alternative mediator model. Distinctions were drawn between the functions of social support under chronic vs. acute stress conditions, and between situation-specific stressors and major life events. Ongoing parenting stress was assessed in 96 mothers of deaf children and 118 matched controls. Tests of the competing models showed no moderating effects for social support. However, path analyses suggested that social support mediated the relationship between stressors and outcomes. Chronic parenting stress was associated with lowered perceptions of emotional support, and greater symptoms of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, parenting stress accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in psychological distress scores in contrast to life event stress, which was only weakly related to psychological outcomes. The implications of mediational models for understanding adaptation to chronic stress are discussed.
In this study, the author examines the patterns of leaving home in a sample of 93 participants and their parents. The quality of parent-child relationships, psychological symptomatology in adolescence and young adulthood, and attachment representation were assessed longitudinally from mid-adolescence to young adulthood. Attachment representation, adolescent autonomy, and parent-adolescent conflict were found to be important predictors of the timing of leaving home. In-time leavers were more securely attached and had been granted high autonomy during adolescence, compared with participants who had left home later or had returned to reside in the family home. Young adults with nonnormative leaving home patterns also showed higher percentages of insecure attachment representations and lower percentages of involvement with a romantic partner. Participants residing with their parents were, according to their parents' perceptions, less psychologically healthy.
Forty matched healthy Latino and non-Latino siblings (ages 8-14 years) of children with developmental and physical disabilities completed interviews and questionnaires assessing sibling knowledge of and adjustment to disability and sibling global psychological functioning. One-way analyses of variance revealed Latino siblings to have significantly less accurate information about the disability and more internalizing problems than non-Latino siblings. Sibling and parent wishes for the healthy sibling reflected cultural values. The results indicate that Latino siblings of children with chronic disabilities may be at risk for internalizing psychological problems. Future research regarding cultural factors affecting sibling adaptation to childhood disability is encouraged.