The Patient Self-Determination Act and Advance Directives: Snapshots of Activities in a Tertiary Health Care Center

This study describes the results of a retrospective review of patients' charts who had an advanced directive (AD) and who were hospitalized in a tertiary, acute care teaching hospital. The purpose of the review was to understand from clinical, sociological, ethical and legal perspectives the nature and utility of ADs. Findings and implications of the review are discussed in terms of: patient demographics; diagnoses; quality of ADs; influence of ADs on clinical decisions; and legal aspects of ADs.     

Ethical issues in pediatric life-threatening illness: dilemmas of consent, assent, and communication

The treatment of life-threatening illnesses in childhood is replete with ethical issues and with clinical issues that have ethical implications. The central issues are those involved with a child's participation in the decision-making process and with communication of information about the illness and treatments to children. This article examines the questions of patient autonomy and of parental responsibility and prerogative in the context of pediatric oncology. Included in this examination of the ethical dimensions of pediatric life-threatening illness is a discussion of the many related aspects involved, including medical, cultural, psychosocial, legal, and developmental. A multidimensional approach that considers the ways in which these multiple aspects interact with one another, and which focuses on establishing a strong working alliance between the health care team and the pediatric patient's family, can help to avoid or resolve potential ethical and clinical conflicts.     

Adaptiveness: A moderator of the adverse impact of hassles?

Adaptiveness constitutes coping consistently with Stressors so to reduce distress or, at worst, not aggravate it. Accordingly, it should moderate the adverse impact of hassles. Undergraduate volunteers (N = 200) responded to measures of hassles, adaptiveness, and the criteria of subjective distress, psychiatric symptomatology and minor physical ailments. In all three regression analyses, hassles made a substantial positive contribution and adaptiveness a small negative contribution to adverse outcome. The interaction between hassles and adaptiveness was non-significant in all three cases. Alternative interpretations were identified to guide further research.     

Do college studentsstill prefer companies without employment drug testing?

Two experiments examined the effects of drug testing policies on undergraduates' behavioral intentions and attitudes toward the company. Study 1 (n=267) manipulated type of drug testing and consequences of detected use. Study 2 (n=267) manipulated the presence of applicant and employee drug testing. Subjects in both studies showed stronger intentions to apply to a company with random employee testing than one with no employee testing. Study 2 also found that an interaction between company policy and subjects' attitudes toward drug testing affected attitudes toward the company. Both studies suggest that employee drug testing may now foster recruitment.Study 1 was conducted while the author was at Ohio University and was presented in an earlier version at the Eastern Psychological Association's 64th Annual Meeting, Arlington, VA, April 16–April 18, 1993.I thank Candie Burbick and Jamie Winters for their work as student assistants. I also thank Jane Kestner, Kim Mastrangelo, James Rogers, and the JBP reviewers for their suggestions.     

Children‘s ability to remember an occurrence of a repeated event

The authors summarise the findings of four recent experiments whichexamined childrens capacity to remember a particular occurrence of arecurring event. Issues discussed include the timing of the interview, thetype of errors, the questioning techniques, the age of the child, theconsistency of the childs account, and the impact of an interveninginterview. Implications for professionals who conduct investigatory orevidentiary interviews with child witnesses are discussed and suggestionsfor future research are also offered.     

Social Values and Relationships with Parents among American College Women of Chinese and European Descent

This study compared social values and relationships with parents among American college women of Chinese and European descent. Chinese-American women scored higher on a measure of practicality and pragmatism (mastery), hierarchy, and traditionality. The Euro-American women showed a greater interest in voluntary prosocial behaviour and philanthropy. Both groups of women reported having a sense of self, autonomous of their parents. Within the Chinese-American group, ethnic identification and religion, but not generation, moderated scores on a measure of traditionality of outlook regarding issues of law and order and social equality. We discuss the implications of our findings for recent debates in cross-cultural psychology, including the growing challenge to the individualism-collectivism dimension.