The Context of Caretaking in Rural Areas: Family Factors Influencing the Level of Functioning of Seriously Mentally Ill Patients Living at Home

After the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals, many families became primary caregivers for seriously mentally ill individuals. Mental health services became further reduced with the advent of managed care and reductions in health and mental health care. The dearth of community-care options often results in psychiatric patients being quickly stabilized in hospital units and discharged to live with their families. The lack of community resources is particularly acute in rural areas. Given these realities the current study sought to determine if family caretaking variables are related to patient outcomes. Family factors including the perception of burden, expressed emotion (EE), and primary caregivers’ social support were tested in a model of caretaking that examines the relationship between these factors and patients’ symptom expression and social and occupational functioning. The sample includes 49 predominantly African American families living in a rural area and with a chronically ill family member who had been previously diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. Primary caregivers and patients were interviewed using adapted measures of burden, EE, and social support. Patients were administered a revised version of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Results suggest less perceived burden, increased caregiver support and, to a lesser extent, EE explain approximately one-fifth of the variance in patient functioning. These results support previous research demonstrating the importance of family factors for seriously mentally ill patient outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of implications for assisting families in the current era of diminished resources.     

First-Name Desirability and Adjustment: Self-Satisfaction, Others' Ratings, and Family Background

The association between undesirable first names and poor psychological adjustment has been studied by several investigators. However, it is not clear if self-ratings, commonness, or others' ratings of name desirability are most important in this relationship. In addition, family background might influence both psychological adjustment and first names. In a sample of undergraduates and their same-sex siblings ( n = 294), self-satisfaction with first names predicted adjustment more consistently than did name commonness and others' ratings of name desirability. Using a paired-siblings design to control for family background, the sibling with higher scores on adjustment was also more satisfied with his or her name and received higher name desirability ratings from others. Results are discussed in terms of identity and the looking-glass self.     

A fuzzy trace analysis of categorical inferences and instantial associations as a function of retention interval

Two experiments on children's inferences and associative memory provided a test of predictions from fuzzy-trace theory. Specifically, it was expected that gist-based false recognitions would increase with age and that false recognitions would be uncorrelated with verbatim memory. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 1 through 5 heard lists of category labels, clustered instances from categories, and individual instances. On an immediate test, children indicated whether or not they had previously heard a series of individually presented test words. This list consisted of old words, new words, or words that were categorically or semantically related to the studied word clusters. Children made more false recognition errors for instances than for categories. Verbatim memory and inferences were unrelated. In Experiment 2, the effect of a test delay on categorical inferences and associated instances was examined with children in Grades 1 to 6. With delay, false recognition of associated instances declined for children at all grade levels. In contrast, categorical inferences increased with delay for older children. Verbatim memory and inferences were uncorrelated under immediate and 1-day delay conditions, but there were some low but significant correlations across grades under the 7-day delay. The results of the two experiments are interpreted as supporting fuzzy-trace theory.     

Tableaus for many-valued modal logic

We continue a series of papers on a family of many-valued modal logics, a family whose Kripke semantics involves many-valued accessibility relations. Earlier papers in the series presented a motivation in terms of a multiple-expert semantics. They also proved completeness of sequent calculus formulations for the logics, formulations using a cut rule in an essential way. In this paper a novel cut-free tableau formulation is presented, and its completeness is proved.Research partly supported by NSF Grant CCR-9104015.     

A sharing experience: Development of a group for families affected by HIV infection

The Establishment and Development of a Support Group For the Parents of Children Infected and/or Affected By HIV Infection are Described. The Group is Hospital-based, Meeting Monthyly Since April 1992, Facilitated by Professionals But With A Self-Help and Peer-Support Emphasis. The Planning, Setting and Running of The Group are Explained Changes in Group Membership and the Themes and Processes Which Have Emerged Over the First Year of the Group are Further Explored. Seueral Factors are Identified Which have Contributed to The Success of This Group in Meeting a Part of The Complex Support Needs fo Some Families Living With HIV Infection.