Students' attitudes toward university health services

This study measured students' attitudes toward a university's student health services (SHS) and identified factors that were related to their attitudes. A questionnaire surveying students' attitudes was administered to a sample of 150 students at the Oxford Campus of the University of Mississippi. Analysis of the data revealed that students' attitudes had a statistically significant correlation with the following variables: perceived medical care cost, amount of health information/education received during medical encounters, time spent in the waiting room of the SHS, sex of the student, and income of the student. There was no significant relationship between attitude and age.     

Coitally active university students: sexual behaviors, concerns, and challenges

The past fifteen years, in particular, have seen a major increase in the extent to which both adolescents and young adults are engaging in sexual intercourse. While several studies call attention to the increasing incidence among college/university students, the concomitant shifts in the sociopsychological realms of sexuality are also important dimensions which impact upon sexual concerns of youth. Hence, the purposes of this study are to examine the behaviors, attitudes, and concerns of students who have engaged in coitus, as well as any changes they seek in their sex lives. The sample consisted of 123 never-married male and 205 never-married female undergraduate students from a state university. The data were obtained by utilizing an anonymous questionnaire administered to volunteers during regular university classes. Among the coitally active, 67.4% of males were psychologically satisfied after their first sexual experience, but only 28.3% of females. In contrast, 80.9% of males and 28.3% of females reported current psychological satisfaction with their sexual experiences. Significant differences between genders focused on male dissatisfaction with infrequent opportunities for sexual intercourse, lack of variety of sex partners, and insufficient oral-genital stimulation, whereas females expressed concerns relating to lack of stimulation to their breasts, painful sexual intercourse, lack of orgasm during sexual intercourse, and feelings of guilt and fear. An increasing awareness of current sexual behaviors, attitudes, and concerns of university students can help family life educators to meet student needs as they react to changes in interpersonal relationships, families, and society.     

Adolescent alcoholism in Benin City, Nigeria

The consumption of alcohol by Nigerian adolescents is investigated. Adolescence and alcoholism as applied in this study are defined, and the financial costs and physical and mental effects of alcohol use are described. The author used unobtrusive methods to gather data, visiting three nightclubs and an amusement park where alcohol is served in order to observe and interview adolescents. The findings show that adolescents begin drinking at an early age and consume large quantities of beer. The findings are consistent with those of other epidemiological studies. Finally, recommendations for controlling adolescent alcohol use are made.     

“Lord of the mirrors” and demon lover

Repeated object loss drove Sylvia Plath to create, and what she created were her greatest, and best-known poems, collected in the book Ariel. Yet the compulsion to create alternated with the compulsion to destroy. Her suicidal impulses were as intense as her poetic impulses (see Bach, 1985, on the "Marquis de Sade"). How these two contrasting impulses counter-balanced each other, until self-destruction took the lead, is the story of Sylvia Plath. What remains with us is the puzzle of her despair. This puzzle can only be pieced together by looking at the internal object relations of the father-daughter bond, which germinated like a ghost and spector within Sylvia Plath's soul.