Is Workplace Harassment Hazardous to Your Health?

We examined cross-sectional and lagged effects of sexual harassment (SH) and generalized workplace harassment (GWH) on incidence of self-reported illness, injury, or assault in a sample of over 1,500 university employees. SH and GWH, but not other job stressors, were related to increased odds of illness, injury, or assault. This was true when SH, GWH, and illness, injury, or assault were measured at the same time point, as well as when SH and GWH were measured in year prior to illness, injury, or assault.The data presented here are part of an ongoing longitudinal study of workplace harassment conducted at the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Illinois at Chicago. This research was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (grants AA09989 and AA13332). Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, April 2004, Chicago, Illinois. The data were collected by the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.     

Effects of Intimate Partner Violence on Low-Income Women’s Health and Employment

Rates of both intimate partner violence and poor health are high among low-income women This paper examines relationships among abuse, health, and employment stability using data from a 3-year study of over 1000 female welfare recipients in Illinois. Results demonstrate the importance of accounting for both recency and chronicity of intimate partner violence and understanding the mediational role of health in the relationship between intimate partner violence and employment. Chronic intimate partner violence is associated with poor health, whereas recent intimate partner violence is associated with unstable employment. Mediations analyses suggest that health does not mediate the effects of abuse on employment stability over a 3-year period.     

Norwegian versions of the Living with Asthma Questionnaire (LWAQ) and Asthma Bother Profile (ABP), validation and comparison of two asthma groups

The Living with Asthma Questionnaire (LWAQ) and the Asthma Bother Profile (ABP) were translated into Norwegian using conventional back translation procedures, and completed by 30 asthma outpatients and 30 asthma patients admitted to inpatient rehabilitation. Reliability (Cronbach's alpha and retest-reliability) was shown to be good for both scales. Validity was established by showing significantly poorer health in the rehabilitation sample, and correlations with state and trait anxiety. The Norwegian translations are reliable and valid versions of the original questionnaires.     

Unemployment, Underemployment, and Mental Health: Conceptualizing Employment Status as a Continuum

The economy is one of the most important social environments that affect well-being, and community psychologists have long studied the social costs of one key economic stressor—job loss. But economically inadequate employment has received much less research attention than unemployment in regard to mental health effects. This paper contrasts these two literatures and considers factors that might account for their differential growth including actual rates of unemployment and underemployment. Recent panel studies offer no support for another possible basis for this differential growth—the assumption that inadequate employment is more like adequate employment than unemployment. Implications of a paradigm shift from a dichotomous perspective (employment vs. unemployment) to a continuum perspective with variations of both unemployment and employment are discussed for research and prevention. Another implication is the need to expand standard labor force statistics to reflect better the degree of underemployment.     

The Role of Creativity in Marriage and Family Therapy Practice: A National Online Study

The purpose of this study, using an online methodology, was to investigate therapists' perceptions of the role of creativity in couples' and family therapy. Along with completing a quantitative measure assessing creativity in their work, participants responded to four open-ended questions which addressed the meaning of creativity, characteristics of a creative family therapist, some creative interventions they have used with couples and families, and barriers to their own creativity as a family therapist. A total of 142 marriage and family therapists in 36 states in the United States participated. The findings shed light on the unique importance of creativity in couples and family treatment.     

健全社区卫生服务功能与防控"非典"传播的理性思考

针对我国当访“非典”防治工作的严竣形势,对健全社区卫生服务“六位一体”功能与防控“非典”传播问题进行哲学思考,着重在健全社区卫生服务功能是防控“非典”传播的客观要求;社区卫生服务功能不全将会对防控“非典”工作产生不利影响;构筑防控“非典”传播的有效机制和基础防线,必须健全社区卫生服务功能等方面作了分析论述。     

Personality and stress

Recent years have witnessed an upsurge of interest in how personality affects the stress process. This paper reports on a broad spectrum of findings on the relationships between personality and stress, taking transactional stress theory as the point of departure. A first part outlines the different approaches stress research has taken within personality psychology as opposed to research based on transactional stress theory and discusses the debate between these two paradigms. The second part gives an overview of empirical findings, with a focus on the Big Five personality factors, in order to demonstrate that personality affects the stress process in every aspect. The discussion suggests that we address unresolved problems of transactional stress research in the framework of interactionist personality psychology. Special attention ought to be given to developing a better understanding of situational characteristics, stress-producing mechanisms, and the functions of situational choices and coping strategies for personality.     

The Role of Schools in Outcomes for Youth: Implications for Children's Mental Health Services Research

We explore the role of schools in children's mental health services research. Recent literature has suggested that schools play an important role in delivering services to children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems. Research in services research, though, has taken a fairly narrow view of which dimensions of school environments are relevant for inclusion in studies. We suggest that a broader view of school environments is appropriate and potentially beneficial to the field. Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological model as a guide, we conceptualize schools as microsystems. Such an approach suggests that all aspects of school environments (treatment as well as non-treatment) are likely to influence many of the outcomes that children's mental health services research frequently targets (e.g., behavioral problems, problematic peer relationships, academic achievement, school attendance). We review literature from a variety of disciplines to suggest relevant features of schools, with particular attention to the role of peer dynamics within schools. We conclude with implications of this expanded conceptualization of schools for children's mental health services research.     

The Strengths and Limitations of Case Record Reviews in Examining Family Preservation Outcome Formulation and Treatment Planning

Much debate has centered on what are reasonable outcomes of the short-term intensive family preservation services (IFPS). However, little attention has been given to how therapists actually formulate outcomes in their practices. The files of 98 families who used IFPS were reviewed to determine how therapists formulated outcomes and whether formulated outcomes varied by service sector (child welfare or mental health) and child age. It was found that formulated outcomes in mental health were more likely than those in child welfare to have a child focus and an interpersonal locus. Variation in outcome formulation in child welfare by child age was found, with outcomes of younger children more likely to be parent-focused than were outcomes of older children. The issues pointed out by these findings are discussed. Since case records are a potential data source for researchers, the paper concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of case record reviews for research purposes.     

A Comparison of Three Methods of Teaching Skin Self-Examinations

Skin self-examinations are essential for the early identification and treatment of skin cancers. However, little is known about the most effective methods for teaching skin cancer detection and skin self-examination. This study compared three skin cancer education methods that are commonly used in the primary care setting: viewing a videotape, reading brochures, and one-on-one instruction from a nurse practitioner. One hundred forty-three young adults were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions (educational intervention or wait list) and completed measures of skin cancer knowledge, ability to visually discriminate cancerous versus noncancerous skin growths, and behavioral ability to perform a skin self-examination immediately (Time 1) and 3 weeks (Time 2) after the educational intervention. Results showed that participants across all educational interventions had significantly higher skin cancer knowledge compared to those in the wait-list control group, and these knowledge scores were maintained for 3 weeks. Participants in the brochure condition scored significantly higher than participants in all other conditions on an observational measure of skin self-examination. Demographic variables, such as gender and ethnicity, were not found to be related to performance on any of the dependent measures. These findings provide preliminary evidence that knowledge of skin cancer may be enhanced through a variety of educational techniques and that written materials (e.g., brochures) may represent the minimal intervention level necessary for teaching adults how to perform thorough skin self-examinations.