Children who have been sexually victimized are disadvantaged individuals and members of an oppressed segment of society who clearly merit the assistance of social workers. Responsible practice entails the evaluation of social work practice. The goals of this project were the construction and initial validation of a rapid assessment self-report measurement tool to be used with child and adolescent sexual abuse victims to ascertain the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic intervention. One hundred and three 10 to 17 year old girls who had been the targets of intrafamilial child sexual abuse (incest) participated in the research. Child and adolescent participants completed the draft instrument, the Child Report of Treatment Issue Resolution, as well as the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children and the Children's Social Desirability Questionnaire. The research participants' caretakers completed the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist and a background questionnaire. Clinicians provided an opinion as to the progress toward treatment issue resolution for each youngster. Reliability of the study instrument is found to be.94. Content validity was quantified through a process of expert ratings of individual item relevance. Criterion and construct validity are supported by a substantial correlation between the study instrument and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children ($-$.74) and a moderate correlation between the study instrument and the Child Behavior Checklist for Children ($-$.40). Evidence for construct validity with regard to the correlations between the CRTIR and Clinicians' Judgement is not provided by the sample data. The correlation between the study instrument and the Children's Social Desirability Questionnaire (.45) does not provide evidence of discriminate validity. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of the results of this study has to do with the issue of social desirability and measurement issues when working with sexually abused youngsters. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4556. / Adviser: Dianne Harrison Montgomery. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This study explore some of the basic tenets of Murray Bowen's Family Systems and Edward Waring's Affective Dysfunction Potential theories by statistically analyzing the relationships between family of origin perceptions, chronic anxiety and marital intimacy among parents and children in familial units. Eleven hypotheses reflecting intra-personal, inter-spousal and intergenerational assumptions of these theories were proposed. Three major constructs and corresponding instruments assumed to measure these constructs were proposed; family-of-origin health (Family-of-Origin Scale (FOS)) chronic anxiety (IPAT Anxiety Scale Questionnaire (IPAT) and marital intimacy (Waring's Intimacy Questionnaire (WIQ). / Sixty-seven families consisting of two parents and a child attending high school in the Northwest Florida area were recruited and asked to fill out the appropriate questionnaires. Significant correlation coefficients were obtained between individual FOS and IPAT scores for husbands, wives and children; between FOS and WIQ for husbands and wives and between IPAT and WIQ for husbands and wives. Significant coefficients were also obtained between husband and wife WIQ and FOS scores. These correlations were interpreted for support that (1) past family experiences are associated with chronic anxiety levels, (2) past family experiences and anxiety play an important role in current marital dynamics and (3) individuals with similar family of origin experiences are more likely to marry. Further statistical analysis ruled family of origin experiences as a significant variable in marital intimacy when one's anxiety levels was held constant. Statistical support could not be obtained for the hypotheses that people of approximate levels of anxiety tend to marry and that parental anxiety and intimacy levels are associated with the familial perceptions and anxiety levels of their offspring. Findings regarding gender differences and other relationships among variables not specific to either primary theory were noted and discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-04, Section: B, page: 2473. / Major Professor: Wayne Hill. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-06, Section: B, page: 2606. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

This work questions the appropriateness of the positivist paradigm in psychiatry and the claim of universality for Western psychiatric nosology, and examines an alternative interpretative approach, George Devereux's ethnopsychiatric model, in the context of Hawaii's Japanese American subculture. In this psychoanalytically-oriented model, Devereux proposed that cultural conceptions (or 'thought models' in his terminology) of mental disorder: (a) define the nature and intensity of traumata to which insanity is seen as a justifiable response; (b) specify appropriate symptoms; (c) reflect conflicts present in the majority of normal individuals, and; (d) incorporate signal symptoms which are affronts to major cultural values and serve to announce the transition to the status of the mentally ill. In short, symptomatology is viewed as the culturally mediated expression of underlying mental disorder, and the recognition of mental disorder depends on conformity to thought model symptomatology rather than residual deviance as Scheff proposed A description of the Japanese American thought model of mental disorder was developed through informal interviews and an open-ended questionnaire. The symptom specifications of this thought model, which resemble schizophrenia, were compared with the behavior of Japanese American and European American psychiatric patients as recorded in their case records at the Hawaii State Hospital. As predicted by Devereux's model, the majority of Japanese American mental patients conformed symptomatically to the Japanese American thought model to a significantly greater extent than did patients of European American ancestry. The difference between the two ethnic groups was driven by those patients who carried diagnoses other than schizophrenia Although the psychiatric case records lacked sufficient detail to permit an adequate evaluation of Devereux's propositions pertaining to legitimate precipitating stresses, signal symptoms, and underlying conflicts, nothing was found that would discredit his model. On the basis of indirect evidence it is argued that the conflict underlying the Japanese American ethnic psychosis is related to the frustration of narcissistic needs The results of this study suggest that psychiatric nosology and diagnosis could be improved by making explicit the thought models upon which rest both clinical judgment and the patient's presentation / acase@tulane.edu

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3431. Adviser: Margaret I. Wallhagen.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: B, page: 2098. Adviser: Laurence Tecott.

<p> This study explored the lived experience of death in the hospital intensive care unit (ICU) from the perspective of surviving family members. More specifically, attention was placed on the experience of withdrawing life-support for a loved one. A phenomenological approach was adopted, and a convenience sampling technique was employed with family members in a community in Southern California. Four (4) caregivers of dying patients were interviewed to explore the lived experience of removal of life-support for a loved one. The caregiver reactions were categorized into seven themes that were common to all four participants: (a) overall experience, (b) mental perspective, (c) ambivalence about care, (d) perceptions of technology, (e) the decision, (f) aftermath, and (g) suggestions for others. The themes were discovered through implementation of transcendental phenomenology in which the researcher's past experience was bracketed out from interpretations of the interviews. Thus, the participants&rsquo; words were taken without preconception to the greatest extent possible. Even though the outcomes were identical&mdash;the death of the patient&mdash;the circumstances leading up to the decisions were each very different. Each circumstance had bioethical ramifications, including breaches in scope of practice, communication breakdown, and caregiver reactions. The results suggest several areas of improvement including those areas that were suggested by the participants themselves. The intention of this research is to shed light on this experience for mental healthcare professionals, such as psychologists and social workers who provide care for the families before, during, and/or after the experience of a loved one&rsquo;s death in the ICU. Moreover, it is hoped that this research will help mental health clinicians to better understand the needs of professional healthcare providers who are exposed to these untenable circumstances on a regular basis.</p>

Based on financial and billing records, the medical utilization behavior of 105 working adult women members of an employer-sponsored prepaid healthcare plan was examined prospectively over a five-year period. Utilization was evaluated 2.5 years pre- and 2.5 years post-crime for three groups of women: nonvictims (those women reporting no prior history of crime event), victims of noncontact crimes (theft, burglary, attempted crimes), and victims of contact crimes (assault, rape, and rape/assault). Results of interrupted time-series analysis indicated an abrupt, permanent (at least extended) impact for the crime event on use of physician services that was significant for both groups of crime victims (noncontact and contact crimes). The findings were similar across outpatient medical utilization indicators (frequency of visits and associated costs/charges). In terms of percent changes in levels of usage over time, contact crime victims increased physician visits 32-36% over baseline, noncontact crime victims increased 30-50% from baseline, and there was no change in the nonvictim comparison subjects. A second analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of mental health treatment on the use of outpatient medicine. Groups were classified into mental health users and nonusers as well as victims of crime (no crime, noncontact crime, contact crime). Results of interrupted time-series assessment on the effects of psychosocial stress by victimization on medical utilization indicated non-significant changes-over-time for victims of noncontact and contact crimes as well as nonvictim comparison subjects who utilized mental health services during the 5-year study frame. Mental health usage was defined as one or more visits to the Department of Psychiatry within the 5-year measurement time frame. A decline in outpatient utilization from preassault baseline to postassault by 12-17% was observed for victims of contact crimes who received mental health services. The results lended support the hypothesis that increased utilization followed the experience of stress by crime victimization and, that mental health had a buffering role in the moderation of increased utilization following a stressful event. The results suggested that healthcare policy should consider greater access to mental health services and that these services may be most effectively utilized when directed toward special populations of medical patients.