This study examined measures of disease specific quality of life (DSQOL), coping, and benefit finding for differences between ethnic groups in a diverse sample of men treated for localized prostate cancer. The relationship between DSQOL and benefit finding was also evaluated, along with the relationship between coping and benefit finding. Ethnicity was evaluated as a possible moderator of the relationship between DSQOL and benefit finding, and coping was examined as a possible mediator. Results demonstrated that while minority men did show decrements in urinary function, sexual function scores were similar between groups. Furthermore, minority men reported higher levels of benefit finding as well as more frequent use of active and passive coping strategies. DSQOL was not associated with benefit finding, and the relationship was not moderated by ethnicity or mediated by coping. However, benefit finding was associated with ethnic minority status, religious group identification and less yearly income. Both active and passive coping composites were also related to benefit finding. These findings contribute to current literature on factors related to benefit finding in prostate cancer survivors. Limitations of the current study, as well as future directions are explored in the discussion.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-96).

Posttraumatiskt stressyndrom (PTSD) kännetecknas av tre huvudsymptom: undvikande, förnekande och hyperspändhet. Även koncentrationssvårigheter, ångest, depression, flashbacks och mardrömmar är vanligt förekommande hos individer med PTSD. Flyktingar i Sverige som har varit med om krig kan uppvisa dessa symptom. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka terapeuters upplevelser av arbete med patienter med krigsrelaterat PTSD. Intervjuer med åtta terapeuter utfördes. Gemensamma mönster i deltagarnas svar var att det är fördelaktigt att skapa en bra relation till patienter. Det är viktigt att prata om krigstrauma och de som får behandling mår bättre. Patienter är präglade av sorg och skuld och det är viktigt för dem att känna tillit och trygghet. Kropp och själ hänger ihop och det är olika och beroende på många faktorer hur individer drabbas av krig. Ofta är det andra svåra upplevelser som förvärrar krigstrauma. Terapeuter upplever sitt arbete som roligt samtidigt som tungt och anser att det är viktigt med teamarbete.

This dissertation means to examine Faulkner¡¦s Depression-Era fiction as a post-traumatic syndrome pervasive in the Southern psyche. I read Faulkner from a cultural triangulation of race, class, and gender in Yoknapatawpha. These triangular coordinates often close in on somewhere on the far horizon, in their relations with the Civil War and its aftermath. That is the way history insinuates herself into Faulkner¡¦s art. Opening with a chapter on The Sound and the Fury, I contend that the novel sets an eschatological scene for my investigation of its relation with the bulk of Faulkner¡¦s writing throughout the ¡¦30s. The Compsons¡¦ apocalyptic ¡§now,¡¨ 1929, is thoroughly checked for its temporal entanglement with the Confederate memories. How Faulkner¡¦s Great Depression contemporaneity laments over the Lost Cause gives us a topological context where the Confederate vestiges pop out at every corner. In Chapter two, I will slash vertically into white ideology for another visage of the white South¡¦s trauma¡Xa class-aware orchestration of monologues in the apocalyptical ¡§now.¡¨ Who lies dying is a self-consuming question among the Bundrens. This is where Faulkner comes closest to the socio-economic issue in the 30s. In the analysis of As I Lay Dying, I will engage with Diaspora theories of cultural displacement, along with a Marxist elucidation of ¡§structure of feeling¡¨ to fully denote the submerged living standards of the poor whites in the Depression Era. As for the third chapter, I will engage with the places in which the white Southern subjectivity itches¡Xrace and racism, and the dominant Yankee influence embodied by the Carpetbagger offspring Joanna Burden¡¦s unsuccessful taming of an ¡§interpellated¡¨ mulatto, Joe Christmas. The Diasporic depths in Faulkner¡¦s oeuvre carries on with all the cultural and identitarian others coming into the South to challenge the white supremacist in Light in August. Joe Christmas¡¦s wandering is not so much a victimization of racism, as he is a chameleon in identity relations inserted in a fanatical, politicized South¡Xa praxis around which different identities cite their own traumas. Moving from a vicarious way to retell the stories in a time of loss and upheaval, the fourth chapter touches the per se of the South¡¦s historical trauma, the defeat in the Civil War and its aftermath. I investigate two variants in the South¡¦s collective reproduction of this traumatic origin: Absalom, Absalom! with its gothic chronotope that runs parallel with the progressive modernity, i.e., the milieu of Quentin¡¦s apocalypse now; The Unvanquished with a deconstructive lens to look at the southern cavalier fatherhood, namely, Bayard Sartoris¡¦ rejection to avenge his father in its ¡§An Odor of Verbena.¡¨ The former rejects Anderson¡¦s ¡§homogeneous empty time¡¨ and the latter bids farewells to the Cavalier past by an overdose of romanticism and then an abrupt reversal at the apogee of the romantic vision. Concentrating on a self-therapeutic outlook on Faulkner and his South, I trace a symbolic economy of ¡§working through¡¨ in which Faulkner rehearses the Southern history by multiple overexposures of its trauma. It is also a project to tie Faulkner¡¦s own identity formation to a process of victimization in relation to these memories: his southern diasporic self in the 30s against the capitalistic centers of an intellectual New York and a commercial Hollywood. Faulkner embeds a humiliation in either vision. He is an epitome of the South¡¦s memories of loss and its concomitant pain.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Sept. 28, 2009). Advisor: Stan Wearden. Keywords: journalism; trauma; broadcasting; reporting; television; posttraumatic stress; compassion fatigue. Includes bibliographical references (p. 164-184).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-151). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

The human wrist is a vital joint in daily life, and it is subject to injuries and disease. Currently, severe wrist disease is normally treated with wrist arthrodesis, which is normally reliable but results in a fixed wrist incapable of allowing wrist motion. Another method of treating a nonfunctional or severely painful wrist is wrist arthroplasty where the wrist joint is replaced with an implant that allows wrist movement. As of yet, a suitable wrist implant has not been developed, especially for the case of the post-traumatic, young male wrist, and most current wrist implants fail from failure of the bone-implant interface. Through simulation and literature review, it is concluded that implants that restrict axial rotation are bound to fail overtime. With this conclusion, a new wrist implant prototype is designed that incorporates state of the art materials, fluid film lubrication, proper kinematics, a suitable range of motion, and more. This implant contributes several improvements to the field of wrist arthroplasty. / text

The experience of psychosis (e.g. threatening symptoms such as persecutory delusion and terrifying hallucinations) and its treatment (e.g. coercive measures such as involuntary admission and seclusion) are distressing. In view of the potential severity of the distress associated with psychosis, previous research has applied the trauma model to understand the experience of psychosis and its treatment and found that 11-67% of psychotic patients presented with clinically significant PTSD reactions in response to their psychosis and treatment experience. This phenomenon is termed as post-psychotic PTSD (PP-PTSD). However, previous research generally failed to find consistent relationship between PP-PTSD reactions and objective psychotic and treatment experiences (except for positive psychotic symptoms). Cognitive conceptualization of PTSD opines that it is the cognitive appraisal of the traumatic event, rather than the trauma per se, that is related to the development of PTSD. The present study aims to contribute to a better understand of PP-PTSD through a cognitive perspective. The present study applies Ehlers and Clark’s cognitive model of PTSD in understanding PP-PTSD. It explores the roles of fear of relapse and perceived risk of relapse, attribution of the causes of psychosis, perceived stigma and rejection and perceived consequence of the psychotic illness in PP-PTSD. The present study was a cross-sectional study and recruited 38 patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Semi-structured interview was used to determine whether the patients met the PP-PTSD diagnosis. The patient’s positive psychotic symptoms and social and occupational functioning were assessed by semi-structured interview while their PP-PTSD symptoms, trauma history and cognitive appraisals were measured using self-report questionnaires. Results showed that 15.8% of patients meet the full criteria of PP-PTSD and more than 50% of patients demonstrated some PP-PTSD reactions, which provides support for the application of the PP-PTSD construct in the local context. Treatment experiences were found to induce more severe PP-PTSD reactions than psychotic experience. Cognitive appraisals were found to be associated with PP-PTSD and there was some support for the application of Ehlers and Clark’s model in PP-PTSD. Specially, the present study found that fear of relapse, higher perceived risk of relapse, perceived helplessness and self-blame of causing the onset of psychosis, stable attribution of the cause of psychosis onset, perceived stigma, perceived large and chronic consequence of psychosis were all associated with more severe PP-PTSD reactions. Fear of relapse was also found to predict PP-PTSD severity. Clinical implications on the prevention, assessment and treatment with reference to the present results are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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The long-term psychological effects of surviving a major disaster are poorly understood. A survey of survivors of the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster (1988) was undertaken to examine the role of factors relating to: the trauma; the survivors, and the survivors’ circumstances in relation to long-term outcome. Methods: Ten years after the disaster 78% (46/59) of the survivors were located, and, of these, 72% (33/46) agreed to be participate in a study conducted by questionnaire, diagnostic interview and semi-structured interview. In total, 61% of all survivors participated in this study. A further three individuals (7%) completed postal self-report measures. Results: High levels of physical disorder, general psychopathology and post-traumatic symptoms were reported. Twenty one percent (7/33) of the survivors who participated in the study still met the most stringent diagnostic criteria for PTSD over 10 years after the disaster; 73% met the same rule within three months of the disaster. Features such as physical injury, personal exposure to certain stressors during the trauma, survivor guilt, anger and employment difficulties were significantly correlated with long-term general and specific post-traumatic psychopathology and with social and occupational function. Features of the legal proceedings were also associated with long-term outcome. Whilst the media was experienced as intrusive, no statistically significant associations with long-term outcome were found. Treatment was generally accessible to participating survivors (97%) with non-professional help (82%) and outreach (69%; 25/36) widely used. Although many difficulties were experienced 61% of participants could identify some positive outcomes from the experience. Discussion: This study emphasises the need to consider a broad range of factors affecting outcome including the individual’s experience during a traumatic event, pre-existing stressors and factors relating to the response to the disaster and their environment. High rates of help-seeking were found to co-exist with high symptoms levels and this may relate to treatment effectiveness or failure to apply appropriate treatment in disaster populations. Attention to issues such as employment difficulties and compensation processes may improve survivor well-being in the long-term after disasters. Conclusions: This long-term follow-up of survivors of a major disaster has confirmed that the impact of a disaster is durable and extensive with psychological services required over prolonged periods.