The meaning of their participation to citizen volunteers who were members of mental health district boards in Florida was examined. Focus of the inquiry was to assess whether these board members perceived themselves as autonomous in making decisions about three basic dimensions: setting up rules with respect to funding and to minimum standards of mental health services delivery; and with regard to creating or discontinuing mental health programs. / Data were gathered through: (1) self-administered mail questionnaires sent to all two hundred twenty-five members serving as members of the fifteen boards during the spring of 1978, (2) non-participant observation of all public meetings of one mental health district board for the period June 1977 - March 1978. Eleven meetings were attended. The semantic differential technique was utilized in construction of the questionnaire, for which a 50% return rate was achieved. The measure Gamana was utilized to study the association between perceived autonomy and the three basic dimensions. Principal-components analysis was utilized in evaluation of the semantic differential results. / Most often represented among board member respondents to the mail questionnaire were businessmen (33%) M.D.'s, clinical psychologists and R.N.'s (15%) clergymen (14%) and retired persons (13%). Each board member had been appointed by county commissioners of the counties they represented, and probably represented the traditional elite of their home counties. They did not see themselves as having autonomy with respect to making decisions about setting up rules with respect to funding and to minimum standards of mental health services delivery. Nor did they see themselves as autonomous with regard to creating new mental health programs and/or discontinuing existing mental health programs. Board members who had served one year or more, and those with previous voluntary membership, were less likely to perceive board members as influential in decision-making than were those who had served less than one year, or who had limited voluntary experiences. Mental health district board staff were seen as more influential in decision-making by those board members who were more experienced. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-07, Section: A, page: 2248. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1978.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75131 |
| Contributors | MOKHTAR, ABDEL-AZIZ ABD-ALLAH., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 277 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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