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PubMed1975

Abortion attitudes among Catholic college students.

The present study has explored the abortion attitudes of 200 students attending a midwestern liberal arts college affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. The main findings were as follows: 1. Catholics in general tend to be more conservative in this area than Protestants. 2. There were no statistically significant differences between urban and rural residents and between single and engaged subjects. On the other hand, females, social science majors, and those having no plans for graduate studies were significantly more conservative than males, natural science majors, and those planning to do graduate work, respectively. 3. Abortion scores were correlated negatively and significantly with religious services attended, amount of Catholic education, and, to a limited extent, father's occupation, but nonsignificantly with age, number of siblings, birth order, college rank, parental education, and mother's occupation.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed2002

AHSCs: more important than ever in the century of health research.

We are in the midst ofa profound revolution in health research, a revolution being driven by our emerging understanding of the molecular basis of life and human disease. This revolution is creating a century of health research, characterized by the convergence of virtually all disciplines, from mathematics to the social sciences and humanities. This convergence of disciplines is introducing radical changes and opportunities in the discovery and R&D process of health research. Academic health sciences centres (AHSCs) are strategically placed to contribute to, and benefit from, this revolution. To that end AHSCs require exceptional visionary leadership, a commitment to clinical and research excellence, a full appreciation of the complete tripartite mission of AHSCs, and the development of an outward-looking stance that includes the development of public policy. The federal governments clear and sustained commitment to health research, as demonstrated recently by the 15% increase to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research budget, provides an important opportunity for AHSCs to demonstrate their crucial role in both the development of an innovative and cost-effective healthcare system and to Canada's broader social and economic agenda.

Academic Medical Centers↗
PubMed1996

Social support: some pragmatic implications for health care professionals.

The role of social support in promoting recovery from chronic illness has been the focus of a debate within the nursing and social science research communities. This paper reviews the literature on this important issue and discusses the implications for patient management. In providing holistic patient care, health care professionals need to reflect on the impact of this research for their clinical practice.

Chronic Disease↗
PubMed2005

Discourse analysis: towards an understanding of its place in nursing.

AIM: This paper describes how discourse analysis, and in particular critical discourse analysis, can be used in nursing research, and provides an example to illustrate the techniques involved. BACKGROUND: Discourse analysis has risen to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s in disciplines such as the social sciences, literary theory and cultural studies and is increasingly used in nursing. This paper investigates discourse analysis as a useful methodology for conducting nursing research. Effective clinical reasoning relies on employing several different kinds of knowledge and research that draw on different perspectives, methodologies and techniques to generate breadth of knowledge and depth of understanding of clinical practices and patients' experiences of those practices. DISCUSSION: The steps in a discourse analysis include: choosing the text, and identifying the explicit purpose of the text, the processes used for claiming authority connections to other discourses, construction of major concepts, processes of naming and categorizing, construction of subject positions, construction of reality and social relations and implications for the practice of nursing. The limitations of discourse analysis, its relationship to other qualitative approaches and questions for evaluating the rigour of research using discourse analysis are also explored. The example of discourse analysis shows how a text influences the practice of nursing by shaping knowledge, values and beliefs. CONCLUSION: Discourse analysis can make a contribution to the development of nursing knowledge by providing a research strategy to examine dominant discourses that influence nursing practice.

Humans↗
PubMed2001

Toward a biology of personality and emotion.

For most of this past century, scholarship on the topics of personality and emotion has emerged from the humanities and social sciences. In the past decade, a remarkable change has occurred in the influence of neuroscience on the conceptualization and study of these phenomena. This article argues that the categories that have emerged from psychiatric nosology and descriptive personality theory may be inadequate, and that new categories and dimensions derived from neuroscience research may produce a more tractable parsing of this complex domain. The article concludes by noting that the discovery of these biological differences among individuals does not imply that the origins of these differences lie in heritable influences. Experiential shaping of the brain circuitry underlying emotion is powerful. The neural architecture provides the final common pathway through which culture, social factors, and genetics all operate together.

Affect↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Health promotion for older Americans in the 21st century.

OBJECTIVES: To provide a broad overview of the role of the individual, the physical environment, and the social environment on health and functioning in older adults (65 and older), and to highlight interventions and recommendations for action on each of these levels. DATA SOURCES: Published studies and government reports on health and functioning in older Americans and on the individual, social, and physical environmental contributors to health were identified through journal and government documents review and computer library searches of medical and social science data bases for 1980-1999. STUDY SELECTION: Preference was given to published studies and government reports that focused specifically on behavioral and environmental contributors and barriers to health promotion in Americans 65 and older and/or that highlighted creative interventions with relevance to this population. Both review articles and presentations of original research were included, with the latter selected based on soundness of design and execution and/or creativity of intervention described. DATA EXTRACTION: Studies were examined and their findings organized under three major headings: (1) behavioral risk factors and risk reduction, including current government standards for prevention and screening; (2) the role of the physical environment; and (3) the role of the social environment in relation to health promotion of older adults. DATA SYNTHESIS: Although most attention has been paid to the role of behavioral factors in health promotion for older adults, a substantial body of evidence suggests that physical and social environmental factors also play a key role. Similarly, interventions that promote individual behavioral risk reduction and interventions targeting the broader social or physical environment all may contribute to health in the later years. CONCLUSIONS: With the rapid aging of America's population, increased attention must be focused on health promotion for those who are or will soon be older adults. Promising intervention strategies addressing the individual, the physical environment, and the social environment should be identified and tested, and their potential for replication explored, as we work toward a more comprehensive approach to improving the health of older Americans in the 21st century.

Aged↗
PubMed1985

Research issues in child abuse.

Research into child abuse and its interpretation has been bedevilled by controversy over questions of definition and appropriate approaches. It is suggested in this paper that different questions require different approaches, and that the use of both sociological and medical models may be justified depending on the nature of the research issue. Possible future social science research activity based on this distinction is described in relation to definition, the acceptability of violence in society, the perception of punishment, the establishment of standards of care and decision-making by professionals. Specific recommendations concerning future research into prevention and treatment using a more medical approach are also outlined.

Child↗
PubMed2006

Evaluating science outside the trial box: applying Daubert to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines' criminal history score.

A limited amount of research exists examining the ability of the Criminal History Score of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines) to achieve one of its most essential objectives: prediction of recidivism. Building on the work of Schopp [Schopp, R. (2001). Competency, condemnation, and commitment: An integrated theory of mental health law. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association], it is suggested that the scientific admissibility framework and the underlying principles announced by the United States Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical [Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., 507 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993)] should be expanded beyond the constraints of the evidentiary admissibility phase of trial and should apply to legislative and administrative rules that have: a) an empirically testable purpose and b) a substantial impact on the rights of individuals. Such an analysis offers a useful mechanism for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of social science being used by legal institutions. Based upon a hypothetical Daubert analysis, the scientific validity of the Guidelines' Criminal History Score is assessed and demonstrated to be insufficient. The law and policy implications of this finding are discussed.

Crime↗
PubMed1993

Inequality, culture, and interpersonal violence.

Policymakers often are at odds over what strategies will be most effective at reducing the incidence of violent behavior in high-risk populations. Beginning with the position that social theory and public policy are inextricably linked, the author examines the policy implications of the long-standing debate in the social sciences over the relative contributions of socioeconomic inequality versus cultural differences as causes of violence. While the weight of the scholarly evidence favors neither of these explanations, existing and proposed policies often reflect a preference for the importance of culture. This paper discusses the limitations of that choice and advocates alternative policies that consider the importance of both sets of etiological factors.

Culture↗
PubMed1997

[Long-term patients also need their history. The socio-geographic reconstruction of the life history as social pedagogic method for work with long-term patients].

"Socio-geographic reconstruction" means to recall important places and stations of life, accompanied by another interested person. Students of social paedagogics have created these reconstructions together with long-term psychiatric patients. The method is based on social science participation studies. The aim is the rediscovering and reacquiring the prepsychiatric biography of the patients as well as the understanding of this history by the students. The focus of interest is not the "history of illness" but the "history of life" as it was connected with family, school, work and leisure time.

Female↗
PubMed1999

Testosterone and men's depression: the role of social behavior.

Medical research suggests that testosterone has positive effects on mood (thereby reducing the chances of depression), and social science research finds testosterone to be related to antisocial behavior, risk behavior, unemployment and low paying jobs, and being unmarried--factors known to be positively related to depression. Analysis of a sample of 4,393 men finds a parabolic model best fits the data. The relationship between testosterone and depression is inverse for men with below average testosterone and direct for those with above average testosterone. The relationship disappears for those with above average testosterone when controls for antisocial and risk behaviors and the absence of protective factors such as marriage and steady employment are in the equation. The relationship is unchanged for those with below average testosterone. The results help explain the difference between medical and social research findings. Mechanisms accounting for the findings are explored.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

How virtual reality may enhance training in obstetrics and gynecology.

OBJECTIVE: Contemporary training in obstetrics and gynecology is aimed at the acquisition of a complex set of skills oriented to both the technical and personal aspects of patient care. The ability to create clinical simulations through virtual reality (VR) may facilitate the accomplishment of these goals. The purpose of this paper is 2-fold: (1) to review the circumstances and equipment in industry, science, and education in which VR has been successfully applied, and (2) to explore the possible role of VR for training in obstetrics and gynecology and to suggest innovative and unique approaches to enhancing this training. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Qualitative assessment of the literature describing successful applications of VR in industry, law enforcement, military, and medicine from 1995 to 2000. Articles were identified through a computer-based search using Medline, Current Contents, and cross referencing bibliographies of articles identified through the search. RESULTS: One hundred and fifty-four articles were reviewed. This review of contemporary literature suggests that VR has been successfully used to simulate person-to-person interactions for training in psychiatry and the social sciences in a variety of circumstances by using real-time simulations of personal interactions, and to launch 3-dimensional trainers for surgical simulation. These successful applications and simulations suggest that this technology may be helpful and should be evaluated as an educational modality in obstetrics and gynecology in two areas: (1) counseling in circumstances ranging from routine preoperative informed consent to intervention in more acute circumstances such as domestic violence or rape, and (2) training in basic and advanced surgical skills for both medical students and residents. CONCLUSION: Virtual reality is an untested, but potentially useful, modality for training in obstetrics and gynecology. On the basis of successful applications in other nonmedical and medical areas, VR may have a role in teaching essential elements of counseling and surgical skill acquisition.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed2004

Systematic review of the problems and issues of accessing specialist palliative care by patients, carers and health and social care professionals.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the problems and issues of accessing specialist palliative care by patients, informal carers and health and social care professionals involved in their care in primary and secondary care settings. DATA SOURCES: Eleven electronic databases (medical, health-related and social science) were searched from the beginning of 1997 to October 2003. Palliative Medicine (January 1997-October 2003) was also hand-searched. STUDY SELECTION: Systematic search for studies, reports and policy papers written in English. DATA EXTRACTION: Included papers were data-extracted and the quality of each included study was assessed using 10 questions on a 40-point scale. RESULTS: The search resulted in 9921 hits. Two hundred and seven papers were directly concerned with symptoms or issues of access, referral or barriers and obstacles to receiving palliative care. Only 40 (19%) papers met the inclusion criteria. Several barriers to access and referral to palliative care were identified including lack of knowledge and education amongst health and social care professionals, and a lack of standardized referral criteria. Some groups of people failed to receive timely referrals e.g., those from minority ethnic communities, older people and patients with nonmalignant conditions as well as people that are socially excluded e.g., homeless people. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to improve education and knowledge about specialist palliative care and hospice care amongst health and social care professionals, patients and carers. Standardized referral criteria need to be developed. Further work is also needed to assess the needs of those not currently accessing palliative care services.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Criteria for teaching medical sociology in public health area].

A discussion is given on the most important criteria which should guide the selection of medical sociology's contents which should be taught to public health students. It is suggested that in the current national context, the teaching of sociology in public health should be guided by three objectives: a) to train public health specialists capable of analyzing and criticizing their social reality; b) to disseminate the main findings achieved through social research in public health, concerning mainly the social determination of both the health illness process and the provision of health services; and c) to train public health students to face social changes currently taking place in this country which soon will make evident their effects on the distribution of health and illness in the population. The relevance of linking the teaching of medical sociology in public health with actual research is pointed out. The need to carry out sociological research on the actual current conditions in which social sciences in public health are taught in Mexico and Latin America is stated. It is emphasized the importance of including within this teaching the variety of dilemmas and polemics which have resulted as a consequence of the incorporation of sociology into health matters. The article concludes by emphasizing the need to show the multiparadigmal character of sociology and the consequences of this fact in the study of public health.

Curriculum↗
PubMed1999

Scientists, senators, and "software": the keys to unlocking our future.

Scientists, educators, and researchers in the nation's medical schools, teaching hospitals, and research universities have responsibilities for ensuring a bright future for medical research. First, they must define science and communicate its wonder to their students, be their role models and mentors, and nurture and encourage the best and brightest to enter careers in medical research, since they are a precious resource for solving the many challenging and complex research problems that await them and which can bring great benefits to society. Second, they must learn to participate even more effectively and actively in the ongoing partnerships between the federal government, private enterprise, and the medical school and in the processes that lead to appropriations for the funding necessary to support the research enterprise. And finally, they need to recognize the importance of the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of medical research by urging support for the physical and social sciences, mathematics, and engineering.

Academic Medical Centers↗
PubMed1998

Balancing ethical quandaries with scientific rigor: Part 2.

Traditional ethical concerns in research tend to focus on serious misconduct such as fabricating data and gross violations of informed consent. In this two-part article, we focused on some of the less serious and more subtle ethical quandaries, inherent and common in most social science research. It is our thesis that these issues are important and warrant more attention and careful thought than they have been accorded in the scientific literature and, perhaps, by investigators at large. In Part 2, we provided examples of how we, and others, dealt with some of these issues in actual studies. However, we also must emphasize the individual and reflective nature of confronting ethical issues in research. We found many benefits in using a team approach to address ethical dilemmas during implementation of our studies. Doing so kept everyone honest with themselves and each other, shared the burden of responsibility among team members for the decisions made, maximized the use of team members' strengths, and led to much better resolutions of the issues from both a scientific and an ethical perspective. Maintaining scientific rigor while balancing and deliberating about the ethical implications of decisions is a challenge for all research teams. It requires learning how to be vigilant and responsive when faced with the many subtle, but ever-present, scientific and ethical quandaries encountered when doing what is often assumed to be nonthreatening social research. There are no fixed, prescriptive rules for what to do in every study. Rather, a reflective process, considering the specific issues of each unique study, is required.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

The biopsychosocial approach. Liaison medicine and its models.

Liaison psychiatry is an outgrowth of consultation psychiatry which it extends by emphasizing its teaching function with the physicians, nurses, and patients it has contact. Liaison teaches methods of identification, assessment, diagnosis, and therapy based primarily on an open-ended interview technique. This form serves in and of itself, as well as by extension, as a brief psychotherapeutic process. The liaison model utilizes a general systems approach in its study of the patient pursuing the latter's problem from the molecular through organ systems, intrapsychic processes and interactions with the social milieu. The biopsychosocial approach to the patient is one of addressing the patient and the significant others in the sequential stages of illness; acute, convalescent, and rehabilitative. These are largely influenced by the environments and the processes occurring therein. Liaison psychiatry might well be called ecumenical psychiatry inasmuch as it utilizes conceptual approaches derivative of the social sciences, psychoanalysis, behavioral medicine, neuroscience, and psychopharmacology. In addition, the function of the liaison consultant seems to be increasing as one in which he/she functions as an arbiter when there are conflicts between colleagues around decision-making processes. These frequently involve ethical problems affecting the behavior of staff and patients. The processes engaged in by the liaison psychiatrist will be elaborated.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed2002

Democratizing the hospital: deliberative-democratic bioethics.

The increased presence of moral consultants, or bioethicists, within hospitals and clinics in the last two decades has begun to raise questions about their sources of authority and norms of practice. Under pressure from critics in the social sciences, a number of bioethicists have recently raised the ideal of democratic deliberation to defend and reconstruct their place in the medical field. This article sheds light on these developments by placing bioethics in a historical context that shows an early tension between bioethicists as whistle-blowers and bioethicists as incremental reformers of medical practice. This article also develops a conceptual framework for analysis that indicates how such tensions have grown more complicated for contemporary bioethicists because they occupy a fluid and structurally ambiguous role in which there are multiple sources of normative expectations and little guidance for meeting these expectations. The liminality of the role and the overload of expectations have made bioethics vulnerable to methodological criticisms from social scientists. This article concludes that such methodological criticisms cannot address the more systemic problems of liminality and overload. The ideal of democratic deliberation, though imperfect, does address these systemic problems because it shows bioethicists how to gain guidance and share responsibility for moral consultation.

Anthropology, Cultural↗