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Results for “Personal Construct Theory”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Students' perceptions of their psychiatric mental health clinical nursing experience: a personal construct theory exploration.

Personal construct theory and repertory grid technique provides a suitable framework for exploring Registered Nursing students' perceptions of their psychiatric practicum. This descriptive research was designed to understand students' own ways of constructing knowledge during their mental health clinical experience. A constructivist conceptual perspective and George Kelly's personal construct psychology were the theoretical bases of the research. A qualitative case study methodology allowed creation of and reflection on personal construct changes as provided in participants' review of repertory grid ideas about psychiatric nursing. The participants were six Canadian second-year nursing students in a Baccalaureate programme that integrated psychiatric and medical surgical nursing curricula. The following three overarching themes were identified and are used to explain and describe significant features of the psychiatric clinical experience: 1) students' anxiety related more to feeling unable to help than to interactions with mentally ill patients; 2) students' feelings of a lack of inclusion in staff nurse groups; 3) student emphasis on the importance of nonevaluated student-instructor discussion time.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1981

Psychological change in neurotic depression: a repertory grid and personal construct theory approach.

Personal construct theory and repertory grid methodology were applied to a study of psychological change experienced by a sample of ten neurotic depressives and their matched controls during short-term hospitalization. All subjects completed a repertory grid and the Zung depression scale on admission to hospital. Depressives were characterized by lower self-esteem, more negative social perception and higher scores on the Zung scale. Both measures were repeated at the time of discharge from hospital. Depressives showed a significant reduction in depressive mood, more positive social perception, and a change in th construing of the self; controls showed no changes. It is argued that the use of a quantitative assessment technique reinforced by a theoretical framework results in a more refined understanding of psychological change.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Caring for the older person: an exploration of perceptions using personal construct theory.

BACKGROUND: There is a reluctance among nurses to enter elderly care. OBJECTIVE: To discover nurses' perceptions of the elderly patients in their care. METHOD: After a period of participant observation, we selected 26 nurses from among those working in two elderly-care rehabilitation hospitals. Interpersonal perceptions were investigated using personal construct theory. We elicited personal constructs, produced repertory grids and rated patients according to popularity. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The most common way of perceiving patients was in terms of mental or physical dependence. Health-care assistants were more likely than staff nurses to perceive patients in terms of their personality. Nurses tended to have simplified ways of perceiving their patients. Popular patients were always mentally intact.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Personal construct theory and psychological well-being.

The concept of 'psychological well-being' (as opposed to 'psychological disorder') is considered from the standpoint of George Kelly's personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955). It is argued that the origin of psychological disorder lies in a difficulty in 'person construing', with particular reference to 'self-construing'. For some (like schizophrenics) this may be a relatively permanent state of affairs, whereas for others it may reflect a temporary crisis or transition. It seems that the ability to maintain a relatively stable, yet flexible, self-construction may be crucial. Social relationships, however, although potentially validating, also carry the risk of invalidating our self-construction. An individual's particular response to 'invalidation' may be substantially determined by commonality of construing in his particular context, e.g. an adolescent female may turn to slimming whereas a young male may turn to alcohol. Although the theory has proved to be most useful at an explanatory level, it has been applied therapeutically only to a limited extent. It is argued that psychologists may make a greater contribution to the enhancement of psychological well-being by applying constructive alternativism within a learning or educational context rather than the clinical setting.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Nursing and caring: a personal construct theory study of some nurses' self-perceptions.

This report outlines the results of a survey of trained nurses' perceptions about themselves as professional carers. Twenty-five nurses of charge nurse grade were interviewed using Kelly's personal construct theory and repertory grid technique. Nurses were asked to elicit eight bipolar constructs and to rate eight elements, including a 'myself as a carer' element and an 'ideal self as a carer' element, on a seven-point rating scale. A simple difference score was calculated to measure the degree of discrepancy between these two elements. Observed differences were assumed to be indicative of the need for personal change. Differences emerged for each of the 25 informants. Some possible explanations for these findings are provided, in particular the personal cost of caring for the carer is emphasized. Further research in this area must take account of this new finding.

Empathy↗
PubMed2000

Agency orientation and chronic musculoskeletal pain: effects of a group learning program based on the personal construct theory.

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated the effects of a group learning program on patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and high absenteeism and investigates what characterizes those patients who may benefit from such a program. The learning program was based on personal construct theory. The theory included the following: (1) participation in an educational program is related to a favorable outcome across the outcome measures (pain, pain coping, management of daily life, absenteeism, and use of health care), (2) patients with high agency orientation (i.e., inner-directed) cope with their pain and manage daily life in a better manner than do patients with low agency orientation (i.e., outer-directed), and (3) patients with high personal control, measured in terms of agency orientation, in terms of health locus of control, or in both terms, will benefit more from the educational program than will patients with low personal control. DESIGN: The study was a randomized controlled study. PATIENTS: One hundred and sixteen patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and high absenteeism answered a questionnaire before and after the intervention program. The intervention group (n = 61) consisted of nine subgroups geographically spread through the eastern part of Norway and met for four hours every 2 weeks from February 1997 to October 1997. A total of 12 meetings were held. RESULTS: The intervention group reported a significantly higher score for the variable "management of everyday life" (p <0.005) and for the variable "health care consumption" (p <0.001) than did the control group. Patients with high agency orientation benefited more from the program with regard to pain reduction and improved pain coping than did those patients with low agency orientation (p <0.05). Patients with high agency orientation also reported less absenteeism than did those patients with low agency orientation (p <0.05).

Absenteeism↗
PubMed1999

Nursing care of older people: a personal construct theory perspective.

This paper outlines the use of the repertory grid technique, with nurses caring for elderly residents, and residents of a nursing home. The method focuses on the individuality of each person's attempt at making sense of her/his caring world. Previous papers have focused on a discussion of the repertory grid technique as a research method and tool for psychiatric nurses, an overview of studies using this technique with nurses and social workers, and applications of personal construct theory (from which the technique is derived) to nursing research. A paper by Rawlinson described content analysis of the role constructs elicited from the nurses. In this study, content analysis of caring constructs elicited by nurses and residents was also undertaken, and the results are presented. Additionally, principal component analysis of the repertory grids was carried out, and three examples are presented. This combined analysis provides an in-depth insight into nurses' perceptions of caring for others; perceptions which guide their caring behaviours. This information can be used by individual nurses to review their caring practice.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Death education for oncology professionals: a personal construct theory perspective.

Using observations from a psychosocial training program for oncology professionals, this article illustrates how one can model, while training the student, the very methods he or she can adopt in working with patients and families. One starts with an elicitation of the student's (patient's) operative personal constructs and then devises strategies to elaborate, integrate, loosen, tighten, preempt, or take other action, as needed. The very means used to promote movement within the student's own death-related constructs can be adopted for use by him or her in the clinical situation. As the helper's pathways of action and thought with regard to this domain become more comprehensive and as the helper becomes more skilled at moving freely along them, he or she becomes more perceptive and resourceful to those in need.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1983

A personal construct theory approach to the socialization of nursing trainees in two British general hospitals.

Student and pupil nurses (64), from an initial sample of 117, completed repertory grids questionnaires and interviews on the first day of training, at 4 and 18 months. Measures of identification attraction and ideal/actual congruence were derived from the grids. Trainees were found to become more identified with and attracted to medical roles during training and less identified with and attracted to lower-status non-medical roles such as factory worker. Ideal/actual congruence with medical roles other than trainee also increased. Some measures derived from the grids related to trainee 'wastage' and to satisfaction with the hospital.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

The predictive strength of personal constructs versus conventional constructs: self-image disparity and neuroticism.

Idiographic personal construct (PC) measures of self-image disparity were hypothesized to be stronger than nonidiographic conventional construct (CC) measures in predicting neuroticism. Ninety-six college students completed PC and CC measures of real self, ideal self, social self, and ideal social self; the NEO Five-Factor Inventory; and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Content analysis showed that individuals' PC measures were unique. The disparity between real self and ideal self and the disparity between social self and ideal social self were computed for PC and CC; test-retest reliabilities were .76 to .81. Results of simultaneous multiple regression analyses supported the hypothesis. Also, the two-variable PC self-image disparity scores were stronger than one-variable PC esteem scores in predicting neuroticism. Implications were discussed for research method, self-concept theory, personal construct theory, neuroticism, and psychotherapy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Affairs of the heart: patients' personal constructions of a cardiac event and their effect on lifestyle change.

The issue of why people do not always make appropriate lifestyle changes in response to a cardiac event has and continues to be of central importance to health practitioners. This paper addresses this issue from the perspective of the lived experience of persons who have suffered an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The experiences of 10 persons admitted to the coronary care unit (CCU) of a South African clinic were richly described, making use of the grounded theory methodology. These descriptions were then used as a basis for the development of a contextualist theory of the experience of heart attacks. A central feature of the results was that the disease was mainly attributed to stress by the participants. This was in contrast to the explanations offered by the medical profession, who attribute this more to other modifiable risk factors such as smoking, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and lack of exercise. This tension between lay and professional constructions of the aetiology of the condition is deemed to be of import in the recovery process. The paper further alludes to the goodness of fit which exists between the proposed grounded theory and the personal construct theory of George Kelly. The importance of personal constructions of the event is then used as the basis for a proposed intervention process aimed at addressing the difficulties AMI patients' experience in making and sustaining lifestyle changes.

Health Behavior↗
PubMed1985

Personal styles, constructive alternativism and the provision of a therapeutic service.

A series of studies on the 'personal styles' of clients and therapists is reviewed, and their findings are drawn together within the framework of personal construct theory. It is argued that the technical eclecticism of personal construct theory reflects its central philosophical assumption of constructive alternativism; and that a treatment service organized in accordance with this assumption could accommodate therapists of different theoretical persuasions, matching clients and therapeutic conditions in terms of dimensions suggested by the 'personal styles' research.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Bereavement and personal constructs: old theories and new concepts.

This paper reviews several traditional and current theories regarding the nature of bereavement and argues that conceptualizing grieving in personal construct terms can clarify and extend existing work in this area. In particular, it is contended that a personal construct view of the importance of "core role" (self) structure helps explain Bowlby's theory of "defensive exclusion" of the reality of the death: because an individual's perceived relationship with a significant other helps define his or her core role, loss of the relationship through death directly challenges the most central dimensions of the bereaved person's construct system. Implications of this cognitive theory of bereavement are detailed, and several testable hypotheses are put forward.

Attitude to Death↗