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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Social problems.

It has long been established that social deprivation adversely affects health, including that of the pregnant woman and her baby; it is therefore justifiable to use medical resources in the treatment of social problems. Antenatal inpatient care was originally seen as potentially beneficial for women without major medical problems, but such a philosophy is not reflected in current practice. Current antenatal outpatient services do not address the needs of women with social problems who, viewing such services as hostile, may fail to attend. Special services such as help with drugs problems or HIV counselling or screening may be rejected from fear of prejudice and consequent repercussions. Such prejudice often arises because staff do not fully understand the issues involved. Antenatal care for women with social problems should consider women in the context of their families and social environment and should be provided by a small number of familiar staff forming part of an integrated multidisciplinary team in close and regular contact. Antenatal admission, if it is the woman's wish, should be viewed as justified in the management of social problems; conversely, women should not be pressurized into admission or made to feel guilty if unable to comply. Outpatient antenatal services should be conveniently sited in the community close to other relevant services and should be flexible, not only in terms of organization and format, but also in the roles of the participants. They should be comprehensive, but with special services in addition to, not instead of, routine care, and provided by a team of appropriately trained staff. In the provision of antenatal care for women with social needs, no single format will be universally applicable or desirable, and the precise design and content of the service should be variable according to local requirements and should take account of the women's wishes as well as their needs. Ultimately it will only be if the women perceive the service as being in their interests and as meeting their needs that they will use it; only if they choose to use it, will it have any chance of success.

Community Health Services

The construction of elder abuse as a social problem: a Canadian perspective.

This article uses the social constructionist approach to social problems as claims-making activities and Blumer's theory of the developmental stages of social problems to analyze how elder abuse has been constructed as a social problem in Canada and how interest groups have been mobilized to deal with the alleged problem. Clearly, elder abuse has emerged as a social problem (often under the family violence rubric) and has received some legitimation from professional groups and representatives of government. Efforts to mobilize social action against elder abuse at a national level and to develop legislation and other policy initiatives have, however, so far met with mixed success. While elder abuse has been trumpeted by some claims-makers as a major new form of family violence, the absence of a strong elder lobby group and the absence of developed ideologies (e.g., feminism in the case of wife abuse and child sexual abuse) have resulted in elder abuse receiving much less attention than other problems grouped under the family violence rubric. Indeed, most of the legislation that presently exists in Canada deals not with the abuse of the elderly as a class but with the provision of services to dependent, incompetent adults whether they are elderly or not.

Aged

A qualitative and serial analysis of social problem solving in aggressive boys.

Social problem solving skills in 84 elementary school aged boys were assessed to identify those responses most salient in the prediction of ratings of aggressive and socially withdrawn behavior. Aggressive and socially withdrawn boys did not differ from the control group in the number of effective first solutions generated to the hypothetical stories. The control group generated significantly more effective solutions as second alternatives to the stories than did the aggressive or socially withdrawn boys. In addition, the number of effective second responses generated significantly predicted both aggression and social withdrawal after controlling for verbal problem solving. Results are discussed in terms of differences in cognitive processes as well as implications for treatment.

Aggression

Social problems of women patients in a private obstetrics and gynecology clinic.

Patients present or exhibit problems other than physical ones to their physicians and need access to some type of assistance for them. Over a 1 year period, women patients were referred to and seen by the medical social worker employed by a private obstetrics and gynecology clinic. Their social problems were studied by content analysis of patients' records, patients' social services cards, and monthly social services summaries. Results showed that 163 women exhibited 288 social problems consisting of three major types, financial, marital, and emotional. Various relationships were shown between the type of social problem and the primary reason the patient visited the clinic. It was also shown that if a patient has a financial problem, she is more likely to have a greater number of social problems than are other patients.

Adolescent

Life events, social problems and physical health status as predictors of emotional distress in men and women in a community setting.

The main aim of this study was to construct logistic models of emotional distress (defined as a GHQ-30 score of 6 or greater) in a community sample of 226 men and 225 women. The independent variables included were: sociodemographic characteristics, physical health status, social problems and undesirable life events. Univariate comparisons showed that in both sexes undesirable life events and social problems were associated with emotional distress; in men the presence of physical symptoms and widowed, separated or divorced status also showed such an association. Separate logistic regression models for men and women confirmed the importance of undesirable life events and social problems as predictors for emotional distress. In women there was also a significant interaction effect between the two variables on emotional distress. Sociodemographic characteristics and physical health status did not exert a statistically significant effect in these models.

Adaptation, Psychological

Social problem solving among popular and unpopular children.

The present study investigated two issues related to children's social status and problem solving: the content of problem-solving measures and judgments of the quality of responses to social problems. Three types of social problem situations were studied: peer entry/initiation, maintaining social interaction, and management of conflict. The quality of children's strategies for solving these problems was rated on two dimensions: effectiveness and social competence. Liked-most children obtained significantly more effective and socially competent ratings than liked-least children for only one of the social problem situations--management of conflict. Significant differences between liked-most and liked-least children were also found between the quality of their best effective and best socially competent solution and their worst socially competent solutions. Results are discussed in terms of the psychometric adequacy of social problem-solving measures and the resultant problems in interpretation.

Child, Preschool

Australia's most pressing social problem: nursing vs non-nursing students' views.

Nursing and non-nursing students (N = 297) were surveyed in 1989 for their opinion of 'Australia's most pressing social problem'. Significant differences were found between the two groups. Although race relations in Australia headed the concerns of both groups of students, nursing students consistently chose health-related issues as their choices for 'the most pressing social problem' facing the Australian nation. Several explanations for this 'focused' interest of nursing students are discussed in the paper, in the context of the possible different socialisation of students before entering tertiary study and the need for sociology education for nursing students.

Adult

Health and social problems of refugees.

Today over 15 million refugees are scattered around the world, most of them in poor Third World countries [New Sci., pp. 14-15, September 1991]. But whether they seek 'safe havens' in rich or poor countries they continue to suffer from the malaise of being uprooted, struggling to survive in new and alien environments. Their health and social problems extend beyond the obvious emergency short-term phase. It is now clear that the number of refugees has increased beyond expectations and most have stayed long enough to expect final resettlement in their countries of asylum, a process which requires wider, more comprehensive and long-term management and rehabilitation interventions. This paper will attempt to highlight issues of health and social problems in their wider context, surveying comprehensive and integrated approaches in assessing the needs of refugees, whether they are in developing or industrialised countries, with emphasis on the latter and, when appropriate, using the United Kingdom experience as an example.

Acculturation

Depression and social problem solving.

Twenty depressed patients with major depressive disorder, 20 nondepressed matched control subjects, and 17 patients with anxiety disorders were compared in different measures of social problem solving. Problem solving was assessed with the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Test (Study 1), the solution of personal problems, and a problem-solving questionnaire (Study 2). Results showed that, as predicted, depressed subjects suffered from a deficit in problem solving in all three measures. The majority of these deficits were also displayed by the clinical control group rather than being specific to a diagnosis of depression. However, depressed subjects produced less effective solutions than did normal and clinical control subjects. The results suggest that depressed and anxious patients may have difficulties at different stages of the problem-solving process.

Adult

A study of social problems in a group of young women treated with brief psychotherapy.

This paper reports on a series of young women with social problems treated with brief psychotherapy in a NHS setting and fulfilling difinite selection criteria. It is suggested that we have paid more attention to the role of the mother infancy and have tended to neglect the influence of the father. While we have studied emotional change in the growing child we have not perhaps made sufficient allowance for changes in parents. This study examines the role of the father in his daughter's adolescence. Awareness of this factor in the clinical setting might help to shorten the course of psychotherapy in appropriate cases. Sociologically it is relevant to our views on parenthood.

Adolescent

Depression. Nursing implications of a clinical and social problem.

Depression is a phenomenon with concurrent personal, social, and clinical dimensions. Each person is affected by depression differently and expresses depressive symptomatology in a unique manner. Socially, the incidence of depressive illness in the general population is three times that of schizophrenia. The cost of depression in terms of lost days at work and treatment is estimated to be $29 billion in 1991. Diagnosing and treating depressive illnesses depend on the clinical manifestations of the illness and the assessment skills of the practitioner. Different treatment modalities such as psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and electroconvulsive treatments can be effective singularly or in combination to assist the patient in regaining his or her functionality in daily life.

Depression

[Psycho-social problems in rehabilitation (author's transl)].

This contribution contains the results of a study on rehabilitation of patients undergoing treatment in the Alpen-Sanatorium in Bad Tölz, Germany, which was planned as a prestudy for an extensive examination of psycho-social problems of this group of patients and their chances for rehabilitation. The especially important age-group of those between 50- and 60-years-old for a successful geroprophylaxis was chosen. In this essay the connections between graded seriousness of the illness and the social classes of the patients as well as the following problems: difficulties, situated in the personality, general satisfaction with place in life, real worries, disturbances in childhood and youth, and decisive turning points in life, are worked out.

Aged

Social problems and health in urbanization.

One of the main characteristics of urbanization in Asia is the very rapid increase in population movement from rural to urban centers. This phenomenon has led to changing population structure, its composition and lifestyles in the cities and its fringes. As a consequent of population pressure on urban system and infrastructure, compounded by the nature of the composition of the in-migrant population, the urban concentrates are faced with several social and socio-economic problems. Although there has been a lot of interests among researchers to study the causes and effects or urbanization, there is a vacuum in the area of health implications. Planners and administrators usually give priority to the physical aspects of the urban and urbanities. Social problems and health implications thereof receives very little attention either at the level of administration or research. This paper therefore is a brave attempt to focus and draw some attention to this neglected area by looking at selected social problems and the health consequences.

Crowding