Due to the increasing influence of the holistic health movement, health providers will increasingly be challenged to reexamine their roles in patient relationships, increase the extent of interdisciplinary teamwork, emphasize health education and positive health behaviors, examine the usefulness of various alternative therapies, and consider the…

Patients with harsh, pessimistic views about mental illness had more severe psychopathology and did less well over the period of follow-up. Expectation of medication was associated with lower education, greater severity of illness, lower satisfaction with treatment, greater frequency of dropping out of treatment, and less improvement. (Author)

Study examines background and performance characteristics of discharged mental hospital patients in an effort to predict readmissions. Results confirm complexity of the recidivism issue. Black, isolated males seem at greatest risk for readmission; Anglo females with family resources at least risk. (LAB)

Studied the use of mental health services by enrolled populations, in order to establish a model or predictor of utilization. Primary focus of utilization data has been patient characteristics; organizational variables, such as plan design and benefit packages, are also shown to affect utilization. (LAB)

Patients were classified into categories using Spitzer and Endicott's computer program for diagnosis. Analyses of variance using single and grouped scales and discriminant analyses predicting category membership suggested that narrow band categorization is better predicted by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory than is broad band…

Fee, sociodemographic, and provider characteristics contributed little unique variance to explaining the volume of services used. Clinical considerations were, as predicted, most important in explaining service utilization. Implications for national health insurance are also discussed, since public third-party reimbursement did not lead to…

Use of the oral history technique in clinical medicine supplies significant additional data that illuminate the psychological, social, and spiritual background of healthy or ailing aging patients. Describes some practical applications of oral history techniques in clinical medical practice and discusses their usefulness for gerontological…

High school students interacted with chronic nursing home patients in dyadic and group activities. The 15-week program selected for study was found to have a beneficial effect on ten patients. Patients reported increased social interaction, reduced daytime sleeping, increased mobility, and decreased voluntary confinement. (Author)

The type and frequency of a variety of clerical errors were investigated in protocols from the 1949 and 1974 editions of the WISC. Potential consequences of such errors and a discussion of ways to lower the rate are presented. (Author)

Describes an experimental death awareness workshop based on Kubler-Ross' theory. The effects of the workshop reveal cognitive and emotional changes indicating participants in the workshop to be moving towards an acceptance of death. (Author)

Explores the potential utility of the MMPI 168 with two inpatient medical populations. Correlations and clinically relevant comparisons suggest that the MMPI 168 predicted the standard MMPI with a high degree accuracy. (Editor/RK)

Explores the possibility of separating psychotherapists' judgments of treatment outcome from their affective reactions to their patients. If therapists' judgments of symptom remission cannot be utilized independently of their affection for their patients, this would present reason to doubt the utility of such judgments despite their current…

Psychoneurotic or personality disordered patients (N=94) received four months of analytically oriented psychotherapy, behavior therapy, or waiting list treatment. Neither active treatment was more effective than the other with any type of symptom (including affective ones), although both were more consistently effective than the waiting list.…

Noting that students in health professions education, irrespective of the specific discipline, often experience difficulty with interpersonal encounters in the clinical setting, the author contends that in addition to academic requirements, curricula should include experiential opportunities for students to develop their competencies in affective…

The Supreme Court of California upheld a lower court's ruling in Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California. It stated that a psychotherapist's privilege of privacy based on the need for psychotherapeutic secrecy ends where the public peril begins. (LBH)