Mental health center outpatients without health insurance or welfare were studied to determine the effect of fee assessment on premature termination. Charging non-psychotic clients a sliding scale fee influenced them not to terminate treatment prematurely. (Author)

The findings of a small pilot study, in which the perception of 16 obstetrician/gynocologists regarding their patients' degree of self-control as it related to medical problems, are analyzed. Findings suggested the physicians exhibited confusion about the concept of self-control and its applicability to patient care. (Author/MLW)

The development of pain clinics for the treatment of chronic pain is discussed. A variety of treatments offered are outlined. (JMF)

This article describes a study to determine the readability of selected patient education materials using the cloze procedure adapted from the Gestalt concept of closure. (JMF)

A 12-item list of human abilities/activities was developed to measure quality of life of 9 rheumatoid arthritis adults from 2 aspects: "present condition" and "relative importance" of each item. Pilot testing indicated that importance and present condition represent different aspects. Differences between self-assessments and physicians'…

Before and after implementation of a program in which physicians counseled patients about smoking, 22 physicians were surveyed and patient records reviewed. Although the program spurred more doctors to give patients self-help materials, no significant reduction of smoking occurred. (SK)

A listening group developed an operational definition of the closure phase based on audiotaped data from 22 office visits. A full communication analysis on the closure phase of the visit is presented. Interruptions to closure, including unfinished business, were studied. Doctors' communication skills needed to improve closure effectiveness are…

The suicide of a patient is a painful experience for many physicians and mental health professionals, and may contribute to the earlier and more frequent development of professional burnout. To reduce this risk in the primary care settings in which many suicidal patients are seen prior to their attempt, the authors presented concepts regarding the…

This paper presents the results of a study of syntactically based comprehension in aphasic patients. We studied 42 patients with aphasia secondary to left hemisphere strokes and 25 control participants. We measured off-line, end-of-sentence, performance (accuracy and reaction time) in two tasks that require comprehension--enactment and…

Nomothetic and idiographic approaches to research have long been in tension. John Nesselroade et al. have been at the forefront of a constructive rapprochement between these traditions. Heretofore their efforts have assumed a common measurement structure across persons. They have primarily focused on modeling relationships within persons, which…

Objective: To compare performance of the newest vital sign (NVS) with existing literacy measures. Methods: We administered the NVS and REALM to 129 patients, and NVS and S-TOFHLA to 119 patients all in public clinics. Results: The NVS demonstrated high sensitivity for detecting limited literacy and moderate specificity (area under the receiver…

This study used retrospective interviews with 87 relatives to describe the experiences of patients who died by euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (EAS) in the Netherlands. Most of the patients suffered from cancer (85%). The relatives were most often a partner (63%) or a child (28%) of the patient. Before explicitly requesting EAS most…

It is common to see chapters on acid-base physiology state that the goal of acid-base regulatory mechanisms is to maintain the pH of arterial plasma and not arterial PCO [subscript 2] (Pa[subscript CO[subscript 2]]) or plasma HCO[subscript 3]. A hypothetical situation in which the (Pa[subscript CO[subscript 2]]) of arterial plasma is 80 mmHg and…

We aimed to determine the violence against general practitioners (GPs) through their suggestions on its cause and prevention. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study based on self-administered questionnaire answered by a convenience study population consisting of 522 GPs between November and December 2006. Of the participating GPs, 82.8%…

Purposes: Attitudes toward mental illness and patients with mental illness influence the treatment they receive and decisions of policy makers. The purposes of this study were to assess Jordanian nursing students' attitudes towards mental illness, and to assess the effectiveness of teaching and contact on changing nursing students' attitudes about…