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The authors examine the source, nature, and direction of work and family conflict. Confirmatory factor analysis of a 22-item scale suggested the appropriateness of distinguishing between strain-based and time-based conflict and between family interfering with work (FIW) and work interfering with family (WIF). Six-month longitudinal survey data (N = 236) suggested that strain-based FIW is a precursor to both stress and turnover intentions. Strain-based WIF emerged as an outcome of stress.

Hundreds of studies have now used standardized checklists to assess respondents' self-reports of coping with naturally occurring stress. This article presents a critical review of the conceptual and methodological issues involved in the use of these checklists. As they are currently employed, conventional checklists render an incomplete and distorted portrait of coping. Specifically, these checklists are grounded in too narrow a conception of coping; the application and interpretation of checklists in the typical study are not faithful to a transactional model of stress and coping; statistical controls cannot eliminate the effects of key person and situation variables on coping; and no consistent interpretation can be assigned to coping scale scores. Researchers are encouraged to consider a broader range of methods for assessing coping, including semistructured interviews, customized checklists tailored to their specific hypotheses and objectives, daily diaries, and traditional trait measures.

Support groups for adults affected by cancer are widely offered by local community and national agencies in North America. This type of psychosocial intervention is defined in terms of its structure and functions, and its theoretical underpinnings and models of practice are described. Forty-four empirical studies of professionally led cancer support groups are summarized and critically reviewed. These studies include 32 outcome evaluations of randomized controlled trials, two process evaluations, and 10 consumer satisfaction studies. The findings reveal high levels of consumer satisfaction, and the outcome evaluations substantiate the morale and other quality of life benefits short of prolonging life. Discussion centers on priorities for future research and practice.

A classification scheme is presented composed of 26 helping behaviours which were empirically generated and reliably coded by a team of three judges, based on a content analysis of interview protocols. The protocols describe the types of informal social support provided to a sample of single mothers. The categories are organized into four main classes of influence and each category has been defined and illustrated with an example taken from the protocols. In order to illustrate one application of the scheme, data are presented contrasting the helping behaviours extended to the women in response to three problem areas. Methods of further validating the scheme and evaluating the efficacy of informal social support are discussed.One of the hallmarks of the community mental health ideology is that coping resources should be available to people experiencing stress at an early time and in their natural environment. Translated into practice, this ideology has taken the form of mental health consultation with a variety of "community caregivers" such as teachers, clergymen, and family physicians who have broad contact with the public and who have been trained to engage in basic diagnostic, counselling, and behaviour change activities with the "clients" they normally serve. Recently, however, this approach to the secondary prevention of mental disorder has been criticized both on the basis of insufficient empirical evidence of preventive outcomes (Mannino & Shore, 1975) and on grounds of professional colonialism towards the caregiver-consultees (Gottlieb, 1974). The latter criticism -that training in the professional mould may supplant or weaken the natural helping skills of caregivers -has been strengthened with the appearance of a literature documenting the existence of numerous natural forms of service delivery which operate largely outside the professional sphere of influence, but which involve a great many people (Collins & Pancoast, 1976;Gottlieb, 1976). These natural support systems range from the more organized self-help group to the spontaneous helping transactions extended within personal networks. A number of these natural human services are currently being subjected to evaluative research; however, the more general claim This research was supported by Grant No. S74-0726 from the Canada Council. Thanks are expressed to John Hughes, Barbara Piggins, Bill Psihogios, and Michael Wuitchik for their patience and attention to the minutiae associated with the development of the classification scheme. Requests for reprints should be addressed to

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Following a brief overview of the stressful life events-illness model and its implications for intervention, this article highlights the role of social support as a resource for resisting stress-induced illness and disability. It identifies three different connotative meanings that have been assigned to the social support construct, and describes their empirical operationalizations in several recent studies. Specifically, the social integration/participation formulation, the social network approach, and the social intimacy measurement strategy are described and contrasted. Within the latter approach, one study that illuminated types of informal helping behaviors is discussed in greater detail. A review of possible mechanisms whereby social support accomplishes its health-protective impact is also offered, and two types of planned interventions involving the mobilization or optimization of social support are spotlighted. The article concludes with ideas about ways that professionals can safeguard the natural helping skills of citizens and achieve an appropriate balance between formal and informal systems of service delivery in the health and human services fields.