This paper reports on semi-structured interviews with 114 Pakistani nurses. This sample comes from a larger long-term study examining the impact of advanced training in Canada on the lives and careers of nurses and lady health visitors from Pakistan. The data reported here were drawn from the first interview with all nurses, and focuses on how and why they chose a career in nursing. Demographically, the respondents (Rs) were more urban and more highly educated than the average Pakistani woman. Compared to the national population, Ismailis and Christians were over-represented and non-Ismaili Muslims under-represented in our sample. Although these ratios are also true of Pakistan's nursing population, the bias has been exaggerated by the convenience nature of our sample drawn primarily from the Aga Khan University Medical Centre. Most Rs found out about nursing through a relative or friend who was also a nurse. Eighty per cent of Rs (n = 92) reported having made the decision to pursue nursing by themselves, illustrating the increasing ability of women to control their own lives in this traditionally patriarchal society. 'Professionalism' was the predominant reason why Rs (or others) decided on nursing, followed by 'Altruism'. These findings are compared to other studies on the career choice of nurses done in non-Islamic societies. Over 90% of Rs reported receiving support from at least one friend or relative for their decision to enter nursing. Nonetheless, over half (58%) also reported that someone, most often a male relative, had opposed their career choice. Our results are discussed in terms of the status of women and nursing in Pakistan.
The authors evaluated the effectiveness of a school-based sex education program in decreasing rates of sexual intercourse, improving birth control use, and decreasing the incidence of pregnancies among teenagers 16 years of age and younger. Twenty-one schools received either the McMaster Teen Program or the conventional didactic sex education program. Preprogram, the mean age of the students was 12.6 years. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in time to first sexual activity for males, chi 2(1) = 2.93, p = 0.09; time to first sexual activity for females, chi 2(1) = 0.50, p = 0.48; and time to first pregnancy, chi 2(1) = 1.90, p = 0.17. Significantly more experimental group males reported always using birth control at year 1 (difference 8.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.4, 17.4). Limitations of the program that may have influenced the results were the exclusion of contraception information and its short duration.
This study represented an attempt to replicate the factor structure obtained by Lindal and Venables (1983) for the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (NSLCS) for Children. Although the same factor analytic techniques were used on a similarly-constituted sample, a somewhat different solution was obtained. Comrey (1973) suggested that scales with dichotomous items cannot be factor analyzed reliably. As a more rigorous test of this theory, the factor analyses performed on two randomly-selected samples from one study were compared. However, this replication attempt also failed. The authors concluded that the dichotomous nature of the NSLCS Scale is the reason that replication of its factor structure has been so elusive.
Perceptions of power in women living in rural villages in Pakistan were explored. The Lee-Hezekiah Power Perception Scale was developed by the authors to measure women's perception of their power. The instrument was administered in interviews conducted by a group of Lady Health Visitors who were participating in a project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. Sixty-nine women ranging in age from 20 to 65 were interviewed. One-way analysis of variance revealed that the oldest group perceived themselves to have more power than the youngest group perceived themselves to have. Stepwise multiple regression indicated that the number of male children a woman had was predictive of the amount of power she perceived herself to have. The results are discussed in relation to existing literature on women and power in developing countries. Implications for further research on women's perceptions of power and health are discussed.
Success and failure outcomes in three achievement-oriented common-life situations were simulated in the Trent Attribution Profile (TAP) with both self and others-orientations. The TAP provides measures of locus of control and stability dimensions which can be further partitioned into individual attribution elements (i.e., ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck) under four different conditions (self-success, other-success, self-failure, other-failure). The Internality dimension of the TAP was correlated significantly with Rotter's I-E Scale. The test-retest reliability coefficient was significant. Traditional success-failure and self-other biases were also obtained.
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