This study examined relationships between the ability to recognize facial affect and affective intensity in women with Borderline Personality Disorder. Women hospitalized with borderline personality disorder and community women without psychiatric disorder (n s = 35/group) were recruited via convenience sampling. The Pictures of Facial Affect and the Affect Intensity Measure were administered to consenting women. Hypotheses related to differences in recognizing facial affect were supported, but further exploration indicated that selected negative emotions accounted for the statistical significance. Implications for practice and research are explored.

Child psychiatric hospitalization is a time of crisis for the parents of a child with a mental disorder. Prior to hospitalization, the child's problematic behavior has escalated. Parents have various types of contact with mental health professionals prior to, during, and after the hospitalization, which influence their ability to care for their child. This paper reports a qualitative descriptive study of what parents need and want from mental health professionals during this time frame. During the study, parents spontaneously talked about what they needed and wanted from mental health professionals, including nursing personnel. The perspectives of 38 parents of 29 hospitalized children were obtained through interviews. Parents identified needing informational, emotional, and instrumental support most often in the interviews. Specific examples from the data are included in this report.

The purpose of this study was to examine the processes involved with connectedness in community-dwelling older adults, which the authors contend is quality of life from a generative perspective. Using a grounded theory approach, 12 older adults were interviewed using a semistructured interview guide. The tape-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim, categories were created to code the data, and themes were extracted. Four processes involved with connectedness in older adults were identified: (a) having something to do, (b) having relationships, (c) having a stake in the future, and (d) having a sense of continuity. Various aspects of spirituality were also apparent in each of the four processes. This study suggests that connectedness provides older adults with a mechanism to engage life in meaningful, positive, and purposeful ways.

Electronic forms of social support have the potential to meet the identified needs of parents for more social support.

Successful aging is of growing importance in the U.S. Many researchers have explored the phenomenon using various approaches, yet we are still lacking practical guidelines on how to promote successful aging in older adults. The Roy Adaptation Model supports the promotion of adaptation to chronic health problems at a time when one's overall health may be declining and is a useful guide for understanding successful aging. Current literature also suggests that functional performance and creativity are important in order to age successfully. This study examined the relationships between functional performance, creativity, and successful aging within the context of the Roy Adaptation Model. Although creativity was not significantly predictive of successful aging, functional performance was a statistically significant predictor of a successful aging indicator, purpose in life. The study was a pretest-posttest experimental design investigating the effects of a creativity enhancement intervention in older adults. Although the intervention did not appear to increase creativity or successful aging, there were some statistically significant results and valuable findings about the possibilities for creativity enhancement.