Autonomic responses were measured while 45 adult women performed a standard experimental stress task in the laboratory with only the experimenter present and 2 weeks later at home in the presence of a female friend, pet dog, or neither. Results demonstrated that autonomic reactivity was moderated by the presence of a companion, the nature of whom was critical to the size and direction of the effect. Ss in the friend condition exhibited higher physiological reactivity and poorer performance than subjects in the control and pet conditions. Ss in the pet condition showed less physiological reactivity during stressful tasks than Ss in the other conditions. The results are interpreted in terms of the degree to which friends and pets are perceived as evaluative during stressful task performance. Physiological reactivity was consistent across the laboratory and field settings. Because individuals who experience pronounced, frequent, or enduring autonomically mediated cardiovascular responses to stress may be at risk for the development of cardiovascular disease (Clarkson, Manuck, & Kaplan, 1986; Manuck & Krantz, 1986), psychological variables that mediate or moderate autonomic reactivity to stress are important to consider. Nearly all research on psychological moderators of autonomic reactivity has focused on personality variables, such as coronary-prone behavior type, hostility, anger, aggression, anxiety, and denial (Houston, 1986). Relatively little attention has been paid to social psychological constructs such as attitudes and relationships. This study focused on the presence of others as a potential moderating variable in stressful situations. Specifically, we were interested in the degree to which potentially evaluative and nonevaluative others could act as buffers of autonomic reactivity during a stressful situation. In addition, we were interested in a comparison of laboratory and field sites. Social facilitation theory (Zajonc, 1965,1980) posits that the presence of others increases arousal, which in turn increases or decreases performance as a function of the degree to which task requirements are based on well-learned dominant responses. Zajonc's (1965) social facilitation formulation posited that the mere presence of others increases an individual's arousal and affects performance. Recently, Cacioppo, Rourke, Marshall-Goodell, Tassinary, and Baron (1990) clarified the impact of the presence of others on arousal by demonstrating that the presence of others does not increase basal levels of physiologi-This research was supported by Grant BRSG S07 RR 07066 awarded by the Biomedical Research Support Program, National Institutes of Health, to Karen M. Allen. We express our appreciation to several anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous draft of this article.

AimsTo determine the cost savings of pharmacist initiated changes to hospitalized patients' drug therapy or management in eight major acute care government funded teaching hospitals in Australia. MethodsThis was a prospective study performed in eight hospitals examining resource implications of pharmacists' interventions assessed by an independent clinical panel. Pharmacists providing clinical services to inpatients recorded details of interventions, defined as any action that directly resulted in a change to patient management or therapy. An independent clinical review panel, convened at each par ticipating centre, confirmed or rejected the clinical pharmacist's assessment of the impact on leng th of stay (LOS), readmission probability, medical procedures and laboratory monitoring and quantified the resultant changes, which were then costed. ResultsA total of 1399 interventions were documented. Eight hundred and thir ty-five interventions impacted on drug costs alone. Five hundred and eleven interventions were evaluated by the independent panels with three quarters of these confirmed as having an impact on one or more of: length of stay, readmission probability, medical procedures or laboratory monitoring. There were 96 interventions deemed by the independent panels to have reduced LOS and 156 reduced the potential for readmission. The calculated savings was $263 221 for the eight hospitals during the period of the study. This included $150 307 for length of stay reduction, $111 848 for readmission reduction. ConclusionsThe annualized cost savings relating to length of stay, readmission, drugs, medical procedures and laboratory monitoring as a result of clinical pharmacist initiated changes to hospitalized patient management or therapy was $4 444 794 for eight major acute care government funded teaching hospitals in Australia.M. J. Dooley et al. 51457 :4 Br J Clin Pharmacol

2000). Thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia produced by intrathecal administration of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) envelope glycoprotein, gp120. Brain Research, 861 ,[105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116]

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It is widely believed that cultures vary in their tolerance for crowding. There is, however, little evidence to substantiate this belief, coupled with serious shortcomings in the extant literature. Tolerance for crowding has been confused with cultural differences in personal space preferences along with perceived crowding. Furthermore, the few studies that have examined cultural variability in reactions to crowding have compared subgroup correlations, which is not equivalent to a statistical interaction. Although the authors found a statistical interaction indicating that Asian Americans and Latin Americans differ in the way they perceive crowding in comparison to their fellow Anglo-American and African American citizens, all four ethnic groups suffer similar, negative psychological distress sequelae of high-density housing. These results hold independently of household income.

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Spirituality and its relationship to mental health outcomes (self-concept and coping style), familial attitudes (family climate and attitudes toward parenting), and satisfaction with social support was examined among African American women in recovery from substance abuse. Using the Spiritual Well-Being Scale as a measure of spirituality, the median split method was used to divide a sample of 146 African American women in recovery from substance abuse into high and low spirituality groups. It was found that women in the high spirituality group expressed a more positive self-concept, active coping style, perceptions of family climate, and attitudes toward parenting than women in the low spirituality group. In addition, the high spirituality group expressed greater satisfaction with their

The Marcus Alcoholism Questionnaire was administered to 66 registered nurses at a community hospital to ascertain their attitudes regarding alcoholic patients in a general hospital population. This was done to provide documentation on what nurses attitudes actually are as opposed to making an assumption about what they should be because of the high visibility of the problem of alcoholism. The author reports the results of the study and then contrasts them with information about registered nurses attitudes toward alcoholic patients at a university hospital. The article concludes with insight into contributing factors for the differences.