Form C of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) scales is an 18 item, general purpose, condition-specific locus of control scale that could easily be adapted for use with any medical or health-related condition. Data from 588 patients with one of four conditions--rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, diabetes, or cancer--were utilized to establish the factor structure of Form C and to establish the reliability and validity of the resultant four subscales: Internality; Chance; Doctors; and Other (powerful) People. The alpha reliabilities of the subscales are adequate for research purposes. Data from the arthritis and chronic pain subjects established that the Form C subscales were moderately stable over time and possessed considerable concurrent and construct validity. Some discriminant validity of Form C with Form B of the MHLC was also demonstrated.

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We examined the categorization of the helplessness subscale of the Arthritis Helplessness Index (AHI) into clinical ranges analogous to laboratory values, and the predictive validity of these cutoff scores over a 2-year period. Data were obtained via questionnaires mailed every 6 months over 5 time periods to 368 patients who had been diagnosed as having rheumatoid arthritis. The results demonstrate that patients classified as low helpless were distinct from those classified as normal. In turn, those classified normal were distinct from high helpless patients on numerous measures of beliefs, affect, behavior, and symptom severity. Even after 2 years, the 5-item helplessness subscale identified distinct clinical courses for these 3 groups.The psychological consequences of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have received increasing attention by researchers. In the past decade, there has been a proliferation of measurement tools to assist clinicians in their assessment of patients' disease severity and

Previous research has highlighted the crucial roles that accounting plays in both the construction and development of the state. However, only limited attention has been paid to how accounting is both conceived and implemented as a technology of government. Taking a historical perspective, and through extensive archival analysis of the Canadian experience, we explore here the ways in which accounting practices were significantly expanded and elaborated over time. Progressively, accounting was successful in increasingly infiltrating the machinery of the state, resulting in greater power and influence being accorded to state accounting professionals. We contribute to existing governmentality research on accounting in two principal ways. First, we demonstrate how the territorializing power of accounting has transnational dimensions. The Canadian initiative was galvanized by simultaneous initiatives taking place in the United Kingdom, the United States, and a range of other Commonwealth nations. The similar trajectories of these various initiatives leads to a view of accounting as something that is co‐constructed across borders, a process we refer to here as transnational territorialization. Second, we demonstrate the crucial role played by key individuals in this transnational territorialization. Auditors general worked both individually and in concert to skillfully sell the evaluative potential of accounting to key power brokers in the state apparatus, thereby creating advantageous positions for themselves. This highlights the crucial role required by skillful and reflexive social agents in the elaboration of accounting technologies, something that hitherto has been underappreciated in extant literature on both auditing and governmentality.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine corporate governance and consequences of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX) in the US from a socio‐political perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe author employs neo‐liberalism and its related mentality of governmentality to develop an analysis of how corporate governance and reforms such as SOX are socially constructed through autonomous agents, including managers and accountants, and various power relationships that comprise government.FindingsThis paper theorizes that legislative reform, such as SOX, represents pervasive mechanisms of disclosure, surveillance and power, and an insurance rationality designed to manage the new and significant risks of corporate governance. A framework is established which conceptualizes SOX as the intersection of neo‐liberalism, political rationalities and governmental techniques, and accounting practices which lead to the elements of security, quantification and shareholder value. Through this framework a model of risk as governance is developed that examines SOX through technologies of the self, calculation and insurance, designed to act upon managers using knowledge about control or financial statement weaknesses. Such mechanisms identify corporate governance risks, which can be acted upon by outside experts, such as accountants.Originality/valueThe major inference from this paper is that corporate governance research in accounting should pursue new lines of inquiry, which will permit the more profitable extension of existing research. Such inquiry should focus less on empirical corporate governance factors and more on the relationships, and power constructs of corporate governance, as well as how legislative reforms employ tactics to normalize the behaviour of not only managers, but also accountants.

Data for 1997 show that three-quarters or more of employer-sponsored health plans continue to place greater restrictions on behavioral health coverage than on general medical coverage. The nature of these restrictions varies by plan type. Some improvement in the treatment of mental health/substance abuse (MH/SA) benefits in employer plans may be occurring, however. Comparisons with data from 1996 show that the proportion of plans with benefits for "alternative" types of MH/SA services, such as nonhospital residential care, has increased. Further, the proportion with special limitations on these benefits shows a modest decrease.

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