The current study explored the relationship of coping to both psychological and health parameters in 50 gay men recently (within three months) diagnosed with AIDS. Three methods of coping (active behavioral, active cognitive, and avoidance) and eight different coping strategies (positive involvement, expressive/ information seeking, reliance on others, positive understanding/create meaning, passive/ruminative, distraction, passive resignation, and solitary/passive behaviors) were assessed. Findings indicate that avoidance coping is not protecting these people from distressful feelings, mood disturbance, and concerns. The three coping methods evidenced distinctly different associations with measures of psychological and health variables. Active‐behavioral coping was related to lower total mood disturbance and higher self‐esteem, while avoidance coping was inversely related to self‐esteem and positively correlated with depression. The frequencies of specific coping strategies indicate men in this study were using cognitive strategies most frequently. Suggestions for interventions to help people cope with AIDS are given.
Six restricter type women with anorexia nervosa were interviewed regarding their pregnancies and four of the women were interviewed again three to four months following the birth of their children. Although these women were able to nutritionally sustain their fetuses during pregnancy, and there was a mitigation of their anorectic behaviors during pregnancy, all returned to their pre‐pregnancy anorectic thinking and behaviors following the births. The effects of the pregnancies on various aspects of their lives are reported, including marital relationships, body images, mood states, and cognitions. The early postpartum period is also described.
A case of a 16-year-old with aplastic anemia who presented extraordinary management problems during a 10-week hospitalization is analyzed from several perspectives. The case is viewed in the context of convergent systems which did not interface smoothly, hence the patient's "unmanageability." These convergent systems included the patient's family, the ward personnel, which included nurses, house-staff, and three attending physicians over the 10-week period, and the patient himself. The patient's medical course and psychological course are also delineated on a weekby-week basis over the course of the hospitalization.Perhaps nowhere is the attitude of parents more important than with a difficult adolescent who is hospitalized. Effective participation and a positive attitude on the part of parents are instrumental in the course of the adolescent's hospitalization and, in particular, in the effective linkage between family and staff on a medical service to support the adolescent patient (1). The following presents a case of an adolescent with aplastic anemia who was hospitalized for a bone marrow transplant. He had an extremely difficult course of hospitalization, necessitating a plethora of medical and psychological interventions. Unfortunately, even an extraordinary amount of attention and a variety of interventions did not appear to make any difference in reducing the management problems with this patient, nor in reducing his level of emotional distress.In attempting to understand the health care professionals' lack of impact on this situation, it became obvious that it was more than the case of a "difficult" or "hateful" patient (2). The unique difficulties of the family system, coupled with the unique nature of the ward this patient was on, greatly influenced the course of this patient's hospitalization and the reaction of hate toward this most unfortunate boy.
Two samples of homosexual men, 64 physicians and 58 university students, reported profound decreases in several sexual practices linked to transmission of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The physicians showed the greater reduction. When sociodemographic variables, health beliefs, feeling of control over outcome, mood, sexual interest before the AIDS epidemic, and medical care utilization were correlated with decrease and/or increase in AIDS risk behaviors, the clusters of variables most strongly correlated with change in risk behaviors differed between the physicians and students. Interventions designed to change behaviors in AIDS high-risk groups should be tailored for specific subgroups.
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