A behavioral study of staff attitudes toward mental illness.

65 nurses and aides completed 2 factor analyzed attitude questionnaires. Hospitalized psychiatric patients (N = 188) screened for ability to identify their staff and make valid behavioral ratings, rated their ward staff on a 55-item interpersonal behavior inventory. Relationships between perceived behavior and endorsed attitudes were examined. Restrictive attitudes were consistently related to controlling and restricting behavior. Protective Benevolence was related to such behaviors as aloofness, distance, and dishonesty. Hence, some attitudes were related to behaviors which were congruent with the endorsed attitude, some attitudes were related to seemingly incongruent behaviors, while other attitudes had no significant behavioral correlates. A new attitude area, highly related to outgoing interpersonal behavior, was identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crisis intervention training program: Influence on staff attitudes in a postacute residential brain injury rehabilitation setting.

Purpose/Objective: Acquired brain injury produces a host of behavioral changes, and specialized training in proper management of these behaviors is essential to resolve crises and calm aggressive clients. This study was conducted to determine whether crisis intervention training was effective in increasing staff comfort with difficult client behaviors in a residential rehabilitation program for individuals with postacute acquired brain injury and whether changes would be maintained over time. Research Method/ Design: Twenty-five rehabilitation staff members participated in Nonviolent Crisis Intervention training and completed the Rehabilitation Situations Inventory before training, immediately following completion of the program, and 1 month later. Results: Immediately following completion of the program, participants reported increased comfort when faced with client behaviors related to motivation and adherence, sexuality, and aggression and when interacting with other staff and client families. Changes in comfort level with sexual situations, aggression, and staff/staff interactions were maintained 1 month post training. Conclusions/Implications: These results suggest that crisis intervention training is effective in increasing levels of staff comfort with difficult situations commonly experienced in the rehabilitation setting and the changes are maintained following training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An introduction to psychologists treating medically ill patients: Competent practice and seeking credentials in organized health care settings for routine or incidental practice.

Psychology has been recognized as a health care science and profession, and psychologists have been working clinically with medically ill patients and within organized health care settings and hospitals for decades. The potentially daunting environment of organized health care should be seen by psychology as an opportunity to further develop and expand its scope of practice. With knowledge of that environment's rules, regulations, ethics, bylaws, and traditions, the clinically competent psychologist who is first seeking to practice in hospitals should succeed alongside psychologists with busy practices who are already exclusively or occasionally within an organized health care setting or medical facility. This article reviews issues of competency, credentialing, privileges, bylaws, and practice expansion to guide psychologists toward a successful hospital practice with medically ill patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job attitudes in mangement: III. Perceived deficiencies in need fulfillment asa function of line versus staff type of job.

This study focused on differences in perceptions of the degree of fulfillment and importance of several types of psychological needs associated with line versus staff types of management jobs. Data were provided from a questionnaire, and the nation-wide sample of respondents included 1802 managers from a wide variety of types of companies. Results showed: (a) Line managers perceived greater need fulfillment than staff managers, with the largest line-staff differences occurring in the Esteem and Self-Actualization need areas. (b) Line and staff managers did not differ on the importance they attached to each type of need, with the exception of Autonomy needs which staff managers considered more important. (c) Effects of the line-staff variable were smaller than effects of the variable of vertical level of position within the management hierarchy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dimensions in the perception of psychiatric patients by hospital staff.

Agreement among psychiatric staff and the dimensions underlying such agreement in the perception of psychiatric patients were investigated using 2 Q-sorts, a Behavior (B) deck and an Interpersonal Characteristics (IC) deck. 11 patients were each rated by 5-8 judges. Mean global agreement (r) about patients ranged from .22 to .52 on the B deck, from .20 to .43 on the IC deck; there were significant differences (p     

A multiplant factor analysis of employees' attitudes toward their company.

Is an attitude questionnaire designed to measure a specific attitude unifactorial? If not, what is the nature of the factors? 735 mailed questionnaires, representing a 50% return, were analyzed. Although designed to measure one thing, attitude toward the company, it was found to contain a large general factor of general attitude or bias toward the company. 1 of the other 3 factors found was respect for personal rights; the 3rd was opportunity for self improvement. The factorial structure of employees' work attitudes may be more complex than previously thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The formation of positive attitudes toward group members.

"Three-member groups of children played a game in which some members were rewarded and others were not. On a later sociometric test, outside of the game situation, rewarded Ss chose a significantly greater proportion of their fellow group members than did the nonrewarded Ss. These results were predicted from general principles. of S-R learning theory." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A scale measuring attitudes toward working for the government.

To develop a measure of attitudes toward government employment, a preliminary scale administered to 173 college students was item analyzed and then tried out on 493 government employees and 299 private industry employees. A final scale was selected that includes 70 items that discriminate between satisfied government and private industry employees in professional and managerial positions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perfectionism dimensions, perfectionistic attitudes, dependent attitudes, and depression in psychiatric patients and university students.

P. L. Hewitt and G. L. Flett's (1991b) model of perfectionism dimensions (i.e., self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism) was compared with A. T. Beck's model (G. P. Brown & A.T. Beck, 2002) of dysfunctional attitudes (i.e., perfectionistic attitudes [PA] and dependent attitudes [DA]) in predicting depression in 70 psychiatric patients and 280 university students. Socially prescribed perfectionism uniquely predicted both PA and DA. Dysfunctional attitudes failed to consistently predict additional variance in depression beyond perfectionism dimensions (and vice versa). Evidence for Hewitt and Flett's specific vulnerability hypothesis and Beck's specific cognitive vulnerability hypothesis was equivocal. Beck's conceptualization of perfectionism as a unitary cognitive style obscures important information by overlooking the distinction between the self-related and socially based features of perfectionism. Hewitt and Flett's conceptualization of perfectionism as 3 distinct personality traits allows for precise conclusions by recognizing the differential contribution of the self-related and socially based features of perfectionism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Desire for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide in palliative cancer care.

Objective: To investigate the attitudes of terminally ill individuals toward the legalization of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and to identify those who would personally desire such a death. Design: In the Canadian National Palliative Care Survey, semistructured interviews were administered to 379 patients who were receiving palliative care for cancer. Patients who expressed a desire for physician-hastened death were followed prospectively. Main Outcome Measures: Attitudes toward the legalization of euthanasia or PAS were determined, as was the personal interest in receiving a hastened death. Demographic and clinical characteristics were also recorded, including a 22-item structured interview of symptoms and concerns. Results: There were 238 participants (62.8%) who believed that euthanasia and/or PAS should be legalized, and 151 (39.8%) who would consider making a future request for a physician-hastened death. However, only 22 (5.8%) reported that, if legally permissible, they would initiate such a request right away, in their current situations. This desire for hastened death was associated with lower religiosity (p = .010), reduced functional status (p = .024), a diagnosis of major depression (p     

Review of Group therapy for medically ill patients.

Reviews the book, Group therapy for medically ill patients edited by James L. Spira (see record 1997-97516-000). This book provides information on group psychotherapy for the management of acute and chronically ill medical patients. The text is divided into sections dealing with illness prevention, threats-to-life illnesses, and maladaptive health behaviors. According to the reviewer, this book lacks comprehensiveness and only its reference sections serve as a means to redirect the aggressive reader to a foundation and expansion for each topic. In addition, it may cover too little while attempting to cover a great deal. However, this text serves as a convenient, albeit incomplete reference and is a worthy addition to the clinician's library. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The attitudes of West Texas College students toward school integration.

Attitudes were assessed by means of the California F Scale and Integration Attitude scale in an attempt to determine the relation of school integration attitudes, authoritarianism, and school classification. "… it may be concluded that there is a generally positive attitude toward integration… thus easing the widely expressed fear… when integration comes." Discrepancy was obtained between student and parental attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of a sentence completion test in measuring attitudes toward superiors and subordinates.

"A sentence-completion test designed to measure attitudes toward superiors and subordinates was administered to 312 Air Force cadets in advanced training. The test was scored with acceptable reliability, and showed a correlation of .32 with a direct attitude measure of the same dimension, and of .27 with an indirect measure based on an information test. Interpretation of these values is restricted due to a correlation of -.45 with a direct scale of alienation, and the absence of significant correlations with reputational criterion measures." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and validation of a scale for measuring cynical attitudes toward college.

The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a new measure of undergraduate student cynicism--the Cynical Attitudes Toward College Scale (CATCS). In Study 1, the authors split data collected from 1,049 students representing 3 diverse college populations into development and confirmation samples. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the authors (a) developed an 18-item measurement model reflecting 4 reliable dimensions of student cynicism-policy, academic, social, and institutional; (b) demonstrated cross-sample generalizability; and (c) established convergent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, the authors showed the CATCS's ability to discriminate among diverse groups of students predicted to differ on the 4 subscales as well as to predict future academic outcomes. Practical applications of the CATCS are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of patients' relationships with peers and staff on their psychiatric treatment.

"The major findings of this research is that a patient's relationship with his peers and his physician relate to the type of treatment program he receives as well or better than indices of his social class or his psychiatric diagnosis or prognosis." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual and group correlates of attitudes toward work-related changes.

Questionnaire and personnel file data were obtained from 278 workers. "Employees may perceive change as a source of threat to social aspects of their job, as indicated both by the less favorable attitudes of females and by the negative correlation between group cohesiveness and Group Change scores. Situational factors, manifested in supervisory attitudes and group cohesiveness, appear to be important conditioners of change attitudes in the work group. Individual differences in attitudes toward change may reflect differences in the capacity to adjust to change conditions. Finally, readiness for change may be related to a complex of needs including variety, status, and self-expression at work." From Psyc Abstracts 36:05:5LH38T. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Similes Preference Inventory: Development of a structured measure of the tendency toward variety.

The aim was to develop a structured measure of the active, interoceptive form of tendency toward variety that would be more reliable and simpler than novelty of productions, which is the thematic apperception measure currently in use. A highly reliable set of 54 items was devised and called the Similes Preference Inventory (SPI). Each of the items presented the beginning of a common simile, with 5 alternative endings, 1 of which was to be endorsed on the basis of preference. The 5 endings differed in degree of novelty. As expected, the relationship between SPI and novelty of productions is substantial, and both measures show very similar patterns of external correlates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of stress on expressed attitudes toward self and others.

"There were two main phases of this study: (a) prestress administration of tests of acceptance of self and others, and (b) the stress phase during which tests of acceptance of self and others were readministered… . It was predicted that following introduction of stress, Ss would: (a) express liking for more pictures of people, (b) rate others more favorably, and (c) make significant changes in their self-ratings… . All three hypotheses were supported by the data… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)