ABSTRACT
The usefulness of psychological training for health professionals dealing with terminally ill cancer patients is becoming more widely recognized, but little has been done to elaborate its content and form. Of special interest is the study of the effectiveness of brief psychological training groups and the quality of treatment to be achieved. The principal aim of the training group assessed here was to develop a better understanding of death and dying issues and ways to cope with them. The present study reports the attitudes of participants, assessed 1 year after the end of training in order to investigate the possible consolidation of the immediate posttraining effectiveness reported previously. Subjects (n = 78) who attended the training groups were compared to a control group (n = 42). Attitudes about oneself, illness and death, occupation, personal growth, and professional relationships were assessed with a semantic differential questionnaire before training, after training, and 1 year later. Results show a significant reduction of the positive effect assessed just after the training. While attitudes moved significantly to the positive pole immediately after the end of the training, 1 year later the reverse phenomenon is noted. These data suggest the necessity for improving the effectiveness of short psychological training proposed to help health care professionals dealing with terminally ill cancer patients.
Subject(s)
Attitude of Health Personnel , Inservice Training/standards , Personnel, Hospital/education , Psychology/education , Terminal Care/psychology , Adult , Attitude to Death , Female , Humans , Male , Personnel, Hospital/psychology , Program Evaluation , Self Concept , Semantic DifferentialABSTRACT
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), a four-point, 14-item questionnaire, was tested as a screening method for adjustment disorders and major depressive disorders in a sample of 210 cancer in-patients. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed, giving the relationship between the true positive rate (sensitivity) and the false positive rate (1-specificity). This makes it possible to choose an optimal cut-off point that takes into account the costs and benefits of treatment of psychological distress. For screening for major depressive disorders only, a cut-off score of 19 gave 70% sensitivity and 75% specificity. For screening for adjustment disorders and major depressive disorders taken together, a cut-off score of 13 gave 75% sensitivity and 75% specificity. HADS appears in this study to be a simple, sensitive and specific tool for screening for psychiatric disorders in an oncology in-patient population.
Subject(s)
Adjustment Disorders/diagnosis , Depressive Disorder/diagnosis , Neoplasms/psychology , Personality Tests , Referral and Consultation , Sick Role , Adaptation, Psychological , Adjustment Disorders/psychology , Adult , Aged , Depressive Disorder/psychology , Female , Humans , Interview, Psychological , Male , Middle Aged , PsychometricsABSTRACT
The usefulness of a psychological training for health professionals dealing with terminally ill cancer patients is beginning to be widely recognized, but little has been done to elaborate its content and form. The study of the effectiveness of brief psychological training groups is of special interest for the quality of treatment to be achieved. The principal aim of the training group, assessed here, was to develop a better understanding of death and dying issues and ways to cope with them. Subjects (n = 122) who attended the training groups were compared to a control group (n = 43). Attitudes about oneself, toward illness and death, occupation, personal growth, and professional relationship were assessed with a semantic differential questionnaire before and after training. Results show a significant change in attitudes for the trained subjects. Subjects reporting more negative attitudes at the beginning of the training were those which benefit the most. The attitude change is a first step aimed at assessing the effectiveness of psychological training; it will be completed by the assessment of long term attitudes and behavior modifications of the health care professionals trained.
Subject(s)
Health Occupations/education , Inservice Training/organization & administration , Neoplasms/psychology , Terminal Care/psychology , Attitude to Health , HumansABSTRACT
Urological and neurological investigations were carried out in a homogeneous population of 77 hemiplegic patients treated in a neurological rehabilitation department, in an attempt to identify the etiology of secondary bladder dysfunction in such cases, with the aid of computerized data. The following conclusions were reached. Bladder retention was proved to result invariably from a mechanical obstacle. Permanent bladder incontinence was always due to urinary infection and/or mental deterioration. Exclusively nocturnal incontinence was shown to be a "pseudo-incontinence". It was shown that an uninhibited bladder played no part in incontinence but was always present in cases of an urgent need to urinate.
Subject(s)
Cerebrovascular Disorders/complications , Urination Disorders/etiology , Adult , Aged , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Urination Disorders/physiopathology , UrodynamicsABSTRACT
In vascular hemiplegia, motricity of the upper and lower limbs can be assessed from the examination of a limited number of movements which have been selected by a statistical procedure. For these movements the scores may be weighted on the basis of progress achieved over 2, 4 and 6 months. From the weighted, summed and averaged scores, a motricity index may be derived. This index gives a rapid overall indication of a patient's progress in motor recovery, permits comparisons between different patients and the establishment of correlations with other clinical data and the values obtained by paraclinical techniques.
