Managing HIV-positive and AIDS risks: educational and psychosocial resource assessment.

A needs assessment survey reveals many staff nurses incorrectly estimate the HIV contagion risk, inadequately follow universal precaution mandates, and are often unaware of available information and counseling resources. Nurses want current, reliable HIV-AIDS related information and counseling from credible, accessible, and readily available sources. Colleagues, families, and friends' attitudes decidedly influence nurses' capacity to cope emotionally.

Hospitalized pregnant psychotic women: characteristics and treatment issues.

The medical records of 35 pregnant women hospitalized for nonorganic, psychotic symptoms were reviewed to determine their demographic and psychosocial characteristics as well as patterns of assessment, treatment, and disposition. The review showed that the majority of the women had been hospitalized five times or more and lacked social and economic supports. Almost two-thirds had had two or more pregnancies, but only two were living with their children. The review also showed that the basic issues of birth control methods and infant custody rights were not addressed by the hospital treatment program. The authors urge that discussions of birth control methods be included in the treatment plans of pregnant psychotic patients and that recommendations regarding infant custody be recorded in the patients' charts.

The family's functioning with chronic illness in the mother: the spouse's perspective.

While previous research has studied the impact of chronic illness on the patient or spouse, the impact on the marriage, the child, the parent-child relationship, and the family's functioning have been relatively ignored. To date ther is no known study of the impact of a mother's chronic illness on the family. The purpose of the current exploratory study was to test a set of interrelated hypotheses about family functioning with the mother's chronic illness from the spouse's perspective based on a family systems perspective. Data were obtained from standardized questionnaires from 48 fathers with young school-age children whose wife had either breast cancer, diabetes, or fibrocystic breast disease. Results of a path analysis revealed that the number of illness demands the father experienced was a significant predictor of his level of depression. More demands resulted in higher depression scores. Marital adjustment was significantly affected by both the father's level of depression as well as by his wife's type of disease. Spouses of women with breast cancer had significantly higher levels of marital adjustment than did partners of the other women. More depressed spouses had lower levels of marital adjustment. Both illness demands and level of marital adjustment significantly predicted the type of coping behavior the family used. More frequent illness demands and higher levels of marital adjustment were associated with familial introspection, that is, coping behavior characterized by frequent feedback, reflection, and discussion in the family. The quality of the father-child relationship was significantly affected by this type of coping behavior. Families characterized as introspective had fathers who reported more frequent interchange with their children.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)