The effect of disaster on the health and well-being of older women.

Relatively little attention has been paid to the post-disaster health status and well-being of older persons. The data discussed in this article were gathered through use of a retrospective cohort survey five years following a major flood in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. The subsample of women sixty-five years and older used in this analysis is composed of 122 female victims and forty-five controls from the same communities. The instruments used to measure mental status included Langner's 22-Item Scale, Zung's Self-rating Depression Scale, and a modified Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SCL-90). Additional items related to self-perceptions of health status, to influence of the flood on health and well-being, and to other issues. Significant differences occurred in self-perceptions, including state of mind after the flood (p less than .001), distress during recovery (p less than .001), quality of life after the flood (p less than .001), and frequency of thinking about the flood matters (p less than .025). Use of the instruments designed to assess mental status did not indicate greater levels of anxiety or depression in elderly victims as compared to non-victims.

The outcomes of mental health training programs: a review of the literature.

In these times of fiscal austerity, educators are asked increasingly to justify their programs. This review of literature indicates there are few controlled studies focusing on outcomes of mental health training programs, largely because the goals of training programs have been poorly identified and/or infrequently used as a basis for evaluation. In addition, these studies lack adequate criteria of success and standardized measures of success. Educators are, therefore, unable to critically evaluate the impact of the trained worker on patient care.

Factors related to the successful performance of psychiatric aides.

Psychiatric aides play a vital role in providing daily care for the mentally ill. Yet despite their importance in the mental health system, little research has been done into the selection, hiring, training, and retention of aides. In the first phase of a two-phase study of aides in psychiatric centers in New York State, the authors used several data instruments on four major populations of aides and supervisors. The authors isolated several characteristics, notably sex of the aide and relationship with the supervisor, that seem to be associated with tenure in the position. The implications of the study for the training of aides and for future research are briefly discussed.

Explaining the increased arrest rate among mental patients: the changing clientele of state hospitals.

The arrest rates of nearly 2,000 psychiatric patients released from psychiatric centers in 1968 and those of nearly 2,000 patients released in 1975 were compared with the arrest rates of a group of 5,000 patients studied 25 years earlier. In general, arrest rates among the two recent samples were considerably higher than general population rates, primarily because of the large proportion of patients previously arrested. Other characteristics related to subsequent arrest were age and admitting diagnosis. One additional finding was that the number of patients with prior arrests had increased markedly over the years.