Correlates of caregiving burden in schizophrenia:A cross-sectional,comparative analysis from India

Schizophrenia is a global mental health issue that has serious implications not only for the person with the diagnosis, but for caregivers as well. In Asian societies, the family tends to be the “natural” caregiver in such situations and the caregiving function is usually shouldered by parents or the spouse. Asian communities tend to be more closely knit, and it would be expected that more social support would be available to those facing distressing circumstances such as managing the demands of a person with mental illness. This study seeks to explore the perceived burden in family caregivers of persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, the coping strategies that come into play, as well as the extent of social support available to them. Standardized instruments were administered to collect data at a teaching cum treatment facility in south India. A quantitative methodology was used to analyze cross-sectional data from 75 primary caregivers of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and a reference group of caregivers of patients with general medical ailments. Results indicate higher levels of burden, low social support, and poor coping in the caregivers of people with schizophrenia than the reference group. Implications for intervention with caregivers are also discussed in this article.     

Structural Adjustment and Poverty—Blunting the Criticisms

Book reviewed in this article: Adjustment and Poverty: Options and Choices. By Frances Stewart Structural Adjustment and the Working Poor in Zimbabwe: Studies on Labom Women Informal Sector Workers and Health. Edited by Peter Gibbon Structural Adjustment and Ethnicity in Nigeria. By Eghosa Osaghae The Social Impact of Adjustment Operations. By the Operations Evaluations Department, World Bank     

Cultural value orientations, internalized homophobia, and accommodation in romantic relationships

In the present study, we examined the impact of cultural value orientations (i.e., the personally oriented value of individualism, and the socially oriented values of collectivism, familism, romanticism, and spiritualism) on accommodation (i.e., voice and loyalty, rather than exit and neglect, responses to partners' anger or criticism) in heterosexual and gay relationships; and we examined the impact of internalized homophobia (i.e., attitudes toward self, other, and disclosure) on accommodation specifically in gay relationships. A total of 262 heterosexuals (102 men and 162 women) and 857 gays (474 men and 383 women) participated in the present study. Consistent with hypotheses, among heterosexuals and gays, socially oriented values were significantly and positively related to accommodation (whereas the personally oriented value of individualism was unrelated to accommodation); and among gays in particular, internalized homophobia was significantly and negatively related to accommodation. Implications for the study of heterosexual and gay relationships are discussed.     

On The Method of Discrete Probability Distributions in Risk and Reliability Calculations–Application to Seismic Risk Assessment

If the point of view is adopted that in calculations of real-world phenomena we almost invariably have significant uncertainty in the numerical values of our parameters, then, in these calculations, numerical quantities should be replaced by probability distributions and mathematical operations between these quantities should be replaced by analogous operations between probability distributions. Also, practical calculations one way or another always require discretization or truncation. Combining these two thoughts leads to a numerical approach to probabilistic calculations having great simplicity, power, and elegance. The philosophy and technique of this approach is described, some pitfalls are pointed out, and an application to seismic risk assessment is outlined.     

The Achievement Factor in Igbo Receptivity to Industrialization

On a expliqué les différences de développement économique entre les trois principaux groupes culturels nigériens - Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo - par l'existence dans leurs sociétés traditionnelles d'évaluations différentes de l'ambition et de l'effort personnels. Adoptant une autre perspective que l'approche psychologique de McClelland sur le niveau de réalisation, l'auteur indique que l'oeuvre d'une collectivité serait en rapport plus étroit avec le caractére de son édifice social qu'il ne Test avec la structure de la personnalité de ses membres.     

Effect of urbanization on surface water chemistry in south-central Texas

The use of state factors can adequately describe the biogeochemistry and geochemistry of relatively undisturbed surface waters. Watersheds with increasing proportions of urban and suburban land use, particularly in sub-tropical, semi-arid and arid urban areas, that utilize irrigation for turfgrass and landscaping may have a low flow urban signature that relates to the source water used by municipal water suppliers. We examined thirteen watersheds; four with waste water treatment plants (24–67% urbanization), four rural (< 30% urbanization) and five urban (> 30% urbanization) in a humid sub-tropical oak savannah in south-central Texas. Three of our urban and one of our rural watersheds displayed the signature of municipal tap water. Three out of four watersheds with waste water treatment plants displayed the signature of treated sewage effluent. We suggest as a result of this study that the chemistry of municipal tap water particularly that with high sodium and bicarbonate, used in urban watersheds for irrigating turfgrass and landscapes may have detrimental effects on base flow stream water quality after it has interacted with watershed soils.