Employers' knowledge and attitudes regarding organizational policy toward workers caring for aging family members

The study examined employers' knowledge of and attitudes toward working carers who care for aging family members. The study was based on the ecological model. One hundred employers were interviewed using structured questionnaires and 13 employers by additional in-depth interviews. Both research instruments included areas of disruption to the organization, existing policies, and feasibility as to developing appropriate policies to support working carers. Results show that caregiving caused a disruption in workers' functioning mainly by being absent, leaving work early, and coming to work late. Usually, there was "no policy," and half of the employers did not support introducing such a policy. Women managers in public organizations, who had less seniority and less previous experience with working-carers, tended to be more positive about supportive policies. Recommendations are included.     

Family system of help and aid against the background of social transformation

This paper sums up the results of empirical research into the intergenerational solidarity in Czech families which should help to answer the question whether the family or the kinship system can discharge their self-supportive potential adequately under the pressures of the transformation processes during the 1990s. It also describes the macro-social framework, i.e. the socio-political, economic and demographic context that influences the quantitative and qualitative aspects of kinship assistance. Overall, the paper provides a general picture of informal support systems as the basis for the specific recommendation for practical social work.     

The Implication of Wife's Occupational Attainment for Husband's Class Identification*

Drawing upon research indicating that the subjective class identifications of working wives are to a considerable extent the result of their own occupational attainments, this study seeks to determine if husbands of working wives also derive perceptions of status from their wives' occupational attainments. Regression analysis is conducted on a subset of husbands of working wives in three General Social Surveys gathered from 1973 to 1975. A husband's level of subjective class identification is unaffected by the occupational achievements of his working wife. If husbands and wives derive perceptions of status from different sources, then they may not perceive themselves as sharing the same level of status in society.     

Assessment of college students with the revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2): Sociodemographic characteristics and relationship

ABSTRACT

This paper presents prevalence data gathered from the fast-growing metropolitan southeast in the United States college campus representative sample through an on-line 28-question survey on the sexual, physical, and psychological harm in university/college dating and domestic violence relationships. The study questions were 1) what is the prevalence of dating and domestic violence on college campus? and 2) what are the characteristics of those affected by it? The results, derived from the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2) and the dating experiences survey, reveal that college students’ gender identity, sexual orientation, grade point average (GPA), number of missing classes, current relationship status that they were associated with dating and domestic violence among college students. Statistically significant relationships were found between sexual violence and participants’ sexual orientation and the length of their romantic relationship as well as physical violence, including hitting and shoving, and participants’ sexual orientation and their class attendance. Institutional responses to prevent campus violence through prevention training, education, and intervention services could lower the prevalence of dating and help alleviate the adverse effects that it could have on college students.     

Representations of Jewish Childhood From 1950s Communist Romania in Memoirs by Women Émigré Authors to the United States

ABSTRACT

This article examines the memoirs of three Jewish women – Marianne Hirsch, Anca Vlasopolos, and Haya Leah Molnar – to understand how they remembered childhood in 1950s communist Bucharest. I first show how Marianne Hirsch’s part-memoir, part-critical book, Family Frames, uses her personal experiences to theorize tropes of transcultural dislocation as specific features of post-World War II Jewish children’s identities in 1950s Romania. I analyze how these tropes equally permeate the memoirs by two of her generation’s peers, Anca Vlasopolos and Haya Leah Molnar, highlighting how the two authors deploy them in their narratives. Overall, I show that writings of one’s 1950s childhood experiences in Bucharest by Jewish emigrées to the US offer new alternative discourses about facing the past and the present in Eastern Europe and the US by the tropes of initial transcultural, dislocating experiences at the start of their lives.     

Telehealth for Patients with Chronic Pain: Exploring a Successful and an Unsuccessful Outcome

Abstract

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for treating chronic pain, but little is known about the mechanisms that might facilitate or hinder its utility when delivered by videoconference. In a single-case experimental design, we explored the outcomes of two adults with chronic pain who were provided with videoconference-based CBT. The goal was to examine the relationship between therapeutic alliance as well as presence felt and clinical outcomes. Therapeutic alliance was high overall for both participants; however, only the successful case’s alliance ratings significantly increased over treatment. Levels of presence felt in videoconferencing were also high, but were not related to therapy outcome.     

Predicting responses to sexually aggressive stories: The role of consent,interest in sexual aggression,and overall sexual interest

Measures of interest in sexual aggression and overall sexual interest were used to predict men's responses to consensual and nonconsensual stories that contained forceful sexual content. College males (N = 108) listened to these stories and completed questionnaires assessing self‐reported sexual arousal and desire, their perceptions of the woman's enjoyment and sexual desire in the stories, their likelihood of acting like the man in the stories, and how likely they would be to read similar stories. Multiple regression analyses revealed that overall sexual interest variables were significant predictors of responses to both consensual and nonconsensual stories, while interest in sexual aggression predicted responses to only the nonconsensual story. The present study highlights the importance of considering overall sexual interest measures in sexual aggression research.     

The Baby Boomer Effect: Changing Patterns of Substance Abuse Among Adults Ages 55 and Older

Between now and 2030, the number of adults aged 65 and older in the United States will almost double, from around 37 million to more than 70 million, an increase from 12% of the U.S. population to almost 20%. It was long held that, with only a few isolated exceptions, substance abuse simply did not exist among this population. In light of the impact of the baby boom generation, this assumption may no longer be valid. The authors examined admissions of persons 55 years and older (n = 918,955) from the Treatment Episode Data Set (1998–2006). Total admissions with a primary drug problem with alcohol have remained relatively stable over this time. Admissions for problems with a primary drug other than alcohol have shown a steady and substantial increase. Clearly, data from the Treatment Episode Data Set indicate a coming wave of older addicts whose primary problem is not alcohol. The authors suspect that this wave is led primarily by the continuing emergence of the baby boomer generation.