Epidemic Mycoplasma Pneumoniae Infection at a College for the Deaf

Abstract

An outbreak of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection affected up to 110 students and employees at a college for deaf students (Gallaudet). After the introduction of M. pneumoniae onto the campus in late August 1977, the disease spread slowly among the students; the last documented case occurred in mid-December. A thorough review of chart records, mail surveys, a dormitory survey, and a three-month surveillance of the student health service provided an intensive look at the epidemiology and clinical spectrum of a mild to moderately severe disease in the epidemic setting. A matched-pair analysis demonstrated a more serious clinical illness among patients with M. pneumoniae than other patients presenting with febrile respiratory illness. Appropriate antimicrobial therapy appeared to suppress a high antibody response to M. pnuemoniae. A follow-up serosurvey one year after this outbreak demonstrated diagnostic titers to M. pneumoniae in 11 of 30 patients with confirmed infection in the original epidemic.     

Aging with HIV: Historical and Intra-Community Differences in Experience of Aging with HIV

Gay men living with HIV/AIDS face a complex of health issues, including those associated with the aging process, long-term HIV infection (25 years or more), and side effects from Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART). If aging can increase marginalization, this is more likely for the aging HIV positive gay man, who is already marginalized for being queer and living with a stigmatizing disease. This article presents findings from a study of a long-running HIV support group. It locates the members, all gay men living with HIV, in a specific historical and political context to explore how feelings of loss and the struggle to sustain community affect long-term survivors and other older HIV+ gay men. We identify specific challenges presented by aging for men who contracted HIV early in the epidemic, contrasting them with those faced by men infected with the virus later in life. While both groups appear to struggle with a vision of what life could have been, had AIDS not forced loss and change, they also celebrate the community their shared plight has enabled.     

Confirming and Expanding the Usefulness of the Extended Satisfaction With Life Scale (ESWLS)

The role of stress, particularly economic hindrance,in the prediction of global life-satisfaction wascontrasted between typically younger (n = 109)and more mature (n = 66) undergraduate students. Participants completed a Personal Projects AnalysisAppraisal Matrix including six stress dimensions, aswell as a single-item measure of globallife-satisfaction. Discriminant function analysesconducted on the students' Personal Project appraisalsrevealed that project challenge and economic hindranceaccounted for 25% of the variability inlife-satisfaction for the mature students, but none ofthe stress dimensions predicted life satisfaction forthe younger students. These results indicate that therole of stress in the prediction of life-satisfactionvaries as a function of age, with project challengeand economic hindrance playing a significant role inolder students' lives. The results are discussed inrelation to the developmental context of personalprojects as life tasks and the varying contexts foracademic pursuit between mature and typically youngerundergraduate students.     

The Psychoanalytic Social Worker/The Social Work Psychoanalyst: What Shall Be Our Message?

Many social workers experience a powerful bond with their profession and with the contributions of psychoanalysis. This paper explores these bonds and demonstrates the substantial overlap, and occasional divergence, which exists between these two important fields. It is especially gratifying to see the renewed emphasis on the treatment relationship in contemporary psychoanalytic writings because the relationship has always been central to social work practice. Finally, all psychoanalytic social workers are encouraged to invest themselves in transferring the legacy of their work to beginning social workers, social work students, and the generations of social workers that will follow them.     

The Colour of Poverty: A Study of the Poverty of Ethnic and Immigrant Groups in Canada

This article uses a case-study approach in relation to the migration of Indian doctors to the UK in order to illustrate the complexity and multi-levelled nature of explanations for international migration.
It argues that whereas, at the level of discursive consciousness, the movement of Indian doctors to the UK appears an economically driven and shapedphenomenon akin to other examples of highly skilled international migration, when the practical consciousness of participants is investigated through qualitative methods, the migration can also be seen as a cultural and social phenomenon.
Although migrants move to "better themselves", they also make choices based on factors such as the kind of novels they read as children or "taken for granted" familial obligations rooted in the everyday life of their culture.     

Lot sensitive double sampling plan (lsdsp)

A sampling plan is derived for compliance testing providing consumer protection.     

Knowledge and Attitudes of University Health Service Clients about Genital Herpes: Implications for Patient Education and Counseling

Abstract

Genital herpes virus infection is an important target for health education efforts because of its apparently rising incidence in the college student population and because it can have potentially serious psychological as well as medical consequences. In order to better understand the health education and counseling needs of students, the present study surveyed knowledge and attitudes about genital herpes of 190 university students using a gynecology clinic and of 161 students using a general medical clinic. The students were found to have a high degree of familiarity with the disease, its cause, and mode of transmission, but tended to view the consequences of the disease as more severe than is actually warranted by the common medical complications. There was some degree of misinformation about prevention and treatment of the disease and some negative attitudes about patients suffering from it, but the survey respondents endorsed a high level of responsible behavior with regard to the disease and expressed some optimism about the possibility of adapting to it. These findings suggest specific misconceptions about genital herpes that might be amenable to a mass education approach. They also suggest the need for a counseling program that centers around reasonable reassurance and appropriately positive psychological and medical management for newly diagnosed patients.     

The North American Career Development Partnership: Experiment in International Collaboration

This article describes how career development programs became the focus of an international partnership between the United States and Canada. Beginning in 1976 in the United States, the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC) and its State Occupational Information Coordinating Committees (SOICCs) developed training and materials that promote the use of occupational and labor market information. Similarly, in the early 1970s, Canada began to explore the feasibility of creating a computer‐based career information delivery system. What follows is the story of an unusual and significant international collaboration. It concludes with identification of lessons learned.