Pulling together: building a community debriefing team.

1. Research shows that many emergency workers are affected physically and emotionally by critical incident stress. 2. Debriefings conducted by trained team members are an effective method to mitigate the impact of critical incident stress. A debriefing is a structured, time-limited group intervention. 3. Cooperation among community agencies is essential for the development and effective functioning of a critical incident stress debriefing team. 4. Several teams in Illinois have organized to form a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Network. The Illinois network is part of an international organization composed of critical incident stress debriefing providers.     

The availability of personal and external coping resources: Thier impact on job stress and employee attitudes during organizational restructuring

This study examines the relationships among personal coping resources, social support, external coping resources, job stressors and job strains in a sample of 110 American Telephone and Telegraph employees undergoing a major organizational restructuring. The study expanded on a model suggested by Ashford (1988) by defining another category of coping resources that employees may draw upon to deal with the stressors and strains which occur during major organizational changes. External coping resources were defined as those which provided employees with a sense of 'vicarious control' in stressful situations. Results indicated that personal coping resources, social support and external coping resources had a direct effect upon job stressor and strain levels. No 'buffering' effect of these coplng resources was found. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that external coping resources added to the prediction of job stressors and strains even when pertonal coping resources and social support were entered first into the prediction questions.     

A magical model to predict individual differences in mood change

We tested a mathematical model of psychological well-being (PWB) with data from a paradigm that included a negative mood induction followed by a positive induction. The propositions from the model encompass the hypothesis that the relative mood prior to either induction has implications for the magnitude of subsequent induction effects, such that relative mood is defined by current mood as a ratio of the prevailing mood that is predicted by the model. The findings confirm the hypothesis that the relative mood at baseline predicts mood change in a nonoverlapping time period, even after control for potentially mediating variables.     

The epidemiology of schizophrenia among Caribbean-born and first- and second-generation migrants in Britain

The study of migrants in their new environments is often a useful means of investigating environmental influences on health. Migrants have been found to develop higher rates of mental illness compared to their counterparts who remain at home. These deleterious effects of migration have been attributed to selection factors and stressful life experiences. Migration from an agricultural and traditional society to an urban industrial society where value systems can be demanding, often leads to role strain and role conflict. These kinds of incongruities are the beginning of a series of stressful experiences that contribute to poor health/mental health status. The extent to which one experiences stress is dependent on a number of factors. First, it depends on the perceived difference between home and the new environment. Second, it depends on the cultural homogeneity of the new environment, that is, the extent to which the migrant is readily assimilated into the new culture or is able to maintain a traditional lifestyle by living in an ethnic enclave, and the psychological resources available to successfully access services in the new environment. This paper examines the rates, incidence, and prevalence of schizophrenia found in Caribbean-born immigrants to Britain, and first- and second-generation people of Caribbean background born in Britain. It is argued that Afro-Caribbean people in England are overrepresented in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Factors that may contribute to this finding range from unemployment, social disadvantage status, social adversity, racism in the health and criminal justice systems, and misdiagnosis.This paper was completed when the author served as Distinguished Visiting Professor-William Patterson College, Wayne, New Jersey.     

ADDITIVE MODELS WITH PREDICTORS SUBJECT TO MEASUREMENT ERROR

This paper develops a likelihood‐based method for fitting additive models in the presence of measurement error. It formulates the additive model using the linear mixed model representation of penalized splines. In the presence of a structural measurement error model, the resulting likelihood involves intractable integrals, and a Monte Carlo expectation maximization strategy is developed for obtaining estimates. The method's performance is illustrated with a simulation study.     

Small Business Success Among Men- and Women-Owned Firms in Rural Areas1

Abstract Rural women have difficulty finding good jobs. Ownership of small businesses offers an alternative but the sales and income of women-owned firms are significantly lower than those of men-owned firms. Compared with men, women owners are more likely to operate smaller and newer businesses; however, these differences do not completely account for the gap in gross sales between men- and women-owned businesses. The strongest influences on business success are firm size, corporate status, and industrial sector. Though significant, the owner's gender is less important than these organizational characteristics. The factors influencing success of small businesses generally are the same for men- and women-owned businesses. More research on business networks and the start-up phase of small businesses is necessary for a better understanding of the sources of gender differences in success.