Assessment of client/patient satisfaction: development of a general scale

The development and shaping of a general scale to assess client/patient satisfaction is reported. The scale, the CSQ, was constructed empirically by the authors. The CSQ is a response to several problems and issues that currently cloud the measurement of consumer satisfaction in health and human service systems. These problems and issues in assessing satisfaction are described. Finally, we present practical expriences to date in using the CSQ along with general psychometric qualities of the scale and correlations of CSQ results with client characteristics, service utilization, and service outcomes.     

Unpacking intergenerational (IG) programs for policy implications: A systematic review of the literature

Intergenerational care is a program where both the younger and older generations are receiving programmed care in an environment where activities and resources are shared between them. Anecdotally, an intergenerational care program takes on many forms. This paper presents a systematic literature review of intergenerational care models. Our findings are relevant to policy makers as the paper highlights the opportunities to create an age-friendly environment by introducing intergenerational models in Australia, where intergenerational care development is in its infancy. Future research will help articulate the personal, social, and economic value of intergenerational care.     

Adolescents' Judgments of Doubly Deviant Peers: Implications of Intergroup and Intragroup Dynamics for Disloyal and Overweight Group Members

Group membership, loyalty, and weight are highly relevant for adolescent peer evaluations at school. This research tested how in‐group/out‐group membership affected judgments of peers who deviated from social norms for weight and loyalty. Two hundred and forty 11–13‐year‐olds (49 percent female; 94 percent Caucasian) judged two in‐group or out‐group peers: one was normative (loyal and average weight) and the other was non‐normative (i.e., ‘deviant’). The deviant target was overweight, disloyal to their own group (school), or both (‘doubly deviant’). Derogation of overweight relative to average weight peers was greater if they were in‐group rather than out‐group members, revealing a strong ‘black sheep effect’ for overweight peers. Disloyal out‐group deviants were judged favorably, but this effect was eliminated if they were doubly deviant, suggesting that their disloyalty was insufficient to overcome the overweight stigma. Consistent with developmental subjective group dynamics theory, effects of group membership and types of deviance on adolescents’ favorability toward peers were mediated by adolescents’ perceptions of how well the deviant members would ‘fit’ with the in‐group school. Implications for theory and strategies to reduce peer exclusion, particularly weight stigmatization, are considered.     

Sensegiving,Leadership, and Nonprofit Crises: How Nonprofit Leaders Make and Give Sense to Organizational Crisis

This study examined how 43 nonprofit leaders across 15 U.S. states make sense of organizational crises in nonprofit contexts, as well as what they think effective leadership is during crises. Findings revealed perceived nonprofit organizational crises emerging from disasters, disruption of mission delivery, internal stakeholder challenges, and unanticipated occurrences, while six major characteristics of effective crisis leadership emerged including being a team player, being strategic, being transparent with stakeholders, being quick to respond, being self-composed, and being prepared. Comparisons to previous empirical investigations of nonprofit leadership and crisis response yielded additional insights into effective crisis leader sensemaking in nonprofit contexts—most notably that nonprofit crisis leaders leverage sensegiving frameworks of instrumental knowledge, normalcy, and dynamic learning. Further analysis demonstrated these diagnostic and prognostic sensegiving activities to be more clearly observed than motivational sensegiving activities across crisis leaders in nonprofit contexts.     

Parents Dilemmas in Sharing Donor Insemination Conception Stories with their Children

Parents of children conceived by gamete (sperm or egg) donation often find it challenging to share donor conception stories with their children. This study reports findings of a qualitative study of families with children conceived by donor insemination in New Zealand, a country where the policy and practice of sharing information in donor insemination is advanced. Almost all parents had told, or planned to tell, their children about their origins, but some parents faced considerable dilemmas around disclosure. Parents need to be given support and guidance as they inform their children about their donor family history. © 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2007 National Children's Bureau.     

Coordination when there are restricted and unrestricted options

One might expect that, in pure coordination games, coordination would become less frequent as the number of options increases. Contrary to this expectation, we report an experiment which found more frequent coordination when the option set was unrestricted than when it was restricted. To try to explain this result, we develop a method for eliciting the general rules that subjects use to identify salient options in restricted and unrestricted sets. We find that each such rule, if used by all subjects, would generate greater coordination in restricted sets. However, subjects tend to apply different rules to restricted and unrestricted sets.     

(Mis)Understanding Abortion Regret

The debate about abortion regret rests on competing assumptions about women's attachment to pregnancy. Antiabortion claimants argue women always attach to pregnancy (inevitably regretting abortion), while abortion rights supporters counter that women do not attach to pregnancies they choose to terminate (feeling relief instead). Neither assumption explains women's experience; research shows that attachment is discursively produced. Using interview data from 21 women, this study moves past these political claims to empirically identify three sources of women's emotional difficulty around abortion: social disapproval, romantic relationship loss, and head versus heart conflict. Findings point to the importance of attention to women's lived experience and space for complex feelings around abortion.