Spirituality and mental health clients

Spirituality is an important part of human existence but is often overlooked in the conceptualization of the person as a biopsychosocial entity. This article examines spirituality as a concept, relates it to the experience of mental health clients, proposes spiritual assessments and interventions within the role of advanced practice mental health nurses, and discusses the necessity of including spiritual interventions to support healing and wholeness for mental health clients.     

Gambling Participation and Social Support Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Community Study

The purpose of this preliminary study was to examine associations between leaving home to engage in bingo or gambling activity and indices of physical and mental health and social support among a representative community cohort of 1016 elderly people. Cross-sectional and longitudinal data gathered from a prospective epidemiological study in a rural, low socio-economic status, area of Pennsylvania was employed. The cohort had a mean age of 78.8 (SD = 5.1) (range 71–97) and participated in three consecutive biennial waves of data collection. Nearly half (47.7) of the cohort reported gambling. To predict gambling, the independent variables included age, sex, education, employment, social support, depressive symptoms, self-rated health, alcohol use, cigarette use, and cognitive functioning. In cross-sectional, univariate analyses, gambling was associated with younger age, sex (male), fewer years of education, greater social support, lower depression scores, better self-rated health, alcohol use in the past year, and higher cognitive functioning. In a cross-sectional multiple regression model, younger age, greater social support, and alcohol use in the past year remain strongly and independently associated with gambling activity. Longitudinally, age, sex, social support, alcohol use, and gambling are predictive of future gambling activity. The results revealed that gambling may offer a forum of social support to older adults who are often isolated as they age.     

Labor Supply by Farm Operators Under “Decoupled” Farm Program Payments

As part of 1996 legislation, the U.S. began paying farmers production flexibility contract payments designed to be somewhat decoupled from current production decisions. In the labor-leisure model, decoupled payments would be expected to only have a wealth effect, but coupled payments would be expected to have both a substitution and a wealth effect. In this paper, the impacts of the decoupled payments and other government payments on both farm and off-farm labor allocations for farm operators are considered using data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). Results indicate that government payments tend to increase the hours operators work on their farm and decrease the hours they work off the farm. This is true whether the payments come from programs which tie payments to current year production, or not.JEL Classification: D13, J22, Q12, Q22The authors are agricultural economists with the Economic Research Service (USDA). The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.