When staff are assaulted. A nursing consultation support service

Increasing patient to staff assaults led to the development of a Nursing Consultation Service, which can respond to the needs of assault victims and set the tone for institutional attitudes of nonblaming concern. A member of the consultation service meets with each known assault victim to review the incident, offer support, and provide assistance in addressing issues aroused by the incident. Implementation of this service and the use of a continuous monitor to track assault incidents is vital to highlight problem areas and develop assault prevention strategies.     

Estimated Distributions for Average Daily Consumption of Total and Self-Caught Fish for Adults in Michigan Angler Households

Fish consumption rates play a critical role in the assessment of human health risks posed by the consumption of fish from chemically contaminated water bodies. Based on data from the 1989 Michigan Sport Anglers Fish Consumption Survey, we examined total fish consumption, consumption of self-caught fish, and consumption of Great Lakes fish for all adults, men, women, and certain higher risk subgroups such as anglers. We present average daily consumption rates as compound probability distributions consisting of a Bernoulli trial (to distinguish those who ate fish from those who did not) combined with a distribution (both empirical and parametric) for those who ate fish. We found that the average daily consumption rates for adults who ate fish are reasonably well fit by lognormal distributions. The compound distributions may be used as input variables for Monte Carlo simulations in public health risk assessments.     

A Bayesian restoration of an ion channel signal

We present a Bayesian method of ion channel analysis and apply it to a simulated data set. An alternating renewal process prior is assigned to the signal, and an autoregressive process is fitted to the noise. After choosing model hyperconstants to yield 'uninformative' priors on the parameters, the joint posterior distribution is computed by using the reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo method. A novel form of simulated tempering is used to improve the mixing of the original sampler.     

Collinearity in generalized linear models

This paper defines collinearity for generalized linear models (GLMs), investigates its consequences and proposes diagnostic criteria. The relationship between collinearity in GLMs and standard linear models (SLMs) is explored and bounds which relate the degree of collinearity in these two models are given. Estimation based on ridge methods is discussed.     

Classification of Gamblers According to the NODS and a Clinical Interview1

Since the social and personal implications of excessive gambling are important, it becomes necessary to assess the extent of the problem within the population. Accordingly, the use of an instrument that evaluates gamblers accurately is essential. This study, carried out with 200 adults, investigates the potential differences in classification of gamblers when using the NORC DSM-IV Screen for gambling problems (NODS) versus a clinical interview. The results show that 50 of the 200 participants were not categorised in the same way with the NODS as with the clinical interview; 47 participants were identified as having a more severe gambling problem according to the NODS than with the clinical interview, providing a 23.5% difference in the concordance rate. This result is discussed in terms of measurement problems in assessing gambling behaviours.     

Marriage,Money, and African American Mothers’ Self‐Esteem

This study examined the effects of marital status and family income on the self‐esteem of 292 African American mothers. Counter to previous studies with European American mothers, family income moderated the effects of marital status. Those mothers with higher family income had higher self‐esteem, regardless of their marital status. For those with less family income, married mothers had much higher self‐esteem than unmarried mothers. Low‐income married mothers had the same levels of self‐esteem as high income mothers. It was concluded that financial resources can buffer the effects of being single, and being married can buffer the effects of being low income. Policy initiatives that focus on reducing the financial hardship on single mothers and increasing the marriage rate among lower income parents were also discussed.