Example Poster abstracts
Example A: Black women’s’ phenomenological experience of providing home-care for a family member with AIDS in a third world context
Basson, P.J. and Whelan, M. Rand Afrikaans University
World statistics show that HIV infection is on the increase. Much attention is thus currently paid to the prevention of AIDS. A growing problem, however, is the increasing number of people in the terminal phase of HIV – especially in developing countries like South Africa. During this phase of the illness serious infections manifest themselves and there is a general decline in the patient’s functioning, leading to increased dependence on others for activities of daily living. Often these people in the final phase of HIV are accommodated in hospitals and hospices. Due to rising health care costs, inadequate and understaffed facilities and overwhelmed health care workers, more and more people in the final phase of HIV are cared for at home. In most developing and third world countries home-based care becomes the responsibility of illiterate, uneducated family members of infected individuals, with little or no resources to provide terminal care. For this reason a phenomenological study was conducted in order to expose the experience of providing care for a family member in the final phase of HIV. Five black female care givers were included in this study. Common themes that emerged from the transcribed interviews included the establishment of an existential baseline as well as diminished independence and freedom of participants. They also expressed the need for support (emotional, financial and medical). Lastly religion and certain coping mechanisms were found to either facilitate or hinder the provision of care, depending on their rigidity and effectiveness respectively.
Example B: The relationship between delusional ideations and stress coping in Japanese college students.
Syudo Yamasaki, Hiromi Arakawa, Yoshihiko Tanno, Graduate school of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo
Introduction : Delusional ideation is one of the symptoms in schizophrenia. In many recent studies, delusional ideation in general population has been investigated. These studies found that there were more people with delusional ideation in general population than that had been expected. However, there were a few studies about the relationship between delusional ideation and stress coping style in healthy samples. Schuldberg et al. (1996) found that psychosis-prone individuals used more coping by Escape-avoidance and Accepting responsibility. In the present study, we tried to examine the relationship between delusional ideation and stress coping style in Japanese college students. Method: The Japanese version of Peters et al. Delusions Inventory (PDI; Yamasaki et al. 2004) and Lazarus Type Stress Coping Inventory (SCI; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Motoaki et al. 1991) were administered to 154 college students (106 men and 48 women with mean age±SD of 19.2 ± 0.9). The Japanese version of PDI was consisted of 40 items, which was including assessing measures of presence of ideation, distress, preoccupation and conviction for each item. PDI has four dimensions of delusional ideation. SCI has eight subscales of stress coping (Planful problem solving, Confrontive Coping, Seeking Social Support, Accepting Responsibility, Self-controlling, Escape-avoidance, Distancing, Positive Reappraisal). Results: Correlation coefficients between four dimensions of PDI and eight subscales of SCI were examined. Distress of delusional ideation has positive correlations with escape-avoidance coping (r = 0.23, p < 0.01), Accepting responsibility (r = 0.19, p < 0.05) and Seeking Social Support (r = 0.20, p < 0.05). Distress of delusional ideations has negative correlations with Self-controlling (r = – 0.18, p < 0.05), Positive Reappraisal (r = – 0.20, p < 0.05) and Planful problem solving (r = – 0.20, p < 0.05). The number of presence of delusional ideations was positively correlated with Accepting responsibility (r = 0.22, p < 0.01). Conclusions: In the present study, the result of Schlberg et al. could be replicated in college students. Escape-avoidance and Accepting responsibility coping has positive correlations to distress of delusional ideations. On the other hand, Self-controlling, Positive Reappraisal and Planful problem solving has negative correlations to distress of delusional ideations. Patients with schizophrenia tend to use passive and avoiding coping strategies in stressful situations rather than problem solving coping (Gispen-de Wied, 2000). The result of present study also suggested that delusion-prone college students had the same pattern of coping strategy as the previous studies.
Example C: Expressed Emotion and Parasuicide
Santos, J.C.P., Bissaya Barreto Nursing School, Portugal, Saravia, C.B., Coimbra University, Portugal, and Sousa, L., Oporto University, Portugal.
Parasuicidal and suicidal behaviour are increasing a lot in some Western countries and are considered a public health problem. Parasuicide occurs mainly in the age group between 15 to 24 years old and therefore it is a priority to study this population group. Expressed Emotion is not a concept that has been studied in these behaviours, although it has been used in other pathologies over the last 30 years. Expressed Emotion is assessed through a semi-structured interview using five scales: hostility, over-involvement, critical comments, warmth and positive comments. This is a prospective study carried out over nine months. The results presented here refer to the first contact, the first week after the Parasuicide behaviour, and research is still in progress. The sample consisted of relatives of 35 individuals (aged between 15 to 24, who committed parasuicidal behaviour), residents in the city of Coimbra and its surrounding areas (in the central region of Portugal). Our first contact was made in the Accident and Emergency Department (from 15 th September 2003 to 31 st March 2004), with people whose cause of admission was parasuicidal behaviour. After this we carried out interviews with the family, in the first week after the parasuicidal behaviour. We used the Camberwell Family Interview (Leff, J and Vaughn, C, 1985) for the interviews which were taped and analysed after. The general aim is to characterise the Expressed Emotion of the family members of those individuals who have parasuicidal behaviour. The sample of 35 parasuicidal individuals was predominantly female with an average age of 19 and who were mainly students. Almost all were single (91,4%). The vast majority of the sample (88,5%) had parasuicidal behaviour involving drug overdose and for the majority (57,2%) this was their first attempt. Out of a total of 57 interviews carried out with relatives and other important people in the lives of the parasuicidal individuals, 31 showed a high EE and 26 a low EE and we classified 26 families with high EE. The interviews lasted on average 50 minutes with a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of 90 minutes. We found evidence of high emotional over-involvement in 23 of the situations studied. There was a high level of criticism in 19 with hostility also present in 7 interviews. Some of them had high levels in more than one of the scales. The presence in the results of high levels of EE, particularly emotional over-involvement did not confirm the data obtained by Pollard (1996) who found a higher presence of criticism and hostility rather than emotional over-involvement. We can characterise the behaviour of over-involvement mainly through excessive self-sacrifice and statements of attitude. Critical comments were present suggestion situations involving traits and states according to the cases. The situation that we found has not permitted us, yet to draw generalised conclusions with regards to the stability or development of the critical comments and EE. With regards to hostility, the majority of the situations can be characterised by the presence of generalised criticism and rejecting remarks together. Leff (1989) says that in general the study of EE in any situation requires us: to study the relationship between EE and pathology; to draw up an adequate intervention plan and finally to analyse the appropriateness of the intervention model in a clinical context. In the case of parasuicidal behaviour the assessment of our EE research carried out shows the presence of a high EE mainly through over-involvement which we would like to highlight. We also found high levels of criticism. The research will continue to characterise better the relationship between parasuicidal behaviour and EE.
