The aim of this questionnaire survey was to find the information needs of British Asian cancer patients. An additional objective was to find the extent of family involvement when the patient was given the cancer diagnosis and the patients' views about information disclosure. We interviewed 82 Asian patients and 220 random white control patients. More white British patients gave positive answers to the statement 'I want as much information as possible' than Asian patients (93.1 vs 77.5%, Pp0.001). However, 92.6% of Asian patients wanted to know if they had cancer. Many more Asians (66.2 vs 5.1%, Po0.001) indicated the general practitioner (GP) as the preferred source of information. This may be because 56% of English-speaking Asian patients would prefer to discuss their illness in their mother tongue. In Leicester, many Asian patients have Asian GPs. The vast majority of both Asian and British patients agreed that family or friends should be present when patients are given the cancer diagnosis. However, Asians were more likely to be alone (24 vs 15%, P ¼ 0.008) when told they have had cancer. The majority of patients (both white British and Asian) want to control the disclosure of information to relatives and friends and would like to be present at doctor/family meetings. (Fallowfield et al, 1990). A 250 patient stratified sample typical of West of Scotland cancer patients (Meredith et al, 1996) and a more heterogeneous study of 2331 patients (Jenkins et al, 2001) showed the vast majority of British cancer patients want to know the diagnosis and specific details about treatment and prognosis. However, the information needs of British non-white ethnic minorities have never been studied.Leicester is a multicultural city of 280 000. The 2001 Census (Office for National Statistics, 2001) described only 63.9% of the population as white. The biggest minority population (25.7%) was described in the census as Indian, although some of these people would use a different name such as African/Asian to describe their origin. It has been predicted that by 2011, 50% of the population of Leicester will be of Asian origin (Rex, 1999).Cancer registration statistics collected between the start of 1990 and the end of 1999 for the city of Leicester showed that South Asian patients had a lower cancer incidence than non-South Asians (Smith et al, 2003a). When adjusted for age and socioeconomic deprivation, incidence rate ratio (IRR) was 0.61 for male and 0.75 for female population. This pattern changed significantly with age. Although older Asians had much lower rates of cancer than the rest of the population, younger Asians were at increased risk compared with non-Asians. Comparing incidence rate ratios between 1990 -1994 and 1995 -1999 there has been a marked rise in the incidence of colorectal cancer (IRR ¼ 2.33) and breast cancer (IRR ¼ 1.37) in Asian women. In contrast, these rates decreased in the rest of the population. There has also been a rise in the incidence of prostate cancer (IRR ¼ 1.71) and lung cancer (IRR ¼ 1.39) in ...

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the vast majority of those recognized

No abstract

In Scots law, adults are presumed to have legal capacity to enter into contracts and to dispose of their property as they see fit. That presumption may be rebutted where an individual's mental condition impairs that capacity. This has been the legal position for some time. The text reproduced here is taken from the written pleadings drawn up by an eminent seventeenth-century advocate for a client who sought to resist a claim on his deceased sister's estate. It was argued by the other side that she had been incapacitated by mental illness before her death and at the time that she had made provision. The pleading expounds Scottish seventeenth-century notions of insanity in a particular context, and argue for a way of determining whether a person had the necessary capacity by using and drawing on earlier Continental texts. It is notable that there is use of medical evidence almost a century prior to the first recognized use of medical testimony as to mental disorder in English courts.

Many of those considered to be insane in the past were regarded as paupers and so came within the ambit of the poor law. Little work has yet been published on the ways in which the poor law dealt with the psychologically disturbed during the era of the old poor law (c.1601-1834). The present paper outlines the old poor law which said very little about madness as a specific problem, with the general implication that they were to be dealt with in the same way as others considered to be in need of relief. It appears that this was generally the case with the exception that the insane were sometimes sent to asylums. They were also liable to be treated as vagrants. Some limitations and problems with primary sources are also noted.