No abstract

The goals of this study were to compare the rate of use of hospice services and other relevant characteristics of European American, African American, and Latino hospice patients. Information on length of stay in hospice, marital status, age, disposition at termination, living situation, caregiver, referral source, and payment method was collected on patients who used hospice care in southern New Jersey between the years 1995 and 2001 (N = 1958). African Americans and Latinos were both found to use services at significantly lower rates than European Americans. In addition, African American use of hospice declined significantly during this time period, while European American use increased. Differences were also found among the groups in marital status, living situation, caregiver, referral source, and payment method. These differences highlight the need for hospice providers to recognize issues unique to minority groups. The reasons for these disparities need to be clarified by further research.

The contributions of parenting to the adolescent's psychosocial development have become the focus of increased attention by researchers and clinicians alike. Although parents face the difficult challenge of providing increasing levels of autonomy to the maturing adolescent while peers become more central to the adolescent's life, parents continue to exert significant influence throughout this developmental stage. Significant progress in this research specialty has been highlighted by researchers, assisting in the specification of developmentally sensitive interventions for problem adolescents. We review selective, clinically relevant research on parenting during the adolescent transition in order to demonstrate how interventions can be informed by basic developmental research. The clinical implications of parenting within the adolescent developmental research are emphasized throughout the review. A particular intervention module, a parental reconnection intervention, which has been used in the context of a family-based intervention, Multidimensional Family Therapy is described as a prototype of an empirically based treatment component.

The lack of association between cognitive restraint and impulsivity suggests that they are functionally distinct. Disinhibition is most closely associated with impulsivity, consistent with findings from clinical samples. Further clarification of the relationship between impulsivity and eating in nonclinical populations could facilitate a better understanding of the relationship between personality variables and normal eating behavior.

This study examined contextual and personal factors related to the use of cognitive strategies by undergraduates. Specifically, students' goal orientations (intrinsic or extrinsic) and perceptions of the classroom environment (i.e., task or performance structured) were evaluated as predictors of student use of deep or surface level cognitive strategies. Results confirmed earlier work, which indicated intrinsic goal orientation was related to use of deep cognitive strategies and extrinsic goal orientation was related to use of rehearsal. There was no interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientations on use of either cognitive strategy. In addition, students' perceptions of classroom environment were significantly correlated with students' goal orientations. In particular, task structure of classrooms was significantly positively correlated with use of both types of cognitive strategies. Thus, student goal orientation, perception of classroom structure, and use of cognitive strategies appear interdependent, with intrinsic goal orientation moderating the effect of perceived classroom structure on the use of deep cognitive strategies. Results of this study suggest the need for university instructors to be more aware of the roles of both personal and contextual factors affecting student motivation and learning.