The present study examined the usefulness of personal variables: noise annoyance, and components of the protection motivation theory (R. W. Rogers, 1983) along with social-organizational factors in explaining hearing protection device (HPD) use among Israeli manufacturing workers. Participants were 281 men exposed to harmful noise levels for which routine HPD use is required by regulation. In practice, 3 HPD user groups were identified: nonusers (n = 38), occasional users (n = 125), and regular users (n = 118). HPD use was objectively verified. HPD use was primarily related to the personal variables but not to management pressure, coworker pressure, or family support. The most powerful predictors of HPD use were perceived self-efficacy (for long-term HPD use), perceived susceptibility (to hearing loss), and noise annoyance, together explaining 48% of the outcome variance. These findings have implications for interventions aimed at motivating workers to use HPDs regularly.

To compare anxiety of 15 hirsute women and of 20 control subjects (student nurses) seen at the Soroka Medical Center, Israel, three hypotheses were considered: patients with hirsutism have significantly higher state anxiety than the control sample; patients with hirsutism show significantly higher trait anxiety than the control sample; the extent of hirsutism generates no significant differences in state or trait anxiety. The two groups were compared on the Hebrew version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The first two hypotheses were confirmed but no correlation was found between extent of hirsutism and state or trait anxiety. The findings are discussed and implications made with regard to physicians' understanding of the hirsute patient.

In this paper the culture-sensitive psychotherapy of a 19-year-old Druze patient with severe anxiety reaction is described. The patient explained his anxiety and his symptoms as stemming from violent death in his former life and subsequent transmigration. The therapists joined the patient's explanatory model and previous traditional healing, adding hypnotic suggestion which relieved the symptoms. The relationship of patient symptomatology to cultural background, multiple personality disorder, possession and dissociation is discussed. The strategic combination of culture-specific and modern psychiatric approaches is advocated in similar cases.

Green, MD1.2 MELAMED S, RABINOWITZ S, GREEN MS. Noise exposure, noise annoyance, use of hearing protection devices and distress among blue-collar workers. Scand J Work Environ Health 1994;20: 294-300.OBJECTIVES -This study tested the hypotheses that, in high noise levels [~85 dB(A)], hearing protection devices are used largely by workers sensitive to noise, as reflected by reports of noise annoyance, and that the usage would reduce distress symptoms. METHODS -Data collected from 1587 healthy male blue-collar workers included noise exposure level, noise annoyance, use of hearing protection devices, distress symptoms (somatic complaints and poststress irritability), and possible confounding by age, education and ethnic origin. RESULTS -Multiple logistic regression results indicated that the use of hearing protection devices was related to noise exposure level [odds ratio (OR) 2.94, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 2.58-3.30], but more so to high noise annoyance (OR 3.03, 95% CI 2.77-3.29), even after control for age, education, and ethnic origin. No interaction was found between noise level and noise annoyance. These findings highlight the contribution of noise annoyance to the use of hearing protection devices. Of the 42.6% of workers using hearing protection devices in the presence of high ambient noise, 60% were highly annoyed. Noise-annoyed workers also tended to wear hearing protection devices even in low noise levels. The use of hearing protection devices was associated with lower distress symptoms among the low and moderately annoyed workers, but among the highly annoyed workers the reverse was true. CONCLUSIONS -Thus, for the highly annoyed workers, the use of hearing protection devices was perhaps an additional source of stress. One immediate implication of this study is that future intervention procedures should focus on unannoyed workers who tend to use hearing protection devices less.

This study investigated the importance of personal determinants such as self-efficacy, beliefs about the contribution of exercise, health locus of control, and dispositional optimism for leisure-time exercise in a working population. The main predictors of such exercise were beliefs and self-efficacy with the generalization of the latter to eat correctly. Beliefs and efficacy expectations were highly correlated. Neither health locus of control nor dispositional optimism was related to leisure-time exercise; however, optimism was related to the positive belief that exercise contributes to health. Ramifications of the findings were carefully described.