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This article examines some of the issues involved in developing research strategies that are robust enough to attend to the complex relationship between gender and emotional distress. Social constructionism may be helpful because it highlights the discursive production of power, femininity and psychopathology. The strength of a phenomenological approach is that it emphasizes the richness and complexity of an individual's lived experience and privileges agency. Working towards a rapprochement between these two approaches may help to deconstruct the stories that have been told about women and mental illness and help to generate more meaningful information about women's experiences of emotional distress.

The authors of this study used participatory and interpretive methods to capture the lived experience, strengths, and needs of homeless mothers. The interview data obtained challenge unfounded stereotypes and provide information about women's coping behaviors and resilience. The findings were developed in collaboration with shelter guests and staff and have important implications for public and university policy and shelter programs. For example, researchers need to become more aware of the limitations of current psychological theories and assessment tools designed to measure "effective coping" in disenfranchised individuals. To accomplish this goal, increased collaboration among researchers, activists, policy makers, and homeless families is recommended (e.g., by instituting roundtable discussions as a standard part of shelter programs). It is also suggested that professional staff who work with women living in poverty avoid using deficit‐oriented, victim‐based models of intervention, and that staff provide women with opportunities to participate in the development of the curriculum for parenting classes.

The authors of this study used participatory & interpretive methods to capture the lived experience, strengths, & needs of homeless mothers. The interview data obtained challenge unfounded stereotypes & provide information about women's coping behaviors & resilience. The findings were developed in collaboration with shelter guests & staff & have important implications for public & university policy & shelter programs. For example, researchers need to become more aware of the limitations of current psychological theories & assessment tools designed to measure "effective coping" in disenfranchised individuals. To accomplish this goal, increased collaboration among researchers, activists, policy makers, & homeless families is recommended (e.g., by instituting roundtable discussions as a standard part of shelter programs). It is also suggested that professional staff who work with women living in poverty avoid using deficit-oriented, victim-based models of intervention, & that staff provide women with opportunities to participate in the development of the curriculum for parenting classes. References. Adapted from the source document.

The revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), scheduled for publication in May 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), has created a firestorm of controversy because of questions about undue industry influence. Specifically, concerns have been raised about financial conflicts of interest between DSM-5 panel members and the pharmaceutical industry. The authors argue that current approaches to the management of these relationships, particularly transparency of them, are insufficient solutions to the problem of industry's capture of organized psychiatry. The conceptual framework of institutional corruption is used to understand psychiatry's dependence on the pharmaceutical industry and to identify the epistemic assumptions that ground the DSM's biopsychiatric discourse. APA's rationale for including premenstrual dysphoric disorder in the DSM-5 as a Mood Disorder is reviewed and discussed.

The growing acceptance of a biopsychiatric model for women's sexual health issues and the dramatic increase of pharmaceutical industry research funding over the last decade have both contributed to ethical and professional crises in sexology and psychiatry. Although conflict of interest (COI) policies deal with some of these issues, public trust is compromised in such an industry-dominated climate. This article describes why the lack of transparency in diagnostic and clinical guidelines is an important public health issue for women, presents data about financial associations between expert members of diagnostic guidelines panels and `Big Pharma', and relates the discussion to concepts of biopower and biopolitics. One element in these developments — the overuse of diagnostic checklists — undermines an appreciation for the diversity of women's sexualities, reinforces the authority of only certain kinds of research, and privileges biomedical interventions. The authors emphasize the need for a paradigm shift, analogous to that advanced by the New View Campaign, that promotes diagnostic instruments and treatment interventions more fully supportive of consumer, rather than corporate, interests.

BACKGROUND: The producers of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) may not disclose industry funding in their CPGs. We reviewed Canadian national CPGs to examine the existence and disclosure of industry-related organizational funding in the CPGs, financial conflicts of interest of committee members and organizational procedures for managing financial conflicts of interest. METHODS: For this descriptive study, we searched the asset map of the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research Evidence Alliance and the CPG Infobase for CPGs published between Jan. 1, 2016, and Nov. 30, 2018. Eligible guidelines had to have a national focus and either a first-line drug recommendation or a screening recommendation leading to drug treatment. One investigator reviewed all CPG titles to exclude those that were clearly ineligible. Two reviewers independently reviewed all remaining guidelines and extracted data. We analyzed the data descriptively. RESULTS: We included 21 CPGs: 3 from government-sponsored organizations, 9 from disease or condition interest groups and 9 from medical professional societies. None of the 3 government-sponsored organizations reported industry funding, and none of their committee members disclosed financial conflicts of interest. Among the 18 disease or condition interest groups and medical professional societies, 14 (93%) of the 15 that disclosed funding sources on websites (3 did not disclose) reported organizational funding from industry, but none disclosed this information in the CPGs; 12 (86%) of the 14 with conflict-of-interest disclosure statements in the CPG (4 did not include disclosures) had at least 1 committee member with a financial conflict (mean proportion of committee members with a conflict 56%); and for all 8 CPGs with identifiable chairs or cochairs (chairs or cochairs not reported for 10) at least 1 of these people had a financial conflict of interest. None of the guidelines described a plan to manage organizational financial conflicts of interest. INTERPRETATION: Canadian CPGs are ...