Suchergebnisse

This study examined the relationship between three types of norms and chronic alcoholism. Three types of norms— proscriptive, prescriptive, and nonscriptive— were used as categories to investigate the norms of American chronic alcoholics. Five sources of norms were used to identify the reference groups who were perceived as influencing the alcoholics' drinking patterns. The reference groups included co-workers, church, family, friends, and parents. Among 85 American subjects, chronic alcoholism tended to be highest in a proscriptive environment, lower in a prescriptive environment, and lowest in a nonscriptive environment. Proscriptive norms were those which were perceived as stating directly that a person should not drink excessively at all. The sources of the proscriptive norms were analyzed. Church and parents were found to be the perceived sources of proscriptive norms for the chronic alcoholics studied. The data suggest that both parents and church members need to be taken into consideration when planning rehabilitation programmes for chronic alcoholics.

The frequency of symptoms between urban and rural schizophrenic patients was compared in 275 consecutive admissions of schizophrenics, who were rated on two rating scales by psychiatrists, using a structured interview. There were significant differences between urban and rural schizophrenics; rural patients were more frequently apathetic, blunted, labile, angry, aggressive, negativistic and uncooperative, while urban schizophrenics were more often anxious, rigid, ambivalent, disoriented, conceptually disorganised and asocial. Significant symptom differences were also found for only older or younger schizophrenics.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of 275 schizophrenics consecutively admitted to seven hospitals were examined. Males were younger than females when first hospitalized, diagnosed and treated. Psychiatrists rated on two rating scales by using a structured interview to compare the symptomatology. Female schizophrenics were more agitated, inappropriate, silly, irrelevant, over-talkative, and exhibiting more flight of ideas, while male schizophrenics were more slowed, hypoactive, grandiose, withdrawn, and showing more blocking, auditory hallucinations and poor communications. Katz Adjustment Scales were rated by the patients and their relatives. Female schizophrenics were perceived by relatives to be more helpless and withdrawn-depressed than male schizophrenics.