Margaret Shapiro

The process of sharing social support in cyberspace

Mutual support is an interactional communication process. Taking an interactional approach to support requires group participants be viewed not only as targets and recipients but also as sources and providers of various types of support. An analysis was performed on the interactions of a group listserve and model of online interactional support. The aim was to explore the communication process children follow. The analysis revealed self-disclosure was used in the support group in three distinct ways. Its function for the support recipient is to initiate a transactional relationship with another member for the purpose of attracting social support through the open expression of concerns and frustrations. It is then used by the support provider to demonstrate that coping is possible for the recipient through the reciprocal self-disclosure of similar concerns and situations with which the member has successfully dealt. The third use of self-disclosure was to share reciprocal social companionship relationships.

Differences between older volunteers and nonvolunteers - Attitudinal, normative, and control beliefs

It has been suggested that older people are a rich potential source of volunteers, as prior literature has highlighted the benefits and rewards of volunteering in later life. This article examines differences between volunteers and nonvolunteers in a random sample of older people resident in Brisbane, Australia. Using the theory of planned behavior as a framework, the article focuses on the beliefs that distinguish those who volunteer from those who do not. Findings from the study allowed for an assessment of both the costs and benefits associated with volunteering; beliefs about the support of others, including the broader community, to volunteer; and beliefs about the barriers that might prevent volunteering. The implications of these findings to a country with an aging population are discussed.

Information control and the exercise of power in the obstetrical encounter

Interactions between doctor and patient involve participants with unequal power and possibly different interests. While a number of studies have focused upon the doctor/patient relationship, few have examined the utility of the concept of power and its capacity to help us understand the outcome of these interactions. The information sought by pregnant women from their obstetricians is used to provide a case study of one conceptualization and test of the utility of the concept of power. Pregnant women and their obstetricians are found to have different perceptions of the information that should be exchanged during their interactions. Women generally fail to obtain the information they want. Lower social class patients desire more and obtain less information than their higher status counterparts.

With a little help from my friends: Children, the Internet and social support.

ABSTRACT This study documents the types and extent of social support messages exchanged by children and adolescents who participated in a computer-based support group. Using qualitative content analysis, the electronic mail posted in a 3-month period on a support listserv for young siblings of children with chronic health needs were observed and described. The content of the postings sent to Sibkids was analyzed to identify themes in how the young people used the listserv for support. Examples of social support types identified on the site are described. The largest percentage of these messages offered social companionship and emotional or informational support. Tangible assistance was not offered. The implications of this study for social support researchers and human service professionals are discussed.

Capturing the complexity of women's experiences: A mixed-method approach to studying incontinence in older women

Capturing the voices of women when the issue is of a sensitive nature has been a major concern of feminist researchers. It has often been argued that interpretive methods are the most appropriate way to collect such information, but there are other appropriate ways to approach the design of research. This article explores the use of a mixed-method approach to collect data on incontinence in older women and argues for the use of a variety of creative approaches to collect and analyze data.

Career preferences and career outcomes of Australian medical students.

Summary. Students entering three Australian medical schools were followed over a 15‐year period to trace both movement into the profession and the longer‐term outcomes of early career aspirations. A variety of student entry characteristics are examined together with aspirations, attainments and self‐images. The results indicate that women, rather than men, are more likely to enter medical school with aspirations that involve specialty training. As they proceed through medical school, both groups move away from the idea of pursuing specialty training, although women tend to decide earlier than men that speciality practice is not for them. Women students are more likely than men to attain career goals if these involve general practice and less likely to if these involve specialization. The results indicate that although at graduation women medical practitioners have the same career goals and desires as men, if additional training is required women are unlikely to have their aspirations fulfilled.

Medical education in Thailand

Summary. In order to make training more relevant to community needs, medical educators throughout Thailand have been attempting to address issues concerning the training of their undergraduates. Support for a reorientation of medical education and acceptance of the framework put forward by the World Health Organization are evident in national health plans and in national medical education conferences. This paper outlines some of the basic problems faced by health policy makers in Thailand and presents a brief chronology of recent events in the history of medical education in Thailand.

Book Reviews : WOMEN, HEALTH AND REPRODUCTION, edited by Helen Roberts. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. 196 pp.

Feminists have highlighted the way in which the medical profession has siezed control of the management of biological reproduction, sexual reproduction and childbirth. Women have been allocated a passive role to, amongst other things, control the social organization of reproduction. Thus feminists argue that until women seize control of reproduction there is little likelihood of them taking control of their own lives. Helen Roberts has gathered together a number of feminist writers amongst them academics, medical practioners and health workers in pursuit of this theme. This collection, of 8 readings, documents the alienation that many women experience in the present health care system and suggests some ways in which improvements could be made. The collection is introduced by Roberts who argues that women are obliged to accept a male-constructed view of reproduction because women lack power in institutions such as the clergy, medicine, medical research bodies and pharmaceutical companies. Contraception is controlled from the point of access by the ideology, by the research, by the manufacture and finally by the providers of care. Margaret Versluysen, presenting the most detailed and scholarly contribution in the collection, follows up this line of discussion with a carefully researched account of the way in which midwives became dominated by ’medical men’. A topic not unfamiliar to most feminists. The essay traces the successful takeover of parturition by medical professionals and illustrates the important part hospitals played in the legitimisation of the process. The obstetrical encounter is exposed by Graham and Oakley when they argue that the encounter has a potential for conflict because of the differing perspectives which the participants espouse. Doctors tend to adopt a medical perspective of childbirth whereas women see it as a more natural event. Even though the majority of women are well throughout, pregnancy is treated as an illness and pregnant women as helpless sick people. The ’sick role’ justifies sophisticated technological procedures and also forms the basis of the interaction that takes place in the encounter. Women with scant power to introduce items