Non-family Settings Research Articles

Client satisfaction with developmental disabilities services

Data from a representative sample of 312 developmentally disabled clients of Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services are analyzed to discover the characteristics of the clients and to determine the extent to which the clients are satisfied with various services, reasons for any dissatisfaction that exists, and the factors which are related to satisfaction with services. Clients are least likely to be satisfied with the caregiver support services and the vocational and rehabilitative services they receive. Across all categories, reasons most often given for dissatisfaction with services are inappropriateness and insufficient amount. The factors most strongly related to client satisfaction with services are age, living arrangements, and number of services received. Adolescents are less likely than persons at other ages to be satisfied with the services they receive, persons living in a family setting are less likely than persons in nonfamily settings to be satisfied with services, and the greater the number of services received the lower the likelihood of client satisfaction. Combined with information showing that most of the clients have multiple disabilities, these data suggest that the service delivery system does a better job of delivering some services than others. A “slot” oriented program such as that in Florida may pay insufficient attention to the existence of multiple needs among persons who are developmentally disabled and to providing services to the networks which form the client's economic and social support system.

Intrafamily Violence, and Crime and Violence outside the Family

Research on violent behavior over the past fifteen years has generally assumed that violence between family members is fundamentally different from violence "in the streets." Criminologists and family violence researchers have been reluctant to conceptualize family violence as a form of criminal violence, and there has been little theoretical or empirical work on commonalities in violence across family and nonfamily settings. An analysis of three data sets from general populations (two national household surveys and a student survey) shows a link between physical assaults in the family and assaults and other crime outside of the family. Evidence was found for both victimization effects and offender effects. Both adult and child victims of violence are more likely to perpetrate assaults and other aggression outside the family than are nonvictims. Violent offenders in the family are also more likely to assault nonfamily members. These victim and offender effects do not disappear when controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, or severity of family violence. The findings support the social learning thesis that training in violence is generalizable across settings and across targets.

Early Recollections of Criminal Justice Majors and Nonmajors

To assess whether use of early recollections could be valuable as a tool for the selection of criminal justice interest areas the early recollections of 40 criminal justice majors and noncriminal justice majors were compared. The Manaster-Perryman scoring manual, covering 37 variables in 7 categories, was employed. Total scores on each variable were treated by chi-squared to identify differences. Analysis indicated that criminal justice majors have particular feelings regarding mother, concern for detail, illness and injury themes, new situation themes, work outdoors, travel, and homes of nonfamily members settings. These significant differences may suggest personality variables associated with interest in the criminal justice system. With additional research an instrument may be developed for selection of criminal justice personnel.

Using family psychoeducation when there is no family.

High familial expressed emotion, which may be a specific form of social overstimulation, has been linked to schizophrenic relapse and rehospitalization. Research on expressed emotion has led to a new generation of demonstrably effective family treatments for schizophrenia that rely heavily on psychoeducational techniques. Although most schizophrenic patients do not live with families, the family psychoeducational model has not been applied in nonfamilial living settings. The authors report two examples in which the family psychoeducational model was successfully used in group living situations and discuss the implications of expressed emotion and family psychoeducation for schizophrenic patients who live in nonfamilial settings.

Sociopsychiatric study of schizophrenia: the follow-up.

SYNOPSIS A one-year follow-up of 127 schizophrenic patients admitted to psychiatric hospitals in 1968–69, who had spent at least three months in the community during the year following their admission, revealed that regular taking of medication is the most crucial single factor leading to improvement in the psychiatric status of the patient, regardless of whether he was living in a positive or a negative environment. No difference was found between family of origin and nuclear family, but family setting tended to influence either improvement or deterioration of the patient, whilst patients living in a non-family setting remained predominantly unchanged. The progress of southern European patients was poorer than all the others, independently of their family setting and medication.