Self-help Activities Research Articles

A prospective, longitudinal study of the relationship of psychological work to duration of survival in patients with metastatic cancer.

This study is a prospective, longitudinal investigation of the psychological factors associated with the duration of survival in patients with metastatic cancers of various kinds who were receiving group psychotherapy. A correlative approach rather than an experimental (trials) design was used in the study because our aim was to relate the psychological attributes of each individual to survival rather than to test the efficacy of the intervention. Twenty-two patients with medically incurable metastatic cancer of various kinds received weekly group psychotherapy for up to 1 year, the great majority remaining well enough to attend the group for at least 8 months. During this time, they provided extensive verbal data, through written homework, and from notes taken by the therapists at interviews and during group sessions. These data were subjected to detailed qualitative analysis, as a result of which a number of psychological themes were defined. A quantitative rating was assigned to the data for each theme in each individual patient through team discussions. The scores for the individual themes were summed to produce a 'total psychological score', representing the degree of each patient's involvement with psychological self-help work. The values for each patient were then related to his or her survival duration. Cox regression analyses showed that this composite score, and five of six major themes, were significantly related to survival duration. These themes were: ability to act and change; willingness to initiate change; application to self-help work; relationships with others; and quality of experience. In contrast, there was no relationship between survival and four standard psychometric measures taken at the onset of therapy. However, results on a 5-point scale measuring the subject's expectancy that psychological efforts would affect the disease showed a strong relationship to survival. To control for differences in severity of disease as a factor possibly influencing psychological work, the analyses were repeated, using the survival duration predicted for each patient by a panel of oncologists as a covariate. Closely similar results were obtained. Limitations on the interpretation of the results are discussed. Within these limits, it appears that there is a strong association between longer survival and psychological factors related to the involvement of cancer patients in psychological self-help activities. While causality cannot be inferred, reasons are given for believing that this is not a result of the disease influencing the patients' psychology, but rather the converse.

Self-help Housing and Co-operation in Post-war Australia

Australia experienced a self-help housing boom after World War Two which played an important part in overcoming a serious housing shortage. This paper looks at the magnitude of the boom and at the factors which made it possible. It argues that the basic factor motivating amateur builders was the absolute scarcity of accommodation rather than its high cost. There were significant regional variations in the extent of self-help activity. These are best explained by the extent of public housing provision. Where state governments invested heavily in public housing there was less self-help activity. The paper also traces the sources of finance used by owner-builders and the extent of co-operation amongst them.

Contribution of self-help to the quality of life of laryngectomees in Hong Kong

The contribution of self-help activities in enhancing the quality of life of laryngectomees in Hong Kong was examined. Forty-six senior members of a laryngectomees' self-help organization – the New Voice Club – were selected to participate in a survey study. The questionnaire used in the present study provided information on the degree of participants' involvement in the self-help group and their perception of quality of life after laryngectomy. The five components of quality of life including (1) physical health condition; (2) psychosocial condition; (3) speech/communication ability; (4) vocational aspect; and (5) the interaction with the environment were studied, according to a hybrid model of quality of life in the laryngectomy population. The results revealed that the degree of self-help involvement is a positive predictor of the psychosocial domain of the quality of life model. The function of a self-help organization can be perceived as an informal mode of health service that can serve to close the service gap in health care delivery and form a seamless health care delivery mechanism for laryngectomees.

The staff workplace and the quality and outcome of substance abuse treatment.

The study examined the connection between the staff work environment and staff members' beliefs about treatment, the quality of the treatment environment, patients' involvement in treatment and self-help activities, and patients' improvement during treatment. Patient care staff (N = 329) in 15 substance abuse treatment programs reported on the characteristics of their work environment and on their beliefs and treatment orientations about substance abuse. Patients in these programs (N = 3,228) reported on the treatment environment, their participation in treatment and self-help activities, and their treatment goals, confidence in achieving these goals, and coping skills at intake to and discharge from treatment. Staff in supportive and goal-directed work environments were more likely to espouse disease model beliefs and a 12-step orientation toward substance abuse treatment. These work environments were associated with more supportive and goal-directed treatment environments. Patients in these treatment environments participated in more substance abuse, educational and social, and family treatment services, were more involved in self-help groups (as indicated by attending more meetings, reading 12-step materials, and having a sponsor and friends in such groups), were more satisfied with the program, improved more during treatment (as indicated by abstinence goals and confidence in maintaining abstinence, less depression, and more substance abuse and general coping skills), and were more likely to participate in outpatient mental health care after discharge. More goal-directed work environments are associated with more goal-directed treatment environments and patients' engagement in treatment and improvement. The staff work environment is an important component of the substance abuse treatment system.

Course and Severity of Substance Abuse Among Patients With Comorbid Major Depression

The authors assessed the course and severity of substance-related disorder (SRD) among patients with comorbid major depressive disorder (MDD) by means of both retrospective and concurrent data. A total of 642 patients were assessed. Data on course included lifetime use, age at first use, years of use, use in the last year; periods of abstinence, and current diagnosis. Data on severity included two measures of SRD-associated problems, substance abuse vs. dependence, self-help activities, and number of substances being abused. SRD-MDD patients tended to manifest lower levels of cannabis, opiate, and cocaine use, and more SRD-only patients were abusing three or more substances. Men with SRD-MDD demonstrated longer mean durations of abstinence compared with men with SRD-only, whereas SRD-MDD women demonstrated shorter mean durations of abstinence, compared with women with SRD-only. MDD-SRD patients showed slightly less substance abuse, but SRD severity was comparable with SRD-only patients.

Social and Economic Factors in the Spread of the NIMBY Syndrome against Waste Disposal Sites in Taiwan

The paper analyses the NIMBY syndrome against solid waste disposal sites in Taiwan and argues that the rapid growth of this syndrome has been attributable to three social and economic factors, namely: (1) The awakening of public environmental consciousness; (2) the increase in the value of urban marginal land; and (3) the process of political liberalization and the uprising of so-called 'self-help actions' from the public.

Empowerment-Oriented Social Work Practice: Impact on Late Life Relationships of Women

SUMMARY Empowerment interventions promote egalitarian, strengths-based relationships through education, self-help, mutual support, consciousness raising, and social action activities. In this paper we describe the influence of empowerment-oriented group intervention on the relationships of older women. We conducted qualitative interviews with the women who participated in the group and the social workers who staffed the intervention activities. The findings suggest that, in addition to other empowerment outcomes, the older women participants developed sustaining relationships with each other and often seriously considered the nature of their other late life relationships. Thus, empowerment-oriented interventions can enhance the quality of life for older women, including the development and support of meaningful interpersonal relationships.

?All Sweden Shall Live!? Reinventing community for sustainable rural development

AllSweden Shall Live! is an umbrella movement of 2,300 rural development organizations that has taken shape in reaction to political and economic threats to “the living countryside.” The movement's strategy combines self-help activities and political mobilization. Ritual events celebrating a shared culture, a culture that blends traditional and newly invented elements, are crucial means of maintaining solidarity and mobilizing energies. The article investigates a self-help activity, saving country stores, and a political event, a “Countryside Parliament,” both motivated by a commitment to sustain rural communities in a critical time.

Self-help activities in cocaine dependent patients entering treatment: results from the NIDA collaborative cocaine treatment study

Although little is known about self-help attendance among cocaine dependent patients, clinicians frequently recommend this treatment. Cocaine dependent patients (519) entering a psychotherapy study were therefore surveyed regarding their recent self-help group attendance and participation. During the previous week, 34% had attended a self-help group. of self-help attenders who actively participated, 55% initiated abstinence within the next month, compared with 40% of non-attenders and 38% of non-participating attenders ( P < 0.01). These findings support the potential short-term positive prognostic significance of self-help attendance and participation in cocaine dependent patients.

The restorative resolutions project: An alternative to incarceration

A retributive system of justice is disrespectful of both offenders and victims and contributes to a cycle of crime. A restorative system builds on offender strengths, expects offenders to make improvements in their own lives and their communities, and involves offenders and victims in decision making. The Restorative Resolution program develops restorative plans with serious adult felony offenders and their victims; the plans are presented to the Court at the time of sentencing with a recommendation that the offender be sentenced to complete the restorative plan rather than to prison. During the first eighteen months the project received 115 referrals from which 67 were accepted. Plans were developed for 84% of accepted offenders. Restorative elements such as restitution and service to the community were less likely to be included in the plans than were counseling and selfhelp activities. Eighty‐one percent of the plans presented to courts were accepted by the judges.

Community action in Alabama's Black Belt Timber-Dependent communities

The current decline in the economic well-being of the residents of the Alabama's Black Belt communities is well documented. High poverty rates, limited job growth, falling real per capita income, and increased out-migration are signs of current economic problems. With the resurgence of interest in promulgating self-help and community action mechanism at the local, state, and national levels, the purpose of this research is to examine collective community action by local officials in the Black Belt Timber Dependent communities to meet the social and economic well-beings of local residents. Data from the case study research indicate that race is the primary factor in actions with a collective dimension in Forestville. Inequality based on race suppresses interaction among the residents whose lives and well-being are in fact tied together ecologically; and, without interaction, collective local action cannot exist. The community has not been hospitable to African Americans because they are viewed or seen as social inferiors and this view is expressed by many whites who grew up in the community. The white leadership discouraged collective action in order to maintain its hegemony in the community. The African Americans with political power have no resources and great exertion is needed to change established community relationships. In Forestville, racial and ethnic cleavages makes collective community actions to levelop local business and industry and human services impossible. Implications of the research findings are discussed.

Walk Free: A Service for Panic and Phobia Sufferers

Panic, social phobia and agoraphobia are common problems, for which cognitive-behavioural interventions are particularly suitable. Walk Free is a comprehensive service for such sufferers, incorporating assessment by psychologists, home visiting, self-help activities, and support groups. It has expanded rapidly within Cardiff, where there are now four Walk Free centres, and it has seen over 300 sufferers over a three-year period.

マニラの都市貧困地域における親族ネットワークと自助開発活動

This paper examines the function of kin relationship, and in particular, where they relate to self-help activities progressing in poor urban areas of Manila. The residents utilize extended kin relationship in their daily lives, especially when involving themselves in the distribution of social resources which have been brought about through self-help activities. The people who use their kinship ties effectively can achieve a more favorable or higher social status for themselves and their kin groups. Therefore this paper also examines the social meaning of self-help activities as the origin of the societal heirarchy of power and rather than material wealth or resources.

Disability self-help organizations in the developing world: a case study from Malaysia.

Disability self-help organizations have emerged as an important element of response to the advancement of people with disabilities throughout the developing world in recent years. There are now self-help organizations in all regions of the developing world, their memberships are growing, and the scope of their activities is enlarging. This paper draws on field research in Malaysia to present an organization developed by and for people with physical disabilities as a case study of self-help action in the Southeast Asian region. This paper reviews the origins and growth of the organization, describes its current programme of activities, and offers comment about the nature and future of disability self-help in the region and its continued advancement in the developing world generally. A combination of internal factors that relate to organization and programming, and external political and social conditions is indicated as important.

New faculty involvement for women and minorities

I used variations of Astin's involvement model to guide a study of four cohorts of women and minorities as new faculty: two groups from a comprehensive university and two of them from a research campus. The two least demanding levels of inquiry for both interviewer and interviewee—unstructured and structured—provided rich descriptions of disappointments, problems, and values that distinguished nontraditional new hires from a matched sample of white male newcomers. More demanding levels of inquiry and analysis—a New Faculty Faring Index with 20 rating dimensions and a repeated exercise in career mapping—distinguished successful and unsuccessful new faculty in ways that suggest reliable sequences of career fault lines and specific interventions to avoid them. Thus, the most useful interviews were the most involving. Involvement notions also predicted the outcome of new faculty experiences: women and minorities tended to be less effectively immersed in their campuses and in self-help actions than were white males, but nontraditional newcomers who managed the highest levels of involvement evidenced the most promise for successful careers.

Roles for Mental Health Consumers in Self-Help Group Research

This article describes emerging roles of mental health consumers in self-help group research. Examples taken from recent empirical studies of self-help group activities among people with long-term and serious mental health disabilities illustrate new roles that transcend traditional relationships in research. A working typology for these roles include informed participant, key informant, advisor, staff member, and co-investigator as practical additions to the more traditional role of the research subject. Current guidelines for the protection of human subjects in research are limited in their ability to address ethical and procedural issues that arise out of these new role relationships. Self-help group research should address ethical issues that are not currently addressed by the established requirements of informed consent and IRB oversight. The author recommends that consumer review and approval be included as an integral part of the development and evaluation of human subject issues in clinical services research.

Supporting and monitoring mutual aid groups and organizations in Barcelona

In this paper we present our experience of supporting self-help groups and organizations over a period of five years in the city of Barcelona, Spain. Although previously the impression was that little self-help activity existed in Southern European countries, our research showed the existence of many mutual aid groups and organizations in Barcelona. Support activities of our Division have included awareness raising, dissemination of concepts, publications, training, compilation and publication of self-help group directories, linking, netwarking, helping new groups to get started, practical help, and some financial support. Over the last five years mutual-aid groups and organizations have under gone a steady growth, and 68 mutual aid groups and 87 organizations, covering 50 different topics related to health were inventoried in the 1991 directory. Although part of this growth can be attributed to our efforts, much of it is spontaneous. The reasons for the differ ences in patterns of self across different countries are discussed.

New Zealand Maori Women's Health

The indigenous Maori population of New Zealand has experienced improvements in health in recent decades but vis-à-vis the non-Maori segment of the population, Maori, and Maori women in particular, continue to be disadvantaged. The situation became the focus of attention during the 1980s. Among efforts to improve it, a broad-based self-help campaign initiated by Maori leaders, organizations and health professionals emerged as important. This paper documents the current status of Maori women's health and examines health-related self-help activities on the part of the Maori Women's Welfare League, the leading Maori women's organization. The League has taken a leading role in the self-help campaign, declared a Decade of Health for 1985-1995, and adopted a program of action that could help to significantly improve the status of Maori health.

Building a community in Bungoma, Kenya

Building a Community in Bungoma, Kenya describes the entirely unaided self-help activities of a low-income community in the self-planned settlement of Mjini in the town of Bungoma in western Kenya. It illustrates some of the problems of land acquisition and self-help urban development for low-income groups.

FINDINGS TO IMPROVE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS LEARNED FROM ACROSS-CULTURAL QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY IN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES

Providing people with appropriate information is an essential element to enhance their earthquake preparedness. To be effective, balance between supply and demand should be kept in dissemination of the information. To seek the balance, a cross-cultural questionnaire survey was made. Respondents were from two groups in the United States and one group in Japan. The survey revealed that, contrary to the other two groups, the Japanese group showed overdependency on government initiatives rather than taking self-help action for earthquake preparedness.