Overconfidence in Managing Health Concerns: The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Health Literacy.

Health literacy is often low within the general population. The Dunning-Kruger effect (DKE) suggests that individuals may experience a cognitive bias in which they overestimate their own knowledge base. This study examines the DKE regarding health literacy and health behaviors.

Physical and psychological abuse in breast cancer survivors and cancer-free women.

The purpose of this study was to provide a preliminary examination of intimate partner abuse in survivors of breast cancer relative to women who have never been diagnosed with cancer. The current study retrospectively evaluated the presence of physical or severe psychological abuse before cancer diagnosis, during treatment, and after remission of cancer in a sample of 206 ethnically diverse breast cancer survivors and 206 age- and ethnicity-matched control participants. Breast cancer survivors were less likely than controls to report abuse and did not report significant changes in frequency of abuse after cancer diagnosis or treatment.

Applying the transtheoretical model to female and male perpetrators of intimate partner violence: gender differences in stages and processes of change.

The Transtheoretical Model has been recently applied to men seeking services at battering intervention and prevention programs (Eckhardt, Babcock, & Homack, 2004; Murphy & Baxter, 1997). This study considers whether women arrested for intimate partner violence differ from male perpetrators in terms of stages of change and processes of change. No gender differences were found regarding stage of change.

Management of terminal illness: a medical school-hospice partnership model to teach medical students about end-of-life care.

Physicians are not only called upon to deal with biological, but also with psychosocial issues and concerns in the treatment of the terminally ill. Their training, however, usually does not prepare them to value palliative care, or help them cope with personal feelings about death and possible grief over a patient's loss. The authors describe what one medical school is doing regarding the challenge of preparing medical students to deal more competently and confidently with end-of-life scenarios they will encounter as primary care practitioners in underserved areas of a rural state.