The relation of continuing attachment to adjustment in conjugal bereavement.

The role of continuing attachment in adjustment to conjugal loss was examined. At 6 months postloss, 70 midlife bereaved participants were interviewed to assess different forms of continuing attachment. They also engaged in a monologue role-play with their deceased spouse, providing a behavioral measure of grief-related distress.

Electronic fetal monitoring: what's reassuring?

Background: To determine which combinations of fetal heart rate pattern abnormalities are associated with normal outcome in term pregnancies.

Methods: A cohort of 2200 consecutive deliveries was examined and the fetal heart rate tracings analyzed. Singleton, term patients without chorioamnionitis or serious malformations were used to perform logistic regression analysis to select those FHR patterns associated with increased risk for Apgar<7 and cord pH<7.

Applying an empty-chair monologue paradigm to examine unresolved grief.

In this study the Gestalt empty-chair technique was applied in a research context to assess unresolved grief and its relation to later adjustment. Bereaved individuals who experienced the death of a spouse on average 6 months ago participated in an empty-chair monologue task in which they were instructed to speak to their deceased spouse, imagining that they had one last opportunity to do so. They completed a questionnaire at the end of their monologue speech assessing their affective experience during the monologue.

Representations of self in women sexually abused in childhood.

Objective: This exploratory study examined the self representations of 27 women sexually abused in childhood and their association with symptomatology.

Method: Twenty-seven self-identified female survivors of childhood sexual abuse completed the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40, Beck Depression Inventory, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and a measure designed to elicit subjects' self-generated descriptors of selves.

Results: Discrepancies in views of current self when compared to ideal or future selves were positively correlated with all symptom measures.

Selective processing of visual alcohol cues in abstinent alcoholics: an approach-avoidance conflict?

When symptomatic individuals selectively attend to emotionally relevant stimuli, the ability to shift attention away from such material is impaired. Subjects may, however, seek to avoid further processing of these stimuli, which would facilitate attentional shifts. This was examined in a group of abstinent alcoholics' responses to stimuli related to alcohol.

Preeclampsia: is induction of labor more successful?

Objective: To test the hypothesis that preeclamptic women are more readily inducible than are nonpreeclamptic women, regardless of cervical condition.

Methods: One hundred eighty-three preeclamptic women and 461 nonpreeclamptic women requiring labor induction were studied prospectively. Patients were categorized by Bishop score, parity, gestational age, and method of induction.

Representations of self and other: a semantic space model.

This article describes a semantic space model of personality. According to the model, representations of facets of the self (e.g.

Portfolio-based learning: continuing medical education for general practitioners--a mid-point evaluation.

In October 1994 a project was initiated by the General Practice Continuing Medical Education Tutors in the Department of General Practice at Sheffield University. The project sought to evaluate the efficiency (effort expended) and effectiveness (distance travelled) of a model of continuing professional development for general practitioners through individual portfolio-based learning in co-mentoring groups. Learning demonstrated through the portfolio was accredited for the postgraduate education allowance of participants.

Maternal-fetal glucose metabolism and fetal growth retardation. Is there an association?

Objective: To test the hypothesis that in normotensive pregnancies decreased maternal glucose response leads to relative fetal hypoglycemia and hypoinsulinemia, which result in delayed fetal growth.

Study Design: We enrolled patients with and without risk factors for growth retardation. Each underwent an oral glucose tolerance test with both glucose and insulin evaluation.

The effect of maternal obesity on the accuracy of fetal weight estimation.

Objective: To determine if maternal obesity affects the accuracy of either clinical or sonographic fetal weight estimations.

Methods: In a year-long study, 998 singleton pregnancies of 26-43 weeks' gestation underwent both clinical (Leopold) and sonographic (Shepard and Hadlock) fetal weight estimation within 5 days of delivery (mean 1.1, 95% confidence interval 1.

Meconium-stained amniotic fluid: increased risk for adverse neonatal outcome.

Objective: To determine the risk of adverse neonatal outcome associated with meconium-stained amniotic fluid independent of that related to antepartum or intrapartum abnormalities.

Methods: A cohort of 2200 consecutive deliveries was examined and the fetal heart rate (FHR) tracings analyzed independently. Singleton term pregnancies without fatal malformations were stratified by the consistency of meconium and compared.

The effect of clinical chorioamnionitis on cord blood gas at term.

Objective: We sought to determine the effect of clinical chorioamnionitis on cord blood gas values in term pregnancies not complicated by any other disease.

Study Design: 2200 consecutive deliveries were studied. Following exclusion of twins, non-viable malformations and stillbirths, as well as mothers with high-risk pregnancy diseases--i.

Is fetal heart rate variability a good predictor of fetal outcome?

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate, in a prospective manner, whether fetal heart rate (FHR) variability serves as a reliable single predictor of fetal outcome.

Methods: We undertook a prospective study of 2,200 consecutive deliveries. Preterms < 37 weeks, twins, stillbirths and fetal malformations were excluded from the study.

Perinatal effects of Gardnerella vaginalis deciduitis in the rabbit.

Objective: We determined the effects of intrauterine infection with Gardnerella vaginalis on maternal and fetal outcome in the rabbit.

Study Design: Both uterine horns of rabbits on day 20 or 21 of gestation (70% of gestation) were inoculated hysteroscopically with either 0.2 ml of 10(5) to 10(7) CFU/ml of G.

The assessment of ego development in borderline personality disorders.

The purpose of the study was to assess levels of ego functioning in a cohort of patients who met the criteria for borderline personality disorder. The Sentence Completion Test (SCT) and the Descriptions of Significant Others (DSO) test were used to measure dimensions of ego maturity. The borderline patients' responses on the SCT were compared with the responses of an outpatient sample of psychiatric patients and with general population norms established for the test.

Cigarette smoking and breast cancer.

An epidemiological case-control study was conducted in New York State, with 1617 primary breast cancer patients and an equal number of controls, to examine the relationship between cigarette smoking and breast cancer. Results showed no overall association between ever smokers versus never smokers and breast cancer risk (odds ratio [OR] = 1.03, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.

An epidemiologic case-control study of breast cancer and exposure to hair dyes.

An epidemiologic case-control study of 1617 patients with a primary breast cancer and 1617 control subjects was conducted to test the hypothesis that use of hair dyes is related to breast cancer. No overall association was observed between breast cancer risk and "ever use" of hair dyes (odds ratio, 1.04; 95% confidence interval, 0.

Population analysis on the microcomputer: a system of software packages.

"This paper describes a system of versatile software packages that has been developed by the author for population analysis on IBM-compatible microcomputers using PC or MS DOS. The series includes programs for the production of life tables, the analysis of spatial patterns and temporal trends in mortality, population projections, stationary-state population simulations and demographic planning, cohort survival estimates of net migration, and the analysis of migration matrices. Each of the programs in the series is discussed in terms of its principal analytical features, associated conceptual and methodological issues, and potential applications.

An epidemiological case-control study of breast cancer and alcohol consumption.

A case-control study of breast cancer and alcohol consumption was conducted with 1617 patients diagnosed with a primary cancer of the breast between 1982 and 1984 in 18 New York State counties. For each case, one control, matched for year of birth and county of residence, was selected from the driver's license files of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Breast cancer risk was shown to increase as daily consumption of alcohol increased, with a risk of 1.

Association between risk factors for coronary heart disease in schoolboys and adult mortality rates in the same localities.

Risk factors for coronary heart disease were compared in fifth year boys (15-16 years old) from two schools that were chosen from localities with a fourfold difference in adult mortality from coronary heart disease. One school was in an underprivileged urban locality in the area of increased incidence of heart disease ('high risk') and the other in a semi-rural affluent locality with an incidence of heart disease similar to the national average ('low risk'). Smoking, hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, obesity, physical fitness, and inactivity were evaluated as risk factors for coronary heart disease.