Norwegian lottery winners: Cautious realists.

The study investigated 261 lottery winners of prizes of NKR 1 million (US $150,000) or more in the years 1987-91 in a postal survey. The modal Norwegian winners were middle-aged married men of modest education, living in small communities. Emotional reactions to winning were few, aside from moderate happiness and relief.

FACES III and the Kvebaek Family Sculpture Technique as measures of cohesion and closeness.

In a longitudinal study of psychosocial factors in children with recent onset of rheumatic disease (N = 72), it was hypothesized that FACES III cohesion sum scores would be correlated with family closeness as measured by the Kvebaek Family Sculpture Technique (KFST). A second aim was to examine how these instruments were associated with semi-structured interview assessments of child and family psychosocial function, and whether these associations were linear or curvilinear. FACES III cohesion sum scores and KFST family mean interpersonal distance were not correlated, whereas the cohesion sum scores were related to the mother-father distance on the KFST.

A computerized scoring procedure for the Kvebaek Family Sculpture Technique applied to families of children with rheumatic diseases.

A new computer-based quantification procedure was applied to data obtained from administering the Kvebaek Family Sculpture Technique (KFST) to 92 mothers of children with recent onset of rheumatic symptoms (median = 7 months). Four family configuration types (close, hierarchical, unspecified, and skewed) were defined on the basis of distance and structural parameters of the configuration. The types differed with regard to the childhood environment of the mother, chronic family difficulties, and the psychosocial functioning of the primary patient.

Mothers of children with recent onset of rheumatic disease: associations between maternal distress, psychosocial variables, and the disease of the children.

As part of a longitudinal project based on a biopsychosocial model of juvenile rheumatic diseases, maternal mental distress was examined as a possible predisposing factor for the child's disease and/or as an effect of disease. Eighty-four mothers were interviewed and completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-20), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and the Child Behavior Checklist. Fifty percent of the mothers reported psychiatric distress as indicated by GHQ greater than or equal to 4.