A lack of standardization: the basis for the ethical issues surrounding quality and performance reports.

Consumers in the United States are taking advantage of the proliferation of publicly available, internet-based performance reports and quality appraisals of health plans, healthcare organizations, hospitals, and physicians to aid in their healthcare decision making. However, these appraisal practices have given rise to controversy and debate over certain distinctive ethical issues. This article advocates a standardized ethical framework to guide current and future development and implementation of performance reports.

Development and pilot testing of four desired health outcomes scales.

Purpose/objectives: To develop and pilot test scales to measure desired health outcomes hypothesized to result from high-quality cancer nursing care: Fortitude Scale, Trust in Nurses Scale, Cancer Patient Optimism Scale, and Authentic Self-Representation Scale.

Design: Instrument development.

Setting: Community cancer support organization.

The bias in psychotherapy research evaluation.

Using a 3 X 3 X 3 factorial design, clinical psychologists' (N = 204) evaluations were obtained of the methodology of a bogus psychotherapy outcome experiment that varied on the outpatient population treated and the results. Three types of neurotic outpatients were treated in the bogus study, and the experiment's results indicated that psychoanalytically oriented therapy was more effective than behavior therapy, behavior therapy was more effective than psychoanalytically oriented therapy, or psychoanalytically oriented therapy and behavior therapy were equally effective. The third independent variable was psychologists' theoretical orientation (psychodynamic, behavioral, or eclectic).