The experiences of hospital social workers who care for homeless patients: an interpretive phenomenological analysis.

Unique challenges exist for hospital social workers tasked with the care of patients experiencing homelessness. These challenges affect patient care, impact social work practice, and emphasize the need to better understand the experience of providing services to this vulnerable population. Research is limited and focuses upon the experiences of unhoused patients and of medical management, not upon the experiences of the social workers positioned to meaningfully impact care.

Helping spine surgeons detect pre-surgical psychological distress in complex spine patients: an observational pilot study.

Study Design: Retrospective analysis.

Objective: Analysis of a standardized, pre-surgical psychological evaluation program for complex spine surgery. Adult spinal deformity (ASD) patients have a high rate of comorbid mental health conditions.

Men at risk: considering masculinity during hospital-based social work intervention.

The needs of hospitalized male patients are often unrecognized and unmet. Men occupy greater than half of all inpatient hospital beds and incur a broad array of illnesses and injuries at higher rates than women--yet often receive health care that pays surprisingly little attention to the concept of patient masculinity, or to masculinity's influence on the male patient's perspectives, behaviors, goals, interests, needs, and challenges. Little emphasis is placed on considering hospitalized male patients as men , understanding their need for patient-centered care within this context, and intervening in ways that regularly allow strengths to be adequately recognized and utilized.

Late-onset paranoid disorder.

While the onset of paranoid states in the geriatric population has received some attention, recent research results on such proposed etiological factors as sensory impairments, cognitive decline, and pre-existing schizophrenia-spectrum pathologies remain equivocal. The authors present an alternative hypothesis positioning the interaction of pre-existing narcissistic personality features with unique aspects of the aging process. Case studies and innovative treatment strategies are discussed.