The significance of distributive effects in social assessment of health care

In this paper we address the importance of distributive effects in the social valuation of QALY's. We propose a social welfarefunction that generalises the functions traditionally used in the health economic literature. The novelty is that, depending on the individual health gains, our function can representeither preferences for concentrating or preferences for spreading total gain or both together, an issue which has notbeen addressed until now. Based on an experiment, we observe that this generalisation provides a suitable approximation tothe sampled social preferences.

A research strategy for social assessment of lake restoration programs /

Mode of access: Internet.

Main report, environmental, economic, and social assessment of the Statewide Water Quality Management Plan : 208 Water Quality Management Planning Program /

"Prepared for the Illinois Institute of Natural Resources and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency"--Cover

Nursing home care needs of veterans in 1990 : a quantitative and social assessment.

Mode of access: Internet.

Validation of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C) in a sample of Brazilian children

The purpose of the present study was to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C), an instrument developed in the United States and applied to a sample of Brazilian schoolchildren. The process included the translation of the original material from English into Portuguese by two bilingual psychiatrists and a back translation by a bilingual physician. Both the front and back translations were revised by a bilingual child psychiatrist. The study was performed using a cross-sectional design and the Portuguese version of the SPAI-C was applied to a sample of 1954 children enrolled in 3rd to 8th grade attending 2 private and 11 public schools. Eighty-one subjects were excluded due to an incomplete questionnaire and 2 children refused to participate. The final sample consisted of 1871 children, 938 girls (50.1%) and 933 boys (49.8%), ranging in age from 9 to 14 years. The majority of the students were Caucasian (89.0%) and the remainder were African-Brazilian (11.0%). The Pearson product-moment correlation showed that the two-week test-retest reliability coefficient was r = 0.780 and Cronbach's alpha was 0.946. The factor structure was almost similar to that reported in previous studies. The results regarding the internal consistency, the test-retest reliability and the factor structure were similar to the findings obtained in studies performed on English speaking children. The present study showed that the Portuguese language version of SPAI-C is a reliable and valid measure of social anxiety for Brazilian children.

O Processo de revisão do benefício de prestação continuada-BPC: uma lógica de exclusão ou inclusão social

This research comprises a study about the social assessment performed by the Social Worker in the review process of the Benefit of Continued Installment. The Benefit of Continued Installment was implemented in 1996 and guarantees a minimum salary to the deficiency person and to an elder with sixty five years or more and that proves not to have ways to support neither himself/herself nor his/her own family. It is a demand to include in the BPC that the maximum income of a family does not exceed ¼ of minimum salary and that every two years this benefit to be revised to evaluate its continuity based in its original conditions. This study was carried out in the municipality of Natal/RN, with thirteen social workers, being the collection of data performed through interviews and social assessments of the users that count with the benefit. The results show that the users selected by the criterion of the income, present a profile of poverty and deprivations demonstrated through several situations survived in its daily life, indicative of vulnerability. It was demonstrated that the Social workers has relative autonomy in the evaluations along with the users and that it denotes the necessity of inclusion. However, by following the imposed criteria, it corroborates with the logic of exclusion. So, it is identified in the Municipality of Natal/RN, following the orientation given the politics of social work at national level, the implementation of revision of the BPC, for the social workers, from rigorous processes of selection and exclusions

The Brazilian Research Consortium on Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders: recruitment, assessment instruments, methods for the development of multicenter collaborative studies and preliminary results

OBJETIVO: Descrever o recrutamento de pacientes, instrumentos de avaliação, métodos para o desenvolvimento de estudos colaborativos multicêntricos e os resultados preliminares do Consórcio Brasileiro de Pesquisa em Transtornos do Espectro Obsessivo-Compulsivo, que inclui sete centros universitários. MÉTODO: Este estudo transversal incluiu entrevistas semi-estruturadas (dados sociodemográficos, histórico médico e psiquiátrico, curso da doença e diagnósticos psiquiátricos comórbidos) e instrumentos que avaliam os sintomas do transtorno obsessivo-compulsivo (Escala para Sintomas Obsessivo-Compulsivos de Yale-Brown e Escala Dimensional para Sintomas Obsessivo-Compulsivos de Yale-Brown), sintomas depressivos (Inventário de Depressão de Beck), sintomas ansiosos (Inventário de Ansiedade de Beck), fenômenos sensoriais (Escala de Fenômenos Sensoriais da Universidade de São Paulo), juízo crítico (Escala de Avaliação de Crenças de Brown), tiques (Escala de Gravidade Global de Tiques de Yale) e qualidade de vida (questionário genérico de avaliação de qualidade de vida, Medical Outcome Quality of Life Scale Short-form-36 e Escala de Avaliação Social). O treinamento dos avaliadores consistiu em assistir cinco entrevistas filmadas e entrevistar cinco pacientes junto com um pesquisador mais experiente, antes de entrevistar pacientes sozinhos. A confiabilidade entre todos os líderes de grupo para os instrumentos mais importantes (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, Dimensional Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, Universidade de São Paulo Sensory Phenomena Scale ) foi medida após seis entrevistas completas. RESULTADOS: A confiabilidade entre avaliadores foi de 96%. Até março de 2008, 630 pacientes com transtorno obsessivo-compulsivo tinham sido sistematicamente avaliados. A média de idade (±SE) foi de 34,7 (±0,51), 56,3% eram do sexo feminino e 84,6% caucasianos. Os sintomas obsessivo-compulsivos mais prevalentes foram os de simetria e os de contaminação. As comorbidades psiquiátricas mais comuns foram depressão maior, ansiedade generalizada e transtorno de ansiedade social. O transtorno de controle de impulsos mais comum foi escoriação neurótica. CONCLUSÃO: Este consórcio de pesquisa, pioneiro no Brasil, permitiu delinear o perfil sociodemográfico, clínico e terapêutico do paciente com transtorno obsessivo-compulsivo em uma grande amostra clínica de pacientes. O Consórcio Brasileiro de Pesquisa em Transtornos do Espectro Obsessivo-Compulsivo estabeleceu uma importante rede de colaboração de investigação clínica padronizada sobre o transtorno obsessivo-compulsivo e pode abrir o caminho para projetos semelhantes destinados a integrar outros grupos de pesquisa no Brasil e em todo o mundo.

The Impact of Family Stressors on the Social Development of Adolescents Admitted to a Residential Treatment Facility

The focus of this research was to determine the impact of family stressors on the social development of adolescents at admission to long-term mental health residential care. The study was conducted at the Waco Center for Youth, the only long-term residential care agency serving emotionally and behaviorally challenged adolescents and their families that functions under the authority of the Texas Department of State Health Services. Data was obtained from social assessment forms (N=457) in case records of clients. The prevalence of problem behaviors exhibited by the youth upon entry to the residential facility was examined and it was found that the youth entering the facility were experiencing severe impairment in their social development across several domains. Results indicated that youth with more family stressors exhibited significantly greater impairment in their social development (b = .19, p = .000) which suggests that the combination of multiple stressors within a family inhibits adolescent social development. The research supports a family systems approach to treatment that focuses on building family strengths and actively involving family in the intervention process.

Brazilian Social Segurity and Social Work: reflections on the Continuous Cash Benefit Programme

Guaranteed under the Federal Constitution of 1988, Brazilian social security covers rights relating to health, social welfare and social care. The Continuous Cash Benefit Programme (BPC) was approved as part of social care policy and is regulated under the Social Care Act (Ley Orgánica de Asistencia Social) of 1993. This benefit guarantees a minimum monthly income for persons with disabilities and for older adults. Certain requirements must be satisfied in order to obtain the assistance: medical and social assessment of disabled persons, a minimum age of 65 years for older adults, and, in both cases, the value of per capita income for the nuclear family in question, which must be lower than a quarter of the minimum wage. Regulation of the BPC has incorporated advances and setbacks in terms of legislation and implementation. In this framework, this article presents a theoretical reflection, an analysis of the legislation on the matter, and some reflections on the challenges that it poses for social workers.

Motivaciones (metas) relacionadas con la asistencia a actividades extracurriculares en estudiantes de psicología

El presente trabajo de investigación corresponde a un estudio exploratorio-descriptivo que indaga las motivaciones de un grupo de estudiantes de psicología de la Universidad del Rosario (UR) en Bogotá Colombia, para asistir a actividades extracurriculares (AEC). El grupo se compone de 131 estudiantes de segundo a noveno semestre. Para indagar las motivaciones, se elaboró una encuesta basada en el modelo de metas de Alonso (1991) que incluye metas relacionadas con la tarea, la autovaloración, la valoración social y consecución de recompensas externas. La encuesta se aplicó desde el segundo semestre de 2009 al primer semestre de 2011. Para el análisis estadístico se utilizó el software SPSS y se elaboraron distribuciones de frecuencia y tablas de contingencia. Para observar la posible relación entre asistencia a AEC y las motivaciones de los estudiantes se utilizó el Chi Cuadrado y el Estadístico Exacto de Fisher. Los resultados indican que existe relación entre la asistencia a AEC ofrecidas por la UR desde que estudia psicología y la motivación intrínseca (P=0,006), y la asistencia a AEC antes de entrar a estudiar psicología y la consecución de premios y recompensas a nivel social (P=0,021).

Situaciones y respuestas de ansiedad escolar más temidas en el alumnado chileno de Educación Secundaria

Desde el enfoque interactivo-tridimensional, la ansiedad escolar puede explicarse como una respuesta de tipo cognitiva, psicofisiológica o conductual, expresada ante situaciones escolares de gran presión como el fracaso escolar, la violencia escolar o la evaluación académica y social. El propósito de este estudio fue analizar las respuestas y situaciones escolares más temidas en una muestra de estudiantes chilenos de Educación Secundaria, en función del género. La muestra estuvo comprendida por 4156 adolescentes, 1950 chicos y 2206 chicas (46.9% y 53.1%, respectivamente) con edades entre los 13 y los 18 años (M = 15.31; DE = 1.42). Para evaluar se utilizó el Inventario de Ansiedad Escolar (IAES), que mide respuestas de ansiedad (cognitiva, psicofisiológica y conductual), situaciones que generan ansiedad (fracaso y castigo escolar, agresión, evaluación escolar y social) y una puntuación total. Los datos fueron analizados siguiendo un diseño de corte transversal y aplicando pruebas t para establecer las diferencias y pruebas d para estimar la magnitud de dichas diferencias. Los resultados indican que las chicas presentan mayores niveles de ansiedad escolar que los chicos en todos los factores estudiados y en la puntuación total, siendo superiores las puntuaciones en las respuestas cognitivas, especialmente en el ítem “creo que debería haber trabajado más”, así como también en las situaciones relacionadas con el fracaso escolar, principalmente, en el ítem “si repito curso”. Estos resultados apoyan los obtenidos en investigaciones previas y permiten mejorar la comprensión de las situaciones que limitan el normal desarrollo académico, personal y social del alumnado chileno.

State of Illinois Environmental Protection Agency 208 water quality management planning program.

Cover and spine title: Water quality management plan.