Effect of economic barriers to medical care on patients' noncompliance.

The post-hospital care of 290 patients with selected chronic conditions of a specific severity who were discharged over a 3-month period from a general hospital in Halifax, Canada, was studied. The majority of the patients were married. The average age of the men was 59.2 years and of the women 58.1. More than half of the patients belonged to the low socioeconomic group earning between $1,000 and $6,999 a year. Their average period of education was 8.4 years. Interviews with the patients about their compliance with physicians' orders revealed that 40.4 percent had not complied with one or more of their physician's recommendations. Lack of compliance was related to age, marital status, education, income, and severity of disease. It was also associated with high dosages of medicine and multiple prescriptions. Cost barriers constituted a significant factor in noncompliance.

Some features of coagulase positive staphylococci from bovine milk. II. Comparison of conventional techniques and the API Staph system.

A total of 150 isolates of Staphylococcus aureus were subjected to the tests on the API Staph system. Of these, 50 were also tested by conventional methods, using the same tests as those found on the API Staph strips. Applying the principles of numerical taxonomy, the relationship between these isolates was 82% and more. Tests for the metabolism of sucrose and N-acetyl-glucosamine and for the production of argenine dihydrolysate and urease appear to be superfluous in the identification of S. aureus in this system.

Do obese women have poorer social relationships than nonobese women? Reports by self, friends, and coworkers.

Both theory and research suggest that obese women may have relatively poor social relationships even if their self-reports about their relationships do not differ from the reports of nonobese women. Seventy-seven obese and 78 nonobese women completed self-report measures of social anxiety, social self-esteem, social competence, social network size, and perceived social support from friends and family. Friends and coworkers also rated these women on the same measures. The self-reports of obese and nonobese women did not differ significantly on any of these social measures, and ratings from friends and coworkers of obese women were not different from ratings of nonobese women by friends and coworkers. These results suggest that obese women may be able to overcome prejudice against obese people in their relationships with others.

Social interactions of obese and nonobese women.

The stigma associated with obesity is likely to limit the opportunities obese women have to develop social skills. This hypothesis was tested by having obese (n = 15) and nonobese (n = 22) women converse on the telephone with college students who were unaware of the women's weights. Ratings made by judges who listened to the women's contributions to the conversations but who were unaware of their weights showed that obesity was negatively related to judgments about the women's likability, social skills, and physical attractiveness. The telephone partners of obese women rated the women and themselves more negatively than did the partners of nonobese women. Obese and nonobese women generally did not differ in their evaluations of their own and their telephone partners' behavior, and they also did not differ on a measure of social self-esteem. These findings suggest that there are real differences in the social behavior of obese and nonobese women and that these differences affect the impressions formed by those with whom they interact.