The physician perspective of health psychologists in medical settings.

In recent years psychology has defined for itself an expanding role in health care. Although more and more psychologists have gained entry into medical settings, evaluation efforts directed at assessing progress and obstacles have been extremely limited. The purpose of this study was to gather information from physicians regarding their level of knowledge, acceptance, and utilization of psychologists in hospital settings. Survey responses from 397 physicians to a 15 item paper and pencil questionnaire were analyzed according to medical specialty, type of practice, sex of physician, and number of years in practice. Overall, the findings were quite favorable toward psychologists though differences associated with physicians' age, sex, and specialty did emerge. Discussion of the findings included suggestions underlying the importance of evaluation efforts and methods of improving the future integration of health psychologists into health care organizations.

Visibility of handicap, self-concept, and social maturity among young adult survivors of end-stage renal disease.

This study examined the relationship between visibility of handicap and both self-image and social maturity in young adult survivors of end-stage renal disease. Ratings of visibility of handicap, social maturity, and a self-report measure of self-image were obtained through interviews with 31 patients. Results showed that visibility was inversely correlated with identity stability (p less than 0.05), social maturity (p less than 0.025), and self-esteem (p greater than 0.10), while jointly controlling for patients' age and years since last transplant. Although patients with visible handicaps remain at risk for maladjustment, many developed positive coping strategies in order to face the developmental challenges of adulthood.

Evoked responses to frequency shifted tones: tonotopic and contextual determinants.

Event-related potentials were recorded from 13 normal adults in response to a wide range of frequency shifts of a constant amplitude tone, in four separate experiments. Based on the tonotopic organization of the auditory system, we predicted a logarithmic relationship between amount of shift (delta f) and response amplitude. As predicted, the amplitudes of the exogenous N100 and P200 components increased with progressively larger shifts. Log (delta f) predicted 38.6% of the within-subjects variance for N100-P200 amplitude. In addition, an unexpected contextual effect was observed: the largest shift in each experiment tended to produce similar amplitude responses, despite large differences in absolute magnitude of delta f. A two-factor model including a contextual measure of delta f accounted for 48.7% of the variance, indicating that both physical and contextual stimulus parameters determine the amplitude of exogenous components. N100 latency was also influenced by both physical and contextual parameters, whereas P200 latency was almost constant over a wide range of delta f.