Coping patterns of mothers of poor boys

Ethnic differences in subclinical paranoia: an expansion of norms of the paranoia scale

The Paranoia Scale (PS) was designed to assess subclinical paranoid ideation (A. Fenigstein & P. A. Vanable, 1992). Despite its established validity, the PS has several problems that need to be addressed. There are no normative data on ethnic minority groups such as African Americans, making it difficult to interpret this group's performance on the PS. Data from the present research revealed that African Americans scored higher on the PS than non-Hispanic Whites. However, interpretation of these findings should be tempered as they may reflect other contextual factors such as discrimination and the impact of racism. Implications for using the PS with African Americans and possible explanations for the observed results were discussed.

The paranoid person: a biopsychosocial perspective

Paranoia is not a uniquely medical term. Articles on the subject appear in the literature of fields as diverse as psychology, sociology, linguistics, cognitive processing, and computers. Paranoia is also a human response to physical, psychical, interpersonal, and social ills and, as such, is a phenomenon of interest to nursing. The study of paranoia by several disciplines provides nurses with a variety of perspectives from which to understand the experiences of paranoid clients. Paranoia will be presented as a phenomenon that can be viewed from levels ranging from the suborganismic level to the sociocultural. Implications for nursing interventions geared to each level will be discussed.

Psychopathology and economic status in mother-only and mother-father families

This paper reports evidence on the link between economic resources and psychiatric disorder in female-headed families with children. It has been assumed that a father's absence leads to augmented psychopathology in children and their mother through the disruption of roles, relationships, socialization and development. This study suggests that the absence of father/husband compounds the stress of family separation by diminishing household income, often to the point of poverty.