Gender and self-disclosure revisited: personal and contextual variations in self-disclosure to same-sex acquaintances

On the threshold of disclosure. The effects of a mass media field experiment

OBJECTIVE

To assess whether the number of disclosures of child abuse changed as a result of a prevention strategy on a national scale in a West-European country. The child abuse involved child sexual and physical abuse, both ongoing and past.

METHODS

In order to assess possible intervention effects, changes in calling the Child Line were measured. For this, a 4 year longitudinal design, starting before the intervention and ending 2 and 1/2 years after it was used (N = 3,117 disclosures). In addition, data were collected from the Dutch Telecom and a newely developed Child Abuse Form (N = 1,227). Finally, two measures were introduced, the disclosure coefficient and the relative disclosure coefficient.

RESULTS

Most calls were silent calls, a phenomenon that deserves more attention in disclosure research. Compared to pre-intervention data, the amount of disclosures almost tripled during the intervention and was even further enhanced in the post-intervention and follow-up. In nine out of 10 cases, ongoing abuse was disclosed. Marked differences between child physical abuse and child sexual abuse were observed.

CONCLUSION

It is concluded that mass media communication, if well implemented, can positively influence the process of disclosure of ongoing child abuse.

Relationships of nurses' critical thinking ability and perceived patient self-disclosure to accuracy in assessment of depression

This descriptive study examined the relationships of nurses' critical thinking ability and perceived patient self-disclosure to accuracy in nursing assessment of depression in older medical patients. The sample consisted of 120 female nurse-patient dyads. Critical thinking ability was measured by the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. Accuracy in nursing assessment was measured by deviations between the patient's SDS observed score and the patient's SDS predicted score. The patient's predicted score was based on the relationship between the Depression Status Inventory and Self-Rating Depression Scale. Perceived patient self-disclosure was measured by a 3-point system on patients' disclosure of information on symptoms of depression. A Pearson product-moment correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The result showed that nurses' education was not significantly related to accuracy in assessment but related to critical thinking ability (r = .26; p = .004). Nurses' critical thinking ability was significantly related to accuracy in nursing assessment depression (r = -.24; p = .008). Perceived patients self-disclosure was not significantly related to accuracy in nursing assessment of depression.