Accessible summary
• Most adults, including many with a learning disability, want to be parents. Parents with a learning disability can care for their children well. To do this, they may need support from their family or friends and a range of services.
• Researchers interviewed parents with a learning disability about their pregnancy and the help that they were given after their baby was born. They were interested to find out how the parent made choices about parenting and what information they had when they made their choices.
• From the stories of four parents, this article discusses:
○ their knowledge of contraception,
○ opportunities that they had to talk to someone about being a parent,
○ their support needs as parents.


• The findings from this research can be used to help people with a learning disability make good decisions about becoming a parent.


Summary
For adults with learning disabilities, becoming a parent can fulfil childhood dreams to take their place in society through a highly valued social role. Recent research aimed at describing the experience of parents with a learning disability suggests that there are barriers to successful planning for both pregnancy and parenthood. However, with the right support, these parents can provide a secure and loving environment for their child. Enabling informed decisions about becoming a parent could increase the number of parents who successfully raise their own child. In this article, stories that highlight the experiences of six parents are used to illustrate issues relevant to informed decision-making, including knowledge of contraception, the development of parenting skills and the importance of social support. Through their contrasting stories, a combination of family support and appropriately responsive services was identified as critical to the development of a positive parenting context. This finding highlights the need for professionals and support people who work with young people with a learning disability to ensure that they educate and support them to make informed decisions about contraception, pregnancy and parenting.

Planned pregnancy, planned parenting: enabling choice for adults with a learning disability

Hostile sexism is a blatant and explicit form of sexism consisting of antagonistic attitudes toward women. We hypothesized that men's personal relative deprivation, a subjectively perceived disadvantage, would predict their hostile sexism toward women. In addition, we expected that, if this effect occurs, a sense of control would act as a mediator. Five studies (N = 1352) confirmed these hypotheses. Study 1 showed that personal relative deprivation predicted hostile sexism only for men, but not for women among Chinese college students. In addition, we observed the effect of personal relative deprivation only on hostile sexism, but not on benevolent sexism. Study 2, which employed participants from the United States, directly replicated the findings of Study 1. Studies 3 and 4 further showed that a sense of control acted as a mediator in this process. As such, increased hostile sexism attitude (Study 3) and hostile sexism behavior (Study 4) predicted by personal relative deprivation could result from a reduced sense of control. Study 5 further provided causal evidence that a temporarily induced state of personal relative deprivation resulted in a higher level of hostile sexism via a reduced sense of control. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for relative deprivation, gender inequality, and interventions.

Personal Relative Deprivation Increases Men's (but Not Women's) Hostile Sexism: The Mediating Role of Sense of Control

SUMMARY Violence against women is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon and is recognized as an important public health problem. Sexual assault, which is a type of violence against women, causes serious and long-term medical, psychological, legal and social issues. Generally, nurses are one of the first health professionals to meet the victims. For this reason, the nurses have an important position for identifying the victim, providing support and trust, and guiding treatment and legal processes. In this article, the key points of nursing approach for the victims of sexual assault are reviewed.

Mary L. Padden

Papers

Sexual violence and the silent reaction rape: implications for nurses.