Showing papers in "Families, Systems, & Health in 1998"

Resilient adolescent mothers: Ethnographaic interviews.

Abstract: This paper describes the strengths and resiliencies of successful adolescent mothers and raises important questions for our ongoing collaborative conversations about nonmarital teenage parenthood. A qualitative research study inspired by the Wolin Resiliency Model employed ethnographic interviews to determine successful adolescent mothers perceptions of their strengths. Strength-based interviews were found to be a powerful intervention with these participants. A strong sense of insight combined with initiative healthy relationships and a rebellious determination to prove she was not doomed to failure were found to be the ingredients for success. Professionals who work with pregnant and parenting teens and their families will find these results augment their clinical work and enhance their programs. (authors)

Evaluating patient capacity for medical decision making: Individual and interpersonal dimensions.

Abstract: Patients' decision-making capacity is a common concern in acute-care settings, particularly when patients refuse recommended treatment. Competence, the legal analogue of decisional capacity, is often misunderstood. Common misconceptions include a view that medical decision making is a global and permanent condition determined by psychiatrists. The role of the family in deciding capacity has also been an arbitrary issue. Basic dimensions of patients' decisional capacity include choice fulness, understanding, and applying medical information to one's own condition, as well as internally consistent reasoning, which may include value and religious dimensions. Clinical capacity interviews should focus on these basic dimensions.