Increasing social capital and personal efficacy through small‐scale community events

California's voter‐approved Children and Families Act of 1998 calls for money collected from tobacco taxes to support services for families with children up to 5 years of age. Sacramento County uses a portion of its allocation for small community grants with the specific intent of building social capital among neighbors and across communities. The evaluation of the 995 Community Building Initiative (CBI) events funded from July 2007 to June 2010 included randomly selecting parents from a larger population (n=29,607). Structured interviews with 538 parents identified those who had attended community events within the last 6 months and assessed hypothesized outcomes. Attending any community event was related to increased measures of social capital. However, those participating in a CBI event demonstrated the highest levels of familiarity with neighbors, neighborhood cohesion, and efficacy, as revealed through generalized linear mixed model analyses controlling for race/ethnicity, primary language, and education. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Eine Umfrage zur geburtshilflichen Schmerztherapie in Deutschland

BACKGROUND: In a survey of German hospitals with obstetric units, data on anaesthesia and analgesia in obstetric pain management were collected. METHODS: At each of 918 hospitals with obstetric units, the head of the anaesthetic department received a questionnaire on obstetric pain management. RESULTS: The response rate was 47.1%. On average, there were 748+/-407 (median 663;1st/3rd quartiles 309/1,303) births per year and hospital, 69.4% with spontaneous vaginal delivery. Opioids were the systemic analgesics most frequently administered in the delivery rooms. Epidural analgesia (EA) was given to 17.5+/-12.6% of the parturients. The number of deliveries per annum had a significant influence on the frequency of EA (<500 deliveries/year: 12.7%, 500-1000/year: 18.6%, >1,000/year: 21.6%). The preferred local anaesthetics were ropivacaine und bupivacaine. When an opioid was given this was almost always sufentanil. In 16% of the responding hospitals adrenaline was added to the epidural test bolus. CONCLUSION: EA is the mainstream method of relieving labour pains in almost all German hospitals, but is used significantly more often in hospitals with rather high numbers of yearly deliveries than in hospitals in which there are few deliveries per year.     

The Concept of Diminished Responsibility in Supranational Criminal Law (Psychiatric Approach)

The role of the community management order (CMO) in the management of mental illness has been associated with controversy. There is uncertainty as to the effectiveness of such involuntary treatment. Review of outcomes of involuntary community treatment has shown varied results, and in the remote areas of Australia the issue becomes more complex, and outcomes more difficult to measure. The Northern Territory's Mental Health Act 2000 has broadened criteria for detention. The decision to impose follow-up and case management on an individual (who may reside in a community several hundred kilometres from an in-patient facility) requires careful consideration of its ethical, professional and psychosocial implications. The trend toward increasing use of mental health legislation in the Northern Territory — particularly for Indigenous people — deserves close scrutiny in order that culturally appropriate and sensitive treatment plans are developed.