Although, recently, the biopsychosocial approach has been emphasized in the practice of family medicine, how psychologists and physicians interact in collaborative family health care practice is still emerging in Portugal. This article describes a qualitative study that focused on the understanding of psychologists and family physicians' perceptions of their role and the collaborative approach in health care.

A questionnaire gathered information regarding collaboration, referral, training and the practice of biopsychosocial medicine. A content analysis on respondents' discourse was performed. Results show that both physicians and psychologists agree on the importance of the biopsychosocial model and interdisciplinary collaboration. However, they also mentioned several difficulties that have to do with the lack of psychologists working full time in health care centers, lack of communication and different expectancies regarding each other roles in health care delivery.

Both physicians and psychologists acknowledge the lack of academic training and consider the need for multidisciplinary teams in their training and practice to improve collaboration and integrative care. Implications for future research and for the practice of biopsychosocial medicine are addressed.

Employees‘ perceptions of the emotional requirements of their work role are considered a necessary antecedent of emotion work. The impact of these requirements on the emotions employees display, their well-being, and their clients' satisfaction has been explored in previous research. Emotional requirements have been characterized as organizationally-based expectations (e.g., Brotheridge & Lee, 2003), formal and informal organizational rules (e.g., Cropanzano, Weiss & Elias, 2004), occupational norms (e.g., Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987; Smith & Kleinman, 1989) and job-based demands (Brotheridge & Lee, 2002). Although all these definitions assume some kind of shared source for perceptions of emotional requirements, it remains unclear to what extent these different sources contribute and to what extent the requirements are shared by different units, teams and individuals in the organization. The present study analyses the perception of emotional requirements from a survey of ninety-seven Primary Health Care teams composed of general practitioners, nurses and administrative staff (N = 1057). The relative contribution of different sources of variance (team, organizational, and occupational) to perceived emotional requirements and the effects on employees’ job satisfaction and well being are examined. Results confirm the relevance of the source and show the contribution of emotional demands to prediction of emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction levels.

The aim of this study is to assess social support dimensions (providers, satisfaction and different support actions) in patients with eating disorders (ED), looking at diagnosis, socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, and self-concept. Method: A total of 98 female ED patients were recruited. The ages of participants ranged from 12 to 34 (Mean=20.8 years old, SD=5.61). Patients have a primary DSM-IV-R diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (61.2%), bulimia nervosa (27.6%) or an unspecified eating disorder (11.2%). Social support was assessed using the Escala de Apoyo Social Percibido (EASP). This scale measures social support providers, satisfaction and specific social support actions, which can be grouped into informational, emotional and practical support. Self-concept was assessed using the Cuestionario de Autoconcepto (AF-5). Results: The two most frequent providers for these patients were mothers (86.7%) and partners (73.1%). Patients' satisfaction with social support was high and they reported that they received informational support more frequently than emotional and practical support. Family self-concept showed positive relationships with social support dimensions. Conclusion: These results show the importance of the family network in connection with these disorders and its relation to self-concept.

In a changing and flexible labour market it is important to clarify the role of environmental and personal variables that contribute to obtaining adequate levels of job satisfaction. The aim of the present study is to analyze the direct effects of employability and personal initiative on intrinsic, extrinsic and social job satisfaction, clarifying their cumulative and interactive effects. The study has been carried out in a sample of 1319 young Spanish workers. Hypotheses were tested by means of the moderated hierarchical regression analysis. Results show that employability and personal initiative predict in a cumulative way the intrinsic, extrinsic and social job satisfaction. Moreover, the interaction between employability and personal initiative increases the prediction of these two variables on intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. Results also indicate that higher values of employability when initiative is also high are associated to higher levels of intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. These results have implications for theory and practice in a context of new employment relations.

Over last century, work was not only a means of economic survival, but also a very strong factor of psychological structuring and of organization of personal, family, and everyday life. The new world of work provides new challenges to the balance of work and family life. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 453 people with the aim of analyzing the relation between variables such as family burdens and domestic responsibilities, and the appraisal of work and family, values involved in work-family balance. The results of this study show that, in the present economic and cultural context, assuming family burdens and domestic responsibilities increases the positive appraisal of work and family, both in men and women. This has theoretical and practical implications concerning the challenge of work-family balance.

This study is aimed at exploring daily and desired activity patterns in a sample of older people living in a rural context, as well as at examining the effect of some influential factors and their relationships with life satisfaction. Our sample was made of 216 retired people and was recruited from 12 villages from Catalonia and Valencia with populations of less than 1000 inhabitants. Data were gathered by means of an interview that included daily and ideal activities and life satisfaction (by applying the Life Satisfaction Index). Our results show that yesterday's pattern of activities is similar to an ideal pattern, although in the ideal day, our sample allocated more time to social activities and less time to passive activities such as watching TV or resting. In both cases, leisure activities and time spent working seem to play an important role in older people's life. Gender has a remarkable influence on patterns of activity, as women devoted more time to instrumental activities and less time to leisure. In general, differences between yesterday's and ideal activities were not related to life satisfaction.

Heroes play collectivist or individualist roles in imagination and self-development. Representations of heroic figures in questionnaires given to French (n = 241) and Spanish (n = 227) samples of 10 and 15-year-olds were examined to assess the extent that heroes originated in digital media, and whether they were proximal or distal personalities. There is strong evidence that heroes in this sample were largely learned about in digital media (France 45%, Spain 50%): family and community heroes were a minority (France 11%, Spain 9%). Male heroes were more important to Spanish participants compared to their French peers. The acquisition sequence for hero type reported in the pre-television era, proximal (family and community) to distal (beyond the neighbourhood), is reversed in this study. Generally, 10-year-olds preferred heroes with collectivist qualities and 15 year olds with individualised qualities. Findings are discussed in terms of the emergence of social capital.

This paper explored public willingness to act when exposed to cases of intimate partner violence against women, by analyzing the influence of perceived severity and personal responsibility on two types of responses: mediating and reporting to the police. Results (N = 419) yielded main effects of personal responsibility for both types of responses. No main effects of perceived severity were found. A significant interaction between perceived severity and personal responsibility was found only for reporting responses. Results are discussed in light of the helping behavior research tradition. Implications for public education and advocacy programs are also considered.

Stereotypicality and attitudinal similarity are variables broadly studied in the research about leader's acceptance and evaluation. However, the interaction between these variables has not been deeply studied. An experimental research in which we analyze the influence of both variables and their interaction on leaders' evaluation is presented. A3 × 3 (attitudinal similarity [none, moderate, high] × leaders' stereotypicality [none, moderately and very stereotypical]) design was used. Participants were 215 Psychology students. Results show that both variables influenced leaders' evaluation, although the influence of stereotypicality was stronger than that of attitude similarity. The significant interaction between both variables indicates that, when a very stereotypical leader is not at all similar or moderately similar to the perceiver, his or her evaluation diminishes.

In the present work we test whether the effectiveness of ecological messages may be canceled out when they conflict with the descriptive norm that is salient in the situation. In two studies, participants were unobtrusively observed while performing an ecologically relevant behavior: leaving lights on or off when exiting a public space. The results of Study 1 showed in two different settings (i.e., public washrooms of a university and of a restaurant) the powerful influence of focusing a descriptive norm that refers to such behavior, even when this descriptive norm is not sustained by the injunctive norm. The results of Study 2 showed the overall ineffectiveness of ecological messages when the information in the message was in conflict with the descriptive norm made salient by the context. Additionally, the results of a Follow-up Study suggested that vividness-congruency may increase the effectiveness of the message. Both the theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Organizational leadership is fundamental for the working and development of current organizations. It helps members of an organization to face transcendental challenges. One of the fundamental aspects of leaders is their personal characteristics and behaviour as perceived by their co-workers. Although research has established a relationship between these components, findings have failed to come up with any congruent evidence and further to this the organizations and contexts used are from several decades ago.

This article, which forms part of the international GLOBE project, analyses the relationship between motives and behaviour as perceived by co-workers in organizations, using quantitative and qualitative methods and including technological innovations. Using samples from 40 corporate directors and 84 of their co-workers, from different companies, it confirms how the main motives of leaders (power, affiliation and achievement) are related to different behavioral patterns (power to authoritarian, non-dependent and non-social-skill behaviours; affiliation to relationship and dependent behaviors, and achievement to proactive behaviors). It discusses the results with relation to traditional research and suggests practical measures and proposals for future investigations in this area.

This study follows the social identity model of leadership proposed by van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003), in order to examine empirically the mediator effect of leadership prototypicality between social identity, extra effort, and perceived effectiveness of group members. The sample consisted of 109 participants who worked in 22 different workteams of non-profit organizations (NPO) from Nicaragua and El Salvador. The data analysis was performed through structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that NPO membership is related to a high level of social identity. In addition, the results confirmed that leadership prototypicality has a significant and positive mediator effect in the relationship between the group identification and the group members' extra effort and the perceived effectiveness of leadership.

In order to explore if neuropsychological deficits on visual constructional ability could be related to risk eating behaviors, a total of 102 women were evaluated, 51 of the participants had been formally diagnosed with eating disorders and 51 did not. All participants were given the Eating Attitude Test (EAT-40), The Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure and The Tower of London Task. Results revealed the existence of a deficit on visual integration similar to those observed in other studies with diagnosed patients. The group at risk showed a comparatively reduced ability on the tasks and the control participants' execution was on the average. Findings revealed the need for designing studies to evaluate neuropsychological processes as possible risk factors which predict eating disorders.

University and academia are, due to its nature, its structure and its inside relationships, a perfect breeding ground for the conflicts, disputes, problems, and grievances. In these settings, mediation is one of the dispute resolution mechanisms most used by University Ombudsperson. However, the special characteristics of university contexts make it necessary to consider and evaluate elements that may have a bearing on the effectiveness of the process and outcomes of the mediation. In this paper a model of contingent intervention in mediation processes articulated in three dimensions is put forward: a) level of balance or symmetry of power between the parties involved; b) the foreseeable temporal perspective of the relationship between them; and c) level of formalization of the mediation process. Based on the interaction between the three dimensions, a series of proposals will be formulated in order to design different strategies of intervention for mediation processes in university settings. Practical implications of this contingent model and future research on this topic are discussed.

The aim of this study was to identify variations from different language therapy processes times in two groups of children with autistic spectrum disorders. 8 subjects, from 3 to 17 years old, participated of this study and they were divided in two groups: Group 1: 4 subjects, in language therapy for 12 months, with therapist change after 6 months; Group 2: 4 subjects, also in language therapy for 12 months, but without therapist change in this period. Data was collected from two videotapes recordings: initial and final and all the recordings had fifteen minutes of duration. The analysis was done according to the criteria proposed by Fernandes (2004a), for functional evaluation of language and the statistical analysis were done with the Wilcoxon signed ranks test and the Mann-Whitney test, with 5% of significance. The results showed no difference between the two groups. This outcome may be related to the small size of the groups or to the duration of the study. Nevertheless, a better functional profile of communication was noted on group 2, witch had no therapist change. This outcome was represented by the improving of the communicational acts and the use of the communicative space, it was also noted an increasing of the utilization of the verbal mean and decreasing of the vocal mean, besides a greater utilization of the more interactive functions.

Statistical inference about two binomial parameters implies that they are both estimated by binomial sampling. There are occasions in which one aims at testing the equality of two binomial parameters before and after the occurrence of the first success along a sequence of Bernoulli trials. In these cases, the binomial parameter before the first success is estimated by negative binomial sampling whereas that after the first success is estimated by binomial sampling, and both estimates are related. This paper derives statistical tools to test two hypotheses, namely, that both binomial parameters equal some specified value and that both parameters are equal though unknown. Simulation studies are used to show that in small samples both tests are accurate in keeping the nominal Type-I error rates, and also to determine sample size requirements to detect large, medium, and small effects with adequate power. Additional simulations also show that the tests are sufficiently robust to certain violations of their assumptions.

Caregiving of a family member with psychotic disorder is considered among the most significant stressors and relatives of a sufferer experienced psychological and physical burden that may be the cause of neurotic states. There is growing evidence that sensitivity of individuals to depressogenic effects of stressful factor is moderated by genetic variants of serotonin transporter (SERT) and brain-derived neurotrophic factors (BDNF). We examined the association of the 5-HTTLPR SERT and Val66Met BDNF polymorphisms with signs of depression and anxiety measured with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in 235 unaffected parents of patients with major psychosis and 102 agematched controls. A significant effect of the SERT-BDNF interaction on Depression and Psychasthenia scales was found in the group of parents, but not in the control group. Carriers of the Val/Val x SS variant scored higher as compared to other allelic combinations. The results obtained revealed that the SERT-BDNF interactions might moderate the level of anxiety and depression caused by caregiving status in parents of psychotic patients.

In this paper we describe a new version of a former paper-and-pencil standardized comprehension test called Test of Comprehension Processes (Vidal-Abarca, Gilabert, Martínez, & Sellés, 2007). The new version has been adapted to a computer-based environment based on the moving window technique. It can be used to assess comprehension strategies of students from fifth to tenth grades (11 to 16 years old). Comprehension strategies are registered on-line using reading times and visits to relevant sections of the text during the question-answering process. Data show that the computer-based version draws similar results to those provided by the paper-and-pencil version. In addition, we identify the particular strategies deployed during the question-answering process by high, medium and low comprehenders.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the reactivity of the HPA-axis in children diagnosed with different subtypes of ADHD against a healthy control group. This study included a total of 66 children: 33 children with ADHD diagnoses (10 with prevalent inattentive symptoms, 9 with prevalent hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and 14 with the combined subtype) and 33 healthy controls. The Trier Stress Social Test for Children (TSST-C) was employed as stressor. This test included two main stressors: first, completing a story initiated by an interviewer, and second, executing a timed cognitive task. Saliva samples were then obtained at -1, and +1, +10, +20 and +30 minutes with respect to the stressinducing task. While the repeated-measures ANOVA showed a statistically significant time effect, the expected cortisol stress-response was not observed in any group. A difference was observed in the response from the hyperactive-impulsive group that was also observed in the AUCG comparisons with the subgroups. The ADHD group with prevalent hyperactivity-impulsive symptoms showed more significantly reduced cortisol levels than the control group and other experimental subgroup with prevalent inattentive symptoms.

We have already published the psychometric properties of our Spanish version of the Buss and Perry's Aggression Questionnaire adapted to young subjects (Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1453-1465). The four-dimensional structure of the questionnaire was confirmed in each pre-adolescent and adolescent sample, although differences in the inter-correlations among factors between both groups of age were then observed. We publish now new evidences about its factorial validity in the whole group of pre-adolescent and adolescent children. We also report the positive correlations found between measurements obtained with this questionnaire (AQ-PA) and other aggression and anger scales (DIAS, STAXI and EXPAGG) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), which provide more evidences about its convergent validity. The text of the Spanish version of this questionnaire adapted to pre-adolescent and adolescent subjects is also reported.