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As part of a study of the ways in which boards of trustees influence hospital decisions, this paper reports on the historical changes in the participation patterns of economic influentials (EI's) on the board and degree of control they manifested over present day decisions. Historically, there was only a slight decline in El representation on the board with an increasing trend toward EI representation in strategic organizational positions. A "pecking order" of control was observed: The EI's exerted the most control over management, next over their non-EI fellow board members. Several advantages and disadvantages of such control are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents various abstracts related to the field of human health and behavior. The first one is "Sociological Aspects of Aging," by Howard E. Jensen. The author stresses the disparate, though complimentary, biological and sociological problems of aging. The aging of an individual, as a sociocultural phenomenon, is defined not by physical deterioration or by time but by the value system of his society. The author points out that the simplest part of the sociological problem of aging is to ascertain the objectively determinable physical needs of the aged and to provide for them. The next abstract is "The Sentence Completion Test As a Predictor of Continuation in Psychotherapy," by E. Wesley Hiler. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Michigan Sentence Completion Test as a predictor of a patient's prematurely terminating therapy. Another abstract is "Decision-Making in a Mental Hospital: Real, Perceived, and Ideal," by Mark Lefton, Simon Dinitz and Benjamin Pasamanick. This paper attempts to examine the decision-making process in a small, institute type of psychiatric hospital in terms of differences in real, perceived and ideal influence patterns of 53 mental health specialists.