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The article presents abstracts of various research papers published in the June 1961 issue of "Journal of Health and Human Behavior." One of the abstract discusses the relationship between and intrapsychic processes. Another abstract presents a study which attempts to ascertain, and account for, the presence of significant differences in knowledge of attitudes toward mental disease between a sample of high school boys and one from a boys' reformatory. The purpose of one of the papers on hospital-patient relationships is to clarify the precise nature of the relationship between mental hospitals and patients and to compare and contrast it with the relationship between medical hospitals and patients. Another paper on mental hospitals presents information about four types of "pathway" organizations which seek to assist in the transitional period between the discharge of a mental patient from a hospital and his re-entry into community life. The four general types considered are day hospitals, halfway houses, sheltered workshops, and ex-patient organizations.

This paper presents a descriptive process' for understanding disclosure of terminal illness. This process combines both (1) the stages typically present in the response stimulated by such disclosure and (2) the characteristic forms of interaction between the patient and hospital staff at each stage of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

One of the most universal complaints of hospitalized patients in Western society is that they do not have enough communication with hospitalized functionaries. This paper briefly reviews the meaning and function of communication to hospitalized patients and some barriers to that communication. Possible reasons for lack of communication between patients and hospital functionaries are examined from the standpoint of their relation to the ends of the hospital as a social organization and the possible anticipated and unanticipated consequences of such a policy for the therapeutic process. Finally, a series of propositions are developed in regard to communication between nurses and hospitalized patients, and physicians and hospitalized patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]