The impact of state community benefit laws on the community health orientation and health promotion services of hospitals

This study examined the effect of state community benefit laws and guidelines on the community health orientation and the provision of hospital-based health promotion services in hospitals. The sample included all not-for-profit and investor-owned acute-care hospitals in the United States during the year 2000. Multiple regression procedures were used to test the effect of community benefit laws and type of ownership while controlling for organizational and environmental variables. The results of these procedures indicated that, on average, not-for-profit hospitals in the ten states with community benefit laws/guidelines reported significantly more community health orientation activities than did not-for-profit hospitals in the forty other states. The results of the multiple regression procedures also indicated that, on average, the investor-owned hospitals in the ten states with laws/guidelines reported significantly more community health orientation activities than did the investor-owned hospitals in the forty other states. The study found that community benefit laws had the effect of decreasing ownership-related differences in reported community health orientation activities. Further, Levene's test of equality of variance showed that the not-for-profit hospitals in community benefit states exhibited significantly lower variance in the community health orientation activities when compared with the not-for-profit hospitals in non-community benefit states. However, none of the statistical tests supported the hypotheses that community benefit laws compelled or induced hospitals to offer significantly more health promotion services. The study concluded that coercive measures such as community benefit laws were effective in compelling not-for-profit hospitals to report increased community orientation activities, and it also concluded that the mimetic pressures associated with these laws were effective in inducing investor-owned hospitals to report increased community orientation activities.     

Psychopathology in women arrested for domestic violence

This study examined the prevalence of psychopathology among women arrested for violence and whether the experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) was associated with Axis I psychopathology. Women who were arrested for domestic violence perpetration and court referred to violence intervention programs (N= 103) completed measures of IPV victimization, perpetration, and psychopathology. Results revealed high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, substance use disorders, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. Violence victimization was significantly associated with symptoms of psychopathology. Logistic regression analyses showed that sexual and psychological abuse by partners were associated with the presence of PTSD, depression, and GAD diagnoses. Results highlight the potential importance of the role of violence victimization in psychopathology. Results suggest that Axis I and Axis II psychopathology should routinely be assessed as part of violence intervention programs for women and that intervention programs could be improved by offering adjunct or integrated mental health treatment.