PsychologicalReports, 1991, 69, 1225-1226. O Psychological Reports 1991

HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY AND COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY: A COMPARISON THROUGH CONTENT ANALYSIS O F REPRESENTATIVE JOURNALS ' DAVID F. DUNCAN Illinois Primary Health Care Association Summary.-This is an extension of previous analyses comparing the content of health psychology journals with the content of journals in health education and clinical psychology. The present content analysis of two journals in health psychology and two journals in community psychology identified commonalities and differences between the two specialties as well as between the two community psychology iournals.

Health psychology and community psychology are two of the younger and faster growing specialties in psychology. M. Shinn (personal communication, 1991) suggests that these two specialties may have commonalities as well as distinct differences. Shinn (1987, p. 555) has previously identified community psychology's two principal goals and major topics as prevention and empowerment. In two previous studies Duncan used the content analysis of representative journals to assess the content domains of health psychology versus health education (1990) and of health psychology versus clinical psychology (1991). Thls study extends the same methodology to the field of community psychology. The two journals selected as representative of community psychology were the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) and the ]ournal of Cornmunil), Psychology (JCP). As in the previous studies, health psychology was represented by the journals Health Psychology and Psychology and Health. All issues of the four journals for the years 1988 and 1989 were examined. The ten most frequent topics in health psychology journals (and the percentage of health psychology and community psychology journals in which the topics appeared) were patients (17%; O.6%), stress (15%; 12.3%), blood pressure or hypertension (12%; 0%), smoking (12%; 1.1%), social support (11%; 16.2%), coping (10%; 8.9%), personality (10%; 0%), coronary heart disease (9%; O%), evaluation (9%; 1.I%), and exercise (9%; 0%). The ten most frequent topics in community psychology journals (and the percentage in those and health psychology journals) were social support (16.2%; 11%), prevention (15.6%; 2%), stress (12.3%; 15%), children (11.7%; 8%), community (11.2%; 2%), coping (8.9%; lo%), empowerment (7.8%; 0%), parents (7.6%; 3%), community interventions (7.3%; 2%), and women (6.7%; 0%). 'Address correspondence to the author at 517 N. Michaels, Carbondale, IL 62901-1352.

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There appear to be differences in the subject matter of the two- community psychology journals. The top ten topics in American Journal of Community Psychology were prevention 20.9%, social support 20.9%, children 12.4%, coping 10.5%, stress 10.5%, families 9.5%, community interventions 8.6%, empowerment 7.6%, ethics 7.6%, and peer helperslnatural helpers 7.6%. The top ten in the Journal of Community Psychology, on the other hand, were community 20.3%, stress 14.9%, women 12.2%, children 10 8%, mental illness 10.8%, poverty 10.8%, mothers 9.5%, social support 9.5%, empowerment 8.1%, and prevention 8.1%. In conclusion, this analysis reveals a number of commonalities between the two specialties, particularly regarding the topics of stress, social support, and coping. Two of these same topics were among the commonalities previously identified between health psychology and clinical psychology (Duncan, 1991), suggesting that these three specialties represent a cluster of common interests within the specialties of psychology. REFERENCES DUNCAN, D. F. (1990) Health education and health psychology: a comparison through content analysis of representative journals. Psychological Reports, 66, 1057-1058. DUNCAN, D. F. (1991) Health psychology and clinical psychology: a comparison through content analysis. Psychological Reports, 68, 585-586. SHINN, M. (1987) Expanding community psychology's domain. AmericanJournalof Community Prychology, 15, 555-574. Accepted December 13, 1991

Health psychology and community psychology: a comparison through content analysis of representative journals.

This is an extension of previous analyses comparing the content of health psychology journals with the content of journals in health education and cli...
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