Brief Report: The Role of Ego Development in Psychosocial Adjustment Among Boys With Delayed Puberty

This study examined the role of ego development, as measured with the Washington University sentence completion test, in the relationship between pubertal maturation and psychosocial adjustment (self-image and depression) in adolescent boys. The data consisted of 73 boys between 14 and 16 years of age. The results indicated that late maturing boys were also psychologically more immature, and that they experienced negative feelings about sexuality. Additionally, higher ego development was associated with elevated levels of anxiety and depression among late maturing boys. In boys with average pubertal maturation, higher ego development was associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression.     

Associations between stress at work and attitudes towards retirement in hospital physicians

Abstract

There is a need to understand the associations between attitudes towards retirement in specific occupations and various psychosocial and work-related factors. This study identified correlates of retirement thoughts and retirement preference in hospital physicians. The sample comprised 447 (251 male and 196 female) physicians from three hospital districts in Finland. After adjustment for gender, age and salary, minor psychiatric morbidity increased likelihood of retirement thoughts and retirement preference. Retirement thoughts and retirement preference were more common in doctors reporting low job control, poor teamwork and unjust supervision than in doctors perceiving their working conditions more favorably. Work preference was associated with high overwork. The associations of work characteristics with retirement thoughts and retirement preference largely persisted after control for indicators of health and social circumstances. In conclusion, in addition to demographic and financial factors and health, retirement attitudes in hospital physicians seem to be related to organizational and managerial factors that are potentially amendable to intervention. This has implications for retaining hospital physicians who might otherwise retire.     

Job demands and job control as correlates of early retirement thoughts in Finnish social and health care employees

Given the ageing workforce, there is an increasing interest in understanding the retirement process. This study examined whether early retirement thoughts can be explained by job demands, job control and their interaction, a hypothesis derived from the job demand-control model of Karasek (). The moderated hierarchical regression analyses of early retirement thoughts were based on a sample of 274 male and 2798 female employees aged 20 to 65 years in Finnish social and health care. Our results suggest that job demands and job control are independent predictors of early retirement thoughts even when adjusted for age, gender, educational level and self-rated health. Furthermore, our results offered support for the interaction effect of job demands and job control on early retirement thoughts. Among people over 45 years old, these associations were even stronger, compared to the whole sample. This indicates that one way to reduce the number of people taking early retirement would be to put the emphasis on psychosocial factors, such as job control, affecting the older workers.     

Associations between stress at work and attitudes towards retirement in hospital physicians

There is a need to understand the associations between attitudes towards retirement in specific occupations and various psychosocial and work-related factors. This study identified correlates of retirement thoughts and retirement preference in hospital physicians. The sample comprised 447 (251 male and 196 female) physicians from three hospital districts in Finland. After adjustment for gender, age and salary, minor psychiatric morbidity increased likelihood of retirement thoughts and retirement preference. Retirement thoughts and retirement preference were more common in doctors reporting low job control, poor teamwork and unjust supervision than in doctors perceiving their working conditions more favorably. Work preference was associated with high overwork. The associations of work characteristics with retirement thoughts and retirement preference largely persisted after control for indicators of health and social circumstances. In conclusion, in addition to demographic and financial factors and health, retirement attitudes in hospital physicians seem to be related to organizational and managerial factors that are potentially amendable to intervention. This has implications for retaining hospital physicians who might otherwise retire.     

Systematic handling of missing data in complex study designs – experiences from the Health 2000 and 2011 Surveys

We present a systematic approach to the practical and comprehensive handling of missing data motivated by our experiences of analyzing longitudinal survey data. We consider the Health 2000 and 2011 Surveys (BRIF8901) where increased non-response and non-participation from 2000 to 2011 was a major issue. The model assumptions involved in the complex sampling design, repeated measurements design, non-participation mechanisms and associations are presented graphically using methodology previously defined as a causal model with design, i.e. a functional causal model extended with the study design. This tool forces the statistician to make the study design and the missing-data mechanism explicit. Using the systematic approach, the sampling probabilities and the participation probabilities can be considered separately. This is beneficial when the performance of missing-data methods are to be compared. Using data from Health 2000 and 2011 Surveys and from national registries, it was found that multiple imputation removed almost all differences between full sample and estimated prevalences. The inverse probability weighting removed more than half and the doubly robust method 60% of the differences. These findings are encouraging since decreasing participation rates are a major problem in population surveys worldwide.     

Elevator planning with stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis

Modern elevator systems in high-rise buildings consist of groups of elevators with centralized control. The goal in elevator planning is to configure a suitable elevator group to be built. The elevator group must satisfy specific minimum requirements for a number of standard performance criteria. In addition, it is desirable to optimize the configuration in terms of other criteria related to the performance, economy and service level of the elevator group. Different stakeholders involved in the planning phase emphasize different criteria. Most of the criteria measurements are by nature uncertain. Some criteria can be estimated by using analytical models, while others, especially those related to the service level in different traffic patterns, require simulations.     

Risk‐Informed Regulation and Safety Management of Nuclear Power Plants—On the Prevention of Severe Accidents

There are four operating nuclear power plant (NPP) units in Finland. The Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) power company has two 840 MWe BWR units supplied by Asea‐Atom at the Olkiluoto site. The Fortum corporation (formerly IVO) has two 500 MWe VVER 440/213 units at the Loviisa site. In addition, a 1600 MWe European Pressurized Water Reactor supplied by AREVA NP (formerly the Framatome ANP—Siemens AG Consortium) is under construction at the Olkiluoto site. Recently, the Finnish Parliament ratified the government Decision in Principle that the utilities' applications to build two new NPP units are in line with the total good of the society. The Finnish utilities, Fenno power company, and TVO company are in progress of qualifying the type of the new nuclear builds. In Finland, risk‐informed applications are formally integrated in the regulatory process of NPPs that are already in the early design phase and these are to run through the construction and operation phases all through the entire plant service time. A plant‐specific full‐scope probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is required for each NPP. PRAs shall cover internal events, area events (fires, floods), and external events such as harsh weather conditions and seismic events in all operating modes. Special attention is devoted to the use of various risk‐informed PRA applications in the licensing of Olkiluoto 3 NPP.     

Metabolic syndrome and the menopause

The metabolic syndrome consists of a combination of risk factors that include abdominal obesity, atherogenic dyslipidaemia, hypertension and insulin resistance. It increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The increased risk of cardiovascular disease is higher in women than in men. The first manifestation of metabolic syndrome may occur in pregnancy presenting as gestational diabetes or preeclampsia. Both conditions are associated with increased insulin resistance. Also metabolic syndrome is more common in polycystic ovarian syndrome. It has been suggested that there is a metabolic syndrome resulting from the menopause due to estrogen deficiency, as many of the risk factors are more prevalent in postmenopausal women. Also estrogen replacement improves insulin sensitivity and reduces the risk of diabetes. The key elements in managing the metabolic syndrome are weight reduction, increasing physical activity and diet modification. If blood pressure, lipid and glycaemic control are not achieved through these interventions then pharmacological therapy will be required.