Loss and grief: The experience of transition to residential aged care

There is growing recognition of the experience of non-death-related loss and grief. One unexplored area of non-death-related loss and grief is associated with older people’s transition from home to residential aged care (RAC). This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of people living in RAC, carer-relatives of people living in RAC and RAC staff. Using theories of loss and grief, the paper identifies features of the transition to RAC that are associated with unresolved loss and maladaptation to changed circumstances, and the types of support that would mitigate these. Using a series of focus groups with both residents and carer-relatives, as well as staff, the study found that residents and their families need more support to negotiate the multiple, often necessarily hasty decisions and bureaucratic requirements associated with transitioning to RAC, while simultaneously experiencing loss and grief. The types of support that families would welcome from service providers include facilitating shared decision making, valuing family and community carer expertise and providing practical information and assistance to fulfil administrative obligations.     

Quantifying uncertainty in the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales

Summary.  A crucial issue in the current global warming debate is the effect of vegetation and soils on carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere. Vegetation can extract CO₂ through photosynthesis, but respiration, decay of soil organic matter and disturbance effects such as fire return it to the atmosphere. The balance of these processes is the net carbon flux. To estimate the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales, we address the statistical problem of inference for the sum of multiple outputs from a complex deterministic computer code whose input parameters are uncertain. The code is a process model which simulates the carbon dynamics of vegetation and soils, including the amount of carbon that is stored as a result of photosynthesis and the amount that is returned to the atmosphere through respiration. The aggregation of outputs corresponding to multiple sites and types of vegetation in a region gives an estimate of the total carbon flux for that region over a period of time. Expert prior opinions are elicited for marginal uncertainty about the relevant input parameters and for correlations of inputs between sites. A Gaussian process model is used to build emulators of the multiple code outputs and Bayesian uncertainty analysis is then used to propagate uncertainty in the input parameters through to uncertainty on the aggregated output. Numerical results are presented for England and Wales in the year 2000. It is estimated that vegetation and soils in England and Wales constituted a net sink of 7.55 Mt C (1 Mt C = 10¹² g of carbon) in 2000, with standard deviation 0.56 Mt C resulting from the sources of uncertainty that are considered.     

An Existential Approach to Risk Perception

Existential, or existential-phenomenological philosophical approaches to the social psychology of risk perception provide a novel framework for understanding issues that are common to all humanity, such as fear of death, freedom and responsibility, isolation and meaninglessness, as these anxieties are a function of existing, or being-in-the-world. These fundamental anxieties can be related theoretically to the ways people perceive risks within social and cultural milieus, and can also be used practically within case studies, as demonstrated in the three examples presented, which examine perceptions of climate change, food-related risks, and environmental awareness via a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques. The discussion focuses on the possible insights that can be gained from taking an existential perspective on risk perception, and relates notions of contemporary technologically-oriented societies to the existential challenges faced by individuals and societies in the contemporary world.     

The Use of E‐mail in the Therapy Process

The therapeutic letter has a long history, with roots in psychoanalytic work and continuing application in family therapy. The advent of e‐mail has allowed another form for therapeutic written communication which, while incorporating the benefits of therapeutic letters, adds to these. It has also opened up some potential risks. This article incorporates a brief review of the literature covering therapeutic written communication and offers a case example where e‐mail was used as an adjunct in face‐to‐face therapy with a client who experienced attachment difficulties. This therapy was informed by systemic and psychoanalytic traditions. The authors explore a variety of technical matters including the timing and crafting of e‐mail responses, the integration of written communication with face‐to‐face therapy, impact on the therapeutic relationship and management of crisis. Ethical issues such as confidentiality and duty of care are also considered.     

Children's involvement in their parents' divorce: implications for practice

The paper reports findings from a research study that explored children's experience of divorce. It shows that children experience parental divorce as a crisis in their lives but that they are able to mobilise internal and external resources to regain a new point of balance. In doing so, children demonstrate the degree to which they are active and competent participants in the process of family dissolution. The implications of the data are then considered in relation to engaging with children involved in divorce and in relation to some of the cultural presumptions that might militate against hearing what they have to say about their experiences. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulating the effect of demographic events on the household composition

The aim of this paper is to measure the effects on household composition of changes in demographic events, e.g. mortality, fertility, marriage, divorce. British household data are taken from the General Household Survey and aged by simulation to 2001 using a ‘Most Likely’ model. Subsequently different assumptions of each demographic event are taken from 1991 so that the effects of perturbations within each event can be studied. Special features of the simulation model are the differentiations between cohabitation and marriage and separation and divorce, and the detailed breakdowns of household types such as lone parents into single and previously married women and men with children aged 0–4, 5–15 and 16 and over.     

Children's talk and social competence

This article reviews research on the organisation of children's talk. It outlines the range of disciplinary concerns that contribute to the study of children's talk, and focuses on a range of work which foregrounds linkages between children's talk, social interaction and wider social processes. Paying particular attention to studies in conversation analysis, the emphasis is on how talk in peer‐group and in child‐adult interaction contributes to various theoretical and practical interests in children and society.     

Estimation of mortality from orphanhood in adulthood

This paper extends earlier research into methods for estimating adult mortality from information on the recent incidence of orphanhood. It presents a series of regression coefficients for estimating female and male mortality from synthetic cohort data on the subsequent orphanhood of those who had a living mother or father at exact age 20. Such information can be obtained either where questions about parental survival have been asked in two inquiries or by asking retrospectively about dates of orphanhood in a single survey. Although the method is somewhat sensitive to errors in the reporting of ages and dates, it is a promising source of up-to-date estimates of adult mortality that are free from bias due to the underreporting of the orphanhood of young children ("the adoption effect").     

Discrimination against women in employment

The operation of the Equal Pay Act and recent pressures to end all discrimination against women in employment makes discussion of such discrimination timely. This article begins by examining the forms which discrimination may take place and presenting evidence of the extent to which it is happening. This is followed by a summary of relevant legislation and legislative proposals and an examination of the effects to date of the Equal Pay Act. In the last part of the paper a conceptual framework is suggested for approaching some of the economic problems raised by discrimination. It is suggested that while much light could be shed by economic analysis still remaining to be done, some of the most fundamental points lie in the field of the behavioural scientist rather than the economist.     

Making Sense of Organizations in Public Management: A Back-to-Basics Approach

This article addresses some basic facts and ideas about organizations as a way of concluding the symposium. It identifies different types of organizations in terms of their legal-structural characteristics, and considers aspects of their legal power, ownership, financing, staffing, and outsourcing. It ends with some suggestions for further related research on organizations.