Providing psychiatric-mental health care for Native Americans: lessons learned by a non-Native American PMHNP

Providing culturally sensitive psychiatric-mental health nursing care to Native Americans requires a unique set of understandings. Traditional tribal customs and beliefs, historical events of the past 500 years, and acculturation and enculturation have affected Native Americans' health and well-being. In 2004, I had the opportunity to practice as a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner with a Native American tribe in the southwestern United States. This article describes the lessons I learned while practicing on the reservation and suggests ways other non-Native American practitioners can best serve this population.     

Servicing the body: placing glasses on the client’s head at the opticians

Various forms of service work rely upon personnel undertaking activities that necessitate close, and in some cases potentially intimate, contact with a client’s body. In this paper, we consider the ways in which opticians place and position glasses on the head of their clients and how they avoid, or at least ameliorate, the problems and sensitivities that might arise in this close encounter with the co-participant. The paper is based on the analysis of a substantial corpus of video-recordings, augmented by field work, undertaken both in UK and Denmark. The analysis draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and contributes to our understanding of the interactional accomplishment of body work and embodied conduct and to the growing corpus of research concerned with ‘multimodality’ and the social organisation of service encounters.     

Gender dimensions in women’s networking for social innovation

Even if the number of research studies on social innovation has increased the last years, due to its perceived potential to address complex societal challenges, there still remains several relevant aspects to be explored, such as the impact of gendered norms and patterns on the transition from social inclusion to social exclusion strived for in social innovation processes. In order to further expand the dawning scientific field of social innovation, this article presents a case study of a Swedish network promoting women’s employment, entrepreneurship and innovation, exploring the complex and multiple gender aspects of social innovation. The potentials and delimitations of the network to address gender on various levels of social innovation is scrutinized by means of previous research on social and gender dimensions of innovation and organizational/societal change, exposing that further development of social innovation as a scientific field requires a comprehensive approach to the identification and analysis of the gendered norms, subordination and empowerment that affect the aspired transition from social exclusion to social inclusion in social innovation processes.     

Problems of Taxonomy,Issues of Class,Citizenship, Consumption,and Avdot’ia Smirnova’s KoKoKo (2012)

Sundry discussions of Russian society by scholars, journalists, and politicians suffer from imprecise taxonomy, wielding labels such as middle class, civil society, and creative class in an automatic transfer of discursive categories long defining Western societies to one at increasing odds with numerous Western values. As various surveys by Russian sociologists have indicated, a ‘middle class’ and ‘civil society’ in the traditional sense do not exist in Russia. Moreover, even ‘the intelligentsia’, as historically defined, seems to have diminished, evaporated, or emigrated. Indeed, the incisive portrayal of contemporary Russian class distinctions in Avdot’ia Smirnova’s film KoKoKo (2012) exposes the impotence of the self-serving intelligentsia, contrasted to the vitality and drive of ‘the people’, who may be the only hope for Russia’s future – neither the radiant future fantasized by the Soviet Union nor the democratic future that seemed possible after perestroika, but one that meaningful resistance to the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime will need to elaborate step by painstaking step.     

Workplace aesthetics: impact of environments upon employee health as compared to ergonomics

Associations between self-reported needs for aesthetic and ergonomic improvements were studied to analyse a possible impact of aesthetic needs on job performance as compared to ergonomic needs in 11 occupational groups. Employees at Swedish broadcasting company were invited to participate in a cross sectional study. 74% (n=1961/2641) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Demographic data from company files and a pre-validated questionnaire were used. 'High rank' and 'low rank' aesthetic and ergonomic needs were compared. The perceived needs for aesthetic and ergonomic improvements showed significantly different distributions (p<0.001). Aesthetic needs were more frequently reported. No gender related differences were observed. Differences between occupational groups were shown (p=0.006, 0.003).'High rank' needs for aesthetic and ergonomic improvements were similarly associated to psychological demands, stress, pain and age. 16/24 factors showed significant differences between 'high and low rank' aesthetic needs, whereas 21/24 between ergonomic needs. Sick leave was stronger related to ergonomics. The study results show a relation between not only work place ergonomics but also work place aesthetics to health and well-being. Future work health promotion and prevention may benefit from the inclusion of workplace aesthetics.     

A bus stop shelter evaluated from the user's perspective

This study aims to evaluate the current bus stop shelter model used in Florianópolis, Brazil, through a functional analysis--focused in the relationship between the shelter, the users and their activities--and also to analyse users' perceptions. The methodology consisted of exploratory visits, anthropometric analysis, observation and interviews. The exploratory visit intended to survey the physical characteristics of the shelter (dimensions, materials, colors, displayed information) and its position on the sidewalk. The anthropometric analysis was made to verify whether the dimensions of the shelters were adequate to users' needs. The observation provided data for the analysis of users' behavior, which involved a biomechanical study of their postures, an ownership/occupancy analysis in terms of territoriality and studies about spatial requirements of interpersonal relations (proxemics). The interviews helped to analyze how the user perceives the quality of some of the main functions of the shelter: to provide physical and psychological comfort and to display information about the public transportation system. As a result, the overall conclusion is that shelters do not meet users' needs. Recommendations are provided in order to improve physical and psychological comfort and to display relevant information about the transportation system.     

Ergonomic assessment among radiology technologists: a survey in a hospital

This article is the result of an Ergonomic Diagnosis in a study for a Specialization Course in Ergonomics. The research is being done in a public hospital in the city of Rio de Janeiro, where the target system is the radiology sector. For diagnosis purposes, subjective techniques were used, such as an open-ended survey, Corlett questionnaire and techniques for evaluating ergonomic risk such as Owas and Rula. Systematic observation was emphasized using photos and films. Preliminary observations made to the radiographers found that these professionals suffer risks of physical and verbal harassment, as well as sexual harassment. Most of them feel discriminated against in terms of race and accumulate activities demanding a lot of attention, as the medical diagnosis and subsequent procedures will depend on the outcome of this task. They accumulate tension due to the weight of responsibility, since there are cases where the patient has risk of death.     

Ergoecology: evolution and challenges

This work details the conceptual and methodological evolution of 'Ergoecology' and its relationship to certain comparable disciplinary proposals and standards, with a view to making its current status known and fostering discussion and development of it in a broader context. 'Ergoecology' is a discipline which relates the ergonomic system to 'environmental factors', stressing the relationships between ecological-geographical aspects and human activities. After analyzing previously-developed and partially-validated methods, strengths are established, together with areas where there is room for improvement, based on conceptual validity. The objectives, principles, and premises of 'Ergoecology' will be revised and therefore it will be able to be compared with other disciplinary and regulatory developments. Finally, new concepts and notions are proposed, together with basic principles and axioms that will enable 'Ergoecology' to advance in both, the theoretical and the practical dimensions, leaving the door open to be disseminated and applied.     

Assessment method of accessibility conditions: how to make public buildings accessible?

The enforcement of accessibility today has faced several difficulties, such as intervention in historic buildings that now house public services and cultural activities, such as town halls, museums and theaters and should allow access, on equal terms to all people. The paper presents the application of a method for evaluating the spatial accessibility conditions and their results. For this, we sought to support the theoretical foundation about the main issue involved and legislation. From the method used--guided walks--it was possible to identify the main barriers to accessibility in historic buildings. From the identified barriers, possible solutions are presented according to the four components of accessibility: spatial orientation, displacement, use and communication. It is hoped also that the knowledge gained in this research contributes to an improvement of accessibility legislation in relation to the listed items.