Health-Related Quality of Life Among Abused Women One Year After Leaving a Violent Partner

This is the first follow up study measuring quality of life among abused women who have left their abusive partner. The women (n = 22) answered a questionnaire while staying at women’s shelter and one year later. The aim was to examine long-term effects of intimate partner violence against women on health-related quality of life. Health-related quality of life was measured using the SF-36 Health Survey and the WHOQOL-BREF. The meantime for living in a violent partnership was 11 years, most of the women had children under 10 years living with them, low income and were on sickness absence or disability pension. About half of the women had experienced threats of violence and 6 had experienced violent acts after leaving their partner. SF-36 scores after one year were significantly better in vitality (t-test, P < 0.001), mental health (t-test P < 0.001) and social domains (t-test, P < 0.04). WHOQOL-BREF scores did not change significantly from baseline, showing that the SF-36 showed more responsiveness in this population. Regression analysis showed that serious physical violence reported at baseline predicted significantly less improvement in physical and mental health and role-emotional in the SF-36 and in social relationships and environmental health in the WHOQOL-BREF. High psychological violence at baseline predicted significantly less improvement in mental health in the SF-36 and in social relationships and environmental health in the WHOQOL-BREF.     

Equal gender opportunity: Couples in the gap between principles and practice

This paper begins with reference to Nordic evidence claiming that practice is not measuring up to widespread ideals of parent couples sharing housekeeping and childcare tasks when both parents work. Relatedly the paper brings observations of what family practice may look like today in a sample of dual earner heterosexual Norwegian couples with children in day care. There seems to be a discrepancy – a gap – between generally accepted principles and practice as described. The observations are interpreted in relation to a set of concepts with the intention of trying to understand meanings of the gap for people living in the situation. A number of burdens on mothers are highlighted. This situation – through its influence on individual well-being and setting interactions – is of importance not only for couples and their children, but also for communities and organizations. Involvement from institutions around the family, notably from work organizations, is needed in the struggle for change.     

Costs of reproduction in common eiders ( Somateria mollissima ): An assessment of relationships between reproductive effort and future survival and reproduction based on observational and experimental studies

The two traditional approaches to the study of costs of reproduction, correlational and experimental, have been used in parallel in a breeding colony of common eiders ( Somateria mollissima ) and were compared in this paper. The analysis of the observational data was based on a two-strata capture-recapture model, the strata being defined on the basis of the clutch size laid by individual females in a given year. The best model according to AIC C indicated substantial variation in survival, recapture and transition rates, but overall a pattern emerged: females laying large clutches have a somewhat higher survival and much higher capture rate than females laying small clutches, and transition from large to small clutch size occurs much more frequently than the reverse transition. The analysis of the experimental data (adding/removing one egg) showed that no clear effect was found on either survival or transition rates. We conclude by suggesting (1) that condition should be included in multi-strata models in addition to reproductive effort; (2) that a specific study design for estimating the proportion of non-breeding females should be implemented, and (3) that non-breeding (a non-observable state in this study) may be influenced by previous reproduction events.     

Testing the effect of conspecific reproductive success on dispersal and recruitment decisions in a colonial bird: Design issues

Factors affecting dispersal and recruitment in animal populations will play a prominent role in the dynamics of populations. This is particularly the case for subdivided populations where the dispersal of individuals among patches may lead to local extinction and 'rescue effects'. A long-term observational study carried out in Brittany, France, and involving colour-ringed Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) suggested that the reproductive success of conspecifics (or some social correlate) could be one important factor likely to affect dispersal and recruitment. By dispersing from patches where the local reproductive success was low and recruiting to patches where the local reproductive success was high, individual birds could track spatio-temporal variations in the quality of breeding patches (the quality of breeding patches can be affected by different factors, such as food availability, the presence of predators or ectoparasites, which can vary in space and time at different scales). Such an observational study may nevertheless have confounded the role of conspecific reproductive success with the effect of a correlated factor (e.g. the local activities of a predator). In other words, individuals may have been influenced directly by the factor responsible for the low local reproductive success or indirectly by the low success of their neighbours. Thus, an experimental approach was needed to address this question. Estimates of demographic parameters (other than reproductive success) and studies of the response of marked individuals to changes in their environment usually face problems associated with variability in the probability of detecting individuals and with nonindependence among events occurring on a local scale. Further, very few studies on dispersal have attempted to address the causal nature of relationships by experimentally manipulating factors. Here we present an experiment designed to test for an effect of local reproductive success of conspecifics on behavioural decisions of individuals regarding dispersal and recruitment. The experiment was carried out on Kittiwakes within a large seabird colony in northern Norway. It involved (i) the colour banding of several hundreds of birds; (ii) the manipulation (increase/decrease) of the local reproductive success of breeding groups on cliffpatches; and (iii) the detailed survey of attendance and activities of birds on these patches. It also involved the manipulation of the nest content of marked individuals breeding within these patches (individuals failing at the egg stage were expected to respond in terms of dispersal to the success of their neighbours). This allowed us to test whether a lower local reproductive success would lower (1) the attendance of breeders at the end of the breeding season; (2) the presence of prospecting birds; and (3) the proportion of failed breeders that came back to breed on the same patch the year after. In this paper, we discuss how we dealt with (I) the use of return rates to infer differences in dispersal rates; (II) the trade-off between sample sizes and local treatment levels; and (III) potential differences in detection probabilities among locations. We also present some results to illustrate the design and implementation of the experiment.     

The Role of Forgiveness in Divorce Adjustment and the Impact of Affect

The role of forgiveness and affect was investigated in relation to divorce adjustment. Ninety-one participants separated from their ex-spouse less than 30 months completed a background questionnaire, the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), the Self Forgiveness Scale (SFS), the Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression Inventory (CES–D), the Spielberger State–Trait Anger Inventory (STAXI–2), and the Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale (FDAS). There were significant relationships between depression and the capacity to forgive and between being in an angry feeling state and harboring a lack of forgiveness toward the ex-spouse. The relationship that emerged as the most powerful was that between trait anger and lack of self-forgiveness. Forgiveness intervention that occurs early in the divorce adjustment process is implicated, particularly in relation to the self.     

The Need for Web-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy Among University Students

ABSTRACT

This study investigates students' need for a web-based cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) intervention program for preventing depression, the mental health status of those who felt a need for such a program, and underlying factors of the intention to use web-based self-help. A conceptual model for explaining intention to use web-based self-help is proposed. Nearly half of the participants reported a need for help with psychological problems, but only a third of these actually sought help from traditional mental health services. In conclusion, there is a need for web-based self-help, and web-based CBT has the potential to attract a group of students who, so far, have not been reached by traditional mental health services.     

Treatment‐as‐usual in effectiveness studies: What is it and does it matter?

Andrée Löfholm C, Brännström L, Olsson M, Hansson K. Treatment‐as‐usual in effectiveness studies: What is it and does it matter? A hallmark of an evidence‐based practice (EBP) is the systematic appraisal of research related to the effectiveness of interventions. This study addressed the issue of interpreting results from effectiveness studies that use treatment‐as‐usual (TAU) as a comparator. Using randomised controlled studies that evaluate the effectiveness of multisystemic therapy as an illustrative example, we show that TAU includes a wide variety of treatment alternatives. Estimated treatment effects on recidivism suggest that TAU seems to contain a greater variation in underlying risk than experimental conditions, supporting the hypothesis that the content of TAU could affect outcomes. Implications for the realisation of an EBP are discussed.     

Does change process healthiness reduce the negative effects of organizational change on the psychosocial work environment?

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate whether the detrimental effects of organizational change on the psychosocial work environment are reduced by the “healthiness” of change processes. This includes the management's awareness that the change may be experienced differently by various individuals and groups (diversity); availability of the manager during the process; the degree to which conflicts are resolved constructively; and the degree to which the new roles to be taken on are clarified. Two studies are presented. Using a randomized sample of the Norwegian working population (N = 2389), the first study showed that there were both direct and indirect positive relationships between organizational change and stress, with job demands (but not control and support) as a mediator. In the second study a healthy change process index (HCPI) was developed from dimensions of healthy change that had emerged in an earlier qualitative study. Using data from seven Norwegian enterprises undergoing change (N = 561), this study showed that the healthiness of the change process was related negatively to stress and positively to Control and Support, but not to Demands. Overall, these findings support the idea that a healthy process may not reduce the additional demands produced by organizational change. However, a healthy process may still be able to reduce the experience of stress and facilitate coping with stress and associated increased demands through enhancing the psychosocial work environment.     

Job demands,job control,and mental health in an 11-year follow-up study: Normal and reversed relationships

Abstract

Despite numerous studies of the demand-control model, there is a need for more longitudinal studies to test not only the normal, but also the reversed and reciprocal relationships between work characteristics and mental health. There is also a need for more studies of the multiplicative interaction between demands and control with respect to mental health, which is different from the simple additive effect of the two variables. This is a longitudinal study with an exceptionally long period of follow-up (11 years), with the focus on normal as well as reciprocal and reversed causality between work characteristics and mental health, as measured by reliable instruments close to the original definitions of Karasek. The study was based on a sample of 439 Norwegian employees of different occupations who had stayed in the same profession during the follow-up period. The results were in agreement with the hypothesis that low job control, and in particular low control in combination with high demands (“high strain jobs”), has a negative effect on mental health. There was a significant multiplicative interaction between demands and control, indicating a “buffering” effect of job control. Job demands alone were not significantly associated with mental health. The reversed relationship hypothesis was supported for job demands, but not for job control.     

EDUCATION AND MOBILITY

We show that the length of compulsory education has a causal impact on regional labor mobility. We reach this conclusion from an analysis of a quasi‐exogenous staged Norwegian school reform, using register data on the whole population. Based on the results, we conclude that part of the US–Europe difference, as well as the European North–South difference in labor mobility, is likely to be due to differences in levels of education in the respective regions.