The Process of Change in Complicated Grief Group Therapy for Bereaved Dementia Caregivers: An Evaluation Using the Meaning of Loss Codebook

ABSTRACT

Caring for a person with dementia has adverse health and mental health effects that, for 9–25% of caregivers, persist as complicated grief (CG). For bereaved dementia caregivers unable to satisfactorily grieve, specialized Complicated Grief Group Therapy (CGGT) can restore healthy grief. We investigated therapeutic change in CGGT participants, using an adapted version of the Gillies’ Meaning of Loss Codebook. Participants demonstrated positive gains in 16 thematic areas, notably in moving on with life, summoning pleasant memories, and ascribing bad memories to disease rather than decedent. Meaning transitioned from negative to positive interpretations of the death over the course of treatment.     

The experiences of Burmese healthcare interpreters (Iam) in maternity services in Thailand

Background

Interpreters (lam in Thai) have been employed in maternity services in Thailand due to increasing numbers of Burmese women migrating to Thailand. Access to healthcare interpreters is crucial for health professionals and Burmese migrant women using Thai maternity services but no studies have examined the role of the lam.

Who owns the baby? A video ethnography of skin-to-skin contact after a caesarean section

Problem

Providing skin-to-skin contact in the operating theatre and recovery is challenging.

Curriculum requirements and subsequent civic engagement: is there a difference between ‘forced’ and ‘free’ community service?

Despite figures showing the growth of mandatory community service programmes, there is mixed empirical evidence of their effectiveness. This paper addresses the relationship of mandated community service to one of its purported aims: subsequent volunteerism. It compares current volunteerism among four university student cohorts: those doing no service in secondary school, those volunteering with no requirement, those volunteering both before and after the introduction of a requirement, and those introduced to service through a requirement. The analysis indicates that (1) students who were introduced to service through a mandated programme exhibit current levels of engagement no greater than non‐volunteers; (2) this relationship stems largely from the different service experiences of our four cohorts and relates to the fact that service satisfaction and duration, as well as background variables account for current levels of civic engagement. The findings suggest that mandatory service programmes might well be failing the very population they seek to target, particularly in weaker, less structured programmes.     

Oral Poliovirus Vaccine Evolution and Insights Relevant to Modeling the Risks of Circulating Vaccine‐Derived Polioviruses (cVDPVs)

The live, attenuated oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) provides a powerful tool for controlling and stopping the transmission of wild polioviruses (WPVs), although the risks of vaccine‐associated paralytic polio (VAPP) and circulating vaccine‐derived poliovirus (cVDPV) outbreaks exist as long as OPV remains in use. Understanding the dynamics of cVDPV emergence and outbreaks as a function of population immunity and other risk factors may help to improve risk management and the development of strategies to respond to possible outbreaks. We performed a comprehensive review of the literature related to the process of OPV evolution and information available from actual experiences with cVDPV outbreaks. Only a relatively small fraction of poliovirus infections cause symptoms, which makes direct observation of the trajectory of OPV evolution within a population impractical and leads to significant uncertainty. Despite a large global surveillance system, the existing genetic sequence data largely provide information about transmitted virulent polioviruses that caused acute flaccid paralysis, and essentially no data track the changes that occur in OPV sequences as the viruses transmit largely asymptomatically through real populations with suboptimal immunity. We updated estimates of cVDPV risks based on actual experiences and identified the many limitations in the existing data on poliovirus transmission and immunity and OPV virus evolution that complicate modeling. Modelers should explore the space of potential model formulations and inputs consistent with the available evidence and future studies should seek to improve our understanding of the OPV virus evolution process to provide better information for policymakers working to manage cVDPV risks.     

Impacts of domestic population dynamics and foreign wood trade on deforestation: a world-system perspective

World system theory posits that core nations control global production processes through their economic and political-military strength, while countries at the periphery remain technologically underdeveloped and operate from a position of dependency. Rapid changes such as population growth and rural encroachment have spurred environmental degradation in the intermediary semi-periphery countries. The effects of world system structure on national deforestation were investigated in a quantitative, cross-national analysis of data from 60 core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral countries. This analysis revealed that rural population growth has had a deleterious effect on forestation throughout the world system. However, the impact of general population growth has been negative only in non-core countries. As hypothesized, forest exports have resulted in ecologic devastation in the periphery of the world system, but have exerted a favorable effect for core countries where reforestation programs dominate. These findings suggest that population growth per se is not the critical factor in environmental degradation. Urged are further quantitative evaluations of the environmental impact of other international commodity trades.     

Trust and Risk Communication in High-Risk Organizations: A Test of Principles from Social Risk Research

This study explored the effects of open communication about occupational risks on workers' trust beliefs and trust intentions toward risk management, and the resilience of these beliefs and intentions to further risk information. An experimental survey of 393 student nurses showed the importance of open communication in the development of worker trust in risk management. Consistent with the trust asymmetry principle, we found that the increase in trust beliefs following open communication was weaker than the reduction in trust following a lack of communication. Further, the level of trust developed through communication (or lack of) influenced the way that subsequent risk information was processed. Negative risk information reduced trust beliefs in nurses with already low levels of trust while positive risk information increased trust beliefs only in those with already high levels. A similar pattern of results emerged for nurses' trust intentions, although the magnitude of these effects was weaker. The implications of these findings for occupational risk management are discussed.