'You cannot get enough of them!’ The rise (and fall) of complementary therapies in British nursing practice in the 1980s and 1990s

This paper examines the emerging use of complementary therapies in British nursing practice at the end of the twentieth century. Many nurses turned to complementary therapies as a means to provide a closer therapeutic relationship with their patients and this paper will establish how nurses were informed and empowered. The paper places complementary practices in the context of nursing developments in the closing decades of the twentieth century and concludes that the extent of the supporting networks that encouraged nurses to incorporate these therapies into their work was more significant than has been previously recognised and exemplifies a distinct period in the history of modern nursing.     

Key Determinants to using Telehealth Technology to Serve Medically Ill and Depressed Homebound Older Adults

Despite the increasing evidence for the effectiveness of telehealth technology in screening and treating chronic diseases, and comorbid depression among older adults, they have been slowly adopted by home health care (HHC) agencies. Therefore, this study aimed to identify factors that determine telehealth technology adoption. Twenty directors from the National Association for Homecare & Hospice member agencies completed a 45-min telephone interview. Questions were asked regarding their perceptions of telehealth, the key determinants of telehealth adoption and use, and recommendations they would give on telehealth adoption. The majority of the participants perceived telehealth as effective for managing symptoms and reducing cost. Meanwhile, some participants had a mixed feeling toward telehealth for depression care as they did not recognize their agency as equipped with the necessary resources and trained staff. Moreover, significant determinants of telehealth adoption included the agency-related characteristics, the patient-home environment, reimbursement and cost-related factors, and staff telehealth perception. Findings imply that there is a need for financial support both at the state and the federal levels to encourage telehealth adoption among HHC agencies. Future studies should consider exploring strategies used by successful programs to overcome barriers.     

Using Qualitative Methods with Poor Children in Urban Ethiopia: Opportunities &; Challenges

This paper discusses the advantages and challenges of using qualitative methods to elicit poor children’s perspectives about threats and positive influences on their wellbeing. It draws on research carried out by the author on the subjective experiences of poor children in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia in terms of their understandings of wellbeing, threats to their wellbeing, coping strategies, and positive or resilient outcomes. After a brief introduction reviewing previous approaches to child poverty in general and research on Ethiopian children in particular, the second section describes the research setting and the ethical approach to the study, which influenced how consent was obtained and the data analysed. The paper then describes the use of qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviews, draw-and-tell, and diaries, the kinds of data they produced and the methodological and ethical dilemmas and tensions encountered in using them. It concludes that despite the challenges qualitative methods are invaluable in order to understand what poor children see as threats and positive influences on their wellbeing.

Measuring Child Poverty in South Africa: Sensitivity to the Choice of Equivalence Scale and an Updated Profile

This paper offers evidence on the sensitivity of child poverty in South Africa to changes in the adult equivalence scale (AES) and updates the child poverty profile based on the Income and Expenditure Survey 2005/06. Setting the poverty line at the 40th percentile of households calculated with different AESs the scope and composition of child poverty are found to be relatively insensitive to the scale used. The rankings of children of different ages, girls versus boys, racial groupings and children living in rural versus urban areas are unaffected by choice of AES, although some provincial rankings on the poverty headcount measure are. The proportions of children and households ‘correctly’ identified as poor for the full range of scales is extremely high. These findings support the argument that it may be appropriate for profiling poverty in South Africa to use a poverty line based on a per capita welfare measure. For the construction of the child poverty profile, per capita income is used as the welfare indicator with the poverty line set at the 40th percentile of household. The profile suggests that poverty amongst children is more extensive than amongst the population or adults even after the massive injection of transfers into households with poor children through the child support grant. The child poverty headcount, depth and severity are all highest amongst children age 0–4 and lowest amongst those aged 15–17, who are not yet beneficiaries of the grants. They are also highest amongst African and Coloured children. Large variations across provinces remain. The analysis underlines the importance of prioritising children in the fight against poverty, particularly in their earliest years.     

Exploring patterns of personal growth initiative and posttraumatic stress: A latent profile analysis

Objective: This study examined the inconsistent relationship found between personal growth initiative (PGI) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) by exploring potential subgroups. In addition, after identifying the subgroups, potential predictors of these subgroups were examined. Participants: Participants were 534 undergraduate students who experienced a potentially traumatic event (PTE). Data collection occurred from March 2013 to December 2014. Methods: Because this was a preliminary study, archival data was used. Participants consisted of students who experienced a PTE within the past three years. Results: Latent profile analysis indicated a five-class model as the best-fitting model. Direct exposure and intentionality of the event were significant predictors of class membership; length of time since event and gender did not predict class membership. Conclusions: The current study provides a potential explanation of the inconsistent results between PGI and PTSS and also highlights the importance of acknowledging subgroups when utilizing PGI after a PTE.     

A clarifying comparison of methods for controlling the false discovery rate

Traditional multiple hypothesis testing procedures fix an error rate and determine the corresponding rejection region. In 2002 Storey proposed a fixed rejection region procedure and showed numerically that it can gain more power than the fixed error rate procedure of Benjamini and Hochberg while controlling the same false discovery rate (FDR). In this paper it is proved that when the number of alternatives is small compared to the total number of hypotheses, Storey's method can be less powerful than that of Benjamini and Hochberg. Moreover, the two procedures are compared by setting them to produce the same FDR. The difference in power between Storey's procedure and that of Benjamini and Hochberg is near zero when the distance between the null and alternative distributions is large, but Benjamini and Hochberg's procedure becomes more powerful as the distance decreases. It is shown that modifying the Benjamini and Hochberg procedure to incorporate an estimate of the proportion of true null hypotheses as proposed by Black gives a procedure with superior power.     

Communicative Correlates of Satisfaction,Family Identity,and Group Salience in Multiracial/Ethnic Families

Guided by the Common Ingroup Identity Model ( S. L. Gaertner & J. F. Dovidio, 2000 ) and Communication Accommodation Theory ( C. Shepard, H. Giles, & B. A. LePoire, 2001 ), we examined the role of identity accommodation, supportive communication, and self‐disclosure in predicting relational satisfaction, shared family identity, and group salience in multiracial/ethnic families. Additionally, we analyzed the association between group salience and relational outcomes as well as the moderating roles of multiracial/ethnic identity and marital status. Individuals who have parents from different racial/ethnic groups were invited to complete questionnaires on their family experiences. Participants (N = 139) answered questions about relationships with mothers, fathers, and grandparents. The results of the multilevel modeling analyses are discussed in terms of implications for understanding multiracial/ethnic families and family functioning.     

Peer violence in foster care: a review of the research evidence

Whilst a small amount of research has been undertaken on peer violence in residential settings, very little is known about peer violence in foster care. This paper reviews the published research since 1995 about the nature and extent of peer violence in foster care and interventions for preventing and managing these negative peer interactions. The evidence indicates that young people in foster care can be the instigators and recipients of peer violence, but the limited number of studies found means that conclusions cannot be drawn about the extent of the problem. There is some evidence about the impact of this type of violence on young people and fostering households. However, there remain gaps in the evidence about the full extent of all forms of exploitation and violence that are experienced and instigated by young people in foster care, the circumstances in which it takes place, the young people affected and its co‐occurrence with other difficulties. Critically, young people's views were largely absent from included studies, an important area that requires further research.