Evaluation of an intervention programme based on empowerment for eldercare nursing staff

This study evaluated the impact of an intervention programme at individual, worksite, and organizational level, for eldercare nursing staff at 12 eldercare units. The project aimed at empowering auxiliary nurses and nursing assistants, thus promoting good working conditions, health and well-being of eldercare staff, and improving their evaluation of the quality of nursing care. Questionnaire responses from the nursing staff (n=200) before and after an 18-month intervention programme evaluated the effects using ANOVA, repeated measures for the statistical analyses. Although the improvements were limited, the intervention seemed to impact on work conditions and on the perceived quality of nursing rather than on the health and well-being of staff. Work at nursing homes or at home-care was shown to modify the outcome due to different needs and priorities for work unit improvements. Staff turnover and multiple reorganizations are discussed as inhibiting factors for performance as well as for the evaluation of workplace interventions. The sharing of power between occupational groups or organizational levels must be carefully considered. The study emphasizes the importance of involving the middle management in early project planning and decisions.     

Developing a planning culture for more effective strategic planning

The literature of long-range planning is replete with justifications of the need for strategic planning and admonitions concerning its critical importance. However, both the literature of planning and its practice, as manifested in a variety of organizations as diverse as industrial firms, educational systems and law enforcement agencies, are deficient in specifying proven techniques and methodologies for marshalling organizational resources to effectively implement strategic planning.Over a period of years, the authors have consulted with a variety of business organizations and public agencies in the development and implementation of long-range planning processes. From this work has come an empirically-tested conclusion that the success of long-range planning in an organization is less sensitive to the parameters of the planning techniques that it is to the overall culture within which the planning is accomplished. Since most of the non-pontifical literature of planning focuses on planning techniques and specifications for planning processes, these conclusions suggest a critical void in planning methodology.     

Judgments of Chemical Risks: Comparisons Among Senior Managers, Toxicologists, and the Public

Nineteen Senior Managers of a major chemical company in the United Kingdom participated in a survey to determine their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions regarding risks from chemicals. Similar surveys had previously been conducted with toxicologists and members of the general public in the United States and Canada. In general, the Senior Managers tended to judge risks to be quite small for most chemicals. Moreover, they had lower risk perceptions than did members of the British Toxicological Society and even far lower perceptions of risk than a comparison group of members of the Canadian public. The managers held views that were similar to British toxicologists working in industry and government and dissimilar to the views of toxicologists working in academia. The observed differences between views of managers, toxicologists, and the public must be recognized and understood in order to facilitate communication and constructive efforts to manage chemical risks.     

国际恐怖主义在美国造成的后果

人人都意识到 ,2 1世纪不是从 1月 1日开始的 ,而是从 9月 1 1日开始的。本文想要探讨的是 ,在恐怖主义活动复活的情况下 ,我们可以预见到今后还会发生什么情况。1 所谓“不会遭到攻击”的观念的终结第二次世界大战期间日本对珍珠港的袭击无疑使美国人受到了极大的精神伤害 ,但夏威夷终究距离美洲大陆很远 ,而且日本攻击的目标均为军事设施。“9·1 1”事件是一种新型的恐怖主义在全球的出现 ,它的目的是表明任何人在任何时间都可能成为恐怖活动的受害者。在“9·1 1”事件中 ,恐怖分子的目的是摧毁美国社会的核心象征。2 盲目的多元文化…     

Hip protectors in the elderly: lack of effectiveness or just suboptimal implementation?

Hip protectors seemed to be the only non-pharmacological intervention to effectively prevent hip fractures in high-risk populations. In contrast, recently published trials did not find hip fracture reduction through hip protector interventions. An updated Cochrane review concluded that the device is ineffective for community-dwelling elderly and of uncertain effectiveness for institutionalised elderly. However, some primary studies used suboptimal implementation of hip protectors, which has led to low adherence and ineffectiveness of the intervention. Shortcomings in implementation techniques have not been assessed by the Cochrane review. Therefore, reviewers should explicitly assess whether the intervention was well planned and competently administered. As a checklist cannot adequately assess individual, study-specific implementation flaws, we suggest narrative expert review and feedback to the authors of the primary study.     

Supporting Asian Deaf Young People and their Families: the role of professionals and services

This paper discusses how Asian deaf young people and their families engage with welfare provision. Our findings, based on group and individual interviews with young deaf people and individual interviews with their parents, explore the assumptions underlying current provision and how they influence the options available to young people and their families. The paper suggests that the welfare state exerts a form of social control where professional help, although well intended, may disempowers Asian deaf people by privileging 'oralism' over sign language, and western norms over other cultural values. On the other hand, positive constructions of deafness privilege Deaf identity while failing to accommodate ethnic or religious diversity, resulting in Asian deaf young people and their families having an ambivalent relationship with the Deaf community. We argue that services need to recognise and address the reasons for this ambivalence if they are to adequately engage Asian deaf people and their families.     

Seasonal patterns of fertility measures: A Bayesian approach

Becker (1981) presents some theory about related measures of fertility. He SUMMARY compares his theoretical predictions with observed relationships found in a set of data collected in Bangladesh. In general, he finds good agreement. In this paper, we reanalyse the data using Bayesian methods. In particular, we use Gibbs sampling to fit trigonometric regression models with autocorrelated errors. The results are generally in agreement with Becker's. However, evidence from one of the autocorrelation parameters and a residual analysis casts some doubt on whether the basic cosine model which is assumed fits the data well.     

Pathways to Intergenerational Adolescent Childbearing in a High‐Risk Sample

Previous research indicates that children of adolescent mothers are more likely to experience an adolescent birth than are children of older mothers. Using a longitudinal sample of 293 high‐risk mothers and their 19‐year‐old children, we investigated mediators of the intergenerational pattern of adolescent childbearing. Results from multigroup path models indicate that the intergenerational effect is (a) significant for children of unmarried mothers above and beyond mother’s prebirth socioeconomic status and education level, (b) fully mediated through early sexual intercourse related to presence of a father figure and early home environment for girls, and (c) partially mediated by early physical development for boys. Relation of findings to current models of early sexual behavior and childbearing is discussed.     

Assessing Poisson variation of intestinal tumour multiplicity in mice carrying a Robertsonian translocation

Summary.  Tumour multiplicity is a frequently measured phenotype in animal studies of cancer biology. Poisson variation of this measurement represents a biological and statistical reference point that is usually violated, even in highly controlled experiments, owing to sources of variation in the stochastic process of tumour formation. A recent experiment on murine intestinal tumours presented conditions which seem to generate Poisson-distributed tumour counts. If valid, this would support a claim about mechanisms by which the adenomatous polyposis coli gene is inactivated during tumour initiation. In considering hypothesis testing strategies, model choice and Bayesian approaches, we quantify the positive evidence favouring Poisson variation in this experiment. Statistical techniques used include likelihood ratio testing, the Bayes and Akaike information criteria, negative binomial modelling, reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and posterior predictive checking. The posterior approximation that is based on the Bayes information criterion is found to be quite accurate in this small n case-study.