Developing the NICE/SCIE Guidelines for Dementia Care: The Challenges of Enhancing the Evidence Base for Social and Health Care

Internationally, interest is developing in the challenges ofdeveloping evidence-based guidelines for social work practice.The paper reports on the process of establishing the UK’sfirst joint health and social care evidence-based practice guideline,which is in dementia care. The paper addresses the methodologicaland procedural challenges of reviewing, meta-analysing and synthesizingknowledge for health and social care given the contrasting historiesof the two sectors in relation to the emergence of evidence-basedpractice. Dementia care is a complex domain within which socialand clinical perspectives intersect, reinforcing the desirabilityof producing ‘joined up’ health and social carepractice guidelines that are relevant to integrated services.It is suggested that the exemplar of producing a joint healthand social care guideline for dementia may be a model for futuredevelopment of practice guidelines. Some of the main recommendationsare presented to illustrate the character of the joint guideline,lessons are drawn for future guideline development, and implicationsfor policy and practice implementation are considered.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Work Hours,Child Gender,and Behavior in Middle Childhood

This study examined the association between typical parental work hours (including nonemployed parents) and children's behavior in two‐parent heterosexual families. Child behavior was measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) at ages 5, 8, and 10 in the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (N = 4,201 child‐year observations). Compared to those whose fathers worked fewer hours per week, children whose fathers worked 55 hours or more per week had significantly higher levels of externalizing behavior. This association was not explained by father–child time during the week, poorer family functioning, or overreactive parenting practice. Further, when stratifying the analysis by child gender, this association appeared to exist only in boys. Mothers' work hours were unrelated to children's behavioral problems. The role of parent and child gender in the relationships between parental work hours and children's behavioral problems, together with mediating factors, warrants further investigation.     

“I Am Tired But If I Don't Try to Have Sex,My Wife Will Think I've Been Fooling around in the City”: Work,Migration, and Sex Among Vietnamese Migrant Laborers

Mostly operating from a risk and risk-reduction paradigm, existing research on migrants in Vietnam tends to conceptualize sex and risky sexual behaviors as isolated life domains. This study begins to develop a contextually rich understanding of migrants’ sex lives by examining the relationships among sex, work, and the constant pendulum-like migrating movements of 23 Vietnamese married migrants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Using data from in-depth interviews, it was found that most participants had no sex in the city; this was followed by visits to the home village, where they had sex with their spouses as often as possible to make up for the “long drought” in the city. Within this sexual schema, sex came secondary, and even peripherally, to migrants’ working lives; thus, exhaustion from work was cited by migrants as the overwhelming factor leading to their sexual problems. This study suggests that migrants’ intimate lives are more strongly linked to their working lives than has previously been recognized, and that their sexual behaviors should be viewed in tandem with the hardships of their working lives.     

An alternative reduction formula for the central moments of the general bernoulli distribution

This note presents an alternative to Sproule's (1992) reduction formula for the central mcfnerits of the general Bernoulli distribution, This alternative is founded in part on Roranovsky's (1923) formula for the central moments of the conwentional Binomial distribution, The significance of this note for future research is also discussed.     

Body Image Disturbances and Predictors of Body Dissatisfaction Among Hispanic and White Preadolescents

This study assessed ethnic and gender differences in ideal body size, body dissatisfaction (BD), and the relationship between BD and various predictors (e.g., body composition indicators and cardiorespiratory fitness). The sample consisted of 190 White and Hispanic preadolescents aged 10–13 years. Demographic, percent body fat (%BF), body mass index (BMI), body image variables, and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) were examined. A significant Gender × Ethnicity interaction was found for ideal body size (p < .05), with Hispanic girls preferring the thinnest figures and Hispanic boys the largest figures, compared to their counterparts. No significant gender or ethnic differences in BD were observed. After controlling for demographic and cultural variables, increased %BF and BMI scores predicted greater BD, whereas CRF did not.     

Editorial

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Improved estimators for the location of double exponential distribution

In this paper, attention is focused on estimation of the location parameter in the double exponential case using a weighted linear combination of the sample median and pairs of order statistics, with symmetric distance to both sides from the sample median. Minimizing with respect to weights and distances we get smaller asymptotic variance in the second order. If the number of pairs is taken as infinite and the distances as null we attain the least asymptotic variance in this class of estimators. The Pitman estimator is also noted. Similarly improved estimators are scanned over their probability of concentration to investigate its bound. Numerical comparison of the estimators is shown.