Nursing-Home Resident Quality of Life: A Longitudinal Case Study Approach

Longitudinal quality-of-life (QOL) research incorporating multiple perspectives can add to knowledge about how nursing home residents experience QOL, but these methods are seldom used. This study employed interviews and participant observation to conduct multiple-perspective, longitudinal case studies of six residents. Close, reciprocal relationships with staff members, staff knowledge of residents, and autonomy were fundamental to QOL. Autonomy was experienced through choice and self-advocacy. Changes in QOL over time related to changes in resident health status, acclimation to the setting and family member availability. Study results may have implications for staffing and staff training.     

A systematic review on community-based interventions for elder abuse and neglect

Elder abuse and neglect is a societal issue that requires prevention and intervention strategies at the practice and policy level. A systematic review on the efficacy of community-based elder abuse interventions was undertaken to advance the state of knowledge in the field. The peer-reviewed literature between 2009 and December 2015 were searched across four databases. Two raters independently reviewed all articles, assessed their methodological quality, and used a modified Sackett Scale to assign levels of evidence. Four thousand nine hundred and five articles were identified; nine were selected for inclusion. Although there was Level-1 evidence for psychological interventions (n = 2), only one study on strategies for relatives (START) led to a reported decrease in elder abuse. There was Level-4 evidence for conservatorship, an elder abuse intervention/prevention program (ECARE), and a multidisciplinary intervention (n = 4), in which one study yielded significant decreases in elder abuse and/or neglect. The remaining three were classified as Level-5 evidence (n = 3) for elder mediation and multidisciplinary interventions. There are limited studies with high levels of evidence for interventions that decrease elder abuse and neglect. The scarcity of community-based interventions for older adults and caregivers highlights the need for further work to elevate the quality of studies.     

Negotiating motherhood: women with troubled upbringings and their self‐conceptions as mothers

This paper examines how women who experienced severe adjustment problems during adolescence, and who had troubled childhoods in families with high levels of conflict, construct their self‐conceptions as mothers. Applying data from a 30‐year‐long follow‐up study, this paper examines how participants with troubled upbringings experience social norms of motherhood. Two overall themes emerged along with their associated subcategories, and these are identified as significant findings. The first theme is the stigmatizing gaze, exemplifying how the intervention of the child welfare service is recognized as essential to the women's self‐conception; its three subcategories are prejudiced motherhood, predestined motherhood and self‐critical motherhood. The second theme is significant relationships, exemplifying the mothers' personal bonds and contributing greatly to their self‐conception; its three subcategories are the other half, next of kin and disturbed relations. The findings reveal that the way these women view themselves as mothers cannot be separated from the way that others view them, and in addition, they must negotiate their positions as mothers through the normative discourses of motherhood. The findings apply to both theoretical and practical social work, addressing the need for an understanding of motherhood within the field of child welfare.     

Women’s employment and the decline of home cooking: Evidence from France, 1985–2010

We here investigate the extent to which labour-market changes explain the decline in the time spent home cooking by married women in France between 1985 and 2010. Using time use data and Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions, we find that rising women’s employment and observed wages together account for about 60% of the fall in the time married women spent cooking. We then use a semi-parametric matching technique to construct an implicit wage rate, which better reflects the change in labour-market incentives that individuals face. The rise in women’s implicit wages explains no more than 20% of the decline in their cooking time, while the wage of their partner has no effect. Changing labour-market incentives are thus far from being the main driver of the decline in home-cooking. We also find evidence that home cooking continues to be structured by the gendered social norm of the “proper family meal”.     

The fiscal impact of immigration to welfare states of the Scandinavian type

In this paper, we examine the potential of immigration to strengthen fiscal sustainability, which is under pressure by an ageing population in many European countries. We look at a particularly challenging case, namely that of Denmark, which has extensive tax-financed welfare programmes that provide a high social safety net. The analysis is based on a forecast of the entire Danish economy made using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. We present life cycle estimates of the potential fiscal impact of immigration considering the cost of immigration on the margin as well as on average. The main conclusion is that immigrants from Western countries have a positive fiscal impact, while immigrants from non-Western countries have a large negative one, which is also the case when considering only non-refugee immigrants. The negative effect is caused by both a weak labour market performance and early retirement in combination with the universal Danish welfare schemes.     

Efficacy of screening and treatment of latent tuberculosis infection

ABSTRACT

Sixty-three percent of the total active tuberculosis cases in Canada were diagnosed among foreign-born individuals, representing 20% of the total population. The majority of these cases occur from the reactivation of tuberculosis infections acquired prior to immigration. A preventive policy consisting of screening and treating new immigrants for latent tuberculosis infection is evaluated on its efficacy for reducing the total number of tuberculosis cases, using tuberculosis incidence data between 1986 and 1995 from the Canadian tuberculosis reporting system. The most effective intervention is to screen for and treat latent tuberculosis infection among arriving immigrants from countries of birth with a tuberculosis incidence rate greater than 15 cases per 100,000.     

Men’s Work Efforts and the Transition to Fatherhood

In this paper we tested three hypotheses: (a) the transition to fatherhood is associated with an increase in work effort; (b) the positive association (if any) between the transition to fatherhood and work effort is greater for fathers who are married at the time of the transition; and (c) the association (if any) is greater for men who make the transition at younger ages. The data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort. The transition to fatherhood was associated with an increase in work effort among young unmarried men, but not for married men. Among married men who were on-time fathers, work effort decreased. Among childless men, the marriage transition was associated with increased work effort.     

Project Employ: engineering hope and breaking down barriers to homelessness

The homeless population in the US has dramatically increased in the past two decades. People who are homeless often lack skills sets such as stress management and social skills, independent living skills, and skills for vocational and leisure engagement. Best practice vocational education and training programs for individuals who are homeless recognize that success in the worker role often hinges on a person's capacity to manage day-to-day living. Life skills and pre-employment training are essential components of vocational programs but no more important than interpersonal skill development including anger management, developing self esteem and motivation, building goal setting capacity, and skills for money management, personal budgeting and self-advocacy. These areas of performance have all been traditionally included in occupational therapy's domain of practice. This article describes Project Employ, a grant funded supportive employment program that has grown out of collaboration between Duquesne University's Department of Occupational Therapy and Bethlehem Haven, an emergency shelter and residential recovery program and primary service provider for homeless people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The purpose of this article is to describe the history, structure and outcomes of Project Employ.