Culture-Centered Counseling Skills as a Preventive Strategy for College Health Services

Abstract

All learning occurs in a cultural context. Successful counseling can be achieved by training healthcare providers to interpret behaviors in their cultural context. The author describes a culture-centered approach, using a cultural grid that matches same/different behaviors with same/different expectations. Clients with shared positive expectations may display dissonant and apparently negative behaviors. Culturally accurate knowledge and culturally appropriate skills provide a three-level developmental sequence for more accurate and more appropriate healthcare guidance in such multicultural settings as those met on the college campus.     

Willingness to Use Formal Long-Term Care Services by Korean Elders and Their Primary Caregivers

This study examined predictors of older adults' and primary caregivers' willingness to use formal long-term care (LTC) services to understand possible use patterns of mandatory public LTC insurance programs in Korea. It focused on views regarding who (adult children or the government) should bear the responsibility for older adults' care. Logistic regression models were estimated using data from 1,168 older Korean adults aged 65 or older and their primary caregivers from a national survey. The results showed that older adults' and their caregivers' views on care responsibility were a dominant predictor of their willingness to use both formal home care services and nursing home care services. Both older adults and their family caregivers' willingness to use LTC services should be considered when predicting demand for LTC services. Efforts should promote the perspective that formal LTC services are an acceptable social norm.     

Poverty and disabled households in the People’s Republic of China: experiences with a new rural health insurance scheme

This article discusses what in international literature has commonly been termed the ‘vicious circle’ of poverty and disability. Our aim is to shed light on recent policies that attempt to break the vicious circle in rural areas in the People’s Republic of China. Drawing on data produced from fieldwork conducted in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China, our approach is to explore experiences that households with people with disabilities have had with a newly implemented rural health insurance reform. The introduction of this reform is significant as lack of insurance and high healthcare expenses are currently perceived as crucial to causing poverty in rural China. We show that people with disabilities have been able to access this new insurance. At the same time, as currently practised, the new insurance does not prevent poor households from sinking deeper into poverty when using healthcare services as healthcare expenses increase.     

Trust as a Means of Bridging the Management of Risk and the Meeting of Need: A Case Study in Mental Health Service Provision

Shifts in public policy towards an increasing focus on risk have been deemed problematic at a number of levels, particularly the tendency for concerns over reputational risk to institutions to trump the interests and needs of service‐users. This article explores the tension between these two dimensions, of risk and need, in a case study of local mental health services – a setting where conflicting objectives to manage risk and meet need are apparent. Media‐driven pressure to ward against the ‘risk’ represented by service‐users tends towards more coercive policy which may obstruct the meeting of need, which in turn may undermine service‐user engagement and hinder risk management. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with service‐users, professionals and managers, the article explores the process of trust and its facilitative role in meeting need and managing risk. Findings suggest that while existing foci on risk are at times counter‐productive, trust plays a significant role in service‐users' initial and ongoing engagement, communication and co‐operation with professionals. Yet inherent obstacles to trust within mental healthcare contexts remain, due to cultural pressures on professionals, the nature of the illness experience and negative past experiences of in‐patient care.     

The Effects of Emotional Support on Burnout,Work Stress and Mental Health Among Norwegian and American Social Workers

This article examines the effects of emotional support on work stress and burnout among human service workers in the U.S.A. and Norway. Since work stress has been identified as an important predictor of job dissatisfaction and burnout, it is the purpose of this study to examine the ability of emotional support to moderate or "buffer" the impact of job stress. Previous research on this subject has shown some support for the buffering hypotheses, but the effect has not been adequately explored within the mental health professions, nor has the concept been extensively assessed by comparative studies of such professionals in two different countries. The results of this study, based upon moderated regression analyses, indicate that emotional support is inversely correlated with burnout and stress. However, buffering effects were not observed to any significant degree in either national sample.     

Periodisierung von Erfolgskomponenten zur Steuerung langfristiger Aufträge — Completed-Contract-Methode versus Percentage-of-Completion-Methode —

Zusammenfassung  Der Beitrag analysiert die Steuerung langfristiger Auftr?ge auf Basis eines dynamischen LEN-Modells. Zentraler Entscheidungstatbestand bei langfristigen Auftr?gen ist die Auswahl der Methode zur Erfassung langfristiger Auftr?ge. Grunds?tzlich kommen hierzu die Completed-Contract-Methode und die Percentage-of-Completion-Methode in Betracht, welche Gestaltungsspielr?ume bei der Periodisierung von Erfolgskomponenten er?ffnet. Die aktuelle Bedeutung dieser Fragestellung ergibt sich durch die für kapitalmarktorientierte, bisher HGB-bilanzierende Unternehmen seit dem Jahr 2005 vorgeschriebene Anwendung der IAS/IFRS. Die modelltheoretische Analyse zeigt, dass in der Partialbetrachtung der Steuerungswirkungen die Percentage-of-Completion-Methode der Completed-Contract-Methode überlegen ist. Somit ist bei langfristigen Auftr?gen zumindest aus Steuerungsgesichtspunkten der übergang von HGB zu IAS/IFRS positiv zu beurteilen.

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Accrual accounting for long-term construction contracts — Completed-contract-method versus percentage-of-completion-method —

Summary  We consider long-term construction contracts within the context of of a dynamic LEN-model. From a practical perspective, the percentage-of-completion method corresponds with the idea of accrual accounting, while the completed-contract method follows the realisation principle. We show that the percentage-of-completion method is superior to the completed-contract method in providing decision-influencing information. Also, determining the degree of completion via the input- or the output-oriented method follow as knife edge solutions to the principal’s problem. Thus, we conclude that the transition from German accounting rules to the IAS/IFRS is beneficial from an incentive perspective in the specific case of long-term construction contracts.

Für hilfreiche Kommentare danken wir einem anonymen Gutachter sowie Renate Hecker, Stephan Meisenzahl und Teilnehmern des VII. Symposiums zur ?konomischen Analyse der Unternehmung der GEABA, Bielefeld 2006.     

All I want for Christmas is recovery – changes in employee affective well-being before and after vacation

Abstract

Transformational leaders employ a visionary and creative style of leadership that inspires employees to make independent decisions and develop in their work. There is some evidence that the transformational (inspirational) leadership style is linked to employee burnout and stress. However, little research has focused on the psychological mechanisms that could explain this link, nor has there been a focus on positive affective well-being. We propose that transformational leaders influence their followers' self-efficacy, thereby affecting affective well-being in followers. This study extends previous work by examining the direct link between leadership and well-being both cross-sectionally (N=447) and longitudinally (N=188), and testing the mediating effects of self-efficacy. The study was carried out within parts of an elderly care department in a Danish local government. A theory-driven model of the relationships between leadership, self-efficacy and affective well-being was tested using Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that followers' self-ratings of self-efficacy mediated the relationship between transformational leadership style and positive affective well-being. Only limited evidence for a direct path between leadership behaviour and positive affective well-being was found. These findings have implications for how organizations may promote employee well-being, through interventions directed at supporting transformational leadership behaviours.     

Importance of issues related to RFID-enabled healthcare transformation projects: results from a Delphi study

Despite the high operational and strategic potential of Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in terms of increased healthcare efficiency and effectiveness, and better decision-making, its adoption and use within health care remain fairly low, mainly because of the challenging nature of RFID projects. Further, scholarly research has yet to identify key issues related to RFID projects. The present study intends to fill this knowledge gap in the literature by identifying and rating key issues related to RFID-enabled healthcare transformation projects through a panel of experts using four rounds of the Delphi study. Finally, implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Factors influencing mentees' and mentors' learning throughout formal mentoring relationships

A qualitative case study approach was taken to identify what factors were perceived to influence learning for mentees and mentors during a pilot formal mentoring programme, within a West Midlands Healthcare Trust. Both sides of five dyads were interviewed at regular intervals over a 17-month period (October 2009 to February 2011). The results from this longitudinal study show how learning was expected and achieved by both parties, over time. Factors influencing learning were categorized and later compared to pre-existing theory in relation to sharing experiences, sharing information, discussing politics, reflection, observation and support. Additional categories emerged in relation to questioning and listening skills, and similarity and difference between both parties. A change of emphasis was clear in relation to some factors which influenced learning, as the relationships matured. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for human resource development (HRD) professionals in relation to how formal mentoring programmes are designed and supported over time.     

Controversial Role of GPOs in Healthcare‐Product Supply Chains

This paper examines the controversial role that Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) play in the supply chains for healthcare products. Among the controversies, perhaps the most fundamental one is whether or not GPOs reduce purchasing costs for their members. However, the fiercest controversy is around the “contract administration fees (CAFs)” that GPOs charge to manufacturers. We examine these and other controversies using a Hotelling duopoly model. Among our conclusions: GPOs increase competition between manufacturers and lower prices for healthcare providers. However, GPOs reduce manufacturers' incentives to introduce innovations to existing products. We also demonstrate that the existence of lower off‐contract prices is not, per se, evidence of anticompetitive behavior on the part of GPOs. Indeed, we demonstrate that, under certain circumstances, the presence of a GPO lowers off‐contract prices. We also examine the consequences of eliminating the “safe harbor” provisions that permit healthcare GPOs to charge CAFs to manufacturers, and conclude that it would not affect any party's profits or costs.