Is all bullying the same?

Background

We ask whether verbal abuse, threats of violence and physical assault among Canadian youth have the same determinants and whether these determinants are the same for boys and girls. If these are different, the catch-all term “bullying” may mis-specify analysis of what are really different types of behavior.

Methods

We analyze five cohorts of Canadian youth aged 12-15 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). There are 11475 observations in total. Pearson’s correlation coefficients and six different multivariate strategies are used.

Results

There are many faces to bullying, in terms of its form and relative frequencies for boys versus girls. Although some characteristics of an adolescent are strong predictors of being subject to more than one type of bullying, some other characteristics are only correlated with specific types of bullying.

Conclusions

The many faces of bullying, and their correlation with different factors, imply different policy interventions may be needed to address each issue effectively.     

Big raises all around. Is everybody happy?

The latest numbers on salaries and bonuses are in from the Hay Group, and it's good news from a compensation standpoint: pay for everyone, from executives to nurses, is going up. But satisfaction on the job remains low and the workforce shortage is severe, leading to the question: does more pay make everybody happy? If not, why not?     

Are all pressure ulcers avoidable?

A quality of care debate centers on whether pressure ulcers result from factors largely dependent on caregivers, or whether pressure ulcers result from factors associated with patient morbidity. A reduction in incidence, defined as the development of a new pressure ulcer, is the focus of prevention strategies. Yet epidemiological data demonstrates a stability in the incidence of pressure ulcers despite drastic improvements in understanding of pressure ulcers, increased regulatory oversight, and improvements in technologies available for prevention of pressure ulcers. The explanation for this stable incidence of pressure ulcers includes a failure of known effective preventive treatment to be applied or the failure of prevention strategies to be effective in spite of being applied. No intervention strategy has been reported that consistently and reproducibly reduces the incidence of pressure ulcers to zero. The published data on prevention of pressure ulcers do not support an assumption that all pressure ulcers are preventable. An effective prevention strategy demonstrated to eliminate pressure ulcers across healthcare settings is lacking.