Community-Dwelling,Older Women's Perspectives on Therapeutic Life Review: A Qualitative Analysis

The purpose of this study was to elicit the participants' perspective of a Therapeutic Life Review intervention program delivered by a home care worker. Following the intervention by the home care worker, 13 of the 14 older women receiving home care services were interviewed to examine their experiences. Qualitative data analysis revealed five themes: (1) Someone was there to listen to my story, (2) It was a special time, (3) A valued interaction with the home care worker developed, (4) Remembering was meaningful and pleasurable, and (5) Integration with one's lived experiences was healing. Three case scenarios illustrate the lives of these older women.     

TACKLING WORK PLACE BULLYING

In a qualitative study of experiences of work place bullying in a rural area, participants explored ways of diminishing, eliminating, or addressing bullying behaviours. They described effective strategies that they had used to protect themselves and to begin to address bullying at a number of different levels. A brief overview of the research method and findings is given. This paper presents participants' strategies for intervening to address work place bullying at personal, group, organizational, public, and policy levels. The paper includes implications for practitioners, employers, and the public to tackle the pervasive issue of work place bullying.     

Where thanatos meets eros: Parallels between death education and group psychotherapy

Abstract

In the past, extravagant claims have been made for the possible beneficial effects on participants of death education courses. Too often, however, research aimed at examining the effect of death education courses has had disappointing results. This may, of course, be due to the limitations of pre-post instruments available, or it may be because of the complexity of the constructs measured. There is a third alternative, however. Failure to effect expected positive results may be a function of instructors' lack of awareness of the conditions necessary to promote such change. If instructors are not aware of conditions leading to change, they may be unable to recognize the opportunity inherent in death education seminars for maximizing the fit between curative factors known to promote growth in groups and the content and process of death education courses. This paper is designed to accomplish three purposes: to explore the parallels between death education and group psychotherapy, to promote awareness of the group process factors inherent in seminar-type death education courses; and to introduce a grid that will facilitate examination of the fit between the identified curative factors in group psychotherapy and the objectives and content of a typical seminar course in death education.     

The Cognitive Behavior Survey: Testing for Factorial Validity and Time Invariance Across Two Years of Medical School

Background: The Cognitive Behavior Survey (CBS) assesses learner behavior in healthcare-related fields. Purpose: The study aims were to evaluate the factorial validity of the CBS, which purports to measure three dimensions of learner behavior—conceptualization, reflection, and memorization—and propose and test an alternative model including its time invariance. Methods: The CBS was administered to 3 cohorts of medical students upon matriculation and at the end of their 1st and 2nd year. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not support the original CBS model. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with an independent sample provided a new model. Retesting the EFA model using CFA with the original sample yielded a model with improved fit and time invariance. Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the original CBS 3-factor structure but requires alternative scoring for a time-invariant model.     

Expert clinician to clinical teacher: Developing a faculty academy and mentoring initiative

The lack of sufficient numbers of qualified nursing faculty to prepare nursing students for entry into the field of nursing is of national and international concern. Recruiting expert clinicians and preparing them as clinical teachers is one approach to addressing the faculty shortage. Adequate training for the new role is paramount to promote job satisfaction and reduce attrition. Various models for orienting and preparing expert nurse clinicians as clinical educators are reported in the literature with little consensus or research to support a single approach. This paper describes a collaborative effort to prepare experienced registered nurse clinicians for new roles as part-time clinical faculty. Using a blend of learning strategies (face-to-face, online, simulation, and group mentoring sessions), this training experience was designed to cover content while promoting discussion of issues and challenges and providing much-needed mentorship. Outcomes include 12 new clinical faculty, 25% from groups underrepresented in nursing, with nine newly employed as part-time clinical teachers.     

The cost-effectiveness of the RSI QuickScan intervention programme for computer workers: Results of an economic evaluation alongside a randomised controlled trial

Background  

The costs of arm, shoulder and neck symptoms are high. In order to decrease these costs employers implement interventions aimed at reducing these symptoms. One frequently used intervention is the RSI QuickScan intervention programme. It establishes a risk profile of the target population and subsequently advises interventions following a decision tree based on that risk profile. The purpose of this study was to perform an economic evaluation, from both the societal and companies' perspective, of the RSI QuickScan intervention programme for computer workers. In this study, effectiveness was defined at three levels: exposure to risk factors, prevalence of arm, shoulder and neck symptoms, and days of sick leave.