Wake up, wake up! It's me! It's my life! patient narratives on person-centeredness in the integrated care context: a qualitative study

Person-centered care emphasizes a holistic, humanistic approach that puts patients first, at the center of medical care. Person-centeredness is also considered a core element of integrated care. Yet typologies of integrated care mainly describe how patients fit within integrated services, rather than how services fit into the patient's world. Patient-centeredness has been commonly defined through physician's behaviors aimed at delivering patient-centered care. Yet, it is unclear how 'person-centeredness' is realized in integrated care through the patient voice. We aimed to explore patient narratives of person-centeredness in the integrated care context

Evidence for person-centeredness in telehealth research

This paper describes person-centred care and distinguishes it from person-centred medicine and patient-centred care. Three characteristics of person-centeredness are drawn from human subjects research principles: respect, benefit and justice. Using reports of telehealth research involving people with diabetes, an exploratory assessment of the methods was done to look for descriptors and processes that would contribute to evidence for the identified characteristics of person-centeredness. Reports from fourteen studies were explored. The study methods and results had great variability; four of the 14 studies used a descriptive design and five studies used a design that included randomization. From a person-centred perspective, respect of study participants could be seen in their willingness to aid, when asked, in the development of intervention approaches and they were grateful for personal attention. Benefit could be seen in that participants responded positively to the offer of improved diabetic self-management and overall better health. As evidence of justice or fairness, telehealth researchers described using various and wide-ranging methods for inviting people comprising populations to become research participants. The triad of concepts may provide guidance for the improvement of research involving people with diabetes

Delivering social support via online health messages: Testing the effects of stress and person-centeredness on emotional improvement, attitude and behavioral intention

This study investigated the effect of exposure to person-centered messages delivered in a mass-mediated context on individuals experiencing mild or moderate levels of stress. Person-centeredness describes “the extent to which messages explicitly acknowledge, elaborate, legitimize, and contextualize the distressed other’s feelings and perspective” (Burleson, 2003, p. 11). The study used a 3 (person-centeredness: low, moderate, high) x 2 (stress: mild, moderate) between-subjects experiment with emotional improvement, attitude toward the message, and behavioral intention as the outcome variables. Participants (N = 243) were randomly assigned to a mild (i.e., gaining three pounds) or moderate stress condition (i.e., being diagnosed with Type II diabetes because of rapid weight gain). After exposure to the stress condition, participants then read one of three versions of a health newsletter using language that represented low, moderate, or high levels of person-centeredness. Results showed that higher levels of person-centeredness led to significantly greater emotional improvement and significantly more positive attitudes toward the message, although there was no difference in behavioral intention between the person-centeredness conditions. There was also a main effect for stress, such that participants under the moderate level stress reported greater emotional improvement and more positive attitude toward the message than participants under the mild level of stress, regardless of the type of message they received. However, none of the stress x person-centeredness interactions was significant. This study provides a framework to operationalize and test the effects of person-centered messages delivered in a mass-mediated context. Understanding the effect of person-centeredness in mass-mediated communication also provides practical implications for designing media messages directed to individuals experiencing stress

Do We Need to Put God into Emotional Support?: A Comparison of Caucasians’ and African-Americans’ Evaluations of Religious versus Non-Religious Comforting Messages

The current study explored whether ethnicity influences young adults’ evaluations of two different sets of comforting messages: those in which concepts such as God, prayer, religion, and faith are woven into low, moderate, and high person-centered strategies (called ‘‘religious strategies’’) and those in which such concepts are not embedded (called ‘‘non-religious strategies’’) into the messages. One hundred ninety-seven college students (63% African-American; 37% Caucasian) rated the sensitivity and effectiveness of religious and non-religious comforting messages. Several significant differences were observed between Caucasians and African-Americans in their evaluations of these strategies. Findings are discussed in terms of their practical implications for ‘‘real world’’ comforting efforts as well as the theoretical significance they hold for the concept of person-centeredness

A Measure of Person-Centered Practices in Assisted Living: The PC-PAL

Develop self-administered questionnaires of person-centeredness for completion by residents and staff in assisted living (AL), in response to concerns that AL is not person-centered; also, demonstrated person-centeredness is necessary for Medicaid support as a home and community-based services provider

Explaining sex differences in the evaluation of comforting messages: The mediating role of interaction goals

Abstract OnlyThe current study hypothesized that sex differences in evaluations of comforting messages could be accounted for in terms of the extent to which people indicated they would pursue affectively oriented versus instrumentally oriented goals in support situations. Participants (N = 292; 165 men and 127 women) completed (a) an interaction goals task that assessed the pursuit of affectively oriented and instrumentally oriented goals in emotional support situations, and (b) a message evaluation task that assessed perceptions of the sensitivity and effectiveness of 27 comforting messages that varied in level of “person centeredness.”; Consistent with expectations, females evaluated the comforting messages in a manner significantly more consistent with Applegate's (1980) theoretical hierarchical ordering of person centeredness than did males. More important, the likelihood of pursuing affectively oriented goals mediated the connection between sex and perceptions of message sensitivity and effectiveness

Humor and Social Support: An Investigation of the Influence of Humor on Evaluations of Supportive Messages

The purpose of this thesis study was to discover whether person-centered supportive messages utilizing affiliative humor were more likely to create positive outcomes than supportive messages that did not utilize these strategies. Receiving high quality social support when distressed has been associated with numerous positive outcomes. Research explaining different factors which influence supportive message outcomes can aid both laypersons and practitioners attempting to provide support to distressed individuals. To this end, this examination sought to explore whether the addition of affiliative humor can enhance the effectiveness of supportive messages. Three hypotheses were tested using a 2(scenario: academic, housing) x 2(person-centeredness: low, high) x 2(humor: included, not included) experimental survey design. Participants were first randomly assigned to imagine themselves in one of two distressing scenarios (academic or housing-related). They were then asked to read a message that ostensibly would come from a friend in reaction to the distressing scenario. Participants were then randomly assigned to a message that varied by degree of person-centeredness (low, high) and the inclusion of humor (not included, included). Participants were asked to evaluate the message’s perceived helpfulness, supportiveness and sensitivity. Results showed that highly person-centered messages were perceived as more helpful, supportive, and sensitive; however, humor did not enhance these perceptions. To the contrary, in some conditions, humorous messages were rated significantly less helpful and sensitive than their non-humorous counterparts. Further analysis revealed no interactions between person-centeredness and affiliative humor. Implications of the study and directions for future research are discussed

Learning from Other Communities

This paper reflects a synopsis of the work in person/family-centered planning representative of its implementation across a variety of disability service systems, including prisons, schools, community-based service agencies and institutional settings. The authors who have contributed to this paper have direct experience in the field working with individuals who have disability labels of severe and persistent mental illness, mental retardation and developmental disabilities, and learning disabilities. It is their hope that this paper will serve to guide the emerging best practice in the design and delivery of person-centered service delivery systems

A model of downward abusive communication: exploring relationships between cognitive complexity, downward communicative adaptability, and downward abusive communication

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2013A model was proposed to understand the antecedents of abusive supervision. Relationships were explored between cognitive complexity, downward communicative adaptability, and downward abusive communication. Superiors from various organizations were asked to take an online survey which measured superiors' cognitive complexity, downward communicative adaptability and abusive supervision. There was no evidence to support H1, which linked cognitive complexity to downward communicative adaptability, but there was evidence for H2, which stated that downward communicative adaptability was negatively correlated with downward abusive communication. The RCQ proved to be reliable but its validity was questioned in the present study which is why H1 may not have been supported.Chapter 1. Theory and research -- 1.1. Abusive supervision -- 1.2. Cognitive complexity -- 1.2.1. Constructs -- 1.2.2. Cognitive complexity -- 1.2.3. Effects of cognitive complexity -- 1.2.3.1. Relational compatibility -- 1.2.3.2. Interpersonal problem solving -- 1.2.3.3. Perceptual differentiation -- 1.3. Communicative adaptability -- 1.3.1. Effects of communicative adaptability -- 1.3.1.1. Interpersonal attraction -- 1.3.1.2. Friendship formation -- 1.3.1.3. Conflict management -- 1.4. Linking cognitive complexity to communicative adaptability -- 1.5. Abusive supervision -- 1.5.1. Individual difference variables as causes of abusive supervision -- 1.5.1.1. Personality characteristics -- 1.5.1.2. Demographic characteristics -- 1.5.1.3. Supervisors' beliefs -- 1.6. Linking communicative adaptability to abusive communication -- 1.7. Hypotheses -- 2. Research methodology -- 2.1. Participants -- 2.2. Procedures -- 2.3. Measures -- 2.3.1. Cognitive complexity -- 2.3.2. Downward commicative adaptability -- 2.3.3. Downward abusive communication -- Chapter 3. Results -- 3.1.1. Linking cognitive complexity with downward communicative adaptability -- 3.1.2. Linking downward communicative adaptability and downward abusive commication -- Chapter 4. Discussion -- References