Translating Memories Into Words. The Speckled People and Il cane che abbaiava alle onde

This article focuses on the memoir The Speckled People, by the Irish-German novelist Hugo Hamilton, and its Italian translation (Il cane che abbaiava alle onde) by Isabella Zani, in order to investigate how the state of verb tense and aspect in an original and its translation may influence time representation and perception. It also deals with the translation of cultural elements and with the translator's difficult task of bridging cultural differences. The instances of my investigation are made the harder to deal with by the fact that the character's language-game is played as an indicator of identity and as such it rests on the edge of untranslatability. This status does not only regard translation but influences the act of readin

Audio-visuel et formation permanente : un outil transculturel pour l’apprentissage de la gestion par des dirigeants de petites entreprises

La PME est, ici, définie comme une entreprise où le le dirigeant participe aux activités de production. Cela n'empêche pas que celui-ci doit assurer la gestion, notamment financière, de son entreprise. Après avoir brossé quatre portraits-types de dirigeants de PME l'auteur se demande pourquoi ceux-ci se désintéressent tant de la gestion. Cette problématique relève, en fait, d'un problème pédagogique et du domaine de la formation et de l'apprentissage. Il s'agit alors de penser une pédagogie nouvelle pour les formations professionnelles dédiées à ce type d'individus. Pour l'auteur l'audiovisuel peut faciliter l'apprentissage de la gestion grâce à sa force d'illustration

Italian translation and cultural adaptation of the communication assessment tool in an outpatient surgical clinic

The aim of the study is to translate and cross-culturally adapt, for use in the Italian context, the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) developed by Makoul and colleagues

Assessment of surgeon communication skills from the patient perspective: A national evaluation using the Communication Assessment Tool

Objective: The Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) has previously been translated and adapted to the Italian context. This national study aimed to validate the CAT and evaluate communication skills of practicing surgeons from the patient perspective. Methods: CAT consists of 14 items associated with a 5-point scale (5 = excellent); results are reported as the percent of ‘‘excellent’’ scores. It was administered to 920 consenting outpatients aged 18–84 in 26 Italian surgical departments. Results: The largest age group was 45–64 (43.8%); 52.2% of the sample was male. Scores ranged from 44.6% to 66.6% excellent. The highest-scoring items were “Treated me with respect” (66.6%), “Gave me as much information as I wanted” (66.3%) and “Talked in terms I could understand” (66.0%); the lowest was “Encouraged me to ask questions” (44.6%). Significant differences were associated with age (18–24 year old patients exhibited the lowest scores) and geographical location (Northern Italy had the highest scores). Conclusion: CAT is a valid tool for measuring communication in surgical settings. Practice Implications: Results suggest that expectations of young people for communication in surgical settings are not being met. While there is room to improve communication skills of surgeons across Italy, patients highlighted the greatest need in the Central and Southern regions

Laboratory Surge Response to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Outbreak, New York City Metropolitan Area, USA

Emergency preparedness programs are critical

Impact of observing hand hygiene in practice and research: a methodological reconsideration

The purpose of hand hygiene is to break the chain of healthcare-associated infection. In many countries hand hygiene is regularly audited as part of quality assurance based on recommendations from the World Health Organization. Direct observation is the recommended audit method but is associated with disadvantages, including potential for being observed to alter usual behaviour. The Hawthorne effect in relation to hand hygiene is analogous with productivity improvement by increasing the frequency with which hand hygiene is undertaken. Unobtrusive and/or frequent observation to accustom staff to the presence of observers is considered an acceptable way of reducing the Hawthorne effect, but few publications have discussed how to implement these techniques or examine their effectiveness. There is evidence that awareness of being watched can disrupt the usual behaviour of individuals in complex and unpredictable ways other than simple productivity effect. In the presence of auditors, health workers might defer or avoid activities that require hand hygiene, but these issues are not addressed in guidelines for practice or research studies. This oversight has implications for the validity of hand hygiene audit findings. Measuring hand hygiene product use overcomes avoidance tactics. It is cheaper and generates data continuously to assess the compliance of all clinicians without disrupting patient care. Disadvantages are the risk of overestimating uptake through spillage, wastage, or use by visitors and non-clinical staff entering patient care areas. Electronic devices may overcome the Hawthorne and avoidance effects but are costly and are not widely used outside research studies

Patient safety culture in care homes for older people: a scoping review

Background: In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the role of safety culture in preventing incidents such as medication errors and falls. However, research and developments in safety culture has predominantly taken place in hospital settings, with relatively less attention given to establishing a safety culture in care homes. Despite safety culture being accepted as an important quality indicator across all health and social care settings, the understanding of culture within social care settings remains far less developed than within hospitals. It is therefore important that the existing evidence base is gathered and reviewed in order to understand safety culture in care homes. Methods: A scoping review was undertaken to describe the availability of evidence related to care homes’ patient safety culture, what these studies focused on, and identify any knowledge gaps within the existing literature. Included papers were each reviewed by two authors for eligibility and to draw out information relevant to the scoping review. Results: Twenty-four empirical papers and one literature review were included within the scoping review. The collective evidence demonstrated that safety culture research is largely based in the USA, within Nursing Homes rather than Residential Home settings. Moreover, the scoping review revealed that empirical evidence has predominantly used quantitative measures, and therefore the deeper levels of culture have not been captured in the evidence base. Conclusions: Safety culture in care homes is a topic that has not been extensively researched. The review highlights a number of key gaps in the evidence base, which future research into safety culture in care home should attempt to address