Risk factors associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms following childbirth in Turkey

OBJECTIVE: this study examined factors associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS) following childbirth in women with normal, low-risk pregnancies in Nigde, Turkey. DESIGN: a prospective longitudinal design where women completed questionnaire measures at 20+ weeks' gestation and 6-8 weeks after birth. SETTING: eligible pregnant women were recruited from nine family healthcare centres in Nigde between September 2013 and July 2014. PARTICIPANTS: a total of 242 women completed questionnaires at both time points. MEASURES: PTS symptoms were measured using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) 6-8 weeks after birth. Potential protective or risk factors of childbirth self-efficacy, fear of childbirth, adaptation to pregnancy/motherhood, and perceived social support were measured in pregnancy and after birth. Perceived support and control during birth was measured after birth. Demographic and obstetric information was collected in pregnancy using standard self-report questions. FINDINGS: PTS symptoms were associated with being multiparous, having a planned pregnancy, poor psychological adaptation to pregnancy, higher outcome expectancy but lower efficacy expectancy during pregnancy, urinary catheterization during labour, less support and perceived control in birth, less satisfaction with hospital care, poor psychological adaptation to motherhood and increased fear of birth post partum. Regression analyses showed the strongest correlates of PTS symptoms were high outcome and low efficacy expectancies in pregnancy, urinary catheterization in labour, poor psychological adaptation to motherhood and increased fear of birth post partum. This model accounted for 29% of the variance in PTS symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: this study suggests women in this province in Turkey report PTS symptoms after birth and this is associated with childbirth self-efficacy in pregnancy, birth factors, and poor adaptation to motherhood and increased fear of birth post partum. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: maternity care services in Turkey need to recognise the potential impact of birth experiences on women's mental health and adaptation after birth. The importance of self-efficacy in pregnancy suggests antenatal education or support may protect women against developing post partum PTS, but this needs to be examined further

The Intercultural Skills Graduates and Businesses in Europe Need Today

It was the aim of the two surveys with European graduates and employers respectively to investigate the importance of intercultural competencies and skills for student employability and business success for European enterprise, now and in the future. The two surveys gave important insights into key factors that support the development of intercultural skills and competencies for graduates and employers across four countries and five different European regions, as well as five distinct universities. Our analysis shows clearly that one of the most important factors is the key role of experience with, and exposure to, people from different cultural backgrounds. Both students and employers scored much higher on important intercultural competencies such as cultural empathy, cognitive flexibility, open-mindedness, and tolerance for ambiguity, if they had frequent interactions with people from other cultures. This was also true for speaking at least one or more foreign languages at an intermediate or advanced level. Foreign language competence is an important intercultural skill not only for communication but also an important way in which cultural empathy and cognitive flexibility are learned and trained. In line with these results, both students and employers who had more exposure to different cultures also felt there was more need to pay attention to intercultural issues and support the development of intercultural skills than those with less experience of different cultures. Furthermore, our results from both the student and the employer surveys seem to reflect differences between more urban/metropolitan centres and more rural areas with smaller towns. London and Bursa are the two largest cities and the most metropolitan areas in our sample with a more multicultural population, whereas Worcester and Leuven are both smaller cities and the regions with the least ethnic diversity. Halmstad falls somewhere in between with a similar size and ethnic composition of the city and region as Worcester and Leuven, but the university itself has a very multicultural and mature student body that is very similar to LSBU in central London. While we cannot directly influence these regional differences in urbanisation and multiculturalism it is certainly important to be aware of them

The Intercultural Skills Graduates and Businesses in Europe Need Today

This ERASMUS+ funded project, “Developing the cross-cultural skills of graduates in response to the needs of European enterprise”, is developed in response to recent research highlighting the importance of intercultural competencies for graduates wanting to work in Europe, the employers’ needs, and the intercultural competencies and skills higher education institutions provide. This project aims to develop the intercultural competencies of graduates in the EU by enhancing the quality and relevance of their knowledge and skills to enable them to be active professionals in the European working environment. Five Higher Education Institutions have participated in this study: University of Worcester (Project lead, UK), London South Bank University (UK), UC Leuven-Limburg (Belgium), Halmstad University (Sweden), and Bursa Uludağ University (Turkey). The diversity of these partners, their respective regional and national contexts, and their experience in working together with regional businesses are central to achieve the project aims. As the first output of the project, this report presents results based on two types of analysis methods and data collected from four European countries (UK, Sweden, Belgium, and Turkey). Firstly, two surveys and the quantitative analysis of data collected from 585 student surveys responses and 403 employer survey responses and secondly, on an analysis of qualitative data collected through 50 interviews with employees in European organizations and 50 interviews with students studying in European universities

Enabling the freight traffic controller for collaborative multi-drop urban logistics: practical and theoretical challenges

There is increasing interest in how horizontal collaboration between parcel carriers might help alleviate problems associated with last-mile logistics in congested urban centers. Through a detailed review of the literature on parcel logistics pertaining to collaboration, along with practical insights from carriers operating in the United Kingdom, this paper examines the challenges that will be faced in optimizing multicarrier, multidrop collection, and delivery schedules. A “freight traffic controller” (FTC) concept is proposed. The FTC would be a trusted third party, assigned to equitably manage the work allocation between collaborating carriers and the passage of vehicles over the last mile when joint benefits to the parties could be achieved. Creating this FTC concept required a combinatorial optimization approach for evaluation of the many combinations of hub locations, network configuration, and routing options for vehicle or walking to find the true value of each potential collaboration. At the same time, the traffic, social, and environmental impacts of these activities had to be considered. Cooperative game theory is a way to investigate the formation of collaborations (or coalitions), and the analysis used in this study identified a significant shortfall in current applications of this theory to last-mile parcel logistics. Application of theory to urban freight logistics has, thus far, failed to account for critical concerns including (a) the mismatch of vehicle parking locations relative to actual delivery addresses; (b) the combination of deliveries with collections, requests for the latter often being received in real time during the round; and (c) the variability in travel times and route options attributable to traffic and road network conditions

State stigmatization in urban Turkey : Managing the 'insurgent' squatter dwellers in Dikmen Valley

This paper contributes to the accounts of territorial stigmatisation by examining the state role in it in the case of Turkey, a country that suffers from growing state power. The existing debates are mainly restricted to its function as an economic strategy paving the way for capital accumulation through devaluing working‐class people and places. Drawing on textual analysis of political speeches, local newsletters and mainstream national newspapers and fieldwork material that include interviews and observations in Dikmen Valley where some squatter communities mobilised against the state‐imposed urban transformation project, I demonstrate that state conceptualisation of “problem people” targets the “insurgent” rather than the “unprofitable” groups. Stigma in urban settings functions in inciting the desire to meet the patterns deemed appropriate by the state, rather than the market. Moving from that, I argue that stigma is used as a state‐led political strategy, which is integral to the growing authoritarianism in Turkey