Distance Education and Dementia Caregivers: A Comparison of Three Methods

The purpose of the research is to examine the family experience of dementia caregiving and design an educational intervention to assist family members in the caregiving role. Stress results when a caregiver confronts environmental demands (dementia behaviors) that threaten personal well-being. The perception of threat is the process of primary stress appraisal. Caregivers evaluate coping options, a process of secondary stress appraisal. Positive secondary appraisal (view the situation as amenable to change) has the potential to trigger re-appraisal of the primary threat, and to reduce overall stress. Education is one way to affect secondary appraisal. Adult learners benefit from progressive (problem solving) approaches using self-directed learning principles. With self-directed learning, the educator facilitates the learner’s access to the information. Distance education is a form of self-directed learning. Distance techniques include postal mail, facsimile, telephone, video, teleconferencing, satellite conferencing, and the Internet. The research question is: to what extent can distance education (by postal mail, passive Internet, and multimedia, interactive Internet) alter the primary and secondary stress appraisals of dementia caregivers? A total of 189 caregivers participated in the study. The study design, Switching Replications, includes three waves of measurement over a two month period. With the design, some participants receive the intervention upon entry into the study, while others wait until after the second wave of measurement. Three study hypotheses relate to the construct of primary appraisal and the dependent variable of threat perception. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) results do not support hypotheses that posit the form of education affects threat perception. Four hypotheses address the construct of secondary appraisal and the dependent variable of home modifications. ANOVA results support hypotheses that posit the form of education affects home modifications. Active web education is statistically better than receiving no education or receiving information by postal mail. Assuming no cure or effective treatment, the number of people diagnosed with dementia will increase to 8.6 million by 2040 (General Accounting Office,1998). Despite the stress, families are and will likely remain the primary caregivers. Distance education merits further study as a way to reach and help family caregivers

Does the peer-led Honest, Open, Proud program reduce stigma’s impact for everyone? An individual participant data meta-regression analysis

Purpose Many people with mental illness experience self-stigma and stigma-related stress and struggle with decisions whether to disclose their condition to others. The peer-led Honest, Open, Proud (HOP) group program supports them in their disclosure decisions. In randomized controlled trials, HOP has shown positive effects on self-stigma and stigma stress on average. This study examined individual predictors of HOP outcomes and tested the hypothesis that stigma stress reduction at the end of HOP mediates positive HOP effects at follow-up. Methods Six RCTs were included with data at baseline, post (after the HOP program) and at 3- or 4-week follow-up. Baseline variables were entered in meta-regression models to predict change in self-stigma, stigma stress, depressive symptoms and quality of life among HOP participants. Mediation models examined change in stigma stress (post) as a mediator of HOP effects on self-stigma, depressive symptoms, and quality of life at follow-up. Results More shame at baseline, and for some outcomes reduced empowerment, predicted reduced HOP effects on stigma stress, self-stigma, depressive symptoms, and quality of life. Younger age was related to greater improvements in stigma stress after the HOP program. Stigma stress reductions at the end of HOP mediated positive effects on self-stigma, depressive symptoms and quality of life at follow-up. Conclusion Participants who are initially less burdened by shame may benefit more from HOP. Stigma stress reduction could be a key mechanism of change that mediates effects on more distal outcomes. Implications for the further development of HOP are discussed

Conservation leadership must account for cultural differences

Effective leaders are critical in determining successful outcomes of conservation programs. As the business and economic leadership literature shows, awareness around cultural differences in leadership attributes is important for positive project outcomes set in inter-cultural contexts. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to understand whether, and how, the influence of cultural context was acknowledged when describing successful leadership attributes of conservation leadership. We found fifteen papers from different geographical regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America) explicitly addressing conservation leadership attributes. We further explored how characteristics of four key attributes (i.e. motivating others, establishing a shared vision, effective communication and partnership building) were addressed within these different cultural settings. Our review shows that the discourse on how culture influences attributes of a conservation leader and its implications for conservation outcomes is very limited. Awareness and sensitivity around this influence is important as cultural differences may either facilitate or hinder conservation project outcomes, particularly when people from different cultural backgrounds work together

Ten-year assessment of the 100 priority questions for global biodiversity conservation

In 2008, a group of conservation scientists compiled a list of 100 priority questions for the conservation of the world's biodiversity ?Sutherland et al. (2009) Conservation Biology, 23, 557?567?. However, now almost a decade later, no one has yet published a study gauging how much progress has been made in addressing these 100 high?priority questions in the peer?reviewed literature. Here we take a first step toward re?examining the 100 questions and identify key knowledge gaps that still remain. Through a combination of a questionnaire and a literature review, we evaluated each of the 100 questions on the basis of two criteria: relevance and effort. We defined highly?relevant questions as those which ? if answered ? would have the greatest impact on global biodiversity conservation, while effort was quantified based on the number of review publications addressing a particular question, which we used as a proxy for research effort. Using this approach we identified a set of questions that, despite being perceived as highly relevant, have been the focus of relatively few review publications over the past ten years. These questions covered a broad range of topics but predominantly tackled three major themes: the conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems, the role of societal structures in shaping interactions between people and the environment, and the impacts of conservation interventions. We see these questions as important knowledge gaps that have so far received insufficient attention and may need to be prioritised in future research

Planning Effective Conservation Landscapes for Nature and People: An Editorial Overview

The interrelated global crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, disease, and war are all caused and experienced by humankind [...

Planning Effective Conservation Landscapes for Nature and People: An Editorial Overview

The interrelated global crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, disease, and war are all caused and experienced by humankind [...

New collaborations for conservation leadership development

Over the past decade an increasing number of institutions have initiated programmes designed to enhance conservation leadership capacity, but they have lacked coordination and opportunities to share learning and ideas. To address this, conservation leadership practitioners and institutions came together in June 2019 for a symposium on New Directions of Conservation Leadership in Cambridge, UK. The gathering involved programmes tailored to a range of audiences in the conservation profession: from those just starting their careers to executive-level leaders well-versed in environmental challenges. Some programmes are still in the early stages of development and eager to gather insights from those more established, whereas others have evolved over time and aspire to expand and coordinate their offerings. Although symposium participants represented diverse views and experiences gained from teaching and training, all who gathered were united by their belief in the value of leadership for conservation

Global Review of Social Indicators used in Protected Area Management Evaluation

Social considerations in conservation are increasingly recognized as important for successful environmental outcomes. However, social measures lack consistency and may underreport key issues. This article analyzes social indicators and well-being dimensions used in protected area effectiveness tools, with specific attention to local communities and Indigenous peoples’ contexts. Using the Global Protected Area Management Effectiveness database, we reviewed 2,736 indicators from 38 methodologies applied in over 180 countries. We analyzed: (1) representation of human well-being dimensions, (2) direction of impacts, and (3) level of neutrality in indicators. We found limited diversity and representation of important well-being dimensions such as health and governance. While impacts on communities and nature are similarly measured, positive wording is used three times more often than negative, which may unintentionally bias evaluations. We recommend using and developing indicators with greater diversity, increased clarity, and reduced bias to enhance management and policy responses for biodiversity and human well-being