Zelfdoding onder migrantengroepen en autochtonen

Doel. De verschillen vaststellen in incidentie van zelfdoding tussen autochtonen en allochtonen, gerubriceerd naar regio en land van herkomst, rekening houdend met verschillen in leeftijdsopbouw. Opzet. Retrospectief. Methode. Gegevens van de statistiek van de doodsoorzaken van het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS), gebaseerd op de doodsoorzaakverklaringen door arts of lijkschouwer, werden gekoppeld aan het bericht van overlijden uit de gemeentelijke basisadministratie (GBA). Zo kon de herkomst van de overledene worden bepaald op basis van gegevens uit de GBA. De geheimhouding van deze gegevens is wettelijk vastgelegd. Over de jaren 1996-2004 werden alle 13.737 personen geselecteerd die waren overleden door zelfdoding (‘International classification of diseases’(ICD)-10-codes X60-X84). De herkomst werd bepaald aan de hand van gegevens over het geboorteland van de overleden persoon en diens ouders. Iemand is ‘allochtoon’ volgens de definitie van het CBS als ten minste één van de ouders in het buitenland is geboren. Resultaten. Er waren aanzienlijke verschillen in sterfte door zelfdoding tussen migrantengroepen in Nederland. Deze verschillen weerspiegelden deels de suïcidecijfers in de landen en regio’s van herkomst. Migranten uit westerse landen lieten in het algemeen hogere suïcidecijfers zien dan autochtonen. Hoge suïcidecijfers werden waargenomen onder Zuid- en Oost-Europese mannelijke migranten. De suïcidecijfers voor Turken en Marokkanen waren daarentegen significant lager dan die voor autochtonen. Alleen op jongvolwassen leeftijd liepen niet-westerse allochtone mannen, uitgezonderd Marokkanen, een beduidend hoger risico om door zelfdoding te overlijden. Conclusie. Hoewel er veel aandacht is voor pogingen tot suïcide onder Surinaamse vrouwen, waren hun suïcidecijfers minder sterk verhoogd dan die van Surinaamse mannen tot middelbare leeftijd. Mogelijk weerspiegelen deze hoge suïcidecijfers een verhoogd niveau van psychiatrische ziekten, identiteitsproblemen, teleurstellingen in het migratieproces, verwachtingen ten aanzien van opleiding, werk en inkomen, en de verantwoordelijkheid voor gezin en familie

Barriers to and facilitators for finding and keeping competitive employment:A focus group study on autistic adults with and without paid employment

PurposeThe aim of the study was to gain more insight into barriers to and facilitators for finding and keeping competitive employment for autistic adults. Research questions were: (1) What barriers and facilitators do autistic adults report in finding and keeping competitive employment?; and (2) What are differences and similarities between autistic adults with and without paid employment regarding barriers and facilitators for sustainable employment?MethodsEight focus groups were conducted (N = 64 autistic adults). Four groups included only participants without paid employment (N = 24), and four groups consisted exclusively of participants with current paid employment (including part-time, N = 40). All discussions were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim to enable inductive thematic content analysis. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti 9.ResultsTen themes and thirty-four subthemes were found. Many were interconnected. Themes facilitating sustainable employment included a positive workplace atmosphere, a supportive supervisor, being able to do work that aligns with interests and talents, favorable physical working conditions, coaching, higher self-insight, higher self-esteem, and proactivity. Most themes and subthemes emerged from both groups. Differences between the groups were that those with paid employment seemed to have experienced more friendly workplaces and supervisors, had received better coaching in finding and keeping employment, had higher self-insight and higher self-esteem, were more assertive and proactive.ConclusionsAs many (sub-)themes were interrelated, the results suggest that to improve work participation, particularly two key areas are promising: (1) to realize more friendly, well-being oriented and inclusive workplaces, and (2) to increase autistic adults’ self-insight into personal needs for positive wellbeing and self-knowledge regarding talents, wishes and well-being boundaries

Shift work is associated with extensively disordered sleep, especially when working nights

Background: Shift work is generally associated with working and sleeping out of phase with the endogenous, circadian sleep–wake cycle. This exerts detrimental effects on sleep health. The present study aimed at evaluating the presence of short and long sleep as well as sleep disorders within a broad range of shift work schedules and elucidating the role of sociodemographic factors therein. Methods: A large dataset containing information on sleep was collected through advertisement in a Belgium newspaper (De Standaard). Adult, working individuals were selected (n = 37,662) and categorized based on their work schedule (regular day, early morning, evening, night, and rotating shift). In this cross-sectional study, prevalence rates of short sleep (≤6 h), long sleep (≥9 h) and sleep disorders (screened with Holland Sleep Disorders Questionnaire), and associations between these sleep variables and sociodemographics (age, sex, education, living companion(s)) were analyzed using binominal logistic regression analyses. Results: In the total sample all sociodemographic factors affected prevalences of short, long and disordered sleep, consistent with previous studies. Compared to day workers, shift workers more frequently reported short sleep, most prominently night workers (26 vs. 50%) (p &lt; 0.001). Furthermore, all sleep disorders as well as sleep disorder comorbidity were more common in shift workers, again most pronounced in night workers (all p &lt; 0.05). In night shift workers the level of education had the strongest associations with disturbed sleep with a two-fold higher prevalence of short and disordered sleep in low relative to academic educated groups (all p &lt; 0.02). Conclusion: Shift work is related not only to curtailed sleep and shift work disorder, but also to a plethora of sleep disorders, including insomnia, sleep-related breathing disorders and sleep-related movement disorders. Our findings imply that education on coping strategies may be especially important for young and/or lower educated shift workers.</p

Laser light scattering (LLS) to observe plasma impact on the adhesion of micrometer-sized particles to a surface

Laser light scattering (LLS) method, combined with a long-distance microscope was utilized to detect micrometer-sized particles on a smooth substrate. LLS was capable to detect individual particle release, shrink, or fragmentation during exposure to a plasma or a gas jet. In-situ monitoring of hundreds of particles was carried out to investigate the effect of hydrogen plasma exposure on particle adhesion, morphology, and composition. LLS was calibrated with monodisperse melamine resin spheres with known sizes of 2.14 µm, 2.94 µm, and 5.26 µm in diameter. The lowest achievable noise level of approximately 3% was demonstrated for counting 5.26 µm spherical melamine particles. The accuracy for melamine particle size measurements ranged from 50% for 2.14 µm particles to 10% for 5.26 µm particles. This scatter was taken as the imprecision of the method. Size distribution for polydisperse particles with known refractive index was obtained by interpolating to an effective scattering cross-section of a sphere using Mie theory. While the Abbe diffraction limit was about 2 µm in our system, the detection limit for Si particles in LLS according to Mie approximation was assessed to about 3 µm, given the limitations of the laser flux, microscope resolution, camera noise, and particle composition. Additionally, the gradual changes in forward scattering cross-sections for Si particles during the exposure to the hydrogen plasma were consistent with Si etching reported in the literature.</p

Shift work is associated with extensively disordered sleep, especially when working nights

Background: Shift work is generally associated with working and sleeping out of phase with the endogenous, circadian sleep–wake cycle. This exerts detrimental effects on sleep health. The present study aimed at evaluating the presence of short and long sleep as well as sleep disorders within a broad range of shift work schedules and elucidating the role of sociodemographic factors therein. Methods: A large dataset containing information on sleep was collected through advertisement in a Belgium newspaper (De Standaard). Adult, working individuals were selected (n = 37,662) and categorized based on their work schedule (regular day, early morning, evening, night, and rotating shift). In this cross-sectional study, prevalence rates of short sleep (≤6 h), long sleep (≥9 h) and sleep disorders (screened with Holland Sleep Disorders Questionnaire), and associations between these sleep variables and sociodemographics (age, sex, education, living companion(s)) were analyzed using binominal logistic regression analyses. Results: In the total sample all sociodemographic factors affected prevalences of short, long and disordered sleep, consistent with previous studies. Compared to day workers, shift workers more frequently reported short sleep, most prominently night workers (26 vs. 50%) (p &lt; 0.001). Furthermore, all sleep disorders as well as sleep disorder comorbidity were more common in shift workers, again most pronounced in night workers (all p &lt; 0.05). In night shift workers the level of education had the strongest associations with disturbed sleep with a two-fold higher prevalence of short and disordered sleep in low relative to academic educated groups (all p &lt; 0.02). Conclusion: Shift work is related not only to curtailed sleep and shift work disorder, but also to a plethora of sleep disorders, including insomnia, sleep-related breathing disorders and sleep-related movement disorders. Our findings imply that education on coping strategies may be especially important for young and/or lower educated shift workers.</p