An Exploration of the Attitudes, Role, and Self-Efficacy of Primary School Teaching Assistants and Their Practice in Supporting Children’s Mental Health.

In recent years, increasing responsibility has been placed on schools to promote and support the mental health of children. However, research indicates that school staff hold different perceptions of this role, and their practice may be impacted by factors including stigma, confidence, training and capacity. Increasingly, school staff have reported the pressures that they are experiencing and the impact that this is having on their role and practice. Existing research in this area predominantly explores the role, views and experiences of teachers; however, research suggests that teaching assistants have an important, and often distinctive, role in supporting children’s mental health. Therefore, the overall aims of this research were to explore teaching assistant attitudes, views and experiences, and the factors that impact on their practice in supporting children’s mental health. Within Phase One, a quantitative survey was used to explore the attitudes of teaching assistants to mental health, their role in supporting children’s mental health and their perceived self-efficacy within this role. 62 teaching assistants who worked in mainstream primary schools in the South West of England completed this survey. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Key findings indicated that teaching assistants saw themselves as having a key role in supporting children’s mental health, although also demonstrated a lack of clarity around the relationship between mental health and mental illness. Self-efficacy measures also indicated that teaching assistants had higher perceived self-efficacy for tasks related to mental health promotion than direct mental health support. Furthermore, factors such as time, access to mental health-related training and experience all impacted upon teaching assistant self-efficacy. In Phase Two, key findings from Phase One were explored further through semi-structured interviews with seven teaching assistants who worked in mainstream primary schools in England, and analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. Findings highlighted the perceived causes and impacts of poor mental health in children, and the way in which teaching assistants saw children’s mental health as different to adults. Key themes related to the teaching assistant role included relationships, practical support, a distinctive role, and aspects of support that were beyond the teaching assistant role. A variety of individual, school and educational factors that impact on teaching assistant practice were also highlighted. These included teaching assistant status, systemic factors such as the external pressures on schools, and discrepancies between the sources of knowledge and skills for teaching assistants. Overall, this research highlights the key and distinctive contribution of teaching assistants in supporting children’s mental health, and the factors that impact upon this. It also highlights the way in which many of the factors that impact on the pedagogical practice of teaching assistants also impact on their role in supporting children’s mental health. This has important implications for Educational Psychologists, schools and policymakers as to how TAs can be best supported and empowered within their role in supporting children’s mental health

The surface reactivity of acrylonitrile with oxygen atoms on an analogue of interstellar dust grains

Experiments designed to reveal the low-temperature reactivity on the surfaces of interstellar dust grains are used to probe the heterogeneous reaction between oxygen atoms and acrylonitrile (C2H3CN, H2C=CH-CN). The reaction is studied at a series of fixed surface temperatures between 14 and 100 K. After dosing the reactants on to the surface, temperature-programmed desorption, coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry, reveals the formation of a product with the molecular formula C3H3NO. This product results from the addition of a single oxygen atom to the acrylonitrile reactant. The oxygen atom attack appears to occur exclusively at the C=C double bond, rather than involving the cyano(-CN) group. The absence of reactivity at the cyano site hints that full saturation of organic molecules on dust grains may not always occur in the interstellar medium. Modelling the experimental data provides a reaction probability of 0.007 ± 0.003 for a Langmuir–Hinshelwood style (diffusive) reaction mechanism. Desorption energies for acrylonitrile, oxygen atoms, and molecular oxygen, from the multilayer mixed ice their deposition forms, are also extracted from the kinetic model and are 22.7 ± 1.0 kJ mol−1 (2730 ± 120 K), 14.2 ± 1.0 kJ mol−1 (1710 ± 120 K), and 8.5 ± 0.8 kJ mol−1 (1020 ± 100 K), respectively. The kinetic parameters we extract from our experiments indicate that the reaction between atomic oxygen and acrylonitrile could occur on interstellar dust grains on an astrophysical time-scale

Nicotine absorption from e-cigarettes over 12 months

Background Research indicates that, over time, exclusive e-cigarette users (vapers) gradually reduce the nicotine concentration in their e-liquid and transition to more sophisticated devices. Alongside this, consumption of e-liquid increases and constant cotinine levels are maintained. Aims We aimed to confirm these observations in 27 experienced vapers tested at baseline and 12 months later, by measuring nicotine absorption (via salivary levels of the nicotine metabolite cotinine; ng/mL), nicotine concentrations in e-liquid (mg/mL), volume of e-liquid consumed (mL per day), device types and flavours used, both at baseline and 12 months. Results Vapers reduced both their nicotine concentrations in e-liquid over 12 months (from 13.83 mg/mL at baseline to 9.91 at follow up) but significantly increased their e-liquid consumption (from 4.44 to 6.84 mL). No significant changes in salivary cotinine concentrations (370.88 ng/mL at baseline and 415.78 ng/mL at follow up) were observed. There was an increase in sub-ohming (using an atomiser coil with resistance of <1 Ω with increased power) at 12 months, and in the use of fruit flavoured e-liquids. Conclusions Our sample of experienced vapers reduced the concentration of nicotine in their e-liquid over time, but maintained their nicotine intake possibly through self-titration via more intensive puffing. Findings suggest there may be little benefit in reducing nicotine e-liquid concentration since this appears to result in higher e-liquid consumption which may incur both a financial and health cost. Gaining an understanding of underlying reasons for lowering e-liquid concentration would be a useful line of empirical enquiry

A rationale and model for addressing tobacco dependence in substance abuse treatment

Most persons in drug treatment smoke cigarettes. Until drug treatment facilities systematically treat their patients' tobacco use, millions will flow through the drug treatment system, overcome their primary drug of abuse, but die prematurely from tobacco-related illnesses. This paper reviews the literature on the health benefits of quitting smoking for drug treatment patients, whether smoking causes relapse to other drug or alcohol abuse, the treatment of tobacco dependence, and good and bad times for quitting smoking among drug treatment patients. It also presents a conceptual model and recommendations for treating tobacco in substance abuse treatment, and provides references to internet and paper-copy tools and information for treating tobacco dependence. At present, research on tobacco treatment in drug treatment is in its infancy. Although few drug treatment programs currently offer formal services, many more will likely begin to treat nicotine dependence as external forces and patient demand for these services increases. In the absence of clear guidelines and attention to quality of care, drug treatment programs may adopt smoking cessation services based on cost, convenience, or selection criteria other than efficacy. Because research in this field is relatively new, substance abuse treatment professionals should adhere to the standards of care for the general population, but be prepared to update their practices with emerging interventions that have proven to be effective for patients in drug treatment

Subjective Well-Being in Two Himalayan Communities, Post Road Development

Although the first road to ever be built into Humla, Nepal is still under construction, it has already spurred numerous sociocultural and economic changes, including an increased integration into the market economy, changing access to market-purchased foods, and new kinds of health-seeking behavior. This paper is part of a larger research project where we examined changing health and nutrition outcomes co-synchronous with the arrival of this road. In this paper, we focus on whether and how the road is affecting villagers’ subjective well-being (SWB). We studied this while living and working with people from two Humli villages, one that is on the road, and one that is far from it. In these villages, we developed two local models of SWB, using the villagers’ own conceptual frameworks and sense of the factors that play a role in wellbeing. Our analyses showed that villagers’ conceptualization of SWB varied substantially according to road proximity. Additionally, we quantified indices from villagers’ SWB assessments and tested which variables were significant determinants of wellbeing. We discovered a significant relationship between an individual’s well-being level and two variables: available resources per household and levels of social support. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to better understand how villagers from Upper Humla define SWB, to identify which subset of the population is not benefitting in terms of their SWB from the new road, and to present a mixed-methods, anthropologically-based approach for the development of a locally meaningful measure of SWB

A comparison of different ways of including baseline counts in negative binomial models for data from falls prevention trials

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley-VCH Verlag via the DOI in this record.A common design for a falls prevention trial is to assess falling at baseline, randomize participants into an intervention or control group, and ask them to record the number of falls they experience during a follow-up period of time. This paper addresses how best to include the baseline count in the analysis of the follow-up count of falls in Negative Binomial (NB) regression. We examine the performance of various approaches in simulated datasets where both counts are generated from a mixed Poisson distribution with shared random subject effect. Including the baseline count after log-transformation as a regressor in NB regression (NB-logged) or as an offset (NB-offset) resulted in greater power than including the untransformed baseline count (NB-unlogged). Cook and Wei's Conditional Negative Binomial (CNB) model replicates the underlying process generating the data. In our motivating dataset, a statistically significant intervention effect resulted from the NB-logged, NB-offset and CNB models, but not from NB-unlogged, and large, outlying baseline counts were overly influential in NB-unlogged but not in NB-logged. We conclude that there is little to lose by including the log-transformed baseline count in standard NB regression compared to CNB for moderate to larger sized datasets.Funding Information: National Institute for Health Research, Grant no. RDA/02/06/41; Care South West Peninsul