58 research outputs found
Direct Reader Address in Health-related Online News Articles: Imposing Problems and Projecting Desires for Action and Change onto Readers
The digitalisation and commercialisation of the news mean journalistic practices are changing. Traditionally, readers are not addressed in written news stories. This study documents practices of direct reader address in online news headlines on health topics from three Nordic countries. The study focuses on the linguistic means of constructing the reader and journalist-reader relationship through forms of direct address. For this purpose, we take pragmatic-interactional and discourse-analytical approaches. Building on a discursive view on news values, the paper analyses three practices of addressing readers in headlines, outlines how news values are discursively constructed through these practices, and examines how journalists construct their target audience discursively by imposing problems and projecting desires for action and change onto readers, indicating assumptions about the readers' knowledge. We argue that, by using such practices, journalists construct journalistic authority
Effects of needs-based patient education on self-efficacy and health outcomes in people with rheumatoid arthritis: A multicentre, single blind, randomised controlled trial
Objectives The Educational Needs Assessment Tool (ENAT) is a self-completed questionnaire, which allows patients with arthritis to prioritise their educational needs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of needs-based patient education on self-efficacy, health outcomes and patient knowledge in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods Patients with RA were enrolled into this multicentre, single-blind, parallel-group, pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Patients were randomised to either the intervention group (IG) where patients completed ENAT, responses of which were used by the clinical nurse specialist to guide patient education; or control group (CG) in which they received patient education without the use of ENAT. Patients were seen at weeks 0, 16 and 32. The primary outcome was selfefficacy (Arthritis Self Efficacy Scale (ASES)-Pain and ASES-Other symptoms). Secondary outcomes were health status (short form of Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale 2, AIMS2-SF) and patient knowledge questionnaire-RA. We investigated between-group differences using analysis of covariance, adjusting for baseline variables. Results A total of 132 patients were recruited (IG=70 and CG=62). Their mean (SD) age was 54 (12.3) years, 56 (13.3) years and disease duration 5.2 (4.9) years, 6.7 (8.9) years for IG and CG, respectively. There were significant between-group differences, in favour of IG at week 32 in the primary outcomes, ASES-Pain, mean difference (95% CI) -4.36 (1.17 to 7.55), t=-2.72, p=0.008 and ASES-Other symptoms, mean difference (95% CI) -5.84 (2.07 to 9.62), t=-3.07, p=0.003. In secondary outcomes, the between-group differences favoured IG in AIMS2-SF Symptoms and AIMS2-SF Affect. There were no between-group differences in other secondary outcomes. Conclusions The results suggest that needs-based education helps improve patients' self-efficacy and some aspects of health status
Teams between Neo-Taylorism and Anti-Taylorism
The concept of teamworking is the product of two distinct
developments. One: a neo-
Tayloristic form of organization of work, of which Toyota has shown
that it can be very profitable, was
packaged and reframed to make it acceptable to the Western public.
Two: anti-Tayloristic ways of
organizing work, inspired by ideals of organizational democracy,
were relabeled to make these
acceptable to profit-oriented managers.
Drawing on empirical research in Scandinavia, Germany, The
Netherlands and the UK, as
well as on published case studies of Japanese companies, the paper
develops a neo-Tayloristic and an
anti-Tayloristic model of teamworking.
Key concerns in the teamworking literature are intensification of
work and the use of shop
floor autonomy as a cosmetic or manipulative device. Indeed, all the
features of neo-Tayloristic
teamworking are geared towards the intensification of work. However,
one of the intensification
mechanisms, the removal of Tayloristic rigidities in the division of
labor, applies to anti-Tayloristic
teamworking as well. This poses a dilemma for employee
representatives. In terms of autonomy, on the
other hand, the difference between neo-Tayloristic and
anti-Tayloristic teamworking is real.
In anti-Tayloristic teamworking, there is no supervisor inside the
team. The function of
spokesperson rotates. All team members can participate in
decision-making. Standardization is not
relentlessly pursued; management accepts some measure of worker
control. There is a tendency to
alleviate technical discipline, e.g. to find alternatives for the
assembly line. Buffers are used.
Remuneration is based on proven skill level; there are no group
bonuses.
In contrast, in neo-Tayloristic teamworking, a permanent supervisor
is present in the team as
team leader. At most, only the team leader can participate in
decision-making. Standardization is
relentlessly pursued. Management prerogatives are nearly unlimited.
Job designers treat technical
discipline, e.g. short-cycled work on the assembly line, as
unproblematic. There are no buffers. A
substantial part of wages consists of individual bonuses based on
assessments by supervisors on how
deeply workers cooperate in the system. Group bonuses are also
given.
The instability and vulnerability of anti-Tayloristic teamworking
imply that it can only
develop and flourish when managers and employee representatives put
determined effort into it. The
opportunity structure for this contains both economic and political
elements. In mass production, the
economic success of Toyota, through skillful mediation by management
gurus, makes the opportunity
structure for anti-Tayloristic teamworking relatively unfavorable
Patient education in rheumatoid arthritis: is the needs-based approach the way forward?
In recent years, the assessment of patients’ needs has become an important area of research for several reasons; expenditure on healthcare has risen faster than the cost increases reported in other sectors of the economy, and medical advances and demographic changes will continue the upward pressure on costs. At the same time, the resources available for healthcare are limited, and the rising expectations of the public have led to greater concerns about the quality of the services they receive
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