Exploring the Discourses of Compulsive Hair-Pulling: A Body-Mapping Study

Compulsive hair-pulling (which is sometimes diagnosed as the OCD-Related Disorder, Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviour, Trichotillomania) is an understudied experience that has significant social and emotional impacts on the women that it affects. This study focused on the meanings that are derived from the interactions that women with compulsive hair-pulling experience with social discourses surrounding mental illness, physical appearance, and behaviour. Guided by relativist ontology and the co-creation of understanding between researcher and participants, this qualitative exploration was guided by anti-oppressive practice and used an arts-based research method called Body-Map Storytelling. In group format, four women were invited to describe their knowledge, experiences, and journey visually on a life-sized tracing of their own body over five consecutive weekly sessions. The end result of these sessions was a life-sized depiction of each person\u27s visual telling of their story, which had been co-created within the context of guided facilitation through the sessions. The visual data and the participants’ personal narratives of creating the body maps were analyzed thematically. The participants shared contrasting experiences of wanting to be both visible and invisible, feeling whole and fragmented, and building oneself up and breaking oneself down. They shared the impacts of compulsive hair-pulling on the pressure that they feel; from self and others, around self-disclosure, to meet social expectations and how they resist this pressure. Participants shared the impacts of being labelled and how they accept, reject and resist labels. The final theme arising from analysis was that of self-guardianship. These findings add to current knowledge on compulsive hair-pulling, mental illness stigma and visual research methodologies as an example of a study guided by anti-oppressive theory conducted by a researcher who herself shares the identity of compulsive hair-puller with the research participants

Exploring the Discourses of Compulsive Hair-Pulling: A Body-Mapping Study

Compulsive hair-pulling (which is sometimes diagnosed as the OCD-Related Disorder, Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviour, Trichotillomania) is an understudied experience that has significant social and emotional impacts on the women that it affects. This study focused on the meanings that are derived from the interactions that women with compulsive hair-pulling experience with social discourses surrounding mental illness, physical appearance, and behaviour. Guided by relativist ontology and the co-creation of understanding between researcher and participants, this qualitative exploration was guided by anti-oppressive practice and used an arts-based research method called Body-Map Storytelling. In group format, four women were invited to describe their knowledge, experiences, and journey visually on a life-sized tracing of their own body over five consecutive weekly sessions. The end result of these sessions was a life-sized depiction of each person\u27s visual telling of their story, which had been co-created within the context of guided facilitation through the sessions. The visual data and the participants’ personal narratives of creating the body maps were analyzed thematically. The participants shared contrasting experiences of wanting to be both visible and invisible, feeling whole and fragmented, and building oneself up and breaking oneself down. They shared the impacts of compulsive hair-pulling on the pressure that they feel; from self and others, around self-disclosure, to meet social expectations and how they resist this pressure. Participants shared the impacts of being labelled and how they accept, reject and resist labels. The final theme arising from analysis was that of self-guardianship. These findings add to current knowledge on compulsive hair-pulling, mental illness stigma and visual research methodologies as an example of a study guided by anti-oppressive theory conducted by a researcher who herself shares the identity of compulsive hair-puller with the research participants

Life on the list: an exploratory study of the life world of individuals waiting for a kidney transplant

Kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice for many individuals with end stage renal disease (ESRD), as transplantation is reported to offer a greater quality of life than renal dialysis. At the end of March 2008 there were 6980 people on the active transplant list for kidney or kidney and pancreas transplants. However, during the previous year a total of 1453 deceased donor kidney transplants were carried out1, illustrating the mismatch between demand for and availability of kidneys for transplant. Whilst the Government has pledged to improve transplant services and to address the organ shortage, individuals on the kidney transplant list are currently facing an average wait of more than two years. Individuals waiting for a kidney transplant face complex challenges, which are currently poorly researched. An insight into the experience of waiting for a kidney transplant and how individuals interpret that wait could contribute to clinical knowledge and lead to improved support for these individuals. It could also raise public awareness about the issues involved in waiting for a kidney transplant, potentially encouraging donatio

An economic evaluation of salt reduction policies to reduce coronary heart disease in England: a policy modeling study

AbstractObjectivesDietary salt intake has been causally linked to high blood pressure and increased risk of cardiovascular events. Cardiovascular disease causes approximately 35% of total UK deaths, at an estimated annual cost of £30 billion. The World Health Organization and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence have recommended a reduction in the intake of salt in people's diets. This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of four population health policies to reduce dietary salt intake on an English population to prevent coronary heart disease (CHD).MethodsThe validated IMPACT CHD model was used to quantify and compare four policies: 1) Change4Life health promotion campaign, 2) front-of-pack traffic light labeling to display salt content, 3) Food Standards Agency working with the food industry to reduce salt (voluntary), and 4) mandatory reformulation to reduce salt in processed foods. The effectiveness of these policies in reducing salt intake, and hence blood pressure, was determined by systematic literature review. The model calculated the reduction in mortality associated with each policy, quantified as life-years gained over 10 years. Policy costs were calculated using evidence from published sources. Health care costs for specific CHD patient groups were estimated. Costs were compared against a “do nothing” baseline.ResultsAll policies resulted in a life-year gain over the baseline. Change4life and labeling each gained approximately 1960 life-years, voluntary reformulation 14,560 life-years, and mandatory reformulation 19,320 life-years. Each policy appeared cost saving, with mandatory reformulation offering the largest cost saving, more than £660 million.ConclusionsAll policies to reduce dietary salt intake could gain life-years and reduce health care expenditure on coronary heart disease

Does Gender Still Matter?: Women Physicians’ Self-Reported Medical Education Experiences

Objective: This study aims to provide a rich analysis of particular women’s medical education experiences. Design: One-on-one interviews and self-administered questionnaires Participants: 25 practicing women physicians who had graduated from U.S. medical schools. Results: The author identified the following themes: 1) societal gender role assumptions significantly impact women physicians’ experiences as medical students, in practice, and as primary care givers. 2) Marginalities in women’s health education exist in all levels of medical training. Curriculum specific to reproductive and psychiatric women’s health impacts physicians’ preparedness for treating female patients. 3) Physicians reported the existence of medical hierarchy during training and in practice. Central to this issue is the prevalence of sexual harassment which eight physicians reported having experienced or witnessed during their medical training. 4) Finally, twenty one of the physicians identified mentorship programs in medical school and residency programs. However, random assignment of mentors and students detracted from the meaningfulness of such programs. Conclusions: Gender inequality remains entrenched in all levels of medical education and practice. Findings highlight the necessity for additional institutional programs that provide support for women in medicine and curriculum reform to address the fragmentation of women’s health

Play and optimal welfare : does play behaviour indicate the presence of positive affective states?

Play is commonly used to assess affective states in both humans and non-human animals. Play appears to be most common when animals are well-fed and not under any direct threats to fitness. Could play and playfulness therefore indicate pre-existing positive emotions, and thence optimal animal welfare? We examine this question by surveying the internal and external conditions that promote or suppress play in a variety of species, starting with humans. We find that negative affective states and poor welfare usually do suppress play (although there are notable exceptions where the opposite occurs). Furthermore, research in children suggests that beyond the frequency or total duration of play, poor welfare may additionally be reflected in qualitative aspects of this heterogeneous behaviour (e.g. display of solitary over social play; and the ‘fragmentation’ of play bouts) that are often overlooked in animals. There are surprisingly few studies of play in subjects with pre-existing optimal welfare or in unambiguously highly positive affective states, making it currently impossible to determine whether play can distinguish optimal or good welfare from merely neutral welfare. This therefore represents an important and exciting area for future research

Null Killing Vector Dimensional Reduction and Galilean Geometrodynamics

The solutions of Einstein's equations admitting one non-null Killing vector field are best studied with the projection formalism of Geroch. When the Killing vector is lightlike, the projection onto the orbit space still exists and one expects a covariant theory with degenerate contravariant metric to appear, its geometry is presented here. Despite the complications of indecomposable representations of the local Euclidean subgroup, one obtains an absolute time and a canonical, Galilean and so-called Newtonian, torsionless connection. The quasi-Maxwell field (Kaluza Klein one-form) that appears in the dimensional reduction is a non-separable part of this affine connection, in contrast to the reduction with a non-null Killing vector. One may define the Kaluza Klein scalar (dilaton) together with the absolute time coordinate after having imposed one of the equations of motion in order to prevent the emergence of torsion. We present a detailed analysis of the dimensional reduction using moving frames, we derive the complete equations of motion and propose an action whose variation gives rise to all but one of them. Hidden symmetries are shown to act on the space of solutions.Comment: LATEX, 41 pages, no figure

Kosmetika i antikens Grekland och Rom. Bruk och attityder

The purpose of this paper is to look at Greek and Roman attitudes toward and comments on cosmetics during antiquity. I will also try to define who used cosmetics and why. Moreover, to illustrate ancient usage of cosmetics, what kind of raw materials and pigments were included in the cosmetic products, go over and compare the different types of cosmetics and their different properties and purpose