The implications of autonomy: Viewed in the light of efforts to uphold patients dignity and integrity

This article focuses on Danish patients’ experience of autonomy and its interplay with dignity and integrity in their meeting with health professionals. The aim is to chart the meanings and implications of autonomy for persons whose illness places them in a vulnerable life situation. The interplay between autonomy and personal dignity in the meeting with health care staff are central concepts in the framework. Data collection and findings are based on eight qualitative semi-structured interviews with patients. Patients with acute, chronic, and life threatening diseases were represented including surgical as well as medical patients. The values associated with autonomy are in many ways vitalising, but may become so dominant, autonomy seeking, and pervasive that the patient's dignity is affected. Three types of patient behaviour were identified. (1) The proactive patient: Patients feel that they assume responsibility for their own situation, but it may be a responsibility that they find hard to bear. (2) The rejected patient: proactive patients take responsibility on many occasions but very active patients are at risk of being rejected with consequences for their dignity. (3) The knowledgeable patient: when patients are health care professionals, the patient's right of self-determination was managed in a variety of ways, sometimes the patient's right of autonomy was treated in a dignified way but the opposite was also evident. In one way, patients are active and willing to take responsibility for themselves, and at the same time they are “forced” to do so by health care staff. Patients would like health professionals to be more attentive and proactive

As características dos alunos são determinantes para o adoecimento de professores: um estudo comparativo sobre a incidência de Burnout em professores do ensino regular e especial The student characteristics affect teachers' illnesses: a comparative study on the incidence of Burnout in regular and special education teachers

O exercício da docência é permeado por condições de trabalho adversas, baixos salários, insuficiência de recursos materiais e didáticos, salas numerosas, tensão no relacionamento com os alunos, carga horária de trabalho excessiva, inexpressiva participação no planejamento da instituição e nas políticas institucionais e falta de segurança no ambiente escolar. O presente estudo teve por objetivo comparar a presença de indicadores de burnout em três grupos de professores que atuam no primeiro ciclo do Ensino Fundamental: a) 20 no ensino regular, em turmas sem a inserção de alunos com necessidades educacionais especiais - RSI; b) 20 no ensino regular, em turmas com a inserção de alunos com necessidades educacionais especiais - RCI; c) 20 em salas de recursos - SR. Para a coleta, foi utilizado o Maslach Burnout Inventory -MBI. Na análise de dados, empregou-se o SPSS, versão 13.0, e o Teste de Kruskal-Wallis para comparação dos grupos. Os resultados, que foram organizados em forma de Figuras e Tabelas, revelam que, de maneira geral, os grupos apresentaram relativa similaridade. Entretanto, algumas diferenças foram encontradas. O grupo de professores SR obteve os melhores resultados na avaliação das três escalas do burnout, quando comparado com RSI e RCI, ou seja, com predominância de respostas nos níveis mais baixos de exaustão emocional, altos na diminuição da realização pessoal e baixos para despersonalização. Espera-se que os dados expostos contribuam para a compreensão do burnout em professores do ensino regular com e sem inclusão de alunos com necessidades educacionais especiais, e/ou suscitem novos encaminhamentos de pesquisas.<br>The practice of teaching is permeated by adverse working conditions, low wages, inadequacy of material and teaching resources, overcrowded classrooms, tension in relationships with the students, excessive work load, lack of safety in the school environment, insignificant participation in institutional planning and in institutional politics. The objective of the present study was to compare burnout among three groups of teachers who work in elementary grades: a) 20 teachers who teach in regular school classrooms without the inclusion of students with special educational needs - RSI Group; b) 20 teachers who teach in the regular classroom with special needs students - RCI Group; c) 20 teachers who teach in resource classrooms (SR Group). The instruments used for data collection were the Maslach Burnout Inventory -MBI. The data was analyzed by SPSS version 13.0 and Kruskal-Wallis test for comparison of the three groups. The results were organized in the form of figures and tables. In general, the results demonstrated that the groups presented relative similarity. The teachers from the SR Group obtained the best results in the evaluation of the three burnout scales when compared to the RSI Group and RCI Group, that is, there was a prevalence of answers in the lower levels of emotional exhaustion, high level of low personal accomplishment and low level for depersonalization. It is hoped that these results contribute to a better understanding of burnout in teachers from regular classrooms with or without students with educational special needs and/or to indicate new directions for investigation

Understanding the use of Smart Working in Public Administration: the experience of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers

While there is no consensus in terms of what “smart government” includes and how it is related to emergent technologies and innovation in the public sector, in this paper smart working (SW) is regarded as one of the most important initiatives for building smart government. In the Italian public sector—according to the Law n. 81/2017—SW has emerged as a “new” way to define what is considered as an innovative approach to work organisation and human resource management. Analysing the Presidency of the Council of Ministers case study the paper aims to investigate to answer to the following questions: (i) to what extent is the interface between organisational model for working and new technology contextually bound? (ii) what are the combination of the different elements affecting the configuration of SW? (iii) what are the outcomes of SW likely to be for smar-workers, organisations and society