Body Satisfaction and Sex Differences in Exercise Motivations

In this study we investigated body satisfaction and sex differences in exercise motivations. We used a questionnaire that assessed the exercise motivations: stress/anxiety, health/fitness level, mood/enjoyment, and appearance/body shape. We had 198 undergraduate participants, 114 females and 84 males between the ages of 18-23 from the University of New Hampshire, Durham campus. Self-objectification is relevant in this topic because males and females feel pressures from society to obtain the “ideal body type”. We found that health/fitness goals are the primary motivators for both males and females. There were statistically significant differences between male and female exercisers desire to lose, gain weight, and be stronger. The majority of both males and females, regardless of exercise behavior, desire to have thinner bodies. The majority of exercising males report no discrepancy in their ideal and actual body types and the majority of exercising females report an ideal body type thinner than their own body

GP perspectives on hospital discharge letters : an interview and focus group study

Background: Written discharge communication following inpatient or outpatient clinic discharge is essential for communicating information to the GP, but GPs’ opinions on discharge communication are seldom sought. Patients are sometimes copied into this communication, but the reasons for this variation, and the resultant effects, remain unclear. Aim: To explore GP perspectives on how discharge letters can be improved in order to enhance patient outcomes. Design & setting: The study used narrative interviews with 26 GPs from 13 GP practices within the West Midlands, England. Method: Interviews were transcribed and data were analysed using corpus linguistics (CL) techniques. Results Elements pivotal to a successful letter were: diagnosis, appropriate follow-up plan, medication changes and reasons, clinical summary, investigations and/or procedures and outcomes, and what information has been given to the patient. GPs supported patients receiving discharge letters and expounded a number of benefits of this practice; for example, increased patient autonomy. Nevertheless, GPs felt that if patients are to receive direct discharge letter copies, modifications such as use of lay language and avoidance of acronyms may be required to increase patient understanding. Conclusion: GPs reported that discharge letters frequently lacked content items they assessed to be important; GPs highlighted that this can have subsequent ramifications on resources and patient experiences. Templates should be devised that put discharge letter elements assessed to be important by GPs to the forefront. Future research needs to consider other perspectives on letter content, particularly those of patients

Smarter Task Assignment or Greater Effort: the impact of incentives on team performance

We use an experiment to study the impact of team-based incentives, exploiting rich data from personnel records and management information systems. Using a triple difference design, we show that the incentive scheme had an impact on team performance, even with quite large teams. We examine whether this effect was due to increased effort from workers or strategic task reallocation. We find that the provision of financial incentives did raise individual performance but that managers also disproportionately reallocated efficient workers to the incentivised tasks. We show that this reallocation was the more important contributor to the overall outcome.Incentives, Public Sector, Teams, Performance

Intercultural capability: exploring first year HE students' reflections on and experiences of their higher education experience

This round table discussion presents the initial stages of a cross-institution project exploring the reflections and expectations of first year international and home students. This study aims to capture students' early experiences in higher education (HE), their sense of 'belonging' and development of intercultural capabilities embedded in international-home student interactions. This is the first study to adopt Sen's (1992) 'capability approach' as a means of framing exploration of these intercultural capabilities. Results are intended to shed light on the processual development of intercultural capabilities during students' first year in HE, and their perceptions of how these contribute to their employability. Although this discussion is based on one joint proposal developed by the research team, several themes emerge which may be of interest to HE academics and practitioners concerning 'Student Experiences', 'Employability, Enterprise and Graduate Careers' and 'Learning, Teaching and Assessment'

The discharge communication study : research protocol for a mixed methods study to investigate and triangulate discharge communication experiences of patients, GPs, and hospital professionals, alongside a corresponding discharge letter sample

Background: Discharge letters are crucial during care transitions from hospital to home. Research indicates a need for improvement to increase quality of care and decrease adverse outcomes. These letters are often sent from the hospital discharging physician to the referring clinician, typically the patient’s General Practitioner (GP) in the UK, and patients may or may not be copied into them. Relatively little is known about the barriers and enablers to sending patients discharge letters. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate from GP, hospital professional (HP) and patient perspectives how to improve processes of patients receiving letters and increase quality of discharge letters. The study has a particular focus on the impacts of receiving or not receiving letters on patient experiences and quality of care. Methods: The setting was a region in the West Midlands of England, UK. The research aimed to recruit a minimum of 30 GPs, 30 patients and 30 HPs in order to capture 90 experiences of discharge communication. Participating GPs initially screened and selected a range of recent discharge letters which they assessed to be successful and unsuccessful exemplars. These letters identified potential participants who were invited to take part: the HP letter writer, GP recipient and patient. Participant viewpoints are collected through interviews, focus groups and surveys and will be “matched” to the discharge letter sample, so forming multiple-perspective “quartet” cases. These “quartets” allow direct comparisons between different discharge experiences within the same communicative event. The methods for analysis draw on techniques from the fields of Applied Linguistics and Health Sciences, including: corpus linguistics; inferential statistics; content analysis. Discussion: This mixed-methods study is novel in attempting to triangulate views of patients, GPs and HPs in relation to specific discharge letters. Patient and practitioner involvement will inform design decisions and interpretation of findings. Recommendations for improving discharge letters and the process of patients receiving letters will be made, with the intention of informing guidelines on discharge communication. Ethics approval was granted in July 2017 by the UK Health Research Authority. Findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals, reports and newsletters, and presentations