The relationship between anxiety, coping strategies and characteristics of patients with diabetes

Background This study provided essential information, about Turkish patients with type I and type II diabetes, concerning: levels of anxiety, coping strategies used, and relationships that exist among anxiety, coping strategies, sociodemographic and medical characteristics. Methods A sample comprising 161 Turkish adults with both types of diabetes participated in the study. The trait anxiety scale, the brief COPE, sociodemographic and medical questionnaire were administered to patients with diabetes. Results The mean age was 49.01 (SD = 9.74), with a range from 20 to 60 years. The majority of the participants were female (60.9%) and type II diabetes (75.8%). 79% of the participants experienced anxiety. A clear majority of the participants reported to integrate their diabetes. Acceptance, religion, planning, positive reframing, instrumental support, emotional support, self-distraction and venting were the most frequently used coping strategies. The most frequently used problem-focused and the emotion-focused coping strategies were found to be similar in both type I and type II diabetes. However, participants with type II diabetes had relatively higher scores on the problem-focused strategies than those with type I. Participants with type I diabetes used humour, venting and self-blame more than those with type II diabetes. Other findings indicated that only a small minority responded to diabetes-related problems by denial, behavioural disengagement and substance use. Significant correlations were found among anxiety, coping strategies and sociodemographic characteristics of the participants. Moreover, Self-blame was found to be correlated significantly with both the problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. Self-blame was also significantly correlated with both instrumental support and emotional support indicated that higher self-blame caused more frequent use of instrumental and emotional support by patients with diabetes. Conclusion The findings of this study indicate that care for patients with diabetes should address their physical, psychological, social and economic wellbeing and the findings point to the importance of taking individual coping strategies into account when evaluating the impact of diabetes on psychosocial wellbeing. Because of the mean of anxiety were not in normal range, for this study, health professionals need to pay attention to patient's psychological state. This is especially true for patients who are likely to use self-blame and behavioural disengagement as a coping strategy. Through psychosocial interventions, professionals need to assist patients in establishing positive self evaluations. Delineation of coping strategies might be useful for identifying patients in need of particular counselling and support

Correlates of loneliness among university students

Background The purpose of this study was to investigate level of loneliness, essential needs during university education, and relationships between loneliness, essential needs, and characteristics of university students. A sample comprising 721 students participated in the study. The mean age was 21.58 (SD = 1.73) with a range from 18 to 25. The majority of the students were female (70.6%) and were living in students' dormitory (67.5%) with low (87.8%) income, away from their parents. Methods The UCLA-R loneliness scale and sociodemographic questionnaire which includes an open-ended question on essential needs during university education were administered. Pearson-Product-Moment correlations were used to explore the relationships between participants' loneliness, needs, and characteristics. Results It was found that 60.2% of the participants experienced loneliness. Economical support (81.6%), social interaction (46.9%) and psychosocial support (35%) were the essential needs during university education reported by the participants. The study findings indicate that there were significant relationships between the needs of economical support, social interaction, and loneliness level of university students. Results also show that there were significant relationships among romantic relationship, parents' status and loneliness. Participants' loneliness levels were relatively higher who had not any romantic relationship and were not from married families. Conclusion The findings of this study provided essential information, about Turkish university students, concerning: level of loneliness and relationships that exist among loneliness, needs and sociodemographic characteristics. The findings also suggest implications for psychosocial practice. Because of the mean of loneliness were found to be high (45.49 ± 10.07), for this study, professionals need to pay attention to Turkish university students' psychosocial state, and need to empower them in establishing social relations

Coping And Quality Of Life In Turkish Women Living With Ovarian Cancer

Background: This study investigated the utilization of both problem and emotion focused coping strategies and their association with aspects of quality of life among Turkish women with ovarian cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: The convenience sample consisted of 228 patients in all disease stages. The data were collected using the brief COPE, QOL-Cancer patient tool, sociodemographic sheet, and medical variables were gathered from patients' medical charts. Results: Findings reveal that quality of life is moderately high for this group of cancer patients, despite some specific negative facets of the illness and treatment experience. Acceptance, emotional support and religion were the most frequently used problem-focused coping strategies and self-distraction, venting and behavioral disengagement were the most frequently used emotion-focused coping strategies reported by patients. Overall quality of life and, particularly, psychological and spiritual wellbeing scores of younger patients were lower. Patients reported using significantly more problem-focused coping than emotion-focused coping, and more problem-focused and less emotion-focused coping predicted greater quality of life. Problem-focused coping was related to patients' physical and spiritual well-being and emotion-focused coping was related inversely with psychological and social well-being. Conclusions: Coping strategies are influential in patient quality of life and their psychosocial adaptation to ovarian cancer. Psycho-oncology support programs are needed to help patients to frequent use of problem-focused coping and reduce emotion-focused coping strategies to improve overall quality of life.WoSScopu

Pagrindinis socialinio darbo tikslas: socialinis teisingumas. Per įgalinimą nuo retorikos prie praktikos

This article discusses the relationship between social justice and social work in a theoretical framework which is structured on the basis of the empowerment approach. It is emphasized that as an academic discipline and also a profession, the primary objective of social work is to promote social justice. Throughout the development process from beginning to this time, connectedness of social work with social justice is analyzed through critical thinking. In every practice setting, both psychosocial improvement and development focus on the micro level and social change and policy practice focus on the macro level, social work requires a paradigm change to ensure the objective of social justice. To satisfy this requirement, both in an individual's subjective life, and in the process of meeting the needs of large part of a society, the paradigm of empowerment mainly focuses on solutions rather than problems and sees people as actors in their own lives and solutions. Consequently, it is emphasized that in various practice settings, from individual, group, family level to societal and policy practice level, professional practices which are structured on the basis of empowerment approach, will directly serve to the objective of social justice.Straipsnyje autoriai analizuoja socialinio teisingumo ir socialinio darbo santykį remdamiesi teorine įgaliojimo paradigma. Autoriai pabrėžia, kad socialinio darbo, kaip mokslinės disciplinos ir profesijos, pagrindinis tikslas turėtų būti socialinis teisingumas. Socialinio darbo vystymosi plėtros istorijoje buvo įvairiai interpretuojamas socialinio darbo ir socialinio teisingumo santykis. Siekiant užtikrinti socialinį teisingumą būtina socialinio darbo paradigmų kaita: kiekvienoje praktikos vietoje greta psichosocialinės pagalbos mikro lygmens svarbu pabrėžti ir socialinių kitimų bei socialinės politikos makro lygmenį. Praktikoje individualus socialinis darbas ir socialinės politikos lygmuo dažniausia yra atskiriami. Autoriai teigia, kad šiuolaikinėje modernioje visuomenėje taip neturėtų būti. Siūlydami glaudžiau susieti šiuos du lygmenis autoriai analizuoja įgalinimo paradigmą, kuri nukreipta daugiau į sprendimus, o ne į problemas ir pripažįstanti žmones priimant sprendimus, kaip aktyvius savo gyvenimo formuotojus. Autorių manymu, nesvarbu ar socialinis darbas susijęs su individu, grupe, šeima, ar su visuomene, jei remiamasi įgalinimo paradigma, neišvengiamai pasiekiamas socialinis teisingumas

Psychological Symptoms, Illness-Related Concerns and Characteristics of Relatives of Turkish Patients With Cancer

Being the relative of a patient with cancer is often very stressful, and there is a need for information, support, and help for carers. It is also important for the relative to know that the patient receives care of a good quality. This research investigated the relationships between sociodemographic characteristics, illness related concerns and psychological symptom scores of relatives of the patients with cancer in an inpatient oncology clinic of the GATA. A Questionnaire and Symptom Distress Check List (SCL-90-R) was administered to 106 relatives of in-patients and statistically significant relationships were found between the following characteristics and psychological symptom scores: sex, education level, duration of stay in hospital, having emotional problems and having financial problems. It was established that most problems of relatives were psychological and financial (p<0.05). Cancer is still a great source of fear and it is evident that offering psychosocial support at a professional level in addition to medical treatment will yield more favorable results for both patients and their relatives.Wo

Micromechanical Modeling of Inter-Granular Localization, Damage and Fracture

The recent developments in the production of miniaturized devices increases the demand on micro-components where the thickness ranges from tens to hundreds of microns. Various challenges, such as size effect and stress concentrations at the grain boundaries, arise due to the deformation heterogeneity observed at grain scale. Various metallic alloys, e.g. aluminum, exhibit substantial localization and stress concentration at the grain boundaries. In this regard, inter-granular damage evolution, crack initiation and propagation becomes an important failure mechanism at this length scale. Crystal plasticity approach captures intrinsically the heterogeneity developing due to grain orientation mismatch. However, the commonly used local versions do not possess a specific GB model and leads to jumps at the boundaries. Therefore, a more physical treatment of grain boundaries is needed. For this purpose, in this work, the Gurtin GB model (Gurtin (2008)) is incorporated into a strain gradient crystal plasticity framework (Yalcinkaya et al. (2011), Yalcinkaya et al. (2012), Yalcinkaya (2017)), where the intensity of the localization and stress concentration could be modelled considering the effect of grain boundary orientation, the mismatch and the strength of the GB. A zero thickness 12-node interface element for the integration of the grain boundary contribution and a 10-node coupled finite element for the bulk response are developed and implemented in Abaqus software as user element subroutines. 3D grain microstructure is created through Voronoi tessellation and the interface elements are automatically inserted between grains. After obtaining the localization, the mechanical behavior of the GB is modelled through incorporation of a potential based cohesive zone model (see Park et al. (2009), Cerrone et al. (2014)). The numerical examples present the performance of the developed tool for the intrinsic localization, crack initiation and propagation in micron-sized specimens. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V