A Study of Clinical Behaviour in Intensive Care Unit

In order to support the needs of the staff working in discrete areas of nursing, the attitudes, behaviors and needs of the group must first be articulated. Unfortunately, there has been little research conducted to understand the culture of what it is that health care workers think and feel and why they make the choices they do in their working environment and also why they chose to leave the environment. Specifically, what do intensive care clinicians think about the work they do when managing end-of-life care in this technical, highly skilled environment. The focus of an ethnographic study conducted in an Australian hospital in 2007 was to describe the attitudes, behaviors and social conscience of this group whilst they provided end-of-life care. Conclusion: Staff were unable to control many factors that impact on the capacity of professional practice within the intensive care environment. In response to this limited control, staff developed tactics for managing the varying levels of expected clinical service delivery associated with varying possible outcome for each individual patient admission. This research garnered three discrete groups of coping strategies: physical, social and psychological. Future research may demonstrate capacity to engage in such coping strategies has a direct link to clinical longevity

Consume lightly

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USING PERSONA DOLLS AS AN ANTI-OPPRESSIVE TECHNIQUE IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIAL WORK CURRICULUM

The South African Constitution and Bill of Rights (1996) outlaws discrimination on the basisof race, culture, faith, gender and disability, etc. It addresses economic as well as human rights;however, we still live with discrimination, oppression and inequality. Xenophobic attacks havehighlighted the seriousness of the levels of discrimination that persist in our country. SouthAfrica is still a deeply divided and unequal society, where there is “race” and gender privilegeplus deep-seated structural inequalit

Patients’ perceptions of physical activity before and after joint replacement: A systematic review with meta-ethnographic analysis

Background: It has been perceived that people following hip (THA) or knee arthroplasty (TKA) have the capability, with reduced pain, to increase their levels of physical activity. Objectives: To determine the attitudes and perceptions of people awaiting or having undergone THA or TKA to physical activity post-arthroplasty, and to identify potential facilitators or barriers to engage in active living and physical activity pursuits. Methods: Systematic review of published and unpublished databases was undertaken from their inception to November 2014. Studies exploring the attitudes and perceptions of people awaiting or having undergone THA or TKA to physical activity post-arthroplasty were included. Data was analysed through a meta-ethnography approach. Results: From 528 citations, 13 papers were eligibility, sampling 282 people post-THA or TKA. The literature was judged moderate to high quality. Following THA and TKA, people either wish to return to their pre-pathology level of physical activity or simply be able to engage in less physically demanding activities that are meaningful to them and their lifestyles. Barriers to engaging in higher levels of physical activity were largely related to limited information, which culminated in fear surrounding “doing the right thing” both for individual’s recovery and the longevity of the joint replacement. Conclusions: Whilst many people post-THA or TKA wish to return to pre-pathological physical activity status, there limited interest in actually undertaking greater levels of physical activity post-arthroplasty either for pleasure or health gains. Improvement in education and awareness of this may be key drivers to improve habitualisation of physical activity post-arthroplasty

Literacy, language and wellbeing

In this chapter we explore the way that different aspects of language, literacy and literature contribute to wellbeing. Focusing on reading, we show how readers use texts for a variety of purposes, how texts shape the way readers think about themselves and the world they live in and the beneficial effects this thinking can have both on readers’ lives and on society generally. We look at how reading is taught. We consider the choices teachers make in the way reading is positioned in the minds of the children and in the way the teaching is organised. Referring to a wide range of literature on the importance of learning through talk, we consider talk practices around reading in the classroom and show how these advantage some children more than others. Finally, we highlight the importance of seeing reading as social practice and show how an emphasis on this will enhance the social, emotional and intellectual wellbeing of pupils

A comprehensive meta-analysis of common genetic variants in autism spectrum conditions.

BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are a group of neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by difficulties in social interaction and communication alongside repetitive and stereotyped behaviours. ASC are heritable, and common genetic variants contribute substantial phenotypic variability. More than 600 genes have been implicated in ASC to date. However, a comprehensive investigation of candidate gene association studies in ASC is lacking. METHODS: In this study, we systematically reviewed the literature for association studies for 552 genes associated with ASC. We identified 58 common genetic variants in 27 genes that have been investigated in three or more independent cohorts and conducted a meta-analysis for 55 of these variants. We investigated publication bias and sensitivity and performed stratified analyses for a subset of these variants. RESULTS: We identified 15 variants nominally significant for the mean effect size, 8 of which had P values below a threshold of significance of 0.01. Of these 15 variants, 11 were re-investigated for effect sizes and significance in the larger Psychiatric Genomics Consortium dataset, and none of them were significant. Effect direction for 8 of the 11 variants were concordant between both the datasets, although the correlation between the effect sizes from the two datasets was poor and non-significant. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to comprehensively examine common variants in candidate genes for ASC through meta-analysis. While for majority of the variants, the total sample size was above 500 cases and 500 controls, the total sample size was not large enough to accurately identify common variants that contribute to the aetiology of ASC.We are grateful to Dr Anitha Ayyappan Pillai, Prof. Elisabetta Trabetti and Dr. Wouter Staal for data-sharing. We thank Florina Uzefovsky for her critical comments and advice. This study was funded by grants from Target Autism Genome, the Autism Research Trust, Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre, and the Medical Research Council UK. VW is funded by the Nehru Trust for Cambridge University, St. John's College, and Cambridge Commonwealth Trusts. This study was submitted for the partial fulfilment of an MSc degree for VJC from Imperial College London, and a PhD degree for VW from the University of Cambridge.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-015-0041-