From research to practice: Lay adherence counsellors' fidelity to an evidence-based intervention for promoting adherence to antiretroviral treatment in the Western Cape, South Africa

In the Western Cape, lay counsellors are tasked with supporting antiretroviral (ARV) adherence in public healthcare clinics. Thirty-nine counsellors in 21 Cape Town clinics were trained in Options for Health (Options), an evidence-based intervention based on motivational interviewing (MI). We evaluated counsellors’ ability to deliver Options for addressing poor adherence following 5 days training. Audio-recordings of counselling sessions collected following training were transcribed and translated into English. Thirty-five transcripts of sessions conducted by 35 counsellors were analysed for fidelity to the Options protocol, and using the Motivational Interviewing Treatment and Integrity (MITI) code. Counsellors struggled with some of the strategies associated with MI, such as assessing readiness-to-change and facilitating change talk. Overall, counsellors failed to achieve proficiency in the approach of MI according to the MITI. Counsellors were able to negotiate realistic plans for addressing patients’ barriers to adherence. Further efforts aimed at strengthening the ARV adherence counselling programme are needed.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Non una donna in politica, ma una donna politica: Women’s Political Language in an Italian Context

This chapter focuses on the metaphorical content of Italian women politicians’ speech to investigate if particularly ‘feminine’ language traits (see Jesperson 1922: 237–54) can be identified, or whether, as the driving hypothesis of this study posits, it is ministerial remit that conditions the use of a politician’s language more than any other single factor. This hypothesis is tested by examining a corpus of speeches, press interviews and press releases of five women ministers in the Prodi-led administration in Italy, covering the period June 2006 to May 2007

Researching the fluid and multisited appropriations of digital technologies in African newsrooms

This chapter seeks to shed some light on how researchers can examine the fluid and multisited appropriations of digital technologies in African newsrooms. Taking Zimbabwean and Mozambican newsrooms as research laboratories, the study argues that the deployment of new digital technologies by journalists should be seen as shaped and constrained by local socio-economic and political factors, which equally have a strong bearing on “field” experiences by researchers. Drawing on empirical data from newsrooms that share similarities, differences and contradictions in terms of the diffusion, penetration and general appropriations of new digital technologies, the study attempts to map out the practicalities of researching African journalism practice in the digital era. The chapter demonstrates that traditional research approaches—participant observation, in situ interviews and qualitative analysis of online texts—are still very much relevant to the new media scenario. In deploying these traditional qualitative research methods, the study also shows that the researcher has to be persistently “self-reflexive” and alert to the intuitive and creative inclinations ever present in research contexts in order to capture practices from different angles and positions. While online methods like virtual ethnography and email interviews are increasingly complementing traditional research methods, it is important to note that a hybridised approach offers a more nuanced analysis of social phenomena in multisited contexts