RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CLIENTS USING SUBSTANCES AND HOSPITAL-BASED PERINATAL NURSES: A CRITICAL FEMINIST STUDY

Pregnant women who use illicit substances may avoid routine perinatal care as a result of the stigmatic attitudes of care providers (Irwin, 1995; Kearney, 1995; Levine, 2001). This is detrimental as the time period around the birth of a child may be a time when women who use illicit substances may be motivated to change (Tait, 2000). Client-nurse relationships have been shown to be health promoting (Hartrick & Varcoe, 2007), therefore it is important for vulnerable women to engage in relationships with perinatal nurses. There is little empirical work looking at the relationships between clients who use substances and perinatal nurses. The purpose of this critical feminist study was to examine the relationships between perinatal nurses and clients who used illicit substances or methadone. Focus group interviews were used to collect data from perinatal nurses about caring for clients who used substances while clients who used substances were individually interviewed about their experiences with nurses. Ten nurses and three clients participated in the study. The findings revealed four layered themes. Navigating barriers in a fragmented healthcare system illuminates how limited healthcare resources and hospital policies affected relationship development between nurses and clients who used illicit substances. Reinforcing marginalization and stigma reflects how clients who used substances in pregnancy were judged by healthcare professionals, impeding relationship development on an interpersonal level. Doubting honesty reveals an absence of trust in client-nurse relationships when the client used substances. The fourth and final theme, negotiating relationships as a means to an end, displays how relationships between nurses and clients who used illicit substances were superficial, and developed for the wellbeing of the infant. These findings have implications for nursing practice, health policy, research and nursing education

Long term effects of foster care on social relationships

Ainsworth and Bowlby\u27s Attachment Theory suggest that young children experience lasting effects of disconnection if separated from their primary caretaker. Foster children are legally removed from their primary caretakers, yet the effects of foster care on later social relationships of foster children is unknown. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the perceptions of adult foster children, ages 18 years and over, who were placed into foster care under 5 years of age. The major challenge was to obtain qualifying participants, first, because this is an invisible population in the American culture and, secondly, these individuals are hesitant to share their stories. The initial population included 5 persons from a local shelter and, using the snowball method, the researcher secured an additional 15 adult foster children that met the criteria. Applying the phenomenological approach, these long interviews included 6 questions that addressed the research question: What do adults who have been in foster care placements prior to age 5 and have experienced more than 5 years in foster care placements from age 0-18 perceive are the long-term effects of foster care on their adult social relationships? The interviews occurred throughout Southern California and were taped and lasted 40 minutes to 2 hours, often filled with tears and high emotion. The participants included 3 with prior jail time, 6 who were homeless, 14 who were employed, 10 with an addiction, and 2 who were married. All had obtained a high school degree. All shared repeated unsuccessful friendship or romantic relationships. The transcribed interviews were reviewed by 4 trained coders in a doctoral program and produced 8 themes, leading to the 8 conclusions. The primary conclusions are adult foster children express that abandonment is a deep core aspect of their psychological profile (95%); share the mental health issues of low self-esteem, lack of trust, and putting up walls in their social relationships (100%); act out their generational cycles of various addictive behavior relating to abandonment (100%); spirituality helped to stabilize more than half of these adult foster children through challenging times; and those without spiritual connections described the support of mentors in their lives

The head or the heart? Measuring the impact of media quality

The number of multimedia applications is constantly increasing. Subjective methods are typically used to determine the level of media quality required in applications, yet recent findings have shown that these have limitations. This paper introduces an objective method for assessing media quality measunng physiological indicators of stress. An experiment examining the impact of video frame rate is presented. With low frame rates, physiological measurements indicated that users were under strain, even though subjectively most reported no differences between low and high frame rates. We conclude that the evaluation of media quality should not be conducted using solely subjective methods

Basic auditory processing and sensitivity to prosodic structure in children with specific language impairments: a new look at a perceptual hypothesis.

Children with specific language impairments (SLIs) show impaired perception and production of spoken language, and can also present with motor, auditory, and phonological difficulties. Recent auditory studies have shown impaired sensitivity to amplitude rise time (ART) in children with SLIs, along with non-speech rhythmic timing difficulties. Linguistically, these perceptual impairments should affect sensitivity to speech prosody and syllable stress. Here we used two tasks requiring sensitivity to prosodic structure, the DeeDee task and a stress misperception task, to investigate this hypothesis. We also measured auditory processing of ART, rising pitch and sound duration, in both speech ("ba") and non-speech (tone) stimuli. Participants were 45 children with SLI aged on average 9 years and 50 age-matched controls. We report data for all the SLI children (N = 45, IQ varying), as well as for two independent SLI subgroupings with intact IQ. One subgroup, "Pure SLI," had intact phonology and reading (N = 16), the other, "SLI PPR" (N = 15), had impaired phonology and reading. Problems with syllable stress and prosodic structure were found for all the group comparisons. Both sub-groups with intact IQ showed reduced sensitivity to ART in speech stimuli, but the PPR subgroup also showed reduced sensitivity to sound duration in speech stimuli. Individual differences in processing syllable stress were associated with auditory processing. These data support a new hypothesis, the "prosodic phrasing" hypothesis, which proposes that grammatical difficulties in SLI may reflect perceptual difficulties with global prosodic structure related to auditory impairments in processing amplitude rise time and duration.This project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00972/abstract

Healthiness, through the material culture of the late iron age and roman large urban-type settlements of South-East Britain.

It has recently been recognised that concepts of health contain multiple dimensions. One area that has received little attention in archaeology is that of health and well-being, so this research seeks to contribute to this area of study. It does so by investigating healthiness in the late Iron Age and Romano-British periods. The literature review explores current thinking around this topic, and confirms that aspects of good health mattered to people in the past. The research explores small finds that are traditionally associated with personal use (mirrors, combs, glass unguent containers, bronze cosmetic grinders and other additional toilet items) from the main urban-type settlements of south-east Britain. The investigation included collecting data concerning the sites, contexts, dates, materials, types, forms, colours and decoration ofthese objects, and any associated archaeological remains found with these items. Given the social nature ofthis work, a contextual approach was central to the design. The research takes an interpretive interdisciplinary position that draws on theoretical models based on the self and other, the body and face, the senses and perception, as well as concepts from material cultural studies, such as agency. Patterns seen in the data-set coupled with theoretical frameworks, and understandings of late Iron Age and Roman life, are brought together, and offer a means of interpreting how and why some of these small finds contributed to practices ofmaintaining good health. These proposals include healthiness in personhood and domestic and public life, in religion and the control of healthiness

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHER LEADERS IN SCHOOLS

Teacher leaders who share their specialized knowledge, expertise, and experience with other teachers broaden and sustain school and classroom improvement efforts. Teacher leaders can transform classrooms into learning laboratories where every student is engaged in relevant and well-designed curricular content, every teacher embraces the use of more effective instructional strategies, and authentic assessments provide evidence of rich student learning. This work describes four essentialities associated with teacher leaders: a focus on student learning, along with the importance of empowerment, relationships, and collaboration. In addition to gleaning insights from the literature, examples of the impact of teacher leaders in schools are provided to demonstrate the importance of each

Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy during Methadone Dose Reduction: Rationale, Treatment Description, and a Case Report.

Many clients who undergo methadone maintenance (MM) treatment for heroin and other opiate dependence prefer abstinence from methadone. Attempts at methadone detoxification are often unsuccessful, however, due to distressing physical as well as psychological symptoms. Outcomes from a MM client who voluntarily participated in an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - based methadone detoxification program are presented. The program consisted of a 1-month stabilization and 5-month gradual methadone dose reduction period, combined with weekly individual ACT sessions. Urine samples were collected twice weekly to assess for use of illicit drugs. The participant successfully completed the program and had favorable drug use outcomes during the course of treatment, and at the one-month and one-year follow-ups. Innovative behavior therapies, such as ACT, that focus on acceptance of the inevitable distress associated with opiate withdrawal may improve methadone detoxification outcomes

Genetic Variation in the NBS1, MRE11, RAD50 and BLM Genes and Susceptibility to Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Background: Translocations are hallmarks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) genomes. Becauselymphoid cell development processes require the creation and repair of double stranded breaks, itis not surprising that disruption of this type of DNA repair can cause cancer. The members of theMRE11-RAD50-NBS1 (MRN) complex and BLM have central roles in maintenance of DNA integrity.Severe mutations in any of these genes cause genetic disorders, some of which are characterizedby increased risk of lymphoma.Methods: We surveyed the genetic variation in these genes in constitutional DNA of NHLpatients by means of gene re-sequencing, then conducted genetic association tests for susceptibilityto NHL in a population-based collection of 797 NHL cases and 793 controls.Results: 114 SNPs were discovered in our sequenced samples, 61% of which were novel and notpreviously reported in dbSNP. Although four variants, two in RAD50 and two in NBS1, showedassociation results suggestive of an effect on NHL, they were not significant after correction formultiple tests.Conclusion: These results suggest an influence of RAD50 and NBS1 on susceptibility to diffuselarge B-cell lymphoma and marginal zone lymphoma. Larger association and functional studies couldconfirm such a role

Exploring the antecedents to the online customer engagement behaviours; sharing, learning & endorsing

The aim of this research is to add to the growing empirical research around customer engagement and examine if motivational drivers mediate the relationship between personality traits and the online customer engagement behaviours (OCEB); sharing, learning and endorsing. The research was undertaken using an online survey with 401 respondents who interacted with brands online using social media sites; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The study provides evidence that the antecedents to online customer engagement behaviour not only interact but that together personality traits and motivational drivers impact specific types of OCEB. These findings help to deepen the understanding of what influences customers to take part in specific OCEBs, and can be used by managers who are seeking to develop programs to strategically influence online customer engagement, to better understand these customers.

Aboriginal Community Engagement in Primary Schooling: Promoting Learning through a Cross-Cultural Lens

This article reports on action research conducted at a primary school in rural New South Wales, Australia. The research responded to an expressed school aspiration to foster greater understanding of local Aboriginal culture, historical perspectives and knowledge systems within the school. An exploratory model was developed using a mixed methods approach to investigate non-Aboriginal teacher perceptions and self-efficacy with teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content specified in the Australian Curriculum. A Bush Tucker Garden was established as a ‘Pathway of Knowledge’ acting as a vehicle for collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal stakeholders. Through their participation in this project the teachers were brought together with local Gumbaynggirr Elders, creating a space for the sharing of social capital. Teacher cultural knowledge and understanding was strengthened, enriching the student’s learning experience. The findings are of relevance to primary school teachers, curriculum stakeholders and education providers in the broader field of Aboriginal education