Does wage rank affect employees' well-being?

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of 16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well-being levels are shown to depend on more than simple relative pay. They depend upon the ordinal rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group. “Rank” itself thus seems to matter to human beings. Moreover, consistent with psychological theory, quits in a workplace are correlated with pay distribution skewness

The Council of Europe's Approach towards Ageism

In this chapter, I examine the degree of interest in ageism among Council of Europe members, and the degree of interest in its elimination through the Council of Europe forum. I also examine the interpretation of the concept of ageism by various Council of Europe institutions. Finally, I explore the Council’s willingness and ability to eliminate or at least mitigate ageism effect

Mental Health of Parents and Life Satisfaction of Children: A Within-Family Analysis of Intergenerational Transmission of Well-Being

This paper addresses the extent to which there is an intergenerational transmission of mental health and subjective well-being within families. Specifically it asks whether parents’ own mental distress influences their child’s life satisfaction, and vice versa. Whilst the evidence on daily contagion of stress and strain between members of the same family is substantial, the evidence on the transmission between parental distress and children’s well-being over a longer period of time is sparse. We tested this idea by examining the within-family transmission of mental distress from parent to child’s life satisfaction, and vice versa, using rich longitudinal data on 1,175 British youths. Results show that parental distress at year t-1 is an important determinant of child’s life satisfaction in the current year. This is true for boys and girls, although boys do not appear to be affected by maternal distress levels. The results also indicated that the child’s own life satisfaction is related with their father’s distress levels in the following year, regardless of the gender of the child. Finally, we examined whether the underlying transmission correlation is due to shared social environment, empathic reactions, or transmission via parent-child interaction

Isolation Precautions for Visitors

Transmission of organisms within the hospital setting has become a topic of major concern not only for patients and healthcare facilities but also for government agencies and the general public. This increased awareness has occurred in part due to the spread of organisms that have limited treatment options, such as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), as well as the heightened recognition that many hospital-associated infections (HAIs) are preventable. A large body of literature shows that horizontal transmission of multidrug-resistant organisms involves the hands, and potentially the attire, of healthcare workers (HCWs). This evidence provides the rationale for the use of standard and contact isolation precautions among HCWs. However, the health risks to visitors and the role of visitors in the horizontal transmission of pathogens within acute care hospitals is not as clearly defined. Consequently, uncertainty remains regarding which precautions visitors should take when interacting with patients placed on isolation precautions. Frequent arguments against the use of isolation precautions among visitors include lack of visitor movement between patient rooms, the difficulty of educating visitors, and the difficulty of enforcing compliance with isolation practices

Quality of life at the end of life

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Little is known about self-perceived quality of life (QOL) near the end of life, because such information is difficult to collect and to interpret. Here, we describe QOL in the weeks near death and determine correlates of QOL over time, with emphasis on accounting for death and missing data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data on QOL were collected approximately every week in an ongoing randomized trial involving persons at the end of life. We used these data to describe QOL in the 52 weeks after enrollment in the trial (prospective analysis, N = 115), and also in the 10 weeks just prior to death (retrospective analysis, N = 83). The analysis consisted of graphs and regressions that accounted explicitly for death and imputed missing data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>QOL was better than expected until the final 3 weeks of life, when a terminal drop was observed. Gender, race, education, cancer, and baseline health status were not significantly related to the number of “weeks of good-quality life” (WQL) during the study period. Persons younger than 60 had significantly higher WQL than older persons in the prospective analysis, but significantly lower WQL in the retrospective analysis. The retrospective results were somewhat sensitive to the imputation model.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this exploratory study, QOL was better than expected in persons at the end of life, but special interventions may be needed for persons approaching a premature death, and also for the last 3 weeks of life. Our descriptions of the trajectory of QOL at the end of life may help other investigators to plan and analyze future studies of QOL. Methodology for dealing with death and the high amount of missing data in longitudinal studies at the end of life needs further investigation.</p

Retirement from sport and the loss of athletic identity

The purpose of this study was to examine how a sample of elite athletes coped with distressful reactions to retirement from sport. As part of a larger research project, 15 former elite athletes were identified as having experienced severe emotional difficulties upon athletic career termination. Through use of a micronarrative methodology, it was determined that account making can be a significant moderator of distress during the career transition process. In addition, the quality of the account making was found to be related to present affect and overall success in coping with athletic retirement. Finally, changes in athletic identity were found to be significant determinants of adjustment for athletes upon career termination. Suggestions are presented for future research on treatment strategies for distressful reactions to retirement from sport