Search results

This paper aims to describe the outcomes of the use of the Quality Outcome Measure for individuals with dementia (QOMID) within a dementia pathway for people with Down’s syndrome (DS). The QOMID is a tool for clinicians to use with 17 outcome domains, each with descriptors for early, mid and late stage dementia, rated on a four point scale from rarely achieved for the person (1) to consistently and completely achieved for the person (4).

Data from first time use of the QOMID with 49 people with DS and dementia was analysed to determine if specific outcome domains are more achievable than others, if this differs by stage of dementia and what recommendations are suggested.

Results suggest that there were significant differences in achievability across the domains but that achievability did not vary between early and mid-stages of dementia. The themes with most recommendations were: quality of paperwork and documentation; improving communication with the person with DS and dementia; and working together with health and social care professionals.

Results suggest that outcomes which fall outside of the typical learning disabilities skillset and are dementia specific are being achieved less often. Primarily, recommendations focused on practical solutions such as using visual timetables to communicate with the person and adapting their environment. Further work on integrating the QOMID and stage-related team training for care staff is underway.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first detailed analysis of the use of the QOMID in clinical practice with people with DS and dementia.

Workplace silence impedes productivity, job satisfaction and retention, key issues for the hospital workforce worldwide. It can have a negative effect on patient outcomes and safety and human resources in healthcare organisations. This study aims to examine factors that influence workplace silence among hospital doctors in Ireland.

A national, cross-sectional, online survey of hospital doctors in Ireland was conducted in October–November 2019; 1,070 hospital doctors responded. This paper focuses on responses to the question “If you had concerns about your working conditions, would you raise them?”. In total, 227 hospital doctor respondents (25%) stated that they would not raise concerns about their working conditions. Qualitative thematic analysis was carried out on free-text responses to explore why these doctors choose to opt for silence regarding their working conditions.

Reputational risk, lack of energy and time, a perceived inability to effect change and cultural norms all discourage doctors from raising concerns about working conditions. Apathy arose as change to working conditions was perceived as highly unlikely. In turn, this had scope to lead to neglect and exit. Voice was seen as risky for some respondents, who feared that complaining could damage their career prospects and workplace relationships.

This study highlights the systemic, cultural and practical issues that pressure hospital doctors in Ireland to opt for silence around working conditions. It adds to the literature on workplace silence and voice within the medical profession and provides a framework for comparative analysis of doctors' silence and voice in other settings.

Individuals with intellectual disability(ies) are living longer contributing to an overall increase in the average age of caregivers. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the physical, social and psychological needs of ageing carers of individuals with intellectual disability(ies) in the UK.

A scoping review framework was used to identify literature from eleven databases, the grey literature and the references lists of relevant studies. Only primary research studies that discussed the needs of non-professional carers, aged 65+ years old, of individuals with intellectual disability(ies) in the UK were included. No date restrictions were applied. Thematic analysis was used to narratively synthesise findings.

Six studies were included. Five key themes were identified: Living with fear, lack of information, rebuilding trust, proactive professional involvement and being ignored. Housing and support information is not communicated well to carers. Professionals require more training on carer needs and trust must be rebuilt between carers and professionals. Proactive approaches would help identify carer needs, reduce marginalisation, help carers feel heard and reduce the risk of care crisis. Greater recognition of mutual caring relationships is needed.

This review highlighted the needs of older caregivers for individuals with intellectual disability(ies) as well as the need for more high-quality research in this field. The information presented in this review may be considered by primary care providers and funding bodies when planning future support for this growing population of carers.

The purpose of this paper is to address the critique of researchers, who question the effectiveness and sustainability of mentoring as a continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) process. Where a lack of awareness exists surrounding the potential benefits of mentoring for the mentor, this paper investigates whether engaging in and with mentoring through a mentoring community of practice (M-CoP) assists mentors to accrue and realise the benefits of engagement. A relationship will be drawn between the community of practice (CoP) dimensions as outlined by Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015): domain, practice and community, and the perceived benefits accrued for mentors will be reported.

A qualitative approach was taken, using a participatory action learning action research strategy. In total, 12 mentors came together to form a developing M-CoP. They attended four M-CoP workshops where they grew as mentors, through the three dimensions of a CoP: domain, practice and community. Workshops were audio visually recorded and observed. Further data were gathered through an M-CoP questionnaire, pre-workshop questions, M-CoP artefacts, stimulus recall, reflective journals, reflective journey plans and extended focus group discussions. Respondent validation, inter-rater and intra-observer reliability were used. Data were coded manually and using NVivo-10 software.

Many of the benefits reported were directly linked to participants’ engagement in and with the three M-CoP dimensions: domain, practice and community. Such benefits related to mentor identity, support and solidarity, engagement and interaction, sharing “for” and learning “from” other mentors, and knowledge expansion and boundary spanning. Participants reported that engaging in and with mentor education through an M-CoP was an effective CPDL process, which was beneficial for them as developing mentors.

The sample size was limited, based in one country and focussed upon one subject specialism. Such reported benefits need to be disseminated in order to raise the awareness of policy makers, teacher education institution managers and teacher educators, teachers and school leaders of the benefits of engaging in mentoring CPDL through the process of M-CoP engagement.

The findings from this study can be used to inform policies related to the continuum of teacher education. A recommendation is made for policy makers, teacher education institution managers, school leaders and CPDL service providers to facilitate the development of M-CoPs and to support their growth. It is also suggested that government departments of education and professional standards bodies account for the resourcing of such work in the design and implementation phase of school placement developments.

This paper closes the following gaps in the literature: CPDL benefits of engaging in and with an M-CoP for the mentor, the relationship between CPDL benefits and CoP dimensions and the development of M-CoPs in the given socio-cultural, historical and economic context of Ireland’s teacher education system and those of similar contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on reflective mentoring practices. Teacher mentors are widely known to be an important catalyst for reflection. Through dialogue and professional conversations, teacher mentors can help their mentees to improve their teaching performance by facilitating their discussion of the praxis from different perspectives.

This qualitative mixed methods study is based on three separate studies from the Republic of Ireland, Malta and Norway involving: mentors of undergraduate student-teachers (U-M, n: 37); mentors of newly qualified teachers (NQT-M, n: 4); student-teachers (ST, n: 16); NQT, n: 8; and university tutors (UT, n: 8). In each study, mentors were provided with varying degrees of education on facilitating critical reflection for mentees. This study sought to draw out what reflective practices were being employed in mentoring across European contexts and what perceived impact they had. A cross-case analysis of data across the three countries was conducted using coding and constant comparison. Triangulation of data was employed across not only cases, but also across multiple methods data sets and across participant types.

All three studies reveal that mentoring approaches aiming to promote critical reflection have to be based on a developmental approach towards mentoring. They also have to challenge traditional hierarchical relationships and involve a commitment to collaborative, inquiry-oriented approaches towards mentoring.

By bringing different studies of reflection in mentoring practices together, it is possible to gain new knowledge on mentoring in teacher education. However, being a cross-country, cross-context and cross-cultural approach in itself contains certain restrictions.

The authors of this paper propose that professional forms of inquiry depend on the type of relationship and collaboration forged between the teacher mentor and mentee. A cross-case analysis approach provided evidence of reflective practice, which is common across three European countries and offers a snapshot of trends.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and value of the clinical management role undertaken by primary care doctors in Ireland. To date, a majority of research has focused on clinical management roles in the acute sector.

The paper presents a sub‐set of data from a mixed methods study. In total, 14 semi‐structured interviews are drawn upon to identify the nature and value of the clinical management role in primary care.

Comparison with acute sector research identifies considerable differences in the nature of the clinical management role across sectors – and in the associated value proposition. Structural and role‐related contingencies affecting the potential value of clinical management roles in Irish primary care are discussed. Structural influences include the private ownership structure, low complexity and limited requirement for cross‐professional coordination. Role‐related influences include the primacy of the clinical identity, time constraints and lack of managerial training.

The findings provide a limited basis for generalisation, premised on 14 interviews in one national context. However, given the international shift towards the provision of health services in primary care, they provide a research agenda for an important healthcare context.

The findings draw attention to the need for policy consideration of the value of the clinical manager role in primary care; how policy can support effective primary care management; and the need for specialised management training, which takes account of the small‐firm context.

The paper identifies that primary‐care clinical‐management roles focus on operational management and oversight and discusses the structural and role‐related factors which affect their efficacy.

In this viewpoint article, the authors recognize the increased focus in health systems on co-design for innovation and change. This article explores the role of leaders and mangers in developing and enhancing a culture of trust in their organizations to enable co-design, with the potential to drive innovation and change in healthcare.

Using social science analyses, the authors argue that current co-design literature has limited focus on interactions between senior leaders and managers, and healthcare staff and service users in supporting co-designed innovation and change. The authors draw on social and health science studies of trust to highlight how the value-based co-design process needs to be supported and enhanced. We outline what co-design innovation and change involve in a health system, conceptualize trust and reflect on its importance within the health system, and finally note the role of senior leaders and managers in supporting trust and responsiveness for co-designed innovation and change.

Healthcare needs leaders and managers to embrace co-design that drives innovation now and in the future through people – leading to better healthcare for society at large. As authors we argue that it is now the time to shift our focus on the role of senior managers and leaders to embed co-design into health and social care structures, through creating and nurturing a culture of trust.

Building public trust in the health system and interpersonal trust within the health system is an ongoing process that relies upon personal behavior of managers and senior leaders, organizational practices within the system, as well as political processes that underpin these practices. By implementing managerial, leadership and individual practices on all levels, senior managers and leaders provide a mechanism to increase both trust and responsiveness for co-design that supports innovation and change in the health system.

The harbours of Ireland, under threat from deterioration and rising sea levels, are being documented using terrestrial LiDAR augmented by archival research to develop comprehensive histories and timeline models for public dissemination. While methods to extract legible three-dimensional models from scan data have been developed and such operational formats for heritage management are imperative, the need for this format in interpretive visualisations should be reconsidered. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Interpretive visualisations are forms of history making, where factual evidence is drawn together with conjecture to illustrate a plausible account of events, and differentiation between fact and conjecture is the key to their intellectual transparency. A procedure for superimposing conjectural reconstructions, generated using Rhinoceros and CloudCompare, on original scan data in Cyclone and visualised on a web-based viewer is discussed.

Embellishing scan data with conjectural elements to visualise the evolution of harbours is advantageous for both research and public dissemination. The accuracy and density of the scans enables the interrogation of the harbour form and the irregular details, the latter in danger of generalisation if translated into parametric or mesh format. Equally, the ethereal quality of the point cloud conveys a sense of tentativeness, consistent with a provisional hypothesis. Finally, coding conjectural elements allows users to intuit the difference between fact and historical narrative.

While various web-based point clouds viewers are used to disseminate research, the novelty here is the potential to develop didactic representations using point clouds that successfully capture a provisional thesis regarding each harbour’s evolution in an intellectually transparent manner to enable further inquiry.

This study aims to explore the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in archival practice by presenting the thoughts and opinions of working archival practitioners. It contributes to the extant literature with a fresh perspective, expanding the discussion on AI adoption by investigating how it influences the perceptions of digital archival expertise.

In this study a two-phase data collection consisting of four online focus groups was held to gather the opinions of international archives and digital preservation professionals (n = 16), that participated on a volunteer basis. The qualitative analysis of the transcripts was performed using template analysis, a style of thematic analysis.

Four main themes were identified: fitting AI into day to day practice; the responsible use of (AI) technology; managing expectations (about AI adoption) and bias associated with the use of AI. The analysis suggests that AI adoption combined with hindsight about digitisation as a disruptive technology might provide archival practitioners with a framework for re-defining, advocating and outlining digital archival expertise.

The volunteer basis of this study meant that the sample was not representative or generalisable.

Although the results of this research are not generalisable, they shed light on the challenges prospected by the implementation of AI in the archives and for the digital curation professionals dealing with this change. The evolution of the characterisation of digital archival expertise is a topic reserved for future research.

Keeping happy and committed workers is an imperative goal for organisations in any field, including higher education. Institutions must, however, have a thorough understanding of the elements that influence various organisational commitment levels before they can develop human resource management guidelines and procedures that work. Hence, by using social exchange theory, this study aimed to investigate the connection between work–life balance (WLB), job satisfaction and organisational commitment among a sample of Zimbabwean higher education institutions. These factors have received relatively minimal attention in academic institutions, particularly in developing nations.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted, using convenience sampling, to examine 224 members of the teaching staff from two universities in western Zimbabwe. The collected data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results revealed that WLB significantly predicted job satisfaction. Furthermore, the relationship between WLB and affective and normative commitment was found to be indirect and mediated by job satisfaction.

The results of this study suggest that WLB and job satisfaction are crucial factors for higher education institutions that aim to secure their talented faculty's affective and normative commitment. Therefore, universities should implement firm policies and practices that encourage academic staff to maintain a healthy WLB and enhance job satisfaction.

The study's main contribution is the development of a conceptual model that contributes to the ongoing scholarly discourse on how to enhance organisational commitment among academic staff in under-resourced higher education institutions, as well as the concomitant implications for human resource policies within these institutions.