Search results

This research examines effects on emotional burnout among “maternity support workers” (MSWs) that support women in labor (labor and delivery (L&D) nurses and doulas). The emotional intensity of maternity support work is likely to contribute to emotional distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

This study uses data from the Maternity Support Survey (MSS) to analyze emotional burnout among 807 L&D nurses and 1,226 doulas in the United States and Canada. Multivariate OLS regression models examine the effects of work–family conflict, overwork, emotional intelligence, witnessing unethical mistreatment of women in labor, and practice characteristics on emotional burnout among these MSWs. We measure emotional burnout using the Professional Quality of Life (PROQOL) Emotional Burnout subscale.

Work–family conflict, feelings of overwork, witnessing a higher frequency of unethical mistreatment, and working in a hospital with a larger percentage of cesarean deliveries are associated with higher levels of burnout among MSWs. Higher emotional intelligence is associated with lower levels of burnout, and the availability of hospital wellness programs is associated with less burnout among L&D nurses.

While the MSS obtained a large number of responses, its recruitment methods produced a nonrandom sample and made it impossible to calculate a response rate. As a result, responses may not be generalizable to all L&D nurses and doulas in the United States and Canada.

This research reveals that MSWs attitudes about medical procedures such as cesarean sections and induction are tied to their experiences of emotional burnout. It also demonstrates a link between witnessing mistreatment of laboring women and burnout, so that traumatic incidents have negative emotional consequences for MSWs. The findings have implications for secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, and for the quality of maternity care.

LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.

The operating targets of the Next European Torus (NET) vary over the planned physics and technology phases of operation, which will be cyclic and dynamic. Using the Dynamic Systems Simulation Language a model is described which mimics the cyclic behaviour of the NET over the technology phase together with its dynamic behaviour. The simulation model represents a methodology that can be used to evaluate the reliability, availability and performance of the NET. A number of case studies are presented to demonstrate the underlying philosophy of the approach.

ALTHOUGH the University of Southampton has had an independent existence for ten years it has roots going back almost a century in the Hartley Institute. An early pioneer in aeronautics, F. W. Lanchester received his technical training in Southampton and the first of the new engineering buildings at the university has been called after him.

DURING some comments on the brain drain last month it was remarked that work study technologists stood on the periphery. Suddenly they have been moved right to the centre as the result of a communication from Dr. Robert N. Lehrer. He is among the six American work study experts best known to the profession in this country, ranking with Barnes and Mundel as having contributed much to a right appreciation of the subject's value and its techniques.

There are a number of major prerequisites in the planning, design and operation of all manufacturing systems. These include resource planning, production flow analysis and reliability assessment. The application of these methods form an integral part of an overall feasibility study, the result of which leads to a desired system configuration. Analytical techniques have been employed as corrective tools to amend proposed configurations in an iterative manner. Their role is to reduce the host of initial options that are proposed, thereby arriving at the optimum. There are two main shortcomings with these traditional analytical procedures. Firstly, the complex algorithms formulated are inflexible and dedicated to particular measures of performance. Secondly, they are generally used independently and this gives untold problems for integration within the iterative procedure. These problems are further exacerbated by the diversity of interdependent features associated with flexible batch manufacturing environment, and by external perturbations that can break‐down their steady state characteristics. There is a major need for a robust tool to be established that forms a coherent manufacturing control strategy and will minimise the effect of disturbances on the performance of manufacturing systems. The achievement of this in real‐time by an intelligent‐based package is a tall order. The formation of an expert system off‐line, however, is quite feasible. Such a system using discrete‐change simulation is formulated. The method encompasses production flow control as well as reliability prediction analysis. The established methodology is then applied to a real industrial system to configure the most appropriate operational philosophy over any desired production period.

One of the most challenging problems facing industrial engineers concerns the design and operational planning of today′s sophisticated production systems. The need for a detailed quantitative analysis is far more apparent than ever before. The application of discrete‐event simulation has been growing rapidly in the analysis of production systems. This is because no other quantitative methods can provide the flexibility, realism and predictive accuracy offered by the simulation technique. Although the important role that simulation can play in analysing production systems has now been generally realised, its use is not necessarily straightforward. The successful implementation of simulation projects usually depends on several factors which include, inter alia, the availability of simulation expertise and the ability of the available simulation software to model readily and accurately the environment under consideration. The areas of production systems where simulation can be applied are outlined. The essential considerations which must be studied when applying simulation are also discussed. An overview of simulation modelling environments that are currently used is then taken. Recommendations for future work of importance from the system analysis viewpoint are highlighted.

There can be few indeed engaged in tasks of food purity control who do not feel apprehensive at some of the modern trends in food production and preparation, particularly at the ever‐increasing range of chemicals in food, whether as additives or contaminants. Undoubtedly there are many who have strong feelings on the subject, but fears and feelings are not evidence and it is an elementary law in every branch of science—some licence may be traditionally permitted in the Arts—that you do not make a statement of fact without being able to furnish proof of it. It seems wrong, therefore, for anyone to make such statements, however well‐intentioned, as were reported to have been made at a recent rally in London organised by the Animal Machines Action Group of the Animal Defence Society. A speaker is reported to have said “that hormone dyes and pesticides used on battery hens and calves increased the incidence of cancer amongst the people who ate these products. The same thing also increased the incidence of coronary thrombosis. It is a fact, although it has been denied, that some battery chickens are born with hardening of the arteries. People who eat them and their eggs run a risk of the same disease.”