Search results

This paper aims to present the distinctive roles and perspectives of the members of a multidisciplinary team supporting a man with multiple diagnoses who was under Section by the Mental Health Act.

The management of risk for this man with intellectual disability, mental illness and a degenerative neurological condition was particularly complex due to his self‐harming and impulsivity. Each specialist clinician (nurse, speech and language therapist, psychiatrist) reflects on their role as a member of a team approach. The perspective of the man himself is represented, although he was unable to give a consistent descriptive self report.

For people with mental illness and intellectual disability the capacity to understand and retain information about their condition may be limited and variable. The paper discusses the multiple ethical issues in attempting to preserve a modified autonomy and in decision making around best interests.

Supporting someone with dysphagia presents specific challenges to staff teams due to the everyday and familiar nature of mealtimes. When the person is unable to understand and refuses to comply with guidelines outlining restrictions to mealtime choices, the staff's role in safeguarding is particularly complex. The paper considers how to mitigate against risks to mental and physical health.

In cases of self harm the care team is challenged to respect autonomy and maintain quality of life whilst ensuring safety of the individual. The paper discusses maintaining professional integrity when considering compromise.

Purpose: As biomedicine grants technology and quantification privileged roles in our cultural constructions of health, media and technology play an increasingly important role in mediating our everyday experiences of our bodies and may contribute to the reproduction of gendered norms.

Design: This study draws from a broad variety of disciplines to contextualize and interpret contemporary trends in self-quantification, focusing on metrics for health and fitness. I will also draw from psychology and feminist scholarship on objectification and body-surveillance.

Findings: I interpret body-tracking tools as biomedical technologies of self-surveillance that facilitate and encourage control of human bodies, while solidifying demands for standardization around neoliberal values of enhancement and optimization. I also argue that body-tracking devices reinforce and normalize the scrutiny of human bodies in ways that may reproduce and advance longstanding gender disparities in detriment of women.

Implications: A responsible conceptualization, design, implementation, and usage of health-tracking technologies requires us to recognize and better understand how technologies with widely touted benefits also have the potential to reinforce and extend inequalities, alter subjective experiences and produce damaging outcomes, especially among certain groups. I conclude by proposing some alternatives for devising technologies or encouraging practices that are sensitive to these differences and acknowledge the validity of alternative values.

To evaluate the effectiveness of an adaptation of Interpersonal Group Psychotherapy (IPT-G), in facilitating short- and longer-term improvements in eating disorder symptomology, psychosocial impairment, anxiety, depression and attachment difficulties among adults living with overweight and diagnosed with binge eating disorder (BED).

In total, 24 participants completed measures at the start of IPT-G, mid-treatment, discharge and six-month follow-up. Quantitative outcomes were analysed utilising one-way repeated measures analysis of variance.

Treatment retention was 100%. Significant improvements in binge-eating frequency, psychosocial impairment and depression were achieved at mid-treatment and maintained at post-treatment and six-month follow-up, and with large effect sizes. Attachment anxiety had reduced significantly at post-treatment and was maintained at six-month review. Body mass index (BMI) had stabilised by mid-treatment and was maintained at post-treatment and six-month follow-up. All hypotheses were supported, with the exception that attachment avoidance did not improve significantly and following a post-treatment reduction, anxiety symptoms deteriorated slightly by six-month follow-up, such that they were no longer significantly different from pre-treatment levels.

Despite being the most prevalent of the eating disorders (compared to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa), BED is under-recognised and under-treated in clinical settings. Results indicate the sustained effectiveness of IPT-G in improving eating disorder and comorbid symptomology associated with BED.

This is the first UK study to investigate the effectiveness of IPT-G at treating BED. Unlike previous studies in the field, this study did not exclude participants based on age, BMI or psychiatric comorbidity.

Work enthusiasm and organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) were compared in two predominantly Chinese regions, i.e., Macau (a former Portuguese territory in China) and Zhuhai in the People’s Republic of China. Data were collected from 276 (96 Macau and 180 Zhuhai) full‐time, line‐level, ethnic Chinese employees in the two regions. Results revealed the Zhuhai employees to be much more enthusiastic at work. The Zhuhai employees also evaluated Training, Understanding, and Future Prospects more highly than did the Macau employees (no differences were found for Coworker Support). Regression analyses revealed Future Prospects to be the strongest predictor of work enthusiasm in Zhuhai, while education and years on the job explained most of the variance for work enthusiasm in Macau. The results of the comparisons are discussed in terms of the similarities and differences in the cultures and economic development of the regions.

The Board of Agriculture has received from the Principal of the Somerset House Laboratory a report on the examination of samples of milk taken by an inspector in connection with an inquiry into methods of sampling milk.

Modern dementia care is increasingly turning to technology to address a wide range of issues. Such developments are argued to improve quality of life, as, for example, technological interventions that reduce risks and increase safety can enable people with dementia to stay in their own homes for longer. However, all interventions in dementia care must strike a balance between doing what is perceived to be for the best and preserving the personhood of people with dementia. Technological interventions run a particularly high risk of crossing the line into doing things to people with dementia, rather than with them. Doing things for people with dementia is also problematic if it takes away their ability to do things for themselves. These issues are examined with reference to electronic tagging, assistive or ‘smart’ technology and interventions to address the psychosocial needs of people with dementia.

Written official and formal accounts such as Inspectors’ Reports provide a summary of the teachers’ work, conduct, interactions with pupils, as well as a glimpse of the skills, knowledge and dispositions brought to their work. What can be concluded from these reports is that teachers had little occupational control of their work. What was taught and how they taught were prescribed by the curriculum and mediated against the standards pupils attained. In addition, teachers’ and pupils’ successes and failures were made public in Inspectors’ Reports, although it was the teacher who was more readily identifiable if not explicitly named. This is not to suggest that teachers did not act as agents of change. Increasingly, teachers sought to professionalize their work through qualifications, training and exposure to new ideas and practices. Against this backdrop of the professionalization of the workforce were the increasing bureaucratization of schools and teaching and the institutionalization of teacher preparation and training.

Environmental degradation resulting from human activities may adversely affect human health in multiple ways. Until now, policies aimed at mitigating environmental problems such as climate change, environmental pollution and damage to biodiversity have failed to clearly identify and drive the potential benefits of these policies on health. The conducted study assesses and demonstrates how specific environmental policies and instruments influence perceived human health in order to ensure input for a data-driven decision process.

The study was conducted for the 2004–2020 period in European Union (EU) countries with the use of dynamic panel data modeling. Verification of specific policies' impact on dependent variables allows to indicate this their effectiveness and importance. As a result of the computed dynamic panel data models, it has been confirmed that a number of significant and meaningful relationships between the self-perceived health index and environmental variables can be identified.

There is a strong positive impact of environmental taxation on the health index, and the strength of this relationship causes effects to be observed in the very short term, even the following year. In addition, the development of renewable energy sources (RES) and the elimination of fossil fuels from the energy mix exert positive, although milder, effects on health. The reduction of ammonia emissions from agriculture and reducing noise pollution are other health-supporting factors that have been shown to be statistically valid. Results allow to identify the most efficient policies in the analyzed area in order to introduce those with the best results or a mix of such measures.

The results of the authors' research clearly indicate the health benefits of measures primarily aimed at improving environmental factors, such as environmental taxes in general. The authors have also discovered an unexpected negative impact of an increase in the share of energy taxes in total taxes on the health index. The presented study opens several possibilities for further investigation, especially in the context of the rapidly changing geopolitical environment and global efforts to respond to environmental and health challenges. The authors believe that the outcome of the authors' study may provide new arguments to policymakers pursuing solutions that are not always easily acceptable by the public.