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Reports on survey‐behavioural research in a major and fundamental development ‐ the Questronic project based at the University of Sheffield (UK), and its first product, the Ferranti Market Research Terminal (MRT). States that the MRT is a battery‐operated, hand‐held data‐capture terminal and it is a replacement for the usual questionnaire necessity ‐ clipboard and pencil. Describes the MRT and its functions including keyboard and electronic storage, so aiding survey research, both economic and operational. Lists out the operations and benefits in detail enabling the user a fast, modern aid for use with questionnaires. Goes on to give further developing procedures and includes a contact address for further information regarding the importance of development MRT routines in survey research.

Mr R. Britten Spence, 49, has been appointed Scottish regional manager for Liquid Plastics Ltd, the Lancashire based manufacturer of elastomeric membrane systems.

The race concordance hypothesis suggests that matching patients and health providers on the basis of race improves communication and patients’ perceptions of health care, and by extension, encourages patients to seek and utilize health care, which may reduce health disparities. However, relatively few studies have examined the impact of race concordance on the utilization of health services. This chapter is grounded on Andersen’s Emerging Model of Health Services Utilization (Phase 4) and extends that model to include race concordance.

The data were collected from a stratified random sample of adult beneficiaries enrolled in North Carolina Medicaid’s primary care case management delivery system in 2006–2007. Propensity score matching techniques were used to sort respondents on their propensity for race concordance and indices were constructed to generate key control variables. Poisson regression was used to examine the impact of race concordance on the utilization of primary care and emergency room care, under the assumption that race concordance would increase the use of primary care and decrease the use of emergency care for minority patients.

While blacks (compared to whites) used less primary care and had more emergency care visits, race concordance was not a statistically significant predictor of either primary care or emergency room use. However, patients’ satisfaction with their primary care providers was associated with significantly fewer primary care and emergency care visits while trust in one’s provider was associated with more primary care visits.

The study findings suggest that the central premises of the race concordance hypothesis require further study to confirm the assumption that better patient – primary care provider relationships result in less utilization of more costly and resource-intensive forms of health care.

The study makes a valuable contribution by expanding the relatively small body of literature dedicated to exploring the impact of race concordance on health services utilization. Additionally, by virtue of researching the experience of Medicaid enrollees, the study controls for health insurance status.

On January 9th Tony Newton, the Under Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Security, launched the government's £600,000 promotional campaign for the introduction of the controversial new plastic National Insurance cards. These plastic cards contain the following ‘visible’ information: name, national insurance number and a check digit. What has been of most concern, is that the card contains a magnetic strip that can store information ‘invisible’ to the card holder. As the dhss has announced it is not the intention to include any type of ‘secret information’ on this strip, the current anxiety expressed by certain organisations and individuals has been seen by many as a fuss about nothing; but is there really cause for concern, and what has all this to do with libraries?

Currently in Great Britain 12.9% of the workforce are unemployed — over three million people. Within this overall total there are considerable variations in the levels of employment in different parts of the country. Even within individual local authorities there will be sizeable differences in the actual size of unemployment from one town to another.

LIBRARIANSHIP is an established profession, international in scope, and currently passing through a period of acute shortage of trained personnel. The City of Liverpool, situated at the gate‐way of the New World, has given its School of Librarian‐ship some of the elements of its international character, while the current dearth of librarians has given it the opportunity to expand.

Although parenting skills can improve the management and behaviour of children, it is not clear if such changes alter the fundamental sense of relationship within the family, particularly when used with young teenagers. This study reports the impact upon family functioning, as measured by the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Questionnaire (FACES), of a parenting programme and a self‐esteem programme for young people.The family functioning of young people with conduct difficulties was assessed before and after intervention with either the young person attending a self‐esteem programme, or the mother attending a parenting programme. The results show that despite changes in behaviour and parenting approaches, underlying family functioning was little changed, either from the parents' or the young people's perspective. For older children at least it is important to combine parenting programmes with interventions that change underlying emotional links within the family.

The purpose of this paper is to explore patients’ experiences of intentional mental health peer support (PS).

Seven in-depth interviews were carried out by an independent researcher with individual inpatients who volunteered via a PS worker following leaflet and poster distribution explaining the research on the two wards. Each recorded interview of 13 questions was transcribed verbatim by the researcher and analysis identified common themes across the interviews.

An overarching theme of communication with patients was identified together with six main themes: person centredness, practical support, building connections, emotional support, modelling hope and recovery interventions. There were no negative comments expressed by interviewees.

Small scale qualitative research allows in-depth exploration of experiences which is valuable in informing the further development of PS.

There are very few published reports of inpatient experiences of PS in inpatient settings.