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The main purpose of this research is to support corporate Human Management, based on the notion of subject and subjectivity in relation to Foucault's proposal of self-care, as a search for overcoming the disjunction that exists today between economic organisations and the people who make them up.

This study aims at creating a proposal based on Foucault's theory of self-care through which the care of others is salvaged for human management, from the perspective of the philosophical intention to make life a “work of art”. To such end, a qualitative methodology was used based on the hermeneutics that served as the methodology to review Foucault's work. Subsequently, research was conducted on scientific data, and the following variables were analysed: Subject, Subjectivity and Self-care by means of a cross-reference search with the human management and organisation variables. This provides meaning and interpretation to reality, from the idea of constructing subjectivity in turn from an ethical–aesthetic resistance.

The ethical concern that gave rise to this study is based on the characteristics of economic rationality, which is imposed on business organisations and affects not only the behaviour of people but also the interventions or interpretations about other. Thus, Foucault's self-care becomes a possibility not only to take care of oneself but also, in terms of the main goal of human management, to take care of others.

From this research, it is possible to break the excluding paradigm traced from the various theoretical positions of the subject present in the vision of human management, for an inclusive vision, which, without ignoring the economic objective established by the organisations, allows approaching the subject from the pragmatic point of view alone. As can be seen in the course of this article, it was intended, from hermeneutics as a possibility and search for meaning, to approach Human Management from a critical viewpoint accompanied by Foucault, who allowed to approach the notion of subject and subjectivity from the care of oneself, with the intention of proposing an ethical stance towards the subject working in the company, as a way to see oneself and to look at others. In this sense, the impact of the research is placed, from this perspective, in the teaching and practice of Human Management as an area of productive organisations.

The purpose of this chapter is to use sociological theory and research to develop an explanation for how chronic illnesses are managed at home and to thereby suggest some ways in which a sociological perspective can be applied to improve health care for persons with chronic illnesses. Self-care illness management is crucial to the prevention of and reduction of morbidity and mortality from chronic illness.

Review and synthesis of research literature.

Sociological research and theory suggest two important insights that should inform health care services aimed at improving self-care; chronic illness care occurs in the context of the household, neighborhood, and community and, therefore, the “patient” (i.e., the object of health services) is really the caregiving social network around the patient, and because the risk of chronic illness and the resources available to deal with it are socially (and unequally) distributed, “health care” interventions need to take account of disparities in risks and resources that will affect the patient’s ability to successfully comply with self-care regimens.

The review does not include an examination of the clinical research literature. It does, however, suggest that sociologists need to explicitly study chronic illness and health care related to it.

The chapter links the long history of research on family caregiving to the concern with the success of self-management of chronic illness. It also links concerns about that success to social disparities in the distribution of social resources and hence to morbidity and mortality disparities.

Previously, health self-care and informal or “close-care” for family and friends were receiving increasing attention, but became more important during the COVID-2019 pandemic. Sometimes, this was because formal services became less physically accessible to patients and were overburdened by patients ill with COVID-2019. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of this phenomenon and consider the implications for clinical governance.

A five-step search and narrative review method were used, and case examples were selected to illustrate some of these developments.

Examples discovered and described include innovations in websites, social media support groups, systems for matching volunteers to people needing of help, computer and mobile phone applications, digital devices and virtual health rooms run by peer volunteers to help others to learn and use digital technologies.

In response to their health self-care needs not being met, some patients and carers and their associations developed new digital technologies or adapted existing ones. This use and their innovation separate from health care have been largely unreported in the scientific and professional literature. This is the first review of grey literature and other reports of this growing phenomena.

Drawing on ethnographic observations of diabetes (self-)management in French-speaking Switzerland and semi-structured interviews with healthcare practitioners, people living with diabetes and their relatives, the chapter aims at shedding light on self-tracking practices of people living with diabetes. It explores the ways people with diabetes measure and learn to recognise body symptoms of hypo- and hyperglycaemia through self-quantification, and act consequently. In particular, the chapter investigates recent medical devices – continuous and flash glucose monitoring systems – that reconfigure the work of health providers and self-care practices. It shows the self-monitoring practices and the resulting self-awareness people living with diabetes develop in interaction with technology and caregivers in order to undertake embodied actions. By pointing out that new technologies have facilitated the access to personal body information and the sharing of it, self-monitoring is also questioned as a form of surveillance, opening up issues of power and control over patients’ behaviours. With regard to this, the chapter illustrates that, occasionally, people with diabetes resist ‘docility’ through micro-powers at the level of everyday life by refusing to engage in their use and by developing personal strategies or ‘tactics’.

Technologies of measurement and self-monitoring of health data have become part of a metric everyday life in Denmark. As part of a change in Nordic Welfare society, Danish citizens are increasingly experiencing a digitisation of welfare services. This chapter explores the rationales behind the eGovernment strategy of Digital Welfare 2016–2020 in regard to health and discusses how this strategy encourages self-measurement and self-improvement through discourses of improvement at both state and citizen levels. By illustrating how performativity is embedded in current conceptions of health, this chapter emphasises how strategies of digitisation lean on a bio-citizenship where individuals with poor health capacities become dependent, not on a supporting welfare system, but paradoxically on their own self-management skills in order to receive health services. Based on the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD) analysis, this chapter scrutinises central documents on the strategy of digital welfare. Our exploration provides a critical insight into the current digitisation of health care by illustrating how new virtues of citizenship are demanded in the digital era in relation to digital health, and furthermore represents a current challenge for Danish welfare in the schism between technology as empowering and a technocratic form of governance.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Adapted guided self-help booklets for supporting the wellbeing of people with intellectual disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic” (Jahoda et al.).

This paper considers health and wellbeing for people with intellectual disabilities in the context of public health interventions and public health research.

Consideration is given to the evidence base for self-management, self-help and behavioural change interventions and the need to consider systemic support for promoting the health and wellbeing of people with intellectual disabilities.

Guided self-help and self-management techniques have a role in the health promotion of people with intellectual disabilities. Reciprocal sharing between public health researchers and intellectual disability researchers is needed to further the research, policy and service agenda to better promote health and wellbeing for this underserved group.

Work readiness is an important aspect of the transition from higher education to professional practice. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of work readiness of individuals transitioning into physiotherapy practice in Australia and identify any association with personal, education and work factors.

Purpose-built surveys were distributed to final-year students and graduates of physiotherapy programmes nationally. Work readiness was measured using the recently validated Work Readiness Scale for Allied Health Professionals 32 (WRS-AH32), which captures the following four domains: Practical Wisdom, Interpersonal Capabilities, Personal Attributes and Organisational Acumen. The surveys also included personal, education and work data. Work readiness was expressed as percentages for total work readiness and within each domain. Independent t-tests were used to examine the influence of personal, education and work factors on work readiness.

176 participant responses were analysed (84 students and 92 graduates). Total work readiness was 80% [standard deviation (SD)8], with Practical Wisdom the highest scoring domain (91%, SD8) and Personal Attributes the lowest scoring domain (65%, SD14). Considering overall work readiness, individuals reporting some psychological symptoms scored lower than asymptomatic individuals [mean difference 7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 4 to 9)] and final-year students scored less than graduates [mean difference 3% (95%CI 0 to 5)].

All stakeholders, including individuals, universities and employers, need to consider further strategies to develop aspects of work readiness, particularly within the domain of Personal Attributes and those with psychological symptoms.

This study demonstrates that physiotherapy students and graduates perceive themselves to be well prepared to transition to the workforce.

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the student mental health crisis in Higher Education (HE), and how resilience and grit, two important positive psychological constructs, can be beneficial for university students’ success and wellbeing. As part of a discussion around some of the current approaches to intervening in wellbeing in universities, the chapter provides evidence for the use of PPIs for wellbeing in university students, alongside some of the challenges of implementing these in HE. It also provides an overview of the Thriving Students Framework and presents a case for a multicomponent approach to monitoring and improving educational success. In particular, a wellbeing framework that, alongside resilience, also recognises the importance of strengths, persistence in the face of difficulty, a growth mindset, self-control and mental wellbeing; Academic Tenacity. The implications of utilising this framework for educational attainment in university students are discussed. The Bolton Uni-Stride Scale (BUSS), a single short measure of academic tenacity that combines the attributes enabling measurement and intervention to support university students to thrive, is also presented for educators to use.