bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Diet and colorectal cancer risk: Evaluation of a nutrition education leaflet
Authors: Dyer K.J. , Fearon K.C.H. , Buckner K. , Richardson R.A. 
Published: March 2007

Objective To evaluate the effect of a needs-based, nutrition education leaflet on nutritional knowledge. Design Comparison of nutritional knowledge levels before and after exposure to a nutrition education leaflet. Setting A regional colorectal out-patient clinic in Edinburgh. Method A nutrition education leaflet, based on an earlier needs-assessment, was used in the study. Patients attending an out-patient clinic with colorectal symptoms were invited to participate. Nutritional knowledge was determined using a validated questionnaire in a semi-structured interview. In Group A, nutritional knowledge was determined at baseline and after exposure to the leaflet. In Group B, nutritional knowledge was determined after exposure to the leaflet and again one month later. Results In Group A ( n=35), there was a significant increase in awareness of the '5 fruit and vegetables a day' (46 per cent v 91 per cent, p<0.001 ) and 'what constitutes a portion of fruit and vegetable' messages (38 per cent v 71 per cent, p<0.05), compared with baseline. In Group B( n=52), knowledge levels were maintained after one month, and during this time, 12 (23 per cent) subjects reported an increase in their fruit and vegetable intake. Conclusion Targeted nutrition education significantly increased levels of nutritional knowledge, which was sustained one month later. Nearly a quarter of the cohort reported improvements in their dietary intake, which suggests that this method of nutrition education may be particularly cost- effective in facilitating dietary change.
Scale Development of Individual and Organisation Infrastructure for Heart Health Promotion in Regional Health Authorities
Authors: Plotnikoff Ronald C. , Anderson Donna , Raine Kim , Cook Kay , Barrett Linda , Prodaniuk Tricia R. 
Published: March 2007

Objective The purpose of this study was to validate measures of individual and organisational infrastructure for health promotion within Alberta's (Canada) 17 Regional Health Authorities (RHAs). Design A series of phases were conducted to develop individual and organisational scales to measure health promotion infrastructure. Instruments were designed with focus groups and then pre-tested prior to the validation study. Setting In 1993 all hospitals and Public Health Units in the province of Alberta were regionalised into 17 RHAs, with responsibility for public health, community health, and acute and long-term care. While regionalisation may offer more opportunity for community participation, reorganisation of the public health system may have fragmented and diluted resources and skills for heart health promotion in some RHAs. Infrastructure (for example, human and financial resources), amongst other items, is believed to contribute to the capacity to promote health. Method All 17 RHAs participated in the study, yielding a total of 144 individuals (that is board members, senior/middle management, and front line staff). These representative employees completed a self- administered questionnaire on individual- and organisational-level infrastructure measures. Results Psychometric analyses of survey data provided empirical evidence for the robustness of the measures. Principal component analyses verified the construct validity of the scales, with alpha coefficients ranging from 0.75 to 0.95. Conclusion The scales can be used by health professionals and researchers to assess individual- and organisational-level infrastructure, and tailor interventions to increase infrastructure for health promotion in health organisations.
Poverty and health: Primary care patients living at the interface
Authors: Abbott Stephen , Hobby Lindsay 
Published: March 2007

Background There is strong evidence associating poverty with poor health, and welfare benefits are an important means of maximising the income of deprived people in the United Kingdom (UK). The welfare benefits system is complex, and many need help in understanding their entitlements and in completing the applications. Research has shown that primary care is a suitable setting for the provision of welfare benefits advice. Objective of study To explore associations between changes in health status and increased income resulting from advice in primary care. Setting Welfare benefits advice services provided in primary care settings. Methods Structured interviews with those receiving welfare benefits advice in primary care, shortly after the advice session, and 6 and 12 months later. Results This paper reports six cases in detail to illustrate the interplay between financial, social and health aspects of the lives of deprived patients. Two patients recognised the role of an income increase in improving their health-related quality of life; in two cases, social and health issues outweighed the benefits of income increase; and two patients had, despite advice, experienced a reduction in income that they believe affected their health for the worse. Conclusion The simple relationship between poverty and health at a population level is not necessarily reflected in the lives of individuals. Nevertheless, there is a clear if modest role for benefits advice as part of a holistic approach to health in primary care.
The effectiveness of antenatal education
Authors: Hibbard B.M. , Robinson J.O. , Pearson J.F. , Rosen M. , Taylor A. 
Published: March 2007

A SURVEY of antenatal education methods, their uptake and value was un dertaken in Cardiff. Seven hundred and forty four women were interviewed during their first pregnan cies. The effectiveness of an tenatal education was assessed objectively in terms of acquisition of knowledge and the level of anxiety at the time of first attendance, at 35 weeks gestation, and soon after the birth of the baby. Initial knowledge and its acquisition during pregnancy was particularly poor in the lower socio-economic groups and in younger women. In these patients reading dif ficulties were common. Mothercraft classes were beneficial, but attendance by those most in need was very poor. Acquisition of knowledge by any means, including attendance at mothercraft classes, reduced maternal anxiety in late pregnancy. Suggestions for improving the nature and delivery of antenatal education are made.
Stress in Farmers
Authors: Booth Nicholas J. , Lloyd Keith 
Published: March 2007

This study aims to document the nature and extent of occupational stress in farming. A postal survey of farmers in the South West of England, was undertaken and results indicate high levels of occupational stress in farming families. 35% of respondents scored positively on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) with female respondents showing significantly higher scores than males. A significant proportion of respondents also showed elevated levels of anxiety and depression as measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD). indices of psychological distress were correlated with ill health and family problems though the most common sources of perceived stress were coping with new legislation, the amount of paper work and media criticism. People who reported a greater number of stressors scored higher on all 3 measure of psychological distress.
The Performance of the Center for Epidemiologic Study Depression Scale (Ces-D) in an Arab Female Community
Authors: Ghubash Rafia , Daradkeh Tewfik K. , Al Naseri Khawla S. , Al Bloushi Nadia Bin A. , Al Daheri Alia M. 
Published: March 2007

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the CES-D. Methods : Three samples of young Arab females were chosen from different young female populations (n=450). The translated version of the CES-D, socio- demographic and risk factors questionnaires were applied to the above three samples. A subsample was selected (n = 30) to re-rate the scale items and the same sample was interviewed by the SCID. The internal consistency and test- re-test reliability were estimated as well as the factor structure of the Arabic CES-D. The discriminative and criterion validity of the scale was also investigated using the ROC analysis. Results: Seventy five percent (n = 350) of the subjects completed the scale. Alpha coefficient was found to be 0.88 and the split-half reliability was 0.83. The average re-test reliability (ICC = 0.59). Factor analysis yielded three factors: interpersonal problems, mixed affective/somatic factor and the positive affect factor. There was significant differences in mean total score between depressed and non-depressed subjects as classified by SCID as well as by self-perception of depression and the need for treatment. ROC analysis revealed that a cut-off point of 21 discrimi nated best between depressed and non-depressed subjects (sensitivity= 82%, specificity = 83% with AUC of 84%). Conclusion: The Arabic CES-D was found to possess reasonable reliability and reasonable discriminative and criterion validity.
Social in Pakistani Psychiatric Patients
Authors: Bender Keith G. 
Published: March 2007

The paper presents a case register-based descriptive survey of social problems of general hospital psychiatric patients in Pakistan. 47.2% of psychiatric patients had a social problem. Problems with primary support group occurred in 33.4%, 14.2% had relational problems and 7.8% had problems relating to bereavement or death. Social problems were more common in females and patients who had adjustment disorder or depression. Psychiatric patients had more social problems than those who were diagnosed as having a physical problem only. Female depressed patients experienced problems with their in-laws more frequently than other types of social problem. The implications are that: i) some DSMIV categories require changing to make them more international applicable; ii) specific psycho-social inquiry during psychiatric diagnostic interviews is essential; iii) grief counselling and family therapy are important psychotherapeutic needs of Pakistani psychiatric patients; iv) these, in turn, indicate priorities in mental health professional training curricula.
Influence of Therapist Ethnicity and Language On Therapy Outcomes of Southeast Asian Clients
Authors: Flaskerud Jacquelyn H. , Liu P.Y. 
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of Southeast Asian client- therapist ethnicity and language match on three therapy outcomes: number of ses sions with primary therapist, dropout from therapy and admission-discharge difference in Global Assessment Scale (GAS) scores. The sample consisted of 543 Southeast Asian client episodes in Los Angeles County mental health facilities between January 1983 and August 1988. Various types of multiple regression analyses were used to investigate the relationship of language and ethnicity match to the three outcome variables and to eight sociodemographic variables. Either therapist-client language or ethnicity match significantly increased the number of client sessions with the primary therapist. Dropout from therapy was significantly affected by a language match in the Cambodian sample only but the effect was to increase dropout. Neither ethnicity nor language match was significantly related to GAS score gain. Several possible explanations for these findings and their clinical significance were explored.
Psychiatric Nursing in Italy: an Extinguished Profession or an Emerging Professionalism?
Authors: Savio Monica 
Published: March 2007

Ten years after the introduction of the psychiatric reform in Italy, a case study was undertaken in Santhia' (near Turin) on the experience of psychiatric nursing, to investigate nurses' perceptions of community psychiatric work as compared to their experience of the hospital setting. Members of a nursing team attached to a CMHC were interviewed, and observation of their work over a period of six months followed. Other team members -such as doctors, psychologists and social workers were also interviewed, to gather an overview, and to investigate the interaction of the specific organisational framework with nursing professional culture. The findings suggest that the move to the community has led to an emerging psychiatric nursing professional identity related to the opportunity for nurses to experience professional practices other than the medical and custodial forms, which were typical of the hospital setting.
Suicidal Behaviour in People Infected With Human Immunodeficiency Virus: a Literature Review
Authors: Starace Fabrizio 
Published: March 2007

Suicidal acts seem to be more frequent in AIDS patients than in the general population: nevertheless, the interpretation of these findings remains uncertain, because an increased risk of suicide has been found in some groups at risk of HIV infection (homosexuals, i.v. drug users) irrespective of the presence of HIV infection. The lack of adequate registration of causes of death in mortality statistics, the difficulty of identifying AIDS cases, and the lack of appropriate reference popula tions in the majority of register-based studies and post-mortem investigations are the main methodological problems in this research area.
Effects of Psychosocial Interventions On Motor Speed and Accuracy of Chronic Positive, Negative, and Mixed Symptom Schizophrenics
Authors: Sovani Anuradha , Thatte Shubha 
Published: March 2007

Clinical data suggests that schizophrenic patients have an impaired ability to carry out purposeful activities which were previously self-regulative. Schizophrenic psychomotor performance is consequently slow and deliberate, and readily inter fered with. This impairment often leads to frustration and despair in the patient as well as in caregivers, and interferes with the rehabilitation process. Psychological interventions in the form of performance contingent verbal feed back and planned interpersonal interaction in small groups were introduced, and were found to ameliorate motor deficits to a significant extent. Implications for patient motivation, well being and rehabilitation are discussed.
The Homeless Clients of a Community Psychiatric Nursing Service in Inner London: 2. Referral Process and Main Intervention
Authors: Abdul-Hamid Walid , Stansfeld Stephen , Wykes Til 
Published: March 2007

The 'homeless' and 'home-based' clients of the Community Psychiatric Nursing service (CPNs) in Bloomsbury described in the first paper were examined further. The referral process and the CPN intervention were compared in the two groups. The homeless clients had different referral pattern, different types of care provided, and had less time spent with them even when control for the type of problems they were presenting with was made. It seems that this difference is due to the multiplicity and severity of homeless clients' problems that the recording system was not designed to record. Also since most of the homeless clients had been referred by informal services that made 'inappropriate referrals' to the CPNs who then needed to refer these clients to another service. These findings support the fact that homeless people need multi-disciplinary mental health services to meet their complex needs.
Public Relations Writing and the Corporate Image
Authors: Morton Richard K. 
Published: March 2007

In this article Professor Morton suggests that Public Relations should mean more to a firm than keeping a specialized staff of public relations workers. The firm must make an effort to im prove its public relations in all phases of its existence. At the same time there is much that can be done to improve the quality of public relations writ ing as a part of the over-all image-making process. This article is based on an ad dress before the ABWA Nation al Convention, San Francisco, August 31, 1967.
Shrinkage Stresses in Two-Phase Materials
Authors: Koufopoulos T. , Theocaris P.S. 
Published: March 2007

Shrinkage stresses produced during the curing of the matrix in a two-phase material were studied. Specimens representing a typical two-phase material made of unplasticized epoxy as inclusions and plasticized epoxy as the matrix were studied photoelastically. The magnitude of stresses at the interface of a single inclusion in an infinite matrix during the transient period of curing depended only on the constant elastic modulus of the inclusion and on the instantaneous value of the matrix elastic modulus and it was independent of the amount of shrinkage of the matrix. In the case of a square array of inclusions in close proximity, the stress-distribution depended on both elastic moduli and the amount of shrinkage. The influence of the ratio of the space between inclusions and their diameter on the magnitude of stresses was also studied, in the case of already set matrices.
Did Arbitration Make for Dependent Unionism? Evidence from Historical Case Studies
Authors: Gahan Peter 
Published: March 2007

The analysis of Australian union behaviour, growth and structure has centred on the relationship between unions and arbitration. To varying degrees it has been assumed that Australian unions are dependent on arbitration for the supply of resources critical to their functions. The nature and extent of this dependency have, however, remained empirically unexplored. Yet it is clear that if this depend ency relationship were a valid description of the relationship between unions and arbitration, its implications for the survial of unions under a different labour law regime would be profound. This paper, through the investigation of four historical case studies. questions the validity of the dependency hypothesis as a useful explanation of Australian union behaviour. A number of concerns emerge from the case analysis. To begin with, the general interpretation of key historical moments that the dependency hypothesis relies on does not capture the diversity of experience evident in these four cases. While arbitration played an important role in influencing union behav iour by altering the costs and incentives of pursuing particular strategies, the evidence suggests that a range of other factors account for this diversity. Moreo ver, arbitration was not only an institutional structure that unions faced. Rather, part of their strategic interplay with it was concerned with shaping the system to further their own goals through the use of different 'bundles' of political and industrial resources at the disposal of individual unions. Most importantly, to the extent that these unions were dependent organizations, they were dependent on a range of institutional and organizational mechanisms for the supply of critical resources. Arguably, this study also has profound implications for how more generalized accounts of union development are constructed and theorized. A localized analysis, which focuses on individual unions and their own micro- contexts, is advanced as a more appropriate starting point for union theory.
Arms Debates - a 'Positional' Interpretation
Authors: Hoffmann Fredrik 
Published: March 2007

This article is based on debates on security problems in four different parliamentary as semblies. (La Chambre des Députés, 1903, the German Reichstag, 1911, the British Parliament, 1927, and the US Senate 1963) The original aim of the project was to register what changes occur in the structures of argumentation in these debates. The main finding, however, is that the principal arguments are the same in all four debates in spite of great differences in the outside objective situation. The 'radicals' and the 'conservatives' each use one and the same set of arguments in all four debates. This leads to the conclusion that the debaters' views on security policy are not decided by objective factors. Because of the ambiguity of this kind of problem, basic political attitudes structure the debaters' perceptions of 'reality'. Finally, the structures of argumentation in the debates are explained by concepts developed in an article by Samuel Huntington.
Dependency Structures as the Dominant Pattern in World Society
Authors: Gantzel Klaus Jürgen 
Published: March 2007

In their work on a series of monographs, the themes of which follow, a group from the Section for International Politics of the German Political Science Association posits the following assump tions : (a) that international relations and the foreign policies of individual states can be suffi ciently explained only when considered within the hierarchical structure of world society; and (b) that this structure, carried by the interests and mechanism of capitalism, represents a system of dominance ('Herrschaft'). 1) Empirical analysis of penetration processes and dependency structures in various strata of world society. This includes the global as well as respective national historical conditions, and also the socio-economic changes in and between the center nations which generated waves of penetra tion. 2) Analysis of the core area of the more or less integrated international center, including multi national corporations and bank systems; of the effects of the international division of labor with regard to desintegration and retardation of devel opment in the international and intranational peripheries of world society. 3) Analysis of the role of the state apparatuses as agents of the national centers as well as of transnational actors. 4) Analysis of the nature of the competition between the capitalist and the socialist systems and its function in stabilizing or destabilizing the international system of dominance. 5) Examination of the relations between socialist societies as to the extent to which they represent reactions to the capitalist environment or autonomous transition forms, and as to the con clusion to be drawn for emancipating non- socialist peripheries. 6) Estimation of the possibilities for emancipa tory strategies of dissociation in the peripheries aiming at nonviolent capital accumulation, divi sion of labor, and cultural development, all these free of dominance.
Accurate Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Strategy
Authors: Langer Albert 
Published: March 2007

Certain 'arms controllers' defend SLBMs as 'ideally suited' to deterrence. But superpower nuclear strategy has nothing to do with deterrence. It concerns warfighting through counter force attacks on military targets. Soviet strategy especially emphasises the 'first strike', yet arms controllers have minimized Soviet capabilities and advocated appeasement. Examination of technical weapons systems characteristics and their impact on nuclear war fighting tactics shows that accurate SLBMs are especially useful to whoever strikes first and of little use to whoever is struck first. Their short range, speed, accuracy, flexibility and con cealment are ideally suited to surprise attack. In a first strike, they uniquely complement bombers, ICBMs and reconnaissance systems to advantage the attacker, where otherwise ad vantage might lie with the defence. SLBMs are officially 'quick reaction' and 'priority strike' forces for tactical and theatre targets, and will probably be the first 'strategic' forces used. But SLBM efficiency against hardened targets depends on completely vulnerable pre cision navigation systems like Omega, Loran C and satellites. Future developments like ma neuverable warheads will make accurate SLBMs even more useful in striking first, without diminishing their extreme vulnerability when struck first. Even as 'reserve deterrents', inac curate SLBMs are unlikely to survive longer than certain other forces. Thus arms controllers have defended a classical 'destabilizing' weapons system — the principal first strike forces on each side. The arms race is a 'rational' outcome of superpower contention for world domination and preparations for world war. Opposition cannot centre on international arms control agree ments, but must mobilize people against the superpowers, and especially against the super power that talks peace while preparing for war. Ultimately man, not weapons, is decisive. Western Europeans should get prepared to defend themselves.