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The perspectives of healthcare professionals in providing care to women with GDM in high-income nations:A qualitative systematic review
Get PDFBackground Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) represents a growing challenge worldwide, with significant risks to both women and their babies that extend beyond the duration of the pregnancy and immediate post-partum period. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) play important roles in the screening, diagnosis, treatment and management of women with GDM. Methods For this qualitative systematic review, a comprehensive search strategy explored the electronic databases Web of Science, CINAHL, Medline, and Scopus, as well as the reference lists of the included papers, for primary studies investigating the experiences, perspectives and practices of HCPs providing care to women with GDM in high-income healthcare settings. Studies were assessed with the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool, and findings were synthesised using the approach described by Thomas and Harden. Results This review included 33 articles - 26 qualitative and seven mixed method studies, representing ten high-income nations. The total number of HCP participants represented across the studies is 989. This figure is constituted by medical professionals (n = 226), nurses and midwives (n = 583), allied health (n = 40) and other or not numerically specified HCPs (n = 140). From 149 findings, four major themes and 10 subthemes were constructed. The four major themes are: multidisciplinary collaboration; healthcare practice; organizational factors; and working with women. Discussion and conclusion There are barriers to providing optimal care to women with GDM. Including, time and resource constraints, a lack of consensus in practice guidelines, and variable multidisciplinary collaboration. Moving forward, there needs to be a focus on more explicit guidelines, multidisciplinary collaboration, and appropriate resources to support HCPs in providing care to women to manage the short-term and longer-term risks that are associated with a pregnancy affected by GDM
Longitudinal causal dynamics between perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation
No full textBetter understanding of the determinants of suicidal distress may be critical to improving clinical approaches to suicide prevention. According to the Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide, perceived burdensomeness (PB) is one of the proximal, causal risk factors for the development of suicidal distress. Considerable cross-sectional data has supported this association, but limited longitudinal data has investigated whether short-term change in PB influences subsequent suicidal ideation (SI). This longitudinal study involved daily assessments of both PB and SI over a 7-day period in 791 Australian adults who reported recent or current SI. Eight different panel models, with and without covariates were fit to examine cross-lagged effects between PB and SI. In the final model, there was weak evidence for a lagged effect from PB on SI the next day (β = 0.175), although the contemporaneous effect of PB on SI was larger and more consistent (β = 0.948). There was little evidence for lagged effects of SI on PB (β = 0.008). Effects varied across age groups and living situations. Inconsistent with the theory, findings suggest limited value of PB in predicting later SI, after accounting for cross-sectional relationships. Greater consideration of other psychosocial and contextual risk factors may be important for theories of suicide risk and for supporting people who are at risk of suicidal behaviour
Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Uptake Among Australian Healthcare Professionals:An Archetype for Success
No full textBACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Qualitative research suggests there may be identifiable characteristics that form a health professional (HCP) archetype associated with habitual seasonal influenza vaccination (SIV). However, the validity of this archetype requires further investigation, ideally within a theoretical framework that can elucidate this association and its generalisability to other vaccines. This study aims to confirm key HCP archetype characteristics associated with SIV, as informed by prior qualitative research findings, and test the generalisability of the association between this archetype and SIV to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.METHOD: A cross-sectional survey was designed and distributed to an Australian HCP sample consisting of practicing nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and medical practitioners. The anonymous online survey measured key characteristics that predict vaccination behaviour and intention.RESULTS: Most participants (n = 173) demonstrated habitual SIV behaviour (77.91%) associated with the intention to vaccinate in the future. Survey findings supported the HCP archetype, as key constructs were associated with vaccination intention and behaviour, including heightened professional responsibility, vaccine confidence, and protection of self and patients. Furthermore, results suggested progressing vaccination intention to behaviour, overcoming vaccine complacency, is possible through the provision of free, accessible vaccination services. These critical factors were broadly generalisable to the COVID-19 vaccine.CONCLUSIONS: A vaccination-positive HCP archetype, supported by access to free, convenient vaccination services, was associated with the likelihood of future vaccination behaviour, including in future pandemic response scenarios. However, it will be important to ensure that HCP vaccine knowledge gaps are minimised to enhance trust in this cohort to enable broad success.</p
Graph Coarsening Approach to the Vehicle Routing Problem: An Approximation Strategy
No full textIn the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era of quantum computing, solving complex optimization problems such as the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) remains a formidable challenge. To overcome this obstacle, we introduce a novel method in this paper that focuses on reducing the number of edges in a graph based on Euclidean distances between vertices while preserving the crucial characteristics needed for solving the VRP. Our graph coarsening approach combined with the inflation method enables the reduced graph to be processed efficiently by classical, quantum or hybrid (quantum-classical) solvers, resulting in a faster computation time. When using the proposed method with hybrid algorithms, we have demonstrated an improvement of approximately 50% in the solution found by the hybrid solver. The practicality of our method on quantum hardware highlights its potential to contribute to the advancement of quantum and hybrid algorithms and applications during the NISQ era
"Waka Ŋurrkanhayngu - Regenerating the Existence of Life”: Indigenous and Western Researchers Engaging in Two-way Exchange to Revive and Strengthen Living in Harmony to Resolve Our Existential Crises:Indigenous and western researchers engaging in two-way exchange to resolve our existential crises
No full textHumanity is experiencing increasingly existential crises. While the crises are potentially apocalyptic, they also create transformative opportunities toward ways of being-knowing-doing that not only ensure our survival but thriving. Realizing these transformative opportunities requires the prevailing Western worldview remembering and embracing ancient Indigenous worldviews. One potent pathway for accomplishing this paradigm shift is authentically exchanging two-way with Indigenous peoples. To illuminate this pathway and its value, we, a team of Australian Indigenous clan leaders living in the very remote community of Galiwin'ku in Northern Australia and Western researchers, offer knowledges from a long-term initiative that was requested by Yolŋu clan leaders and that we are now coleading, codesigning, coimplementing, and co-evaluating. Our research aimed at reviving and strengthening Yolŋu to heal and reduce "natural" and social disasters and restore health. Utilizing a bricolage research design, we are continuously bridging, uniting, and transcending Indigenous and suitable Western philosophies/worldviews, methodologies, and methods for collecting, analyzing, and coconstructing knowledges. We have developed an Indigenist two-way intercultural kinship-based and clan-based participatory action research that is long-term, heart based, holistic, transdisciplinary, emerging, and iteratively cocreated, coimplemented, coevaluated, and corefined using Yolŋu governance. The knowledges we are coconstructing reveal holistically the dense net of interacting psychological and contextual colonizing practices that systematically weaken Yolŋu and how sophisticated Yolŋu ways of being-knowing-doing strengthen Yolŋu. Several pathways emerged as key levers for removing what weakens Yolŋu and facilitating what strengthens Yolŋu, enabling Yolŋu to regenerate the existence of life by living according to their Yolŋu LAW in harmony with nature again. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p
Australia’s Weak Response to Antisemitic Hate Crime
No full textOn Feb. 6, Australia’s parliament passed a bill to amend the current crime legislation to include “hate crimes.” Widely criticized as an attack on freedom of speech by conservatives, the legislation, which will become law once it is signed by the Governor-General, was meant to be a demonstration of the government’s response to ongoing antisemitism. Rather than represent action against antisemitism, however, the bill is more talk that does little to address the inaction of authorities at both the state and federal level to prosecute those who have terrorized and continue to terrorize Australia’s Jewish community
Rickety Puppies, a Cow called UNICEF, and a Carrot with Healthy Eyes:Rickety Puppies, a Cow called UNICEF, and a Carrot with Healthy Eyes: More-than-human Teachers and the Malnourished Child
Get PDFAs one of the most recognizable icons of humanity and humanitarianism, the malnourished child has long been the focus of debates about representation and dehumanization. What has been less readily acknowledged is how this icon of ‘humanity’ has been codified and animated by an array of inter-species connections. This chapter introduces a multi-species history of the malnourished child by interweaving stories of experiments to induce rickets in dogs, multispecies assemblages in feeding programs and school gardens, and a range of development education programs that employed plants to teach children about growth and vitamin deficiency. While these stories highlight what Bruno Latour calls the hidden work of hybridization, they also highlight how interspecies relations enable and sustain pre-existing hierarchies of species, race and knowledge. Accordingly, they raise difficult questions about how Anthropocene pedagogies may help us grapple with the on-going-ness of child malnutrition both past, present, and into our uncertain future
The effectiveness of air-cleaning technologies against COVID-19 transmission in healthcare settings
Get PDFBackground: The healthcare setting is a high-transmission-risk environment for COVID-19. Attending clinicians and patients are at risk of infection if measures are not established to secure the microbial safety of the health facility. Air cleaning technologies may deliver a safer clinical environment by depleting airborne viral concentrations.Aim: This systematic review aims to assess the effectiveness of air-cleaning methods in preventing COVID-19 transmission in health facilities and the effectiveness of air cleaning rated by microbial depletion.Method: This study is a rapid systematic review.Results: No study assessed COVID-19 transmission relative to the air cleaning methods. HEPA filtration produced a more rapid and thorough removal of aerosols from health facilities. HEPA filtration showed mixed performance in removing COVID-19 viral RNA from a routine care ward and an intensive care unit (ICU). Meta-analyses could not be conducted due to dissimilarities in included studies.Conclusion: The reviewed papers demonstrate that HEPA filtration hastens the depletion of aerosols from the indoor space in the health facility. Further translation of this finding to prevent COVID-19 transmission should assume the relevance of room occupancy density, virus-free outdoor air supply, recirculated filtered air, virus source strength, number of sources, and the use of facemasks by health workers and visitors to the health facility
Nutritional Screening During Pregnancy:Women’s Views of Weight Monitoring as Part of This Process
No full textBackground: Worldwide, appropriate weight maintenance is one of the most important elements of human health, and this is especially true for pregnancy. Gestational weight gain below or above the recommended range is associated with numerous adverse outcomes. In addition, it may induce epigenetic changes leading to an increased risk of developing future chronic disease, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, in both the woman and her offspring. Despite this, little is known of the views and experiences of pregnant women regarding weight monitoring and advice during the antenatal period. Methods: A qualitative study using individual interviews was undertaken in south-eastern Australia. Sixteen women with varying body mass index participated. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. In any phenomenological study, the researcher’s objective is to elicit the participant’s views on their lived experiences. Results: Three major themes emerged: (1) The physiological perspective of weight monitoring during pregnancy; (2) The psychological perspective of weight monitoring during pregnancy; (3) The sociological perspective of weight monitoring during pregnancy. Conclusions: The findings from this study may assist the future development and support of weight monitoring information and practices for pregnant women. Women want more individualized support regarding weight monitoring during pregnancy.</p
Rapid relative sea-level fall, 8 – 6 ka, in the Windmill Islands, East Antarctica
No full textRecords of relative sea-level (RSL) change shed light on mechanisms that control ice-sheet evolution and are used to improve estimates of current mass loss. Despite being the largest potential contributor to future sea-level change there are relatively few records of RSL from the margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. We provide new geological data that define the timing of deglaciation and the pattern and rates of subsequent RSL change in the Windmill Islands in Wilkes Land, East Antarctica. Our new data constrain deglaciation by 10.0–9.5 ka. Combining our new data with previously unused sea-level indicators from penguin remains redefines understanding of RSL changes after deglaciation. A high-stand at c. 8.0 ka was followed by rapid sea-level fall with RSL dropping to <15 m at 6.0 ka at a rate of ∼10 m ka−1, more than double that inferred previously. A reinterpretation of an existing marine core provides circumstantial evidence that RSL fell below 5 m ASL at c. 3.6–2.8 ka which would be coincident with a previously inferred retreat-readvance of the ice margin at this time. Overall, the timing of the Holocene sea-level high stand in the Windmill Islands is similar to other sites around East Antarctica. However, the greater magnitude of this high stand and the rapid fall during the period 8 - 6 ka suggests that interactions between the ice sheet and solid Earth in this sector of East Antarctica may be influenced by relatively lower mantle viscosities