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How can Effective Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Interventions Resonate with Earthquake-Affected Children's Realities in Post-2023 Turkey?
No full textThis dissertation explores the effectiveness of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) interventions for children post-earthquake in middle-income countries, focusing on those affected by the 2023 Kahramanmaras Earthquake in Turkey. It highlights the urgent need for tailored interventions as around 6.2 million children in Turkey face daily stressors, disrupted schooling, and security challenges post-disaster. Conducting a desk study, includ-ing a narrative literature review using databases like MEDLINE, CINAHL, and PsychINFO, the research critically analyzes 20 studies and grey literature reports through thematic analy-sis. Gender dynamics and disability barriers are addressed, resulting in positive outcomes for marginalized groups. Interventions targeting daily stressors demonstrate significant improve-ments in mental health outcomes. Tailored interventions with community engagement, cul-tural sensitivity, and a focus on self and collective efficacy show notable enhancements in the mental well-being of earthquake-affected children in Turkey. The dissertation concludes by emphasizing the necessity of prioritizing flexible, culturally sensitive, and community-driven MHPSS interventions to foster lasting psychosocial well-being and resilience among earthquake-affected children. It recommends bridging the gap between theoretical frame-works and practical implementation, stressing adherence to guidelines and principles to en-sure genuine effectiveness and meet the diverse needs of the affected population
Using the Theory of Affordances to Understand Environment–Play Transactions: Environmental Taxonomy of Outdoor Play Space Features—A Scoping Review
Get PDFThomas Morgenthaler - ORCID: 0000-0002-2511-0092 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2511-0092Duncan Pentland - ORCID: 0000-0003-1472-0060 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1472-0060Supplemental data is available at: https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/13774Importance: The transactions between the physical environment and children’s play have not been well studied. The theory of affordances provides a way to better understand how environmental characteristics offer opportunities for play occupation.
Objective: To investigate the relationship between environmental characteristics of outdoor play spaces and children’s outdoor play and to develop an environmental taxonomy to support the analysis of play affordances in community play spaces.
Data Sources: Peer-reviewed literature (1974–2023) was sourced from a previously published scoping review (Morgenthaler, Schulze, et al., 2023). The Academic Search Complete, Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched using the keywords and synonyms of playground, environmental qualities, and children with and without disabilities.
Study Selection and Data Collection: A secondary analysis of the previously published scoping review was conducted. Included studies were those that provided descriptions of physical environment–play activity transactions.
Findings: A qualitative content analysis of 45 articles was conducted and used to form an environmental taxonomy. This taxonomy consisted of 14 space and object categories defined by their functional qualities and linked to play affordances. An array of 284 play occupations were identified in different forms. Play affordances of spaces and object categories and their functional environmental qualities were subsequently identified.
Conclusions and Relevance: This study provides evidence to support the understanding of how the physical environment shapes children’s outdoor play occupations.
Plain-Language Summary: The study authors developed the Environmental Taxonomy of Outdoor Play Space Features as a tool that occupational therapists can use to better understand and describe how the physical environment shapes opportunities for play. The tool could also be useful to justify environmental intervention in schools and public playgrounds to create spaces that support more play for a diversity of children.https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2024.05060678pubpub
SMALL TOURISM BUSINESS SURVIVAL IN THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN
Get PDFThis study investigates the role of strategic approaches in the survival of small tourism businesses in the Eastern Caribbean, focusing specifically on Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and St. Lucia. Despite the acknowledged significance of strategic management in fostering business growth and longevity, scant attention has been given to traditional strategic approaches within small tourism enterprises in developing economies heavily reliant on tourism.
The Caribbean, renowned for its diverse and attractive tourism offerings, remains a hotbed for multinational tourism corporations, yet the impact of small businesses within this economic landscape remains understudied. Drawing from an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, the study combines qualitative interviews with 31 participants and a survey of 217 small tourism businesses to elucidate the internal and external factors influencing survival and explore specific strategic approaches employed by these enterprises. Findings reveal five validated factors—low season impact, peak and off-peak dynamics, strategic closure, management, and survival—identified through a newly developed measuring instrument (SIDE).
Contrary to prevailing assumptions, the study concludes that strategic approaches do not significantly contribute to small tourism business survival in the Eastern Caribbean. External challenges such as political influences, networking constraints, competition, and seasonality, alongside internal obstacles like employee deviance, emerge as critical barriers to survival. These findings underline the intense business environment faced by small tourism enterprises in developing economies reliant on tourism, urging scholars and policymakers to consider these dynamics in future research and decision-making processes. While the research provides a theoretical foundation for understanding survival dynamics, it acknowledges the existence of additional factors shaping small tourism business survival within the dynamic tourism industry, emphasizing the need for future studies to explore these dimensions comprehensively
Manipulation of the foot in the treatment of patients with Morton’s neuroma
Get PDFIntroduction
Manipulative therapy’s rationale is pragmatically appealing as a non-invasive treatment for Morton’s neuroma (MN), involving targeted manipulations of relevant joints. Nevertheless, manipulation’s efficacy has received limited scrutiny. This thesis comprised four data-driven chapters offering novel investigations associated with manipulation as a treatment for MN. The latter included a critical appraisal of the clinimetric utility of pressure testing for discomfort thresholds (PTT) as a novel outcome in this context (n = 26; Chapter 5), an exploratory pragmatic controlled trial investigating Manipulation versus Steroid Injection in the treatment of patients with Morton’s neuroma focusing on self-reported pain levels (VAS) and PTT (n = 61; Chapter 6) and other PROMs reflecting functionality and health (Chapter 7). A final data chapter (Chapter 8) contributed secondary analyses of data in Chapters 6 and 7 exploring novel factors in enhanced clinical outcomes of non-surgical treatment of Morton’s neuroma using descriptive multivariate modelling and discriminant analysis.
Method
The thesis’s primary study (Chapters 6 and 7) featured an exploratory, pragmatic randomised controlled trial was designed to investigate the efficacy of an acute, short dosage (6, weekly episodes) of physiologically-principled manipulations, featuring discrete, high-velocity thrusting manoeuvres for treating Morton’s Neuroma. Adults electing treatment for Morton’s neuroma were randomly allocated to manipulative therapy (n = 29) or corticosteroid injection (n = 32). Baseline and follow-up (at 1·5, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months following treatment cessation) outcome measures of self-reported pain levels (VAS), pressure testing for discomfort thresholds (PTT) and functionality (walking and standing [MOxFQws], pain [MOxFQp)] and social interaction [MOxFQsi]; activities of daily living [FAAMdl], sports participation [FAAMspt] and general health [SF-36 PCS & MCS]) were measured ipsilaterally and by inventory.
Results
Chapters 6 and 7 showed that manipulation elicited substantive gains immediately after intervention (VAS [Cohen’s d, 3·3; 84·4%]; PTT [d, 2·3; 147·0%]; MOxFQws [d, 1·4; 52·8%]; MOxFQp [d, 1·3; 45·5%]; MOxFQsi [d, 0·9; 39·2%]) or accumulated during follow-up (FAAMdl [d, 2·2; 40·8%]; FAAMspt [d, 1·5; 66·1%]). Concomitant gains interactively for control participants were modest (d, 0·4 to 1·0; 16·6% to 45·9%) (p < 0·05 to p < 0·0005). Retention of improvements following manipulation cessation was substantial for all metrics, significantly better than baseline scores (VAS, PTT, MOxFQws, MOxFQp, MOxFQsi, FAAMdl, FAAMspt, SF-36 PCS and SF-36 MCS [d, 1·1 to 3·4; 40·8% to 152·3%]) and consistently exceeded that for corticosteroid injection (p < 0·01 to p < 0·001). Group mean intra-session and inter-day variability (V%) of PTT (Chapter 5) ranged between 6.8% and 13.6% for experienced and inexperienced test administrators, respectively, and suggested compromised precision amongst serial measurements of PTT over extended periods of time. Within Chapter 8, predictive multivariate modelling showed that in internal classification analyses, 88.9% of patients could be assigned correctly to high- and low-responders to treatment.
Conclusion
(i) Manipulation elicited significant and clinically relevant improvements and retention in self-reported levels of pain, discomfort and functionality for patients electing treatment for Morton’s neuroma; (ii) Exploratory multivariate modelling provided a significant prediction model for successful non-surgical treatment outcomes; (iii) Single measurements showed compromised precision amongst serial assessments of PTT
Managing Barriers to Evidence-Based Practice: An International Imperative
No full textItem is not available in this repository.Michelle Perryman-Fox - ORCID: 0000-0003-4462-2154 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4462-2154pubpu
Factors associated with nature connection in children: A review, synthesis and implications for practice within environmental education and beyond
No full textAlexia Barrable - ORCID: 0000-0002-5352-8330
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5352-8330Item is restricted in this repository.Nature connection has been found in previous research to be a predictor of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. For this reason, efforts to build children’s nature connection through a variety of avenues, including environmental education, have been explored by practitioners and researchers alike. In this paper we undertook a purposive literature search of research looking at factors associated with children’s nature connection. The resulting synthesis of 28 studies found demographic, dispositional, affective, familial, environmental and experiential factors that are associated with children’s nature connection that will be of interest to educators, parents, researchers and policy makers. Recommendations are made for the implementation in environmental education programmes and beyond, in order effectively mobilise an integrated response that will foster a sustained connection to the natural world.11pubpub
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Needs Assessment in West Ninewa (Baaj, Qairawan, Sinjar and Sinuni)
No full textItem is not available in this repository.https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/mental-health-and-psychosocial-support-needs-assessment-west-ninewa-baaj-qairawan-sinjar-and-sinunipubpu
RHIZOMATIC TRANSPOSITIONS: INCLUDING CREATIVE PRACTICE WITHIN WATER MANAGEMENT POLICY
Get PDFWestern ontology has traditionally viewed rivers as objects for the intentional purposes of human society. Water policy ensures that rivers are maintained to distribute water and protect against flooding. However, with climate change, the health of many rivers is decreasing, while risk of flooding from rivers is increasing. Water policies appear to be unable to change such negative trends, which are inter-related with poor and exploitative human/river relationships. To form a different relationship between humankind and rivers, this creative practice research develops creative practice based on nomadic ontology and psychosocial perspectives. The research develops a methodology that aims to transform the human/river relationship. Practice-led approaches are employed as an exploration of the artist’s creative practice, including 1) physical immersion in water, 2) underwater film, and 3) aerial photographic collage. Using personal reflective methods that critically analysed the artist’s affective experience, a transformative approach was developed, called the ‘Site of possibility’, which created a site of affective engagement between human and rivers that was different from daily habitual routine. Participatory methods included walking, poetry, mark-making and a creative interpretation of the dialogic method known as the ‘visual matrix’. Emerging differences in perception became Deleuzian ‘deterritorialization’, a shift of mind and heart through creative participatory practice. People’s habitual views of rivers became reterritorialized so that human/river relationships were transformed into a new awareness of human positionality in relation to rivers and, potentially, in relation to policy design directed at water. In three case studies, the Site of possibility creative approach proved successful in transforming people’s perceptions and positions in relationship in relationship to rivers in ways that could potentially inform water policy, creating a more bioegalitarian relationship between rivers and people. These findings show that creative practice approaches have potential to inform water policy and provide direction and guidance for systemic change to problems of governance for rivers
Language-specific coarticulatory patterns: a comparative study of Arabic and Spanish
No full textJames M Scobbie - ORCID: 0000-0003-4509-6782
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4509-6782Background: We investigate a hypothesis for languages to be phonologically categorised based on direction of coarticulation: i.e. whether coarticulation mainly occurs from consonant to vowel (C-to-V) or from vowel to consonant (V-to-C), and whether this is connected to language-specific phonological contrasts. We report preliminary findings from an Ultrasound Tongue Imaging (UTI) study on Arabic and Spanish focusing on the velar stop /k/. Previous studies highlight language-specific preferences for the direction of coarticulation [3]: e.g. consonant to vowel (Caucasian [6]) versus vowel to consonant (English [1]; Greek [5]). Furthermore, in an acoustic study of V1CV2 utterances [4], it was noticed that English and Swedish allow the articulators to start moving toward the configuration of V2 at the acoustic end of V1 before the consonant occlusion, while Russian did not. Our initial hypothesis was that coarticulatory preferences mainly result from the ratio between vowels and consonants in the phoneme inventory (cf. [2]): i.e. languages with a high number of consonantal contrasts should show different coarticulatory patterns from languages with fewer phonemic consonants. With this in mind, Arabic and Spanish form a good comparative pair: Modern Standard Arabic has 39 consonants and 3 vowel qualities that also admit a quantity contrast. Spanish has a smaller system, comprising 17–19 consonants (dialect dependently) and 5 vowel qualities.https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.12578650pubpu
Developing and validating the Sierra Leone perinatal psychological distress scale through an emic-etic approach
No full textAbdulai Jawo Bah - ORCID: 0000-0002-3334-7882
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3334-7882Alastair Ager - ORCID: 0000-0002-9474-3563
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9474-3563Background
Addressing perinatal psychological distress in Sierra Leone faces challenges due to the lack of culturally appropriate assessment tools, despite recent WHO recommendations for screening during the pre- and postpartum periods. While high-income countries use tools like the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale or Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), their cross-cultural validity and efficacy in developing countries are uncertain. The aim of this study was to address this gap by developing a functional assessment tool, culturally appropriate screening tool for perinatal psychological distress, and validate it with the PHQ-9.
Method
Following scale development guidelines, the study encompassed three phases: Item Development, Scale Development, and Scale Evaluation. Data from free listing interviews (n = 96), FGDs (n = 24), and cognitive interviews (n = 8) informed the development of the Sierra Leone Perinatal Psychological Distress Scale (SLPPDS) and a Function scale. Item reduction via exploratory factor analysis (n = 120) and validation (n = 140) were conducted in subsequent phases.
Result
Two screening instruments were developed: the 10-item SLPPDS and a 5-item Function scale assessing perinatal women's ability to perform daily tasks. Sensitivity/specificity values for the SLPPDS and PHQ-9 were 80.0/85.7 and 73.8/76.2 respectively. Internal consistency reliability was 0.88 for the SLPPDS and 0.81 for the PHQ-9. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a one-factor model with 54.9 % variance explained. ROC/cut-off points for SLPPDS and PHQ-9 were 0.90/0.81 and 8.0/7.0 respectively.
Conclusion
The PHQ-9 shows validity and reliability as a screening instrument, but the SLPPDS emerges as a potentially more salient alternative for assessing perinatal psychological distress in Sierra Leone. This implies the SLPDDS is particularly relevant, meaningful, and applicable to the specific cultural or community context it was designed for. It suggests that the tool effectively addresses the unique needs, perspectives, and experiences of the perinatal women, making it more likely to resonate with users and stakeholders. This relevance may enhance the tool's acceptance, usability, and overall impact in identifying and addressing perinatal mental health issues in Sierra Leone. These instruments could enable effective evaluation of perinatal mental health initiatives by government agencies, locals, and international NGOs.This research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research programme 16/136/100. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Health Service, the NIHR or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2024.100852pubpu
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