134125 research outputs found
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Why Do You Care? They're Just Criminals
No full textThe novel Why Do You Care? (henceforth WDYC?) showcases and interrogates the relationship between harsher sentencing laws for youths in Australia, and the dehumanization of children in police watchhouses and detention centres. WDYC? draws on evidence-based research, presented through the persuasive medium of literary fiction, in order to showcase the issue of draconian measures used against youth offenders, explore community understandings of risk factors and prevention, and consider which solutions best enable families to end intergenerational cycles of abuse and drug addiction. The novel also explores the theme of parenting deficiency, the notion that parents, have a vital responsibility to provide a safe, secure, drug free home, and to prevent their children from developing antisocial tendencies which lead to criminal activity. Further, WDYC? investigates the concept of responsibilisation, which is the shifting of responsibility for addressing societal issues or problems from the State to the individual, families, or communities. The onus of addressing crime, poverty, or education is tasked to the individual, rather than to government interventions.
The exegetical part of this thesis examines the psychological, criminological, mental and physical health aspects of government sanctioned management of children in police watch houses and youth detention centres across Australia. Further, the exegesis explores the processes involved in literary authors utilising personal trauma to craft a story, and investigates the relationship between emotion and creative writing.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of PhilosophySchool of Humanities, Languages and Social ScienceArts, Education and Law GroupFull Tex
Exploring nursing students’ learning experiences within tripartite meetings in nursing home clinical placements: a qualitative study using video-stimulated recall interviews
No full textBackground
Nursing students’ clinical learning is premised on experiences in clinical placements in nurse education, with the processes and outcomes of tripartite meetings among the student, nurse preceptor and teacher being central components. The tripartite meetings form the basis and framework for stakeholders’ dialogue and collaboration and have the central purpose of facilitating student learning and development and assessing the students’ achievement against predetermined learning outcomes for the placement period. Students’ experiences with tripartite meetings seems to be an underexplored field, and therefor this study aimed to explore first-year nursing students’ learning experiences within tripartite clinical placement meetings in nursing homes.
Design and methods
A qualitative explorative and participatory approach was adopted in this study, using the video-stimulated interview method “stimulated recall— dialog and reflection”. This method is based on video recordings with subsequent interviews, where video excerpts were used to support reflection and dialogue. Twenty-one video-stimulated recall interviews were conducted with first-year nursing students (n = 7) to explore their learning experiences within the tripartite meetings.
Findings
Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke. Four themes were identified: (1) the importance of structure and preparedness; (2) supportive relations and dialogue essential for learning; (3) a possibility to create a common learning focus; and (4) assessment needs to be comprehensive and performance focused.
Conclusions
This study highlights that tripartite meetings can be an excellent forum to support the nursing students’ learning process in their clinical placements. Still, consistent and systematic approaches to clinical placement supervision and assessment need to be developed continuously. Therefore, the study’s findings suggest that targeted efforts are warranted to optimise and enhance the learning potential offered in tripartite meetings in clinical education, such as paying a greater attention to the start-up conversation and facilitating comprehensive supervisory and assessment content in the meetings.Full Tex
Who gets the bed: Factors influencing the intensive care exit block: A qualitative study
No full textBackground
Patient flow problems, including discharge delay and after-hours discharge, have been a consistently major issue, especially for intensive care units (ICUs). Evidence suggests that discharge delay and after-hours discharge are associated with increased ICU and hospital length of stay, leading to worsened patient outcomes and increased healthcare costs. They can also increase ICU readmission and post-ICU mortality. The factors influencing discharge processes are not well elucidated.
Objective
This study aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators to the ICU patient discharge processes in adult ICUs.
Methods
This qualitative exploratory multisite observational study was conducted in three regional adult ICUs in Queensland, Australia. We used staff interviews, fieldnotes, and document analysis as data collection techniques. Data analysis commenced with a deductive content analysis using the Structure, Process, and Outcomes framework. Following this, an inductive process was taken using the Theoretical Domains Framework.
Findings
We conducted 59 staff interviews and analysed the discharge documents across three sites. Four domains, including context and resources, beliefs about consequences, social/professional role and identity, and behaviour regulation, were strongly related to the factors that influenced the discharge processes. The findings revealed barriers to discharge, including finding the right bed, disconnected and ineffective information systems, ineffective communication and coordination within and across teams and departments, and uncertainty and inconsistency in discharge decision making. Facilitators included clarity on professional roles in ICU discharge, effective communication within the ICU team, and context specific strategies to support the discharge processes.
Conclusions
The findings provide an in-depth understanding of the barriers and facilitators to the ICU discharge processes. Multifaceted strategies should be considered to facilitate and manage ICU discharge safely and efficiently, including the use of clearer discharge criteria and guidelines, digital systems that aid communication and coordination, and early planning of ICU patient discharge.Full Tex
The Assessment of Students' Personal Qualities in Australian Counsellor Education Programs: A Critical Realist Analysis
No full textIt is well documented that the personal qualities of the counsellor are important to counselling efficacy. This behoves counsellor education programs to identify suitable applicants for their programs and to develop cogent methods of assessing students' personal qualities; however, despite the increasing interest demonstrated by researchers in personal qualities, little consensus is found on the key personal qualities of counselling practitioners. This lack of consensus is compounded by a lack of robust assessment tools for assessing the development of those qualities.
In Australia, counsellors continue to advocate for government recognition as credible mental health providers, with concerns expressed regarding a lack of consistent minimum education standards across the peak associations. Discussion regarding minimum education standards is ongoing, and within this context, the researcher is interested in what differentiates counsellor education from that of other mental health professions. One clear difference seems to be a greater emphasis on the person of the counsellor, including the development of their personal qualities (referred to as personal development) in counsellor education. As an educator, the researcher is also interested in how personal qualities are being developed and assessed in counselling programs, and what determines these approaches to assessment. Existing research on counsellor education in Australia is minimal, which motivated this investigation into the key qualities required of counselling students, approaches to assessing these qualities, and factors determining these approaches to assessment.
This investigation was conducted within a critical realist framework because the research questions did not sit well in either a positivist or constructivist paradigm. Critical realism acknowledges that reality is layered and complex, and as such, is well suited to research questions that seek to explain outcomes such as the factors that determine approaches to assessing students' personal development. The research design was a collective case study, using 10 PACFA-accredited counsellor education programs as the collective case. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three personnel from each program and then analysed using grounded theory coding.
Seven key personal qualities were identified: self-awareness, openness, interpersonal skills, emotional stability, cognitive complexity, professionalism, and personal maturity. Further analysis of these interviews and a supporting document analysis of counselling program documents revealed that these key qualities were assessed across the course of students' education using a range of explicit and implicit approaches to assessment. Abductive reasoning was used to hypothesise explanations for surprising outcomes in the data analysis, and, in particular, the balance of explicit and implicit approaches to assessing students' personal development. In addition to the prevalence of ambiguous language and overlapping conceptualisations, structural mechanisms identified as influencing the assessment of students' personal development include a) the program's counselling philosophy and the clarity with which that philosophy is articulated, b) the intentionality of counselling educators, c) institutional philosophy and/or priorities, and d) Australian higher education (HE) regulations. The way and extent to which programs were influenced by institutional philosophy/priorities and the Australian HE regulations was found to be context dependent.
The results of this research have implications for counsellor education programs and program accreditation standards. Further clarity regarding the personal development component of counsellor education is required from professional bodies responsible for program accreditation, along with more guidance as to the types of evidence required to demonstrate that standards are being met. Such guidance could be drawn from the outcomes of this investigation, including the importance of counselling philosophy to personal development, and the significance of clarity and coherence to all facets of program development and delivery. A more intentional focus on personal qualities would be in line with the United States (Council for Accreditation of Counselling and Related Education Programs, 2015) and British standards (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, 2020), and could be a clear point of differentiation for Australian counsellor education from other mental health disciplines.
Recommendations regarding key qualities for entering the counselling profession include operationalising terminology, acknowledging the importance of cognitive complexity, and using personal maturity as a global construct, with other qualities considered subdimensions. Recommendations regarding the assessment of students' personal development include education programs clearly articulating their counselling philosophy, mapping personal development goals, and increasing support for counselling educators. Further research is also recommended to gain more insight into the interaction between educators' agency and intentionality.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of PhilosophySchool of Health Sci & Soc WrkGriffith HealthFull Tex
Progress on theory of planned behavior research: advances in research synthesis and agenda for future research
No full textThe theory of planned behavior is a social cognition theory that has been widely applied to identify the psychological determinants of intentions and behavior in health contexts. Our 2015 meta-analysis of theory applications in chronic illness contributed to a burgeoning evidence base comprising syntheses supporting theory predictions in health behavior. In this review, we identify limitations of prior meta-analyses of theory applications in health behavior and highlight salient evidence gaps, summarize how recent meta-analyses of the theory have addressed some of the limitations, outline outstanding research questions, and suggest future research syntheses, including those currently in progress, to resolve them. We point to recent and ongoing meta-analyses addressing theory hypotheses and assumptions not tested in previous syntheses, such as perceived behavioral control moderating effects and indirect effects of environmental (e.g., sociostructural variables) and intrapersonal (e.g., personality traits) determinants on health behavior mediated by theory constructs. We also highlight meta-analyses examining behavioral effects of constructs representing extended processes (e.g., habit, implicit cognition) in the context of the theory. Further, we summarize recent meta-analyses addressing directional and causal inferences in theory effects, including meta-analyses of longitudinal studies and experimental and intervention research. We also highlight attempts to test the mechanisms of action of interventions based on the theory including the change meta-analysis method and mediation analyses. We conclude by summarizing the advances that recent meta-analyses of the theory have made to the evidence base of health behavior determinants and interventions and highlighting suggestions for meta-analyses that will further progress the evidence base.Full Tex
Approximate Nearest Neighbour Search on Dynamic Datasets: An Investigation
No full textApproximate k-Nearest Neighbour (ANN) methods are often used for mining information and aiding machine learning on large scale high-dimensional datasets. ANN methods typically differ in the index structure used for accelerating searches, resulting in various recall/runtime trade-off points. For applications with static datasets, runtime constraints and dataset properties can be used to empirically select an ANN method with suitable operating characteristics. However, for applications with dynamic datasets, which are subject to frequent online changes (like addition of new samples), there is currently no consensus as to which ANN methods are most suitable. Traditional evaluation approaches do not consider the computational costs of updating the index structure, as well as the rate and size of index updates. To address this, we empirically evaluate 5 popular ANN methods on two main applications (online data collection and online feature learning) while taking into account these considerations. Two dynamic datasets are used, derived from the SIFT1M dataset with 1 million samples and the DEEP1B dataset with 1 billion samples. The results indicate that the often used k-d trees method is not suitable on dynamic datasets as it is slower than a straightforward baseline exhaustive search method. For online data collection, the Hierarchical Navigable Small World Graphs method achieves a consistent speedup over baseline across a wide range of recall rates. For online feature learning, the Scalable Nearest Neighbours method is faster than baseline for recall rates below 75%.Full Tex
Community pharmacy’s role in dispensing androgens and supporting harm reduction amid current policy dilemmas
No full textBackground
Legitimate androgen use, such as testosterone replacement therapy, requires a legal prescription. Off-label use for reasons like wellness and aesthetics continues to grow. Recent regulatory changes in Australia aim to curb non-prescribed androgen use, potentially intensifying stigma, however seeking prescriptions through legal channels persists. This study aimed to explore community pharmacists’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding individuals who use androgens.
Methods
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 community pharmacists, to explore knowledge and experiences related to the dispensing of androgens. The data analysis followed an iterative process, developing a codebook for thematic analysis and aligning findings with relevant literature.
Results
Pharmacists face challenges when meeting the needs of individuals using androgens. They often made judgments based on appearance, leading to stigmatisation and potential refusal of prescription supply. However, this is tempered by the complex environment that pharmacists work in with respect to professional and legal requirements. Limited knowledge about androgens and varying exposure to people who use androgens were evident, prompting a unanimous desire for tailored training, especially in communication skills and interaction strategies.
Conclusions
Facilitating androgen use within regulated healthcare settings, under professional medical supervision, is crucial to mitigating health risks. Varied pharmacist knowledge underscores the urgent need for targeted training, emphasising education initiatives to address structural stigma and inform healthcare policies globally.Full Tex
Cre-Lox miRNA-delivery technology optimized for inducible microRNA and gene-silencing studies in zebrafish
No full textWhile many genetic tools exist for zebrafish, this animal model still lacks robust gene-silencing and microRNA-delivery technologies enabling spatio-temporal control and traceability. We have recently demonstrated that engineered pri-miR backbones can trigger stable gene knockdown and/or express microRNA(s) of choice in this organism. However, this miRNA-expressing technology presents important limitations. First, to trigger potent knockdown(s), multiple synthetic-miRNAs must be expressed simultaneously, compromising the co-expression of fluorescent marker(s) and knockdown traceability. Second, when gene(s) knockdown triggers significant phenotypes, like homozygous mutants with severe early phenotypes, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain transgenic carriers. To solve these problems and provide a mature RNAi and microRNA-delivery technology, we have generated new RNAi reagents and an inducible delivery system based on the Cre/Lox technology. This system allows the creation of asymptomatic/silent carriers, easing the production of embryos with potent knockdowns that can be traced and spatiotemporally controlled. We further demonstrated the utility of this approach by establishing novel inducible and tissue-specific models of spinal muscular atrophy, opening new avenues for studying smn1-gene function and pathogenicity. All in all, these materials and techniques will be invaluable in studying microRNA biology and in modelling or tackling conditions in which gene dosage is key.Full Tex
Higher levels of autistic traits in the general population are associated with reduced visual field asymmetries in a dual-stream attentional blink task
No full textBackground
Spatial attention is typically right-hemisphere lateralized, resulting in a bias to preferentially process information in the left visual field (VF). As atypical hemispheric lateralization is considered a fundamental neurobiological feature of autism, we assessed whether it is also evident in people who display higher levels of autistic-type traits but do not meet the criteria for a clinical diagnosis of autism. In doing so, we used a dual-stream attentional blink task – a task with heavy processing demands and stimuli displayed simultaneously in both VFs – to elicit inter-hemispheric competition and assess visual field asymmetries.
Method
The participants were 82 university students, who had never been clinically diagnosed with autism, divided into two groups based on the level of autistic traits that they displayed on the Autism Quotient scale (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Two simultaneous streams of digit-distractors were displayed, one in each VF, and the participants’ task was to identify two letter-targets that were displayed unpredictably in the left or right stream.
Results
We found reduced VF asymmetries in higher autism-trait individuals, with the magnitude of the asymmetry correlating with AQ score.
Conclusions
We suggest that the reduced VF asymmetries in individuals with higher autism traits may be due to increased perceptual processing capacity (Remington et al., 2009), which reduces hemispheric competition and, thus, visual field asymmetries. The findings also highlight that even subtle differences in the degree of autistic traits in the general population may be associated with differences in visual attention.No Full Tex
Towards a comprehensive river barrier mapping solution to support environmental management
No full textThe environmental effects of large dams on river connectivity are well recognized and mapped globally. However, datasets describing the distribution and attributes of smaller barriers (such as weirs and culverts) are lacking or incomplete for many regions. This has hindered accurate impact assessments for water resource planning, biased understanding of restoration potential and limited research aiming to understand and mitigate river fragmentation effects. Developing an efficient method to accurately record river barriers, including small ones, has become a priority. We critically examine barrier mapping approaches, from field survey to automated detection, showcasing recent approaches to recording, counting and classifying river barriers. We demonstrate how incomplete barrier databases, particularly those lacking many small barriers, provide a flawed basis for water management and ecological restoration planning. We discuss the efficiency and accuracy of alternative barrier mapping approaches, highlight future priorities and emphasize harmonizing barrier assessment methods to generate reliable, freely available information for effective basin-level management.Full Tex