1,720,957 research outputs found
Experiences and support needs of adults living with substance use disorders during the COVID-19 lockdown in Mamelodi
No full textA research report submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Social Development (Social Work) , In the Faculty of Humanities, School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024In the global spectrum substance use has substantially increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and substance use was reported as a way to cope with anxiety concerning the COVID-19 lockdown. In South Africa, the prolonged effects of lockdowns on psychosocial support services resulted in decreased availability of services aimed at assisting persons living with substance use disorders and these changes in service provision seemed to precipitate relapse. Prior to the COVID- 19 pandemic, people living with substance use disorders in South Africa, had limited access to harm reduction services, the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown, created new challenges in providing treatment, care and support to people living with substance use disorder. The negative effects of COVID-19 on services aimed at assisting persons living with substance use disorders, needed to be investigated hence patient disengagement and attrition from treatment increased during this period. Evidence-based knowledge is needed to locally and internationally reporting on how substance use disorders were affected by COVID-19 lockdown, and to highlight more effective ways to prepare for future emergencies. This study intended to contribute to an emerging body of literature reporting on adults living with substance use disorders within the South African context during the COVID-19 lockdown particularly in Mamelodi Township. A qualitative research approach was adopted to explore and contextualise the experiences and support needs of adults living with substance use disorders during the COVID-19 lockdown in Mamelodi Township. This was achieved by conducting face to face semi-structured interviews with ten (10) participants (9 males and 1 female) residing in Mamelodi township, between the ages of (19-35) years living with substance use disorders, who were selected through the usage of purposive sampling technique. An interview guide with open-ended questions was utilized as an instrument to collect data from research participants. The thematic analysis method was utilized in the study to assist in reaching a holistic understanding of the phenomenon being studied. In carrying out this study ethical requirements such as informed consent, debriefing, beneficence, confidentiality, and proper record keeping were adhered to as well as the avoidance of harm. The study also employed the contextual research design to extensively explore the experiences and support needs of adults living with substance use disorders during the COVID-19 lockdown in Mamelodi township. The findings of the study confirmed that there was limited support for adults living with substance use disorder during COVID-19 lockdown in Mamelodi. Access to community-based support services was quite limited due to lockdown regulations and participants ii had to rely mainly on the support that they got form their families and other local organisation such as churches, NGOs etc for support during the difficult period of COVID-19 lockdown. Contingency measures need to be put in place to ensure the continuity of uninterrupted services community-based support services in times of a pandemic in future.MM202
The Experiences of Black Female Postgraduate Students With Mental Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic, 2019-2021, The Case of Witwatersrand University
No full textA research report Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Arts in Social Development, In the Faculty of Humanities , School of Human and Community Development , University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024The COVID-19 global pandemic has compelled institutions of higher education to transition to emergency remote learning, leading many postgraduate students, both nationally and internationally, to begin their studies online. Research has shown the need for universities to support the transition from undergraduate to postgraduate as this is a major transition into academia. Research has also revealed that the struggle with mental health has increased with this transition and additionally with the COVID-19 pandemic, however, there is a lack of research investigating the experiences of Black females in the academic space and their experiences with mental health. Thus, this study aims to understand the experiences of Black female postgraduate students with mental health during the spread of COVID-19, 2019-2021. The research approach used for this study was the qualitative approach as it was the most appropriate in seeking to understand the experiences of a unique group such as a Black female postgraduate. A case study design was employed, and the experiences shared were explored through the lens of the intersectionality theory and the research was grounded by the interpretivist paradigm. The sample was drawn from the population of students from Witwatersrand University and the sample consisted of eight (8) participants. The method of data collection was computer-mediated interviews which were interpreted using a five-phase thematic analysis. The participants' responses revealed that although all eight participants experienced challenges with their mental health sharing symptoms associated with anxiety, stress, depression, and loneliness, only two participants used the psychosocial services offered by the university. The reasons for not seeking help from the university psychosocial services included fear of the unknown, services feeling unreachable, stigma and fear of not being assisted immediately. The most shared reason for not seeking help however was participants not perceiving the need to seek help. Participants, therefore, opted for coping mechanisms such as sleeping, partying, and using substances and most participants turned to their spirituality. The study, therefore, made recommendations for campus psychosocial services to employ more mental health practitioners such that there is education about mental health and the services offered.MM202
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
INTERPLAY BETWEEN SUBSTANCE USE AND HEALTH: BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS AMONG FEMALE ADOLESCENTS IN BUTTERWORTH, SOUTH AFRICA
Get PDFUsing an exploratory and descriptive design, as well as interviews and focus group discussions with female adolescents, their parents, former users of substances, social workers, probation officers, community leaders, teachers and police (SAPS), the paper explores the interplay between substance use by female adolescents and their behaviour. Findings revealed that substances use among female adolescents motivated sexual behaviour, sexual engagement was driven by financial goals, there was an increased risk of contracting STIs, excessive consumption of alcohol was normalised, and increased propensity for conflict became evident. The paper recommends that the government and NGOs work together synergistically in order to address substance use among adolescent females
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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