1,721,145 research outputs found
“You get pushed to the limit… but it was worth it”: Experiences of working carers supporting older adults in advanced age at end of life
No full textFull Text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.Background: To better respond to the palliative and end-of-life (EOL) care needs of our growing ageing population, policies have advocated shifting palliative care from hospital settings to the community. This has strained informal or family or ‘lay’ carers who are the main providers of palliative and EOL care within the community. Many informal carers are also juggling their employment with caring. However, there is a lack of research that elucidates the experiences of those who are caring for someone in advanced age at EOL while also working.
Aim: This study aimed to gain insight into the experiences of working carers by exploring the interaction between caregiving and employment for those who are caring for a person in advanced age at EOL.
Methods: Guided by social constructionism, I conducted qualitative secondary research using data from the Te Pākeketanga: Living and Dying in Advanced Age study. After reading all 58 Te Pākeketanga interview transcripts, I selected 41 transcripts that discussed balancing work and care responsibilities. Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis and narrative analysis.
Findings: I identified three key themes in the data. First, participants discussed the process that helped them to transition to their dual role as carer and worker. Second, being a supporter who worked and cared meant constantly negotiating their dual role to meet the increasing EOL care needs of the older adult in advanced age. This was not easy; involving balancing work and care responsibilities, finding all available resources that allowed them to continue working and caring, and making difficult decisions. Third, participants reflected on their experiences of juggling work and care after the death of their older adult. They emphasised that negotiating work and care was demanding and future working carers require more support. Despite the challenges, participants knew that the care and dedication they provided to the older person made a difference to their EOL experience.
Conclusion: This is the first study in New Zealand to explore the experiences of working carers for those in advanced age at EOL. Findings from this study provide valuable insight into an under-researched group, but further research is needed to build on existing knowledge. Future policy and service delivery should explore opportunities to better support community-based palliative care that responds to the needs of older adults in advanced age and their supporters
Being a work family: A constructivist grounded theory exploring staff experiences of working in children's blood and cancer centres in Aotearoa
No full textBackground: Working in children’s blood and cancer centres has been recognised in the
literature as emotionally taxing and physically demanding. Despite this, there is little literature
that explores staff experiences of working in the area. Studies within the children’s blood and
cancer setting to date have largely explored the negative effects of working in this area and
focused on a sole discipline. A small number of studies have explored resilience as a way of
mitigating these effects in small groups of nursing staff.
Aim: To develop a theory to explain staff experiences of working in children’s blood and cancer
centres in Aotearoa, with a particular focus on maintaining resilience in their work.
Methods Constructivist grounded theory methods were used to explore staff experiences of
working in children’s blood and cancer centres in Aotearoa. Resilience was used as a sensitising
concept throughout the study. Focus groups and individual interviews were carried out with staff
working in the area. All professions and disciplines were included in the study, including
nursing, medical, allied health and support staff.
Findings: This study identified that all staff share similar experiences regardless of the role or
professional group they associate with. Being a work family is the constructed grounded theory
of the present research. Staff new to the environment of a children’s blood and cancer centre
venture through a process of finding attachment to their colleagues and wider work family.
Critical to this process is the ability to have a mentor, or ‘aunty’ or ‘uncle’ figure, to support the
new staff member to become part of the work family. In becoming a work family, staff work
closely as a team, develop shared values, and share the success and burden experienced within
the unit on a daily basis. These factors all support the family to work towards the common goal
of quality care for children and their whānau. The final category - having an identity describes
how staff see themselves within the family, and how the family identifies as a collective.
Conclusion: While children’s blood and cancer centres remain a challenging environment to
work in, this study has demonstrated the value in being a work family. Considering a social
approach to resilience also has value. A social approach recognises the collective experiences
of the group and acknowledges that all staff have similar experiences and can be supported in a
family, sharing both the success and burdens of the work
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
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