1,720,967 research outputs found
Unpacking the black box of respite: A realist evaluation of a non-clinical crisis intervention
Get PDFThe prevalence of psychological distress and suicidality are issues of international concern. This concern includes discussion in both academic literature and the public sphere about the failure of existing services to adequately meet the needs of people experiencing acute distress and suicidal thoughts. Reflecting the medicalisation of distress and suicidality, discussion of these issues is heavily focussed on the need for an expansion and improvement of clinical services. Meanwhile, the role of non-clinical, community-based organisations in providing comprehensive support to people experiencing acute distress remains widely overlooked. Such services are scarce, and research into these services is even more so.
This thesis undertakes a realist evaluation of the Taranaki Retreat – a charitable organisation, staffed by non-clinical volunteers, which provides free respite for people who are experiencing distress and suicidal thoughts. Broadly, this thesis asks: How does respite function to support people experiencing a state of crisis? As a realist evaluation, it specifically asks: What are the key outcomes for service users of the Taranaki Retreat? What are the underlying mechanisms that generate these outcomes? And finally, What are the key contextual factors in which these mechanisms operate? By answering these research questions and developing theory at a middle-range of abstraction, this thesis aims to provide an explanation of how respite, as a non-clinical form of crisis intervention, functions to support people who are suicidal and/or acutely distressed. The purpose of developing such an explanation is to support the improvement of crisis intervention services.
Realist evaluation, which serves as the methodological framework of this thesis, is a form of theory-driven evaluation. Developing, testing, and refining a programme theory in this study involved a retroductive process over two phases of data collection and analysis. In phase one, an initial programme theory was abductively inferred following a review of related literature, interviews with the programme designers, and analysis of key policy and procedure documents. In phase two, that initial theory was deductively tested and inductively refined using data gathered from four qualitative methods: participant observation, a focus group with staff and volunteers, interviews with former guests, and a review of the case notes of those same guests. These different methods of data collection provided the diverse evidence needed for this approach and enabled triangulation of data.
The refined programme theory that emerged from the two phases of data collection and analysis identifies key outcomes of this intervention, and furthermore identifies five key mechanisms that, operating in different contexts, explain how these outcomes are generated. Three of the mechanisms relate to the fulfilment of previously unmet needs and can be collectively abstracted as ‘warmth’. The other two mechanisms relate to the removal of service users from agitating or unhelpful circumstances and can be abstracted as ‘quiet’. All five mechanisms primarily attend to secondary stressors, which are stressors arising from or exacerbated by the state of crisis itself. By removing the secondary stressors and, to a lesser extent, reducing the impact of initial stressors, these mechanisms generate five key outcomes for service users: reduced emotional distress, restored clarity of thought, reduced suicidality, restored sleep, and restored functioning. Collectively, these five outcomes constitute the resolution of a state of crisis (which can also be understood as the restoration of a state of affective and cognitive equilibrium). While the findings of this thesis indicate the ability of respite to facilitate a restored state of equilibrium, they also indicate that respite does not directly help service users develop additional coping skills or new interpretations of stressor events.
By developing a generative explanation of how respite functions to support people experiencing a state of crisis, this thesis contributes to the crisis intervention literature and also carries practical implications. First, the theory developed in this thesis demonstrates a ‘non-interventionist’ approach to crisis resolution, thereby challenging an implicit assumption in the literature that crisis resolution must be facilitated by an active interventionist (typically a health professional). Second, the prominence of the theme ‘genuine care’ within the refined theory highlights the importance of considering how people in crisis interpret the motivations of those around them. Third, this thesis illustrates that the ‘warmth’ mechanisms are enhanced by both the structure of charitable organisations as well as the use of non-professional volunteers. This serves as an argument against a trend in the literature towards promoting the formalisation of crisis resolution services along with the professionalisation of staff. Charitable organisations and non-professional volunteers should be viewed as not merely useful additions, but as bringing unique advantages that distinctly contribute to positive outcomes. Finally, the findings of this thesis suggest that the potential of respite to strengthen the spectrum of crisis responses should receive greater attention from policymakers. These findings furthermore point to the advantages of establishing crisis resolution services independently of mental health services
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
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
Understanding Men’s Mental Health: Gender Relations and Mental Well-Being
Get PDFMen’s mental health has remained understudied and undertheorised. Much of the early research on men’s mental health comes from large scale quantitative studies focusing on gender differences in mental illness. It is only in recent years that the influence of gender as a social construct has become the focus for researchers interested in men’s mental health, particularly depression.
This study uses a life history method underpinned by gender relations theory to explore how men’s everyday social practices can help or hinder mental well-being. Life history interviews were undertaken with fifteen New Zealand men aged between twenty and forty years based in the Wellington area. The interviews explored participant’s emotional lives, work lives, family and social relationships, and how they engaged with their mental health on a day-to-day basis. Gender relations theory was used to examine the complex interplay between masculinity and mental health within each man’s life story. Individual theorised life histories were written up for each participant. Four of these are presented in this thesis. A collective analysis was then undertaken using all fifteen life histories and similarities and differences in patterns of social practice were examined across all participants.
The findings illustrate the diversity in men’s social, emotional, work, help-seeking and mental health promoting practices and highlight not only the ways in which these can hinder or help men’s mental well-being, but how men are active agents in constructing masculinity through these social practices. Whether a man pursues a hegemonic pattern of masculinity, remains ambivalent or embodies a resistant masculinity, his social practices have varying costs and benefits to his overall mental health. Finally, this study argues for the need to address cultural ideals of masculinity in order to support and promote men’s mental health
Understanding Men’s Mental Health: Gender Relations and Mental Well-Being
No full textMen’s mental health has remained understudied and undertheorised. Much of the early research on men’s mental health comes from large scale quantitative studies focusing on gender differences in mental illness. It is only in recent years that the influence of gender as a social construct has become the focus for researchers interested in men’s mental health, particularly depression.
This study uses a life history method underpinned by gender relations theory to explore how men’s everyday social practices can help or hinder mental well-being. Life history interviews were undertaken with fifteen New Zealand men aged between twenty and forty years based in the Wellington area. The interviews explored participant’s emotional lives, work lives, family and social relationships, and how they engaged with their mental health on a day-to-day basis. Gender relations theory was used to examine the complex interplay between masculinity and mental health within each man’s life story. Individual theorised life histories were written up for each participant. Four of these are presented in this thesis. A collective analysis was then undertaken using all fifteen life histories and similarities and differences in patterns of social practice were examined across all participants.
The findings illustrate the diversity in men’s social, emotional, work, help-seeking and mental health promoting practices and highlight not only the ways in which these can hinder or help men’s mental well-being, but how men are active agents in constructing masculinity through these social practices. Whether a man pursues a hegemonic pattern of masculinity, remains ambivalent or embodies a resistant masculinity, his social practices have varying costs and benefits to his overall mental health. Finally, this study argues for the need to address cultural ideals of masculinity in order to support and promote men’s mental health
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