1,720,960 research outputs found
Communication between clinicians and patients with low back pain
No full textBackground and purpose of study: Communication between clinicians and patients forms an integral part of any treatment session. To promote positive treatment outcomes, this communication must be effective. To date, research into back pain management has tended to focus on the nature of interventions, neglecting the vital communication that co-exists.This study aimed to measure verbal communication between clinicians and patients and identify trends in non-verbal communication. With a clearer understanding of how clinicians and patients interact, it is anticipated that this knowledge can be used to maximise health gain in subsequent treatments.Methods: Following an assessment, the first follow-up treatment session was video recorded for 21 patients (aged 17-65 years), attending a hospital outpatient physiotherapy clinic. Patients with serious spinal pathology or those, whose first language was not English, were excluded.Verbal communication during the interaction was measured using the validated Medical Communication Behaviour System (MCBS). Trends in non-verbal behaviour were analysed at 40-second intervals, using Heintzman's classification (smiling, forward leaning, affirmative head nodding, touching and eye gaze). A brief semi-structured interview was undertaken with clinicians to determine the perceived effect of the presence of the video camera.Results: In 21 treatment sessions, 2055 statements were observed, with clinicians spending approximately twice as long talking as patients. Using the MCBS categories, the majority of clinician and patient interaction related to 'content' behaviours (52% and 26% respectively). For the clinician, this includes history-taking, advice etc. The highest frequency of clinicians' non-verbal behaviour was touch (n=352) and for patients, was eye gaze (n=36).In a secondary analysis, age, gender and experience of the clinician were all shown to influence the communication that occurred.Conclusion: Validated outcome measures can be used to analyse the complex communication that occurs between clinicians and patients with back pain. Video recording clinical sessions can provide valuable feedback for clinicians and students on their communication skills
Delivering remote consultations: Talking the talk
No full textIntroduction: There is an increasing affinity for remote health consultations (including telephone and virtual platforms), enabling new models of accessing services to evolve. Whilst many key skills are transferable from traditional to remote consultations, there is even greater emphasis on verbal communication skills during these interactions. Purpose: This masterclass considers the communication skills required for delivering remote health care consultations, in particular focussing on: 12 interactional features in an opening sequence of a remote call; active listening; how to offer advice using the Ask-Offer-Ask framework; and subtleties in phrasing and prosody when closing a call that may indicate a level of satisfaction (or otherwise). Implications: In planning for digitally-enabled services to become mainstream, the differences in communication between remote and face-to-face consultations must be recognised and embraced.</p
Returning to work: issues for nurses and managers following an episode of low back pain
No full textPurpose: This study explores the issues around return to work after a period of absence through low back pain from the perspectives of both managers and nurses.Background: Back pain is a major cause of sickness absence among nurses and is responsible for up to 3.5% of staff leaving the profession. Interventions to facilitate return to work therefore may prevent the loss of valuable members of staff to the workforce. Psychosocial factors are thought to influence this process, although there is limited research on the perceptions about work (blue flags) and objective work characteristics (black flags) relating specifically to the nursing profession.Methods: A qualitative methodology was employed, using semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Six managers and six nurses from one NHS Trust were interviewed about their experiences of the return to work process. Using a grounded theory approach, data were conceptualised and categorised using an open coding technique. Themes were cross-checked with participants and an independent researcher analysed each interview to ensure reliability of emergent themes.Results: Whilst absent from work, nurses expressed frustration about lack of workplace support, uncertainty about their physical limitations and potential consequences to their future employment. Perceptions about workplace pressures, finance, and boredom at home influenced their decisions to return to work. Managers primarily reported difficulties in balancing the needs of the nurse, other staff and service pressures. Considerable variations in practice and perceived levels of support were reported.Conclusion: Nurses and managers worked towards return to work although their immediate priorities differed. Nurses focussed on blue flag issues whilst managers focussed on factors which could be described as black flags. Both managers and nurses agreed that occupational guidelines would aid the return process
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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe 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
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