1,720,977 research outputs found
The Relationship Review: A New Approach to Relationship Therapy
No full textIntroduction: Intimate relationships play an important role in people’s lives but they can also be a source of conflict. There is a lack of relationship tools available for couples that promote open communication, self-reflection, and the maintenance of healthy relationships. The Relationship Review is an interactive, discussion-based tool that helps couples to reflect on their strengths, challenges, and areas for growth.
Objective: The study aimed to investigate how participants envision using the tool and what benefits and barriers they anticipated. Furthermore, as this is a new intervention, the research sought to identify any opportunities for the tool to be adapted and enhanced.
Method: A qualitative research approach was employed using thematic analysis to analyse the data. One pilot group and three focus groups were held, with a total of fourteen female participants and one male participant, with a mean age of 33, to understand their ideas, attitudes, and opinions as they relate to the tool.
Results: Five primary themes were developed from the data: Being willing to engage, Creating emotional safety, Helpful prompts leading to meaningful conversations, Developing a shared understanding, and Practical considerations. Additionally, new features and resources were suggested to improve the usability of the tool.
Conclusion: The findings suggest The Relationship Review has the potential to help couples maintain healthy relationships by facilitating open and courageous conversations and by helping couples reflect on their strengths
Exploring the Maintenance of Social Connection for Adults Living with Complex Medical Conditions in New Zealand: A Qualitative Study
No full textBackground: Complex medical conditions (CMCs) are persistent and ongoing health conditions that substantially impact an individual’s life and require treatments and services from a variety of healthcare specialists. One area likely to be impacted for this health population is the social dimension of their lives. An understanding of how social connection is maintained by individuals living with CMCs may be used to guide support initiatives. This study sought to answer the research question, “How is social connection maintained by individuals living with Serious and complex medical conditions?”
Participants / Method: In 2018 face-to-face interviews were conducted with 30 participants who lived with CMCs. Reflexive thematic analysis was used in the current study to analyse the data from 12 of these interviews. Participants ranged in age from 24 to 60 years of age and had lived with their conditions for an average of 15 years.
Findings: Six themes were derived from data analysis that gave insight as to how adults living with complex medical conditions maintained social connection: Social connection is maintained despite health challenges; Social interaction is constrained; Social connection is enhanced by prioritising needs; Technology and connection to the outside; CMCs are linked to experiences of social isolation and loneliness; and, connecting through shared experience positively influences social connection.
Conclusion: For those living with CMCs regular connection was made with close friends and family despite health challenges. Individuals made efforts to maintain social connection because it was considered important. Physical and emotional condition related factors constrained social interaction. Social connectedness was facilitated by prioritising needs and planning and preparing for social events. Technology significantly enhanced social connection. Individuals living with CMCs experienced social isolation and loneliness but had a variety of strategies to manage these experiences. Owning a dog positively impacted experiences of isolation and loneliness. Connecting through shared experience encouraged reciprocal engagement including informational and emotional support
Feasibility and Effectiveness of Consciousness, Relaxation, Attention, Fulfillment, and Transcendence (CRAFT) in Enhancing Tertiary Student Musicians’ Well-Being and Academic Experience
No full textTertiary student musicians experience complex well-being concerns and challenges (music performance anxiety, psychological distress, musculoskeletal disorders) as they navigate through higher education and attempt to meet their highly physical, emotional, and cognitive music-making demands. Yoga, mindfulness, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence offer various practices and principles that may help tertiary student musicians prevent and self-regulate these stressors while satisfying elite performance levels. Grounded in these four disciplines and/or fields of knowledge, Consciousness, Relaxation, Attention, Fulfillment, and Transcendence (CRAFT) is a newly developed program for self-actualization, happiness, and well-being, that could comprehensively address this population’s demands. Building on previous limitations and gaps of prior yoga and mindfulness-based research conducted in music contexts, the purpose of the current PhD investigation was to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of CRAFT to enhance tertiary student musicians’ well-being and academic experience.
This investigation involved two phases including studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic (Phase 1; Studies 1-3) and studies undertaken before and after the pandemic (Phase 2; Studies 4-6). In both phases, participants were tertiary student musicians at two higher conservatories in Spain who followed either CRAFT, Alexander Technique, or music curricular instruction, once a week for 60-90 min during 2017-2023. In a quasi-experimental controlled trial (Study 1) and qualitative investigation (Study 2), the applicability and perceived benefits of CRAFT to improve tertiary student musicians’ well-being during the lockdown were explored. Subsequently, the potential occurrence of a CRAFT-induced response shift phenomenon and the extent to which it could bias participants’ self-reported changes in mindfulness was examined through the then-test (Study 3). Through a single-arm pre-post trial (Study 4) and mixed-methods investigation (Study 5), a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility of CRAFT in terms of its applicability, perceived benefits, and preliminary effectiveness to improve tertiary student musicians’ well-being and academic experience was conducted. Lastly, a three-arm non-randomized controlled trial comparing CRAFT participants with active and inactive controls (Study 6), was implemented to examine the effectiveness of CRAFT in improving tertiary student musicians’ dispositional mindfulness, music performance anxiety, emotional regulation, psychological distress, well-being, as well as lower body flexibility and balance.
Phase 1 results indicated that CRAFT was perceived by participants as an applicable, beneficial, and transformative program, while Phase 2 findings substantiated those from Phase 1 and supported CRAFT as a feasible and effective program to holistically improve tertiary student musicians’ well-being and academic experience. This was evidenced by CRAFT participants’ higher levels of proactivity and perceived benefits than controls in terms of implementing practices to improve their well-being during the lockdown (Studies 1 & 2); positive evaluations of the program's practicality, implementation, integration, and viability (Studies 4 & 5); significant improvements in dispositional mindfulness, music performance anxiety, emotional regulation, psychological distress, well-being, as well as lower body flexibility and balance (Studies 4 & 6); larger enhancements in mindfulness after adjusting for response shift (Study 3); and multidimensional well-being-, humanistic-, and music- related benefits mirroring CRAFT’s theoretical framework that confirmed, clarified, and expanded the aforementioned results (Studies 2 & 5). Notwithstanding some limitations, this PhD investigation afforded relevant contributions to the field of yoga- and mindfulness-based research conducted with the target population by bolstering CRAFT as a feasible and effective intervention to comprehensively enhance tertiary student musicians’ well-being and academic experience. Large multi-arm mixed methods investigations with a higher frequency of delivery are recommended to substantiate these findings and extend them to other settings and populations
An Evaluation of a Mindfulness Meditation-Based Program for Tāmaki Health Patients
No full textBackground: One in five New Zealanders are affected by mental health issues every year and suicide rates in New Zealand are consistently high. Mindfulness-meditation-based programs (MMBPs) have research evidence for use with a variety of mental and physical health disorders in a range of settings such as outpatient care, primary healthcare, and private care. However, much of this research is not contextualized to New Zealand healthcare. The Aotearoa Mindfulness and Awareness (AMA) Wellness course is an MMBP based on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and was developed by an MBSR trained clinician. Tāmaki Health, New Zealand’s largest primary healthcare group offers approximately 63 AMA courses per year. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of Tāmaki Health’s AMA Wellness course on wellbeing for participants aged sixteen and older.
Participants/Method: For this mixed-methods research, quantitative data were collected via questionnaires at baseline from 70 participants and post-intervention from 31 who completed the course. Due to the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown starting in August 2021, AMA courses continued online, therefore, data from participant samples were analysed according to whether they received in-person course delivery or online delivery. Qualitative data were collected from telephone interviews with ten participants and the data analysed using thematic analysis.
Results: Spearman’s rho correlation analyses found that, in both samples, higher mindfulness levels were correlated with lower levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Additionally, higher depressive symptom levels were correlated with higher somatization and anxiety symptom levels in both samples. Descriptive statistical analysis and Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests found that after completing the AMA in-person courses, scores of mindfulness increased, and levels of somatization, anxiety and depressive symptoms decreased. The same analysis revealed that for the online courses, levels of mindfulness increased and levels of anxiety symptoms decreased from pre- to post-intervention. Attrition rates were over 50%. However, an independent samples T-test and chi-square analyses indicated no statistically significant differences in demographics and course completion. Interviews revealed two major themes: Slowing down and Letting things go.
Conclusions: The quantitative data suggest that after attending the AMA course, most participants demonstrate an increase in mindfulness levels and a decrease in anxiety when delivered in-person or online. When the AMA course is completed in-person, scores of somatization and depressive symptoms also decrease. Most participants who were interviewed commented that the AMA course impacted them positively and provided tools to cope with everyday challenges. Strengths and limitations, clinical implications, and directions for future research are discussed
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
The development of predictive and process models of return to work following an episode of low back pain
No full textFull text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.Many people experience Iow back pain at some point in their lives. Most recover within a short period but a small proportion go on to chronic disability. The prevalence of, and costs associated with work absenteeism relating to, Iow back pain have made the early identification of people at risk for work disability an important research goal. Much ofthe research to date has been conducted with chronic Iow back pain patients. The findings from the comparatively small body of work involving acute Iow back pain patients have been inconsistent, in part due to the atheoretical selection of variables. There is, however, acceptance that any predictive model of return to work needs to adopt a biopsychosocial approach and that a supportive work environment is an important ingredient in a return to work outcome. To investigate factors impacting on return to work, two qualitative studies were undertaken with work supervisors (Λ∕ = 41) and employees with a current or recent episode of Iow back pain (Λ∕ = 16). Supervisors perceived their role played little part in the employee's return to work as this was effected primarily through a reduction in pain levels and "having the right attitude". In comparison, a four-phase Process Model of Return to Work developed from the employee interviews suggests a complex interaction of factors involved in a resumption of work duties which primarily revolve around monitoring pain and activity levels and comparing achievable activities to available work duties. A third study involving the completion of a postal questionnaire by 217 workers' compensation claimants investigated a range of variables including individual characteristics and treatment provider and workplace factors that the employee qualitative data suggested were potential predictors of a return to work after 28 days. It was found that variables directly and indirectly related to pain and perceived physical functioning contributed most to a Predictive Model of Return to Work. The two return to work models were integrated into a comprehensive Process Model of Return to Work which attempts to explain the interaction between the recovery process, individual employee characteristics, and environmental factors. This model supports the notion of a biopsychosocial perspective in return to work outcomes
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
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