Job Constraints Research Articles

Evaluation of factors affecting pharmacists and pharmacy technicians' satisfaction towards practicing CE activities in Saudi Arabia

BackgroundContinuing education (CE) is an essential requirement for pharmacy professionals to stay abreast with the evolving knowledge and skills of the practice and meet the regulatory mandate. The purpose of this research is to assess factors affecting the satisfaction of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians towards CE practices in Saudi Arabia. Material and methodsA self-administered survey instrument was developed following an extensive literature search. The questionnaire consisted of three sections: participants’ demographics, data on CE activities over the past year and overall satisfaction, and statements of barriers (14 items) and facilitators (12 items) for participation in CE activities (scored on a 5-point Likert scale (5 = always, 1 = never)). The survey was piloted and then distributed as a link through the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties and Saudi Pharmaceutical Society (SPS) between Jan 2018 and Feb 2019. ResultsData was available on 398 pharmacists and 40 pharmacy technicians (completion rate was 55 %). The majority were practitioners, male, working in a hospital setting and had more than five years of practice experience. Half of the participants were from the Central Region and about one-third were non-Saudi. Only a quarter of the participants were satisfied/very satisfied with the current CE practices in Saudi Arabia. Job constraints (62.7 %), cost (55.9 %), schedule of CE activities (55.4 %), lack of information on CE opportunities (53 %) and professional burnout (49.7 %) were the top barriers. There was a significant level of dissatisfaction among pharmacy technicians when compared to pharmacists (p = 0.003), as well as among Saudi pharmacists when compared to non-Saudi pharmacists (p = 0.002). Lack of relevant CE activities (p = 0.05), lack of quality activities (p = 0.002), lack of recognition (p = 0.013) and lack of internet access (p = 0.006) were significantly more barriers for pharmacy technicians compared to pharmacists. The most identified facilitators to engage in CE activities were a personal desire to learn (78.4 %), the requirement to maintain a professional license (73.8 %) and relaxation provided by learning (58.5 %) and networking opportunities (53.4 %). The majority of the participants preferred conferences or interactive workshops, short CE over half a day or less, and the topic of disease management/drug therapy. ConclusionThe findings of the study highlight the need for a partnership strategy that includes various stakeholders to improve CE program quality and accessibility that supports and promotes the professional development of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in Saudi Arabia. It also underscores the importance of meeting the preferences of pharmacy practitioners when designing CE programs and aligning such activities with their practices.

Negotiating Safety: Facilitation of Return to Work for Individuals Employed in High-Risk Occupations.

Return-to-work (RTW) after absence due to a mental illness is a largely understudied area, especially in industries already struggling with retention like those posing unique and high risks for public or personal safety (i.e., pilots, police officers, and health professionals), otherwise known as safety-sensitive sectors. The goal of this paper is to examine how RTW coordinators work with individuals who took a leave of absence for mental illness in safety-sensitive occupations and navigate the RTW process. Qualitative methodology was utilized to explore the experiences of 47 RTW coordinators who had worked with individuals employed in safety-sensitive industries. The participants were recruited across Canada using convenience sampling to participate in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed, anonymized, uploaded to NVIVO 11, and coded using inductive thematic analysis. Our analysis shows that despite the presumed rigidity of occupational health and safety standards for safety-sensitive positions, the notion of "safety" becomes ambiguous in navigating RTW processes, and concerns about safety are often interpreted as the potential risk workers may pose to themselves, other individuals, or the workplace image. Institutional constraints of safety-sensitive jobs shape the ability of RTW coordinators to advocate on behalf of the workers, ultimately placing the workers at a disadvantage by prioritizing safety concerns for organizations over employees' needs. It is important to consider how to protect workers in safety-sensitive occupations during the RTW process after absence due to a mental illness to ensure effective integration to the workplace.

Community Pharmacists' Attitudes, Preferences and Barriers toward Continuing Pharmaceutical Education: A Cross Sectional Study in Jordan

Community pharmacists’ responsibilities are expanding to foster optimal patient-centered care, which dictates postgraduate continuous education to enhance their competency and ability to face job challenges. We employed a cross-sectional online questionnaire-based study to evaluate community pharmacists’ attitudes towards continuous education, their preferred modes of program delivery, factors they consider before joining a program, their preferred topics to learn about, and potential perceived barriers against continuous education.
 A total of 358 community pharmacists completed the questionnaire. The majority of them (86.9 %) were interested in continuous education. However, most pharmacists (70.1%) had never attended any continuous education activity before. The most preferred type of delivery was self-learning through the internet (44.2%). Program cost and location were the major factors considered before accepting any activity (96.9%, and 96.6%, respectively). Among diseases, infectious disease was the most interesting topic for community pharmacists (92.7%). Regarding pharmaceutical topics, they were mostly interested in learning pharmacology and pharmacotherapy (94.1%), whereas pregnant and nursing mothers was the most desired patient group to learn about (92.2%). Job constraints and lack of time were the most reported barriers (89.4% and 89.1%, respectively).
 Community pharmacists’ have positive attitudes towards continuous education. However, many obstacles restrain them from effective participation in it. We provided sufficient data for policy makers to consider in future planning for continuous education activities that meet the needs of today’s pharmacists to advance their practice.

Perception of the importance of continuing professional development among pharmacists in a middle east country: A cross-sectional study.

The role of pharmacists has recently expanded, necessitating enhanced competencies. This requires pharmacists' participation in continuing education initiatives. This study aims to explore attitudes, motivations, opportunities, and challenges of pharmacists in a country in the middle east, towards continuous professional development. A cross-sectional observational close-ended questions study was conducted in Jordan between September and October 2021, and enrolled 309 pharmacists, the tool was developed by the research team and experts in the field to evaluate the continuous professional development perception among pharmacists. The research was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee in an area hospital and a University. The majority of participants had confidence that continuous professional development prepares pharmacists for practical development, believed that it enhances the status of the profession with other health care professionals as well as with the public, and felt confident that it meets their needs (> 98%). Most of the participants agreed that job restrictions (91%) and lack of time (83%) were the major barriers to participation in continuous professional development. The motivation was positively correlated with attitudes (R = 0.551, P < .001). However, barriers were not significantly correlated with either attitudes or motivations. Our findings emphasize the positive attitude of pharmacists towards continuous professional development. Identified barriers to continuous professional development participation included job constraints and lack of time. The study highlights the need for policies and procedures that address these issues before the implementation of mandatory continuous professional development programs for pharmacists.

Factors Contributing to Delay in Research Work at M.Phil. Level

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors contributing to the delay in the research work of MPhil students in the public sector universities of Punjab. The focus of this study was to identify the key factors that have affected MPhil Degree delay. The population of the study was all the supervisors and supervisees of the public sector universities of Punjab. The sample of the study was ten supervisees and five supervisors conveniently selected. A semi-structured interview was used as an instrument. Thematic analysis technique was used. Responses of the respondents revealed that time management, job constraints, marital status, understanding of the research, lack of motivation, access to supervisor, domestic and social responsibilities of the researcher, workload of supervisors and inexperienced supervisor were the most significant factors. The findings of this study suggested that supervisors and supervisees needed to be actively engaged in research activities during the course work and thesis work.

Exploring Nigerian pharmacists’ attitudes and perceptions to continuing education and professional development

Background: Many professions undergo continuous training to keep abreast of happenings and current trends. Pharmacy is one of such profession; it achieves this by participating in Mandatory continuing professional development (MCPD). MCPDs come in various forms, including seminars, conference attendance, and reading research journals. Aim: This study sets out to assess and explore pharmacists’ attitudes towards continuing education in Nigeria and investigate the perceived barriers that hinder pharmacists from being involved in continuing education (CE) activities. Methods: A validated questionnaire composed of 19 items was shared online among pharmacists practicing in different settings in Nigeria. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the variables. Results: A total of 586 pharmacists participated in the study. A high percentage (77.8%) of those who completed the questionnaire strongly agreed that life-long learning is a professional responsibility of all pharmacists to increase their knowledge. A fair number of the participants (52.90%) adopted a positive attitude toward CE, while almost a similar percentage (47.10%) of participants displayed poor attitudes. The main barriers identified were the lack of time (49.10%), the cost of (MCPD) programmes (65.90%), and job constraints (64.80%). Conclusion: This study showed that the attitude of Nigerian Pharmacists toward CE is polarised between positive and negative, with several factors impeding their involvement in CE.

Employees’ Satisfaction and Attitude towards Work-Life Balance: A Study on Married Female Employees in Insurance Sector Gurugram District

Due to the accelerated speed of urbanization and industrialization, Indian households&nbsp;are witnessing fast changes. Women from all social classes in India have taken up paid jobs. Indian women's access to educational possibilities is far more now than it was decades ago, particularly&nbsp;in urban areas. This has opened up new perspectives, raised awareness, and increased personal growth objectives. This, combined with financial pressure, has played a significant role in impacting women's decision to work. Economic necessity has been cited as the key reason for working in most investigations of female employees&nbsp;in India. Work and home life are inextricably linked and intertwined. This paper identifies that for female employees in the insurance sector spending more time in the office, dealing with clients, and job constraints can have a negative impact on their personal life, making it difficult to even accomplish household duties. Personal life, on the other hand, might be difficult if the female employees have a child or ageing parents, financial troubles, or troubles in the life of a close relative. It can cause work absenteeism, tension, and a lack of focus at work. When the burdens, commitments, and expectations of work and family roles become irreconcilable, work-personal life conflict arises.

Content Knowledge, Teaching Abilities, Job Constraints and Coping Strategies of Science Teachers

Content Knowledge, Teaching Abilities, Job Constraints and Coping Strategies of Science Teachers

How the different explanation classes impact trust calibration: The case of clinical decision support systems

Machine learning has made rapid advances in safety-critical applications, such as traffic control, finance, and healthcare. With the criticality of decisions they support and the potential consequences of following their recommendations, it also became critical to provide users with explanations to interpret machine learning models in general, and black-box models in particular. However, despite the agreement on explainability as a necessity, there is little evidence on how recent advances in eXplainable Artificial Intelligence literature (XAI) can be applied in collaborative decision-making tasks, i.e., human decision-maker and an AI system working together, to contribute to the process of trust calibration effectively. This research conducts an empirical study to evaluate four XAI classes for their impact on trust calibration. We take clinical decision support systems as a case study and adopt a within-subject design followed by semi-structured interviews. We gave participants clinical scenarios and XAI interfaces as a basis for decision-making and rating tasks. Our study involved 41 medical practitioners who use clinical decision support systems frequently. We found that users perceive the contribution of explanations to trust calibration differently according to the XAI class and to whether XAI interface design fits their job constraints and scope. We revealed additional requirements on how explanations shall be instantiated and designed to help a better trust calibration. Finally, we build on our findings and present guidelines for designing XAI interfaces.

Disability and Job Constraint in Post Civil War Cambodia

Using an augmented random utility model, we incorporate capability-associated constraints on the set of job choices to identify and estimate the reduced number of jobs due to disabilities – to show that capability disadvantages can be converted to a form of income through the compensation variation denoted as capability-equivalent income. We deliberately chose Cambodia for the empirical analysis, because the civil war and genocide that occurred in the 1970s in the country can be considered a ‘natural shock’. Based on the utility function and the estimated parameters, we simulate the amount of capability-equivalent income of individuals after being compensated for their capability disadvantage by taxing the top earners. We show that after the transfer, the inequality in terms of both income and welfare decreases, and the overall welfare increases.

More than a simple pastime? The potential of physical activity to moderate the relationship between occupational stress and burnout symptoms.

Researchers have emphasized the role of physical activity in accelerating recovery from stress. Therefore, the primary goal of the present study was to examine whether regular physical activity moderates the relationship between occupational stress and burnout symptoms in Swiss workers. 309 employees took part in the cross-sectional study. Occupational stress was operationalized with the job demands–control model and the effort–reward imbalance model. Physical activity was assessed via the International Physical Activity Questionnaire; burnout symptoms were measured with the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure. Higher occupational stress was positively associated with burnout symptoms, whereas higher physical activity levels were negatively associated with occupational stress and burnout symptoms. Participants with higher physical activity levels reported fewer burnout symptoms when they perceived high stress levels, independent of whether occupational stress was assessed via the job demands–control or effort–reward imbalance model. Although job constraints are seldom modifiable, we claim that regular leisure-time physical activity is more than a simple pastime and can make an important contribution to a thriving workforce that feels better able to cope with occupational stress.

An effective algorithm for flexible assembly job‐shop scheduling with tight job constraints

AbstractThus far, the available works on the flexible assembly job‐shop scheduling problem (FAJSP) consider job processing and assembly separately. However, in some real production systems, if equipment is composed of thousands of jobs and assembled in many stages, some jobs and assemblies cannot be processed simultaneously. Therefore, this work proposes an FAJSP with tight job constraints (FAJSP‐JC) in which jobs and assemblies can be processed simultaneously, and each assembly is treated as an operation. A job constraint genetic algorithm (JCGA) is presented to solve the proposed FAJSP‐JC with the goal of minimizing the makespan. In the JCGA, a novel two‐dimensional encoding method (2D‐encoding) is designed to conveniently express the operating constraints and tight job constraints, and an effective decoding method is proposed to decode the 2D‐encoded information. Furthermore, a crossover operator and a mutation operator are designed to improve the computational efficiency and expand the solution space. Ten benchmark instances of the FAJSP‐JC are constructed to test the JCGA. The Taguchi method is used to obtain the best combination of the key parameters that are used in the JCGA. Computational experiments carried out confirm that the JCGA is able to easily obtain better solutions compared to the genetic algorithm (GA) with a division encoding method and the classical GA, demonstrating its superior performance over these algorithms in terms of both solution quality and computational efficiency.

Evolution-Based Real-Time Job Scheduling for Co-Optimizing Processor and Memory Power Savings

With the recent advances in battery-based mobile computing technologies, power-saving techniques in real-time embedded devices are becoming increasingly important. This paper presents a novel job scheduling policy for real-time systems, which aims at minimizing the power consumption of processor and memory without missing the deadline constraints of real-time jobs. To do so, we formulate the power saving techniques of processor voltage/frequency scaling and memory job placement as a unified measure, and show that it is a complex search problem that has the exponential time complexity. Thus, an efficient heuristic based on evolutionary computation is performed to cut down the huge searching space and find a reasonable schedule within the feasible time budget. To evaluate the proposed scheduling policy, we conduct experiments under various workload conditions. Our experimental results show that the proposed policy significantly reduces the energy consumption of real-time systems. Specifically, the average reduction in the energy consumption is 41.7% without deadline misses.

The knowledge, attitude and confidence on first aid response among childcare providers following FAT4CP© training in negeri sembilan, Malaysia

Children daycare centres have nowadays become a necessity due to the guardians’ job constraint in this modern globalization era. Increasing demand of daycare centres showed ramification on unintentional injuries at the childcare settings. The incidence is becoming more common and this may lead to a lawsuit for negligence. Failure to provide proper first aid response is one of the issues faced by the caregivers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the effects of first aid training and certification on knowledge, attitude and confidence (KAC) among childcare providers in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. A self-administered questionnaire was given to 54 Negeri Sembilan childcare providers before and after they received a comprehensive module on the first aid training. The training comprised of three major components; basic life support, trauma injuries and non-trauma injuries. Throughout the training, participants were given a series of lectures, hands-on practicals and small group discussion on specified topics from the module. Overall results showed a significant increase in knowledge, attitude and confidence (p&lt;0.001) after the respondents’ had received the FAT4CP© training. The first aid training provided to the childcare providers was found effective and had successfully improved their knowledge by 12.5% and their confidence to perform first aid increased by 20.0%. They are now more prepared and efficient at handling any emergency situations at childcare centres. Our results suggested that FAT4CP© training programme was able to increase knowledge, attitude and confidence of childcare providers in Negeri Sembilan to handle emergency cases. Therefore, the programme is suggested to be implemented at all childcare centres in order to improve and sustain the providers’ abilities in handling emergency situations.

Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for a Parallel Batching Distributed Flow-Shop Problem With Deteriorating Jobs.

In this article, we propose a hybrid artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to solve a parallel batching distributed flow-shop problem (DFSP) with deteriorating jobs. In the considered problem, there are two stages as follows: 1) in the first stage, a DFSP is studied and 2) after the first stage has been completed, each job is transferred and assembled in the second stage, where the parallel batching constraint is investigated. In the two stages, the deteriorating job constraint is considered. In the proposed algorithm, first, two types of problem-specific heuristics are proposed, namely, the batch assignment and the right-shifting heuristics, which can substantially improve the makespan. Next, the encoding and decoding approaches are developed according to the problem constraints and objectives. Five types of local search operators are designed for the distributed flow shop and parallel batching stages. In addition, a novel scout bee heuristic that considers the useful information that is collected by the global and local best solutions is investigated, which can enhance searching performance. Finally, based on several well-known benchmarks and realistic industrial instances and via comprehensive computational comparison and statistical analysis, the highly effective performance of the proposed algorithm is favorably compared against several algorithms in terms of both solution quality and population diversity.

A resource investment problem based on project splitting with time windows for aircraft moving assembly line

The aircraft moving assembly line is considered to be a large complex project consisting of some sub-projects with corresponding jobs and each sub-project corresponds to each workstations of the assembly line. This paper presents a new extension of the project scheduling problem, Resource Investment Problem based on Project Splitting with Time Windows (RIPPS_TW), in view of the characteristics of simultaneous execution of multiple workstations based on line-side shared resources and the situation of unavailable resource periods known in advance. A new concept named project splitting is proposed to divide a project into multiple sub-projects by changing the precedence constraints of jobs during scheduling, which is beneficial for improving the scheduling efficiency of the problem. To solve RIPPS_TW, we design a new mathematical optimization model and a two-stage iterative loop algorithm in this paper. In the first stage, a heuristic algorithm is applied to get the project splitting plan, then in the second stage an improved genetic algorithm combined with branch-and-bound is used to schedule jobs affected by resource time windows. In addition, a series of computational experiments are carried out, and the effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by comparison with other literature algorithm.

Load balancing aware scheduling algorithms for fog networks

SummaryFog networks have attracted the attention of researchers recently. The idea is that a part of the computation of a job/application can be performed by fog devices that are located at the network edge, close to the users. Executing latency sensitive applications on the cloud may not be feasible, owing to the significant communication delay involved between the user and the cloud data center (cdc). By the time the application traverses the network and reaches the cloud data center, it might already be too late. However, fog devices, also known as mobile data centers (mdcs), are capable of executing such latency sensitive applications. In this paper, we study the problem of balancing the application load while taking account of security constraints of jobs, across various mdcs in a fog network. In case a particular mdc does not have sufficient capacity to execute a job, the job needs to be migrated to some other mdc. To this end, we propose three heuristic algorithms: minimum distance, minimum load, and minimum hop distance and load (MHDL). In addition, we also propose an ILP‐based algorithm called load balancing aware scheduling ILP (LASILP) for solving the task mapping and scheduling problem. The performance of the proposed algorithms have been compared with the cloud only algorithm and another heuristic algorithm called fog‐cloud‐placement (FCP). Simulation results performed on real‐life workload traces reveal that the MHDL heuristic performs better as compared to other scheduling policies in the fog computing environment while meeting application privacy requirements.

Online scheduling with chain precedence constraints of equal-length jobs on parallel machines to minimize makespan

We study the online scheduling problem on m identical parallel machines to minimize makespan, i.e., the maximum completion time of the jobs, where m is given in advance and the jobs arrive online over time. We assume that the jobs, which arrive at some nonnegative real times, are of equal-length and are restricted by chain precedence constraints. Moreover, the jobs arriving at distinct times are independent, and so, only the jobs arriving at a common time are restricted by the chain precedence constraints. In the literature, a best possible online algorithm of a competitive ratio 1.3028 is given for the case $$m=2$$ . But the problem is unaddressed for $$m\ge 3$$ . In this paper, we present a best possible online algorithm for the problem with $$m\ge 3$$ , where the algorithm has a competitive ratio of 1.3028 for $$3\le m\le 5$$ and 1.3146 for $$m\ge 6$$ .

Development and testing of the ‘Culture of Care Barometer’ (CoCB) in healthcare organisations: a mixed methods study

ObjectiveConcerns about care quality have prompted calls to create workplace cultures conducive to high-quality, safe and compassionate care and to provide a supportive environment in which staff can operate effectively....

Abstract 221: Environmental Scan of Telemedicine Networks With Services for Hypertension Management, 2016

One of the barriers affecting continuity of hypertension care is access to health care, especially in low-income and rural areas. Telemedicine (TM) provides consultation and specialized treatment remotely, and reduces barriers of access to appropriate, high quality care. Common barriers include limited affordable transportation, job or other time constraints, and geographic isolation. TM use has increased, but there is limited information about the ease of finding TM networks and programs (TMNPs) by the general public. To address this gap, we conducted an environmental scan, during Sept.-Nov. 2016, assessing the ease of identifying existing TMNPs in the United States using simple internet searches (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo). First, we used the American Telemedicine Association’s 2015 Gap Analysis, Health Resources &amp; Services Administration (HRSA) funded programs and 2013 Maryland telemedicine matrix as our template. After identifying the TMNPs, we assessed TM services provided, especially for hypertension (HTN). After compiling a consensus list of TMNPs in the US, we categorized the TMNPs based on their website’s list of services. Of the 50 states and District of Columbia (DC), we found 36 networks and 17 programs. Of these 53 TMNPs, only 1.9% (n=1) indicated that they provide TM services specifically for the management of HTN. However, there were 18 (34.0%) TMNPs that listed cardiology services. The only TMNP specifically focused on hypertension control was in the southeast, an area with a high burden of HTN. This TMNP was called the “Smartphone Medication Adherence Stops Hypertension” (SMASH), and was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The program has reported 95% control among their patient population with HTN in rural areas, including Hispanic and black adults. Other related programs included those focused on heart failure (5.7% (n=3) and diabetes management 9.4% (n=5). This initial environmental scan found most programs presented limited information about their population of interest. For example, 86.7% (n=46) did not provide information about the number of patients, area(s) served and number of partners and providers on their websites. Our results suggest common methods of obtaining information about TMNPs lack important information on TM services for HTN patients, and/or challenges in identifying existing services for patients to access. Using data collected from this environmental scan, our group will develop an exhaustive collection of data on existing TMNPs’ services (including how to participate), working directly with HRSA’s Telemedicine Resource Centers. The information from our environmental scan may produce regional and county-level telemedicine mapping to inform not only patients and their healthcare providers, but also clinicians, researchers, program managers, and decision makers on existing TMNPs that remotely provide effective HTN management.