Individual Life Circumstances Research Articles

Workplace injury and nurses: Insights from focus groups with Australian return‐to‐work coordinators

Few studies have examined the return-to-work process for nurses who are injured at work. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that facilitate or impede the successful return to work of nurses who have sustained a workplace injury from the perspective of return-to-work coordinators. A qualitative, descriptive study was conducted and 25 return-to-work coordinators from 14 different organizations participated in focus group discussions. The participants were recruited from healthcare settings in metropolitan and rural areas of New South Wales, Australia. These included aged-care, residential, and community disability support services, public and private hospitals, and the community health sector. Workforce shortages, individual life circumstances and nurses' work, and nurses' qualifications, specialization, experience, and job tenure were identified as the factors that influence the timely, safe, and sustainable return to work of injured nurses. This study provides insight into how workforce shortages have driven innovative practice in accommodating a nurse's life circumstances when developing the return-to-work plan. Barriers to nurses' return to work included a lack of qualifications, specialization, and the casualization of the workforce.

A comparison of accidental and intentional fatal drug overdoses within the drug death population in Scotland: a case of comortality?

This article considers the social and clinical life circumstances of individuals who succumbed to drug deaths in Scotland in 2003. Specifically, comparisons are made between those who died of accidental and intentional illicit drug overdoses. A cross-linkage process allowed for a comparison of patient notes obtained from general practice, drug treatment services, the Scottish Prison service, the Scottish Criminal Records Office, acute services, non-statutory services and the Procurator Fiscal. Individuals who intentionally overdosed were older, more likely to be females and in a relationship, more likely to be living in their own homes in areas of lower deprivation, to have children and to have sought medical treatment for a psychological condition. They were less likely to have a criminal record or a history of incarceration or substance misuse problems. These findings demonstrate the diversity of the drug death population and may have implications for future prevention policies aimed at individual sub-p...

Multicentre Study on Factors Affecting the Gynaecologic Oncology Career Choice of Canadian Residents in Obstetrics and Gynaecology

IntroductionThe provision of optimal care for women with gynaecologic cancer may be threatened due to the changing demographics of patients and the projected increasing shortage of gynaecologic oncologists in Canada. We evaluated the career plans of Canadian residents in obstetrics and gynaecology to determine the proportion of residents currently considering a career in gynaecologic oncology (GO) and to explore factors that may affect their career decisions. MethodsFollowing institutional ethics approval, all residents at 13 participating Canadian obstetrics and gynaecology residency training programs were contacted by email to complete a 20-item confidential questionnaire examining career plans. Quantitative data were analyzed using SAS v9.1. Qualitative data were coded by theme and grouped into various domains. ResultsOf 293 residents, 105 (36%) participated. More than half of these were considering at least one obstetrics and gynaecology subspecialty, but 53% indicated that their most appealing career path was general obstetrics and gynaecology. Although 50% of residents had ever considered a career in GO, only 17% were considering a GO career at the time of the survey. When rated as positive influences, medical school exposure, resident exposure, role models within GO, colleagues, other health care professionals, “my individual life circumstances,” “my personal attributes,” the clinical, research, and educational components of GO, the GO patient population, and relation with gynaecologic oncologists and other specialists were significant predictors of current GO interest. Themes that emerged from qualitative analysis revealed that the clinical, professional, and research domains were predominant influences among residents currently considering a career in GO. ConclusionsGO is an infrequent career choice for Canadian residents in obstetrics and gynaecology, and a number of factors significantly affect GO career decisions. Modifying factors such as educational experiences, work environment, and current practice models may lead to improved recruitment to the subspecialty, which is crucial for meeting the future needs of women with gynaecologic malignancies in Canada.

How couples who have undergone in vitro fertilization decide what to do with surplus frozen embryos

In a qualitative interview study of 77 families with stored frozen embryos, we found that while embryo disposition decision making was influenced by individual life circumstances, embryo quantity/quality, personal values, embryo conceptualization, and clinic information, it was a stepwise process that could be represented as three sequential questions: (1) Will the embryos be used for additional attempts at conception? If not, (2) Will the embryos remain in storage? And if not, (3) Will the embryos be donated to other people or to science, or will they be destroyed? While almost two-thirds (63%) of participants kept their embryos in storage after 5 years, either passively through disagreement or indecision or actively to maintain embryo potential, avert feelings of loss, or as psychological or genetic "insurance," IVF clinic support and detailed information about options motivated families to make disposition decisions.

On “Those Truths of Experience Upon Which Philosophy Is Founded”

At the turn of the nineteenth century, American pragmatists claimed that philosophy rests on experience. Variations of their empiricism persist at the beginning ofthe twenty-first century, but, I argue, the notion of experience remains under-analyzed. In this paper I examine Peirce’s and James’s contrasting views of the relation between experience and philosophy, comparing their views with Descartes’s, and I re-enter Dewey’s question, “What are the data of philosophy?” Do different individuals have different data? As it is a commonplace of the twenty-first century that our experiences vary widely with our individual life circumstances and that there are fault lines in human experience that can be organized by notions of gender, race, ethnicity and culture, and historical and economic circumstances, I also consider whether that commonplace has any import for philosophy.

Tailoring Organizational Characteristics for Empowerment

ABSTRACT Empowerment is an important value orientation and intervention approach in social work and other disciplines. Viewed from an ecological perspective, a good fit between organizational characteristics and the life circumstances of individuals should provide empowerment benefits. By studying interaction effects of material resources and organizational characteristics on empowerment, this research sought to extend understanding of empowerment dynamics in community organizations. Using hierarchical regression analyses to investigate socio-economic status (SES) in a moderator model, findings of the study demonstrated that, among a diverse group of participants in two different faith-based community organizations, perceptions of organizational characteristics were more strongly related to empowerment for participants of lower SES. A substantive implication of the study is that community practitioners should attend to the fit between specific organizational processes and economic circumstances of community based organization participants. Strategies weighted toward attention to relationships among members linked to availability of and participation in a variety of organizational roles may be more salient for empowerment of the disadvantaged. Our findings are consistent with an ecological orientation to empowerment, and they add further support to the importance of ecological specificity in empowerment theory.

Heritage, nostalgia, and the “grey” consumer

Focuses on one leisure activity enjoyed by a number of elderly consumers, heritage visiting. Drawing on the findings of a study of consumer behaviour at a recreated living industrial museum, the analysis focuses on the behaviour of elderly visitors to the site, with a particular emphasis on how the experience is constructed. Highlights the role of nostalgia as a motivational and experiential factor behind the visit, and distinguishes between two types of nostalgic reaction, “recreational”, and “existential”. The intensity of the reaction is interpreted in the light of the stimulus provided by the museum, and in the context of individual life circumstances such as role loss, disempowerment, social contact, and the degree of personal experience and object familiarity. Concludes by proposing that it is not always the most obvious groups of consumers who offer the greatest opportunity for sustained and repeated visits.

Acculturation, Socio-Economic Status, and Attitude Change in Tunisia: Implications for Modernisation Theory

This article uses survey data from Tunisia to examine some of the ways that individual attitudes change in a developing society. At the same time, it is addressed to some inadequacies of modernisation theory, attempting both to understand better the impact of social change on attitudes, and to delineate the nature and consequences of different kinds of modernisation experiences. Modernisation studies usually treat lifestyle variations produced by social change as uni-dimensional so far as their effect on attitudes is concerned. The present study argues that lifestyles do not always change in an integrated fashion, and in particular that acculturation and socio-economic status, two basic dimensions of individual life circumstances in developing societies, often and increasingly vary independently of one another. It then demonstrates with data from Tunisia that measures of acculturation and socio-economic status bear independent and dissimilar relationships to many attitudes known to be associated with social change, and thereafter discusses the implications of these relationships for modernisation and political development. The focus of the analysis is on general theoretical issues.

A Comparative Analysis of the Psychological Consequences of Change

Both social scientists and laymen have defined the present age as one of anxiety, and many have linked that anxiety with rapid change. The present study investigates the relationships between change in individual life circumstances, perceived rate of social change, and anxiety level. These relationships are examined in two samples-one from England and one from the United States. In both societies, there is a positive correlation between both kinds of change and anxiety level, with the perceived rate of social change being more significant as a predictor of anxiety level than change in life circumstances. In both societies, the effects of rate were moderated when the change is defined as desirable. A few differences between the two societies are noted and discussed. In general, however, the data support the notion that a high rate of change generates psychological reactions which require adjustment on the part of individuals, with the reaction moderated when the changes are perceived as desirable.