Role In Care Research Articles

Cognitive impairment in older adults with cancer.

Cognitive impairment is increasing in an ageing population and as people live longer, they are more likely to develop cancer therefore cognitive impairment and cancer are frequently co-occurring. We reviewed articles published since 2018 on cognitive impairment and cancer. The current review has focused on diagnosis, treatment and palliative and end of life care. A comprehensive systematic review reported joint cancer and cognitive impairment prevalence from 0.2 to 45.6%. The review reported there was reduced likelihood of patients with co-occurring cognitive and cancer receiving information regarding cancer stage, reduced cancer treatment with curative intent and limited pain and symptom management. Further studies emphasized the role of family carers in supporting patients with cognitive impairment through cancer treatment. Disappointingly in an area where the numbers of patients with cognitive impairment and cancer are increasing, there appears to be little recently published research in this area. We conclude that further research is required to determine how best to support patients with cognitive impairment and cancer and families during diagnosis of cancer, treatment and continuing care and most importantly the findings of all studies are implemented within clinical practice.

'You become their advocate': The experiences of family carers as advocates for older people with dementia living in residential aged care.

The aim of this study was to identify features of well-performing residential aged care services (RACS) as experienced by family carers. Family carers can have an integral role in residential aged care providing social support and are well-placed to engage with staff and monitor care. A qualitative descriptive design was used. Semi-structured face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with family carers of current or past residents of Australian RACS between November 2018 and January 2019. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically. Rather than reporting features of well-performing RACS, participants shared stories of sub-standard care, dysfunctional management and poor resident-staff-family interactions. An overarching theme emerged of 'having to be an advocate' for residents' needs, which covered four major categories: organisational accountability (including transparency and individualised care), good communication, connection and trust. Combined, these constitute what carers perceive are the necessary conditions for determining the features of a well-performing RACS. Family carers need to feel confident and trust RACS staff when they hand over the role of carer for their relative with dementia. This study provides insight into the needs and challenges of family carers when they relinquish the care of an older relative with dementia. Strategies to build confidence and trust between RACS and family carers are essential. Aged care nurses can play a pivotal role to support this through the development of open communication and relational connections with residents and their families.

Emerging Adults and Gender Norms: Everyday Life Experiences, Media Perceptions, Attitudes, and Future Expectations

As media’s (e.g., television, movies, news) presence becomes increasingly prominent in individuals’ everyday lives, it is critical to consider how emerging adult men and women acquire gender norm information. Accordingly, this study explores how emerging adults’ everyday life gender norm experiences and media gender norm perceptions contribute to gender norm attitude formation and future gender norm expectations in family and career. Research has examined gender norm attitudes in relationship to everyday life, media, or future life expectations. Extending past research, this survey (n = 663) concurrently assesses the interrelationships between these constructs, employing social cognitive theory as a theoretical guide to frame hypotheses and interpret findings. Structural equation models (SEMs) illustrated emerging adults’ (M age = 20.32 years) traditional gender norm attitudes were positively correlated with traditional everyday life experiences and negatively correlated with traditional media perceptions. In each SEM, traditional gender norm attitudes positively correlated with traditional family division of labor expectations. Unexpectedly, male traditional gender norm attitudes negatively correlated with traditional career role allocation expectations. Finally, in both SEMs, only traditional everyday life experiences predicted traditional future expectations. Discussion focuses on the interplay between everyday life and media by considering the ways emerging adults may use each realm to shape gender norm attitudes and future expectations.

The role of career and knowledge management in retention

Rapid response to changing environmental challenges plays a crucial role in maintaining competitiveness. For HR, achieving employee loyalty is one of the essential tasks that can solve the difficulties of the labour shortage. Retaining key workers is a growing problem today while attracting the right talented workforce to the organisation is critical. Employee satisfaction influences the level of loyalty, with the necessary recognition and appreciation of the individual’s work, clear goals and expectations and the existence of a supportive organisational culture. Organisations’ workforce retention capabilities are often linked to managerial attitudes, to the quality and systematic development of HR systems. The purpose of this study is to summarise and support, based on international literature and research, the importance of two key functions, career and knowledge management, for retention. As a result of the research, it is possible to determine the advantage of applying the two critical functions in retention management, and the difficulties and risk factors arising during the process can be defined. If the company does not focus on motivating its employees, it will significantly increase its costs as well as the time and energy invested in recruiting and selecting new employees. In conclusion, in addition to expanding the use of HR functions, successful loyalty increasing techniques include a career plan that supports both individual and organisational goals and an organisational culture that encourages knowledge sharing.

Carers of older Australians: unmet support needs and carer well-being.

Primary carers play an important role in supporting the Australian Government's policy of 'ageing in place' or encouraging people to receive care in their own homes or communities rather than in institutions. Supporting carers in their role is therefore an important aspect of the policy's success. Despite numerous programs in place, this study finds that among carers of older Australians, a relatively high proportion (39%) cite unmet needs in their carer role, including a need for financial support, physical assistance, emotional support, improvement in carer health and more respite care. Concerningly, unmet support needs were shown to be strongly associated with markers of poor carer well-being, including an almost 2-fold increase in odds of poor carer satisfaction (odds ratio (OR) 1.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.24-2.51), a 4- to 5-fold increase in the odds of changes to physical and emotional well-being (OR 5.29, 95% CI 3.83-7.31), deterioration in financial situation (OR 4.60, 95% CI 3.26-6.48) and strained carer-recipient relationship (OR 3.79, 95% CI 2.39-6.01).

Transitions through lifelong learning: Implications for learning analytics

The ability to develop new skills and competencies is a central concept of lifelong learning. Research to date has largely focused on the processes and support individuals require to engage in upskilling, re-learning or training. However, there has been limited attention examining the types of support that are necessary to assist a learner's transition from “old” workplace contexts to “new”. Professionals often undergo significant restructuring of their knowledge, skills, and identities as they transition between career roles, industries, and sectors. Domains such as learning analytics (LA) have the potential to support learners as they use the analysis of fine-grained data collected from education technologies. However, we argue that to support transitions throughout lifelong learning, LA needs fundamentally new analytical and methodological approaches. To enable insights, research needs to capture and explain variability, dynamics, and causal interactions between different levels of individual development, at varying time scales. Scholarly conceptions of the context in which transitions occur are also required. Our interdisciplinary argument builds on the synthesis of literature about transitions in the range of disciplinary and thematic domains such as conceptual change, shifts between educational systems, and changing roles during life course. We highlight specific areas in research designs and current analytical methods that hinder insight into transformational changes during transitions. The paper concludes with starting points and frameworks that can advance research in this area.

William Hogarth (1697–1764) and book illustration I: Hudibras, Quixote and the Littlecote House murals

This article progresses long-term researches on Hogarth and book history, the iconography of the skimmington and transnational receptions of Don Quixote, by introducing a substantial new group of images potentially illuminating Hogarth's lost activities as a young painter, before he turned 30 in 1727. Astoundingly, no previous research-based study of them exists. Unknown to Hogarth specialists and dismissed by art historians, they are in the painted room at Littlecote House. Within a complex decorative scheme broadly referencing themes of human folly and the cabinet of curiosities, two walls feature floor to ceiling composite murals uniting numerous episodes from the publications most significant for Hogarth's early career as a book illustrator: Cervantes' Don Quixote and its most successful English derivation, Samuel Butler's Hudibras. Butler's book-length poem is exceptionally significant: Book-historically for its key role in copyright legislation and eighteenth-century British book illustration; arthistorically for its central role in the early career of Hogarth, who published two sets of engravings illustrating Hudibras in 1726. Local historians attribute the Littlecote murals to unidentified amateur Dutch painters, working in the 1660s (when Hudibras was first published). Archive-based evidence first presented here confirms their dating not to the 1660s but the 1720s and supports Hogarth's presence at Littlecote House around 1724. This work is heavily indebted to the exemplary scholarship of two landmark publications of 2016, Elizabeth Einberg's authoritative catalogue of Hogarth's paintings (all post-1726) and Peter Black's ground- -breaking exploration of Hogarth and house decoration. I here re-visit Hogarth's early practice of book illustration and house decoration with reference to a canon of pre-1800 Hudibras images, newly enlarged by situating the substantial Littlecote Hudibras mural within this context and its associated visual, literary and book historical traditions. With reference to the new images and evidence first presented here, I ask: Is Littlecote's painted room a rightly neglected pastiche? Or does it deserve closer scholarly attention? Perhaps even as an exceptional unrecognized British art treasure? Should Hogarth specialists now evaluate an entirely new possibility: whether the challenging pre-1727 gap in Hogarth's early career as a painter can be addressed by identifying his earliest paintings at Littlecote House? I must confess, I have but little hopes of having a favourable attention given to my design in general, by those who have already had a more fashionable introduction into the mysteries of the arts of painting, and sculpture. Much less do I expect, or in truth desire, the countenance of that set of people, who have an interest in exploding any kind of doctrine, that may teach us to see with our own eyes.

Ranking list for scientists: From heightening the rat-race to fraying the scientific temper.

Citations and validation of work play a crucial and integral role in a researcher's career. Ranking systems of scientists, on the other hand, potentially scratch and expose the fallible egoistic human face of science, leading to an unhealthy milieu of competition rather than the uplifting one of motivation. We have attempted to highlight and bring to fore these factors in our brief viewpoint. We critically analyze the reasons why ranking systems of scientists, especially in the field of medicine, will shift the focus from advancement of science to advancement of “self.”

НАВЧАННЯ ТА ОЦІНЮВАННЯ АНГЛІЙСЬКОГО ІНТЕГРОВАНОГО АУДІЮВАННЯ Й ПИСЬМА У СТАРШІЙ ШКОЛІ: ЛІНГВОДИДАКТИЧНІ ПЕРЕВАГИ Й ТРУДНОЩІ

As a life-long skill, writing plays a crucial role in post-secondary education and career. The nature and instruction of writing, however, have considerably changed over the last decade by shifting the focus onto integrated or source-based writing. On the one hand, combining writing and other skills – listening, for instance – enhances both skills; on the other hand, practicing writing together with listening develops critical thinking and rhetoric in learners. With its emphasis on knowledge transformation instead of knowledge transmission, source-based writing has captured the attention of researchers and language trainers in many educational settings, including secondary school. In the Ukrainian context, source-based writing in L2 education has been neglected on both theoretical and practical levels; as a result, it is excluded from most tertiary and secondary school writing courses as well as assessment. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to consider cognitive characteristics as well as pedagogical advantages and challenges of integrated listening and writing in an English classroom at upper secondary school. The research has revealed pedagogical values of integrated writing which include improved task authenticity, fair assessment, and the fact that integrated writing is not affected by the topic effect. The challenges are related to cognitive complexity of the integrated writing process and difficulties in interpreting the scores in the assessment process. The paper concludes that despite challenges, integrated listening and writing possesses strong pedagogical values as it enhances learners’ literacy, rhetoric as well as critical and creative thinking

Dementia families: Relinquishing home care to aged care services: Guilt, traumatic loss and growth.

Few studies explore both negative and positive perspectives of family members who relinquish home care of a family member with dementia for systemic aged care. This phenomenological study sought the 'lived' experience of relinquishing the role of home carer for a family member with mild to severe dementia to others within care home settings, by seeking to understand the impact of aged care on family members' psychological well-being. Using semi-structured interviews, positive and negative subjective interpretations from 17 families (27 individuals) provided data for analysis, following the protocols of interpretative phenomenological analysis. One superordinate theme, mistrust/integrity, overarched oscillation between mistrust of the aged care system and a struggle for personal integrity in caring for these participants. Two sub-themes emerged: intrinsic trauma and extrinsic trauma. Intrinsic trauma explained feelings of helplessness and guilt, and internally directed responses that triggered a retreat into submission ultimately reducing the participant's role in advocacy. Extrinsic trauma represented externally directed responses such as anger and frustration, where family members became more engaged and watchful and recognised a need for vigilance and advocacy. Paradoxically oscillating between these personal struggles, participants exhibited growth, a third theme that defined assertive/advocacy utilised to nurture hope, gratitude, courage and change. Family members experienced complex distress as they relinquished home care to others within systemic aged care for a member with dementia. By developing adaptive responses as appropriate, for example, advocating for their family member or accepting compliance with treatment, collaborative care between family and staff created better outcomes for the family member with dementia.

Informal carers' experiences of caring for someone with Multiple Sclerosis: A photovoice investigation.

This study explores the lived experiences of carers of people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), specifically in relation to their quality of life (QoL), through the use of images and narratives, with the aim of gaining a nuanced insight into the complex nature of QoL in the MS caregiving context. Real-time qualitative design using the photovoice method. Twelve MS carers (aged 30-73years) took photographs of objects/places/events that represented enhancement or compromise to their QoL and composed written narratives for each photograph based on their experiences of caregiving. In total, 126 photographs and their corresponding narratives were analysed using content analysis. Seven inter-related themes were identified. MS caregiving-related challenges, sense of loss (e.g., loss of activities), emotional impact (e.g., feeling lonely), urge to escape, and sense of anxiety over the unpredictability of MS carer role were discussed in relation to the negative experiences that compromised their QoL. The themes precious moments (e.g., time spent with loved ones or hobbies) and helpful support (e.g., family and pets) encompassed participants' positive experiences that enhanced their QoL. Findings demonstrated the multi-faceted and complex nature of MS caregiver's QoL and highlighted that although the experiences of MS carers were mostly negative, there were also some positive aspects to caregiving, that helped enhance carers' QoL by ameliorating these negative experiences. These findings can be used to inform support programmes and enhance service provision for MS carers.

The role of elderly carers in HIV prevention and care; the perspectives of older adults in underprivileged communities in South Africa

In many societies, the elderly take on the enormous role of being the caregivers of sick family members. Little is known about the context in which they provide HIV/AIDS-related care, and their rol...

Structuring unequal relations: role trajectories in informal dementia care

Transitions into informal care roles are associated with various characteristics, for example gender and geographic proximity, but such associations are insufficient to explain role delegation, overlooking the interpersonal structure-agency nexuses that constitute role trajectories. This paper explores unequal role delegation within 7 families affected by dementia, presenting data from interviews with 7 people with dementia and 26 carers living in the community in the United Kingdom. Two key care roles are identified: the relatively un-involved role of peripheral actors and the lynchpin role of main carers who take on most of the care tasks. These roles emerge from negotiations around a range of extraneous factors that collectively comprise cumulative baggage, including historic conflicts and childcare commitments. The unequal distribution of care reflects widely noted demographic associations with role delegation, but is enacted and justified through the interpersonal negotiation of personalised meanings regarding individual circumstances and suitability. Though deeply personal when taken at face value, these meanings imbibe sociocultural norms and political economies of care to structurally position family members in relation to each other and signpost appropriate candidates for caring roles, even before such care is required.

‘The very first thing that connected us to him’: adopters’ experiences of sharing photographs, ‘talking’ albums and other materials with their children prior to meeting

Prospective adopters commonly share materials such as photographs of their family, ‘talking’ albums, DVDs, toys and blankets with their child prior to meeting them. This is often the first point of ‘introduction’ of the adoptive family to their child. The sharing of materials is also one of the earliest tasks in which foster carers and prospective adopters work together. This study investigates adopters’ experiences of sharing materials in the wider context of working with foster carers during these initial parent–child ‘introductions’. Thematic analysis of 24 interviews conducted with adoptive parents revealed three main themes: collaboration, familiarisation and connection. Further qualitative and quantitative data were subsequently gathered and analysed from surveys completed by 64 adoptive parents. Findings highlight the central role of the foster carer in preparing a child for a move to adoption, and the potential impact that the grief and loss experienced by a foster carer may have on this move. They also suggest that the sharing of materials could be an early indicator of a foster carer’s capacity to support a child’s transition to life with their adoptive family. Adopters’ perceptions of the impact of the materials, both at the time of introductions and their ongoing significance several years after placement, are explored.

Palliative care utilisation: family carers’ behaviours and determinants—a qualitative interview study

ObjectivesMost research on starting palliative care focuses on the role of healthcare services and professional carers. However, patients and their family carers may also play a role. Especially opportunities for...

Birth influences future: examining discrimination against Chinese deputy mayors with grassroots administration origins

There is no systematic empirical study to address the unfair political treatment of Chinese officials with grassroots beginnings. This research addresses this gap by conducting theoretical and empirical studies. Drawing on a new biographical database of Chinese deputy mayors of municipal cities, this paper conducts competing risk regression and classical logistic regression modeling to examine the role of career starting level in deputy mayors’ political careers. The empirical analysis provides solid results and demonstrates that the higher the career starting level, the greater the probability of getting promoted and the lower the risk of political downfall, which indicated that deputy mayors who started their careers in grassroots-level governments were associated with the lowest probabilities of promotion and highest risks of falling. The unfair political treatment is the tragedy of grassroots cadres and does not match the importance of grassroots work, which leads to great discontent and may threaten the sustainability of Communist Party rule in the future.

Defining what a 'carer' is and the role they play in in-patient mental healthcare: A focus group study with patients, carers and clinicians.

The value of carer involvement has been extensively researched and promoted. However, the field lacks exploration of conceptual issues, which might help to explain why there are widespread difficulties in putting policy into practice in this area, as implementation rates remain low internationally. This qualitative study explored patients', carers' and clinicians' perspectives on the role of carers in mental healthcare, particularly with regards to in-patient settings. Sixteen focus groups were conducted with patients, carers and clinicians who have current or previous experience of in-patient settings. A thematic analysis was conducted on the transcripts, exploring two key domains: (a) what a 'carer' is, and (b) how the 'carer' role is described within the context of the hospital environment. Participants diverged in their opinions of what the 'carer' role entails, and the perceived helpfulness of it. Issues unique to the in-patient setting were identified, such as the role of the hospital environment in enabling or being a barrier to carer involvement. These differing perspectives and contextual factors had an impact on the position of carers in the hospital setting, as they could be viewed as helpful, a hindrance or as passive visitors, depending on the perspectives of clinicians. More clarity and agreement is needed between patients, carers and clinicians in terms of how the 'carer' role is defined. This has the potential to improve carers' experience of involvement in hospital settings.

Crossing boundaries: Establishing a framework for researching quality and safety in care transitions

BackgroundDespite the breadth and diversity of research and policies on care transitions, research studies often report similar components that affect the quality and safety of care, including communication across professional groups and care settings, transfer of information, coordination of resources or training of healthcare personnel. In this article, we aim to deepen our understanding of care transitions by proposing a heuristic research framework that takes into account the components and factors influencing the quality and safety of care transitions in diverse settings. MethodologyUsing a pragmatic qualitative narrative meta-synthesis of empirically grounded research studies (N = 13) involving 31 researchers from seven countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK), we conducted a thematic analysis to identify the components analysed in the included studies. We then used these components to create a framework for researching care transitions. ResultsOur narrative synthesis found that the quality and safety of care transitions are influenced by a range of patient-centred, communicative, collaborative, cultural, competency-based, accountability-based and spatial components. These components are encompassed within a broader set of dimensions that require careful consideration: (1) the conceptualising of the care transition notion, (2) the methodology for researching care transitions, (3) the role of patients and carers in care transitions, (4) the complexity surrounding care transitions, (5) the boundaries intertwined in care transitions and (6) care transition improvement interventions. These six dimensions constitute an analytical framework for planning and conducting research on care transitions in diverse settings. ConclusionThe proposed six-dimensional framework for researching quality and safety in care transitions offers a roadmap for future practice and policy interventions and provides a starting point for planning and designing future research.

Career Adaptability Research: A Literature Review with Scientific Knowledge Mapping in Web of Science.

With the rapid development of society and technology, personal adaptability is becoming more and more important. Learning how to adapt to a changing world is becoming one of the necessary conditions for success. Career adaptability can help individuals to smoothly adapt to changes when coping with their career roles, and maintain their ability to balance their career roles, which will affect their important psychological resources for career development and achieve more meaning in life. In recent years, career adaptability has gradually attracted the attention of researchers. Therefore, in order to explore the main factors, such as research focus, the main researchers, its evolution, and the important results of career adaptability in the last ten years, this study used the scientific knowledge mapping software CiteSpace as a research tool, and select related articles from the Web of Science between 2010 to 2020 under the theme of “career adaptability” for data analysis, which can help future researchers to understand current and future career adaptability research and control the research direction of career adaptability. The results of this research indicate that there are direct or indirect connections between different themes, such as the career adaptability scale, career construction, positive personalities, and so on, but few articles integrate multiple research topics. At the same time, the main researchers, research frontiers and network relationships were also obtained. Based on the above findings, the correlative main concept, theoretical structure, evolution, and research progress of career adaptability in the past ten years are discussed.

Experiences of advance care planning in Parkinson's disease and atypical parkinsonian disorders: a mixed methods systematic review.

Advance care planning allows people to plan for their future care needs and can include medical, psychological and social aspects. However, little is known on the use, experience of and attitudes towards advance care planning in patients with parkinsonian disorders, their family carers and healthcare professionals. A systematic search of online databases was conducted in April 2019 using a narrative synthesis approach with thematic analysis and tabulation to synthesize the findings. In all, 507 articles were identified and 27 were included. There were five overarching themes: (i) what is involved in advance care planning discussions, (ii) when and how advance care planning discussions are initiated, (iii) barriers to advance care planning, (iv) the role of healthcare professionals and (v) the role of the family carer. This evidence was used to highlight eight effective components to support optimal advance care planning in parkinsonian disorders: advance care planning discussions should be individualized in content, timing and approach; patients should be invited to discuss advance care planning early and regularly; palliative care services should be introduced early; a skilled professional should deliver advance care planning; support to family carers should be offered in the advance care planning process; healthcare professionals should be educated on parkinsonian disorders and palliative care; advance care planning should be clearly documented and shared with relevant services; and healthcare professionals should be enabled to conduct effective advance care planning. These components can inform best practice in advance care planning in patients with parkinsonian disorders.