200 resultados para Health-related human resources


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Background: Physical activity (PA) is recommended for managing osteoarthritis (OA). However, few people with OA are physically active. Understanding the factors associated with PA is necessary to increase PA in this population. This cross-sectional study examined factors associated with leisure-time PA, stretching exercises, and strengthening exercises in people with OA. Methods: For a mail survey, 485 individuals, aged 68.0 y (SD=10.6) with hip or knee OA, were asked about factors that may influence PA participation, including use of non-PA OA management strategies and both psychological and physical health-related factors. Associations between factors and each PA outcome were examined in multivariable logistic regression models. Results: Non-PA management strategies were the main factors associated with the outcomes. Information/education courses, heat/cold treatments, and paracetamol were associated with stretching and strengthening exercises (P<0.05). Hydrotherapy and magnet therapy were associated with leisure-time PA; using orthotics and massage therapy, with stretching exercises; and occupational therapy, with strengthening exercises (P<0.05). Few psychological or health15 related factors were associated with the outcomes. Conclusions: Some management strategies may make it easier for people with OA to be physically active, and could be promoted to encourage PA. Providers of strategies are potential avenues for recruiting people with OA into PA programs.

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Background: Factors that individually influence blood sugar control, health-related quality of life, and diabetes self-care behaviors have been widely investigated; however, most previous diabetes studies have not tested an integrated association between a series of factors and multiple health outcomes. ---------- Objectives: The purposes of this study are to identify risk factors and protective factors and to examine the impact of risk factors and protective factors on adaptive outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes.---------- Design: A descriptive correlational design was used to examine a theoretical model of risk factors, protective factors, and adaptive outcomes.---------- Settings: This study was conducted at the endocrine outpatient departments of three hospitals in Taiwan. Participants A convenience sample of 334 adults with type 2 diabetes aged 40 and over.---------- Methods: Data were collected by a self-reported questionnaire and physiological examination. Using the structural equation modeling technique, measurement and structural regression models were tested.---------- Results: Age and life events reflected the construct of risk factors. The construct of protective factors was explained by diabetes symptoms, coping strategy, and social support. The construct of adaptive outcomes comprised HbA1c, health-related quality of life, and self-care behaviors. Protective factors had a significant direct effect on adaptive outcomes (β = 0.68, p < 0.001); however, risk factors did not predict adaptive outcomes (β = − 0.48, p = 0.118).---------- Conclusions: Identifying and managing risk factors and protective factors are an integral part of diabetes care. This theoretical model provides a better understanding of how risk factors and protective factors work together to influence multiple adaptive outcomes in people living with type 2 diabetes.

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This paper reports on a six month longitudinal study exploring people’s personal and social emotional experience with health related portable interactive devices (PIDs). The focus is on emotions and how health PIDs mediate this experience in everyday contexts. The study reported here is an extension of a previous experiment conducted by the authors exploring media related PIDs [1]. The findings identified interesting aspects of health device interaction. Findings revealed people interact with health PIDs emotionally both at a personal and a social level. However, in contrast to media PIDs, participants reported significantly less social experiences than personal experiences. Nevertheless, the social level plays an important role such that negative social experiences had a significant influence on the perceived emotional experience over the course of six months. When no negative social experiences were reported the emotional experience over the course of six months became neutral. The findings are discussed in regards to their significance to the field of design, their implication for future health PID design and future research directions.

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Human resource flexibility is important in entrepreneurial ventures that need to respond to the changing challenges of growing the new business. This research investigates the impact of previously well-known people (strong ties) as entrepreneurial team members on the human resource flexibility of new ventures. Data collected from German founding entrepreneurs in technology-oriented, incubator-based firms shows that choosing a well known individual to join the entrepreneurial team increases the founder's ability to modify the team member's work role, but complicates asking the team member to leave the team if required. Hence, strong ties both increase and reduce human resource flexibility. However, the effect of strong ties on role modifiability is statistically significant only with novice entrepreneurs. These research findings counsel founders to discuss role modification and exit during partnership and entrepreneurial team membership negotiations.

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Mycobacterium lentiflavum, a slow-growing nontuberculous mycobacterium, is a rare cause of human disease. It has been isolated from environmental samples worldwide. To assess the clinical significance of M. lentiflavum isolates reported to the Queensland Tuberculosis Control Centre, Australia, during 2001-2008, we explored the genotypic similarity and geographic relationship between isolates from humans and potable water in the Brisbane metropolitan area. A total of 47 isolates from 36 patients were reported; 4 patients had clinically significant disease. M. lentiflavum was cultured from 13 of 206 drinking water sites. These sites overlapped geographically with home addresses of the patients who had clinically significant disease. Automated repetitive sequence-based PCR genotyping showed a dominant environmental clone closely related to clinical strains. This finding suggests potable water as a possible source of M. lentiflavum infection in humans.

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Background: The 2003 Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey (ATUS) contains 438 distinct primary activity variables that can be analyzed with regard to how time is spent by Americans. The Compendium of Physical Activities is used to code physical activities derived from various surveys, logs, diaries, etc to facilitate comparison of coded intensity levels across studies. ------ ----- Methods: This paper describes the methods, challenges, and rationale for linking Compendium estimates of physical activity intensity (METs, metabolic equivalents) with all activities reported in the 2003 ATUS. ----- ----- Results: The assigned ATUS intensity levels are not intended to compute the energy costs of physical activity in individuals. Instead, they are intended to be used to identify time spent in activities broadly classified by type and intensity. This function will complement public health surveillance systems and aid in policy and health-promotion activities. For example, at least one of the future projects of this process is the descriptive epidemiology of time spent in common physical activity intensity categories. ----- ----- Conclusions: The process of metabolic coding of the ATUS by linking it with the Compendium of Physical Activities can make important contributions to our understanding of Americans’ time spent in health-related physical activity.

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The structure and dynamics of a modern business environment are very hard to model using traditional methods. Such complexity raises challenges to effective business analysis and improvement. The importance of applying business process simulation to analyze and improve business activities has been widely recognized. However, one remaining challenge is the development of approaches to human resource behavior simulation. To address this problem, we describe a novel simulation approach where intelligent agents are used to simulate human resources by performing allocated work from a workflow management system. The behavior of the intelligent agents is driven a by state transition mechanism called a Hierarchical Task Network (HTN). We demonstrate and validate our simulator via a medical treatment process case study. Analysis of the simulation results shows that the behavior driven by the HTN is consistent with design of the workflow model. We believe these preliminary results support the development of more sophisticated agent-based human resource simulation systems.

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Immigrant Entrepreneurs (IE) are often portrayed as pushed into self-employment due to employment barriers in their adopted countries. But IE have human resources, like international experience, which can help them form international new ventures (INV). We question the role of IE in INV. We use randomly selected data from 561 young firms from the Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE) project. We find that IE are over-represented in INV and have many characteristics known to facilitate INV success including more founders, university degree, international connections and technical capability. These findings are relevant to policy makers, and nascent IE.

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Issues of equity and inequity have always been part of employment relations and are a fundamental part of the industrial landscape. For example, in most countries in the nineteenth century and a large part of the twentieth century women and members of ethnic groups (often a minority in the workforce) were barred from certain occupations, industries or work locations, and received less pay than the dominant male ethnic group for the same work. In recent decades attention has been focused on issues of equity between groups, predominantly women and different ethnic groups in the workforce. This has been embodied in industrial legislation, for example in equal pay for women and men, and frequently in specific equity legislation. In this way a whole new area of law and associated workplace practice has developed in many countries. Historically, employment relations and industrial relations research has not examined employment issues disaggregated by gender or ethnic group. Born out of concern with conflict and regulation at the workplace, studies tended to concentrate on white, male, unionized workers in manufacturing and heavy industry (Ackers, 2002, p. 4). The influential systems model crafted by Dunlop (1958) gave rise to The discipline’s preoccupation with the ‘problem of order’ [which] ensures the invisibility of women, not only because women have generally been less successful in mobilizing around their own needs and discontents, but more profoundly because this approach identifies the employment relationship as the ultimate source of power and conflict at work (Forrest, 1993, p. 410). While ‘the system approach does not deliberately exclude gender . . . by reproducing a very narrow research approach and understanding of issues of relevance for the research, gender is in general excluded or looked on as something of peripheral interest’ (Hansen, 2002, p. 198). However, long-lived patterns of gender segregation in occupations and industries, together with discriminatory access to work and social views about women and ethnic groups in the paid workforce, mean that the employment experience of women and ethnic groups is frequently quite different to that of men in the dominant ethnic group. Since the 1980s, research into women and employment has figured in the employment relations literature, but it is often relegated to a separate category in specific articles or book chapters, with women implicitly or explicitly seen as the atypical or exceptional worker (Hansen, 2002; Wajcman, 2000). The same conclusion can be reached for other groups with different labour force patterns and employment outcomes. This chapter proposes that awareness of equity issues is central to employment relations. Like industrial relations legislation and approaches, each country will have a unique set of equity policies and legislation, reflecting their history and culture. Yet while most books on employment and industrial relations deal with issues of equity in a separate chapter (most commonly on equity for women or more recently on ‘diversity’), the reality in the workplace is that all types of legislation and policies which impact on the wages and working conditions interact, and their impact cannot be disentangled one from another. When discussing equity in workplaces in the twenty-first century we are now faced with a plethora of different terms in English. Terms used include discrimination, equity, equal opportunity, affirmative action and diversity with all its variants (workplace diversity, managing diversity, and so on). There is a lack of agreed definitions, particularly when the terms are used outside of a legislative context. This ‘shifting linguistic terrain’ (Kennedy-Dubourdieu, 2006b, p. 3) varies from country to country and changes over time even within the one country. There is frequently a division made between equity and its related concepts and the range of expressions using the term ‘diversity’ (Wilson and Iles, 1999; Thomas and Ely, 1996). These present dilemmas for practitioners and researchers due to the amount and range of ideas prevalent – and the breadth of issues that are covered when we say ‘equity and diversity in employment’. To add to these dilemmas, the literature on equity and diversity has become bifurcated: the literature on workplace diversity/management diversity appears largely in the business literature while that on equity in employment appears frequently in legal and industrial relations journals. Workplaces of the twenty-first century differ from those of the nineteenth and twentieth century not only in the way they deal with individual and group differences but also in the way they interpret what are fair and equitable outcomes for different individuals and groups. These variations are the result of a range of social conditions, legislation and workplace constraints that have influenced the development of employment equity and the management of diversity. Attempts to achieve employment equity have primarily been dealt with through legislative means, and in the last fifty years this legislation has included elements of anti-discrimination, affirmative action, and equal employment opportunity in virtually all OECD countries (Mor Barak, 2005, pp. 17–52). Established on human rights and social justice principles, this legislation is based on the premise that systemic discrimination has and/or continues to exist in the labour force and particular groups of citizens have less advantageous employment outcomes. It is based on group identity, and employment equity programmes in general apply across all workplaces and are mandatory. The more recent notions of diversity in the workplace are based on ideas coming principally from the USA in the 1980s which have spread widely in the Western world since the 1990s. Broadly speaking, diversity ideas focus on individual differences either on their own or in concert with the idea of group differences. The diversity literature is based on a business case: that is diversity is profitable in a variety of ways for business, and generally lacks a social justice or human rights justification (Burgess et al., 2009, pp. 81–2). Managing diversity is represented at the organizational level as a voluntary and local programme. This chapter discusses some major models and theories for equity and diversity. It begins by charting the history of ideas about equity in employment and then briefly discusses what is meant by equality and equity. The chapter then analyses the major debates about the ways in which equity can be achieved. The more recent ideas about diversity are then discussed, including the history of these ideas and the principles which guide this concept. The following section discusses both major frameworks of equity and diversity. The chapter then raises some ways in which insights from the equity and diversity literature can inform employment relations. Finally, the future of equity and diversity ideas is discussed.

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This paper introduces the concept of workplace mobbing as a destructive organizational behaviour of psychological assaults perpetrated against the target causing them harm and loss of employment. The discussion is drawn from a three year Australian study of 212 self identified targets of workplace mobbing behaviours. The behaviours are typically covert with informal networks and friendship loyalties providing effective mechanisms for emotional abuse, including those arising from human resource management practices. This paper discusses the manipulation of informal sources of power, with the use of gossip, rumour, hearsay, and innuendo to discredit and demonise those targeted. The study explores some of the systemic reasons for these behaviours and identifies some of the contributing risk factors and suggests management practices that can minimise the harm caused.

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Employees' inability to balance work and non-work related responsibilities have resulted in an increase in stress related illnesses. Historically, research into the relationship between work and non-work has primarily focused on work/family conflict, predominately investigating the impact of this conflict on parents, usually mothers. To date research has not sufficiently examined the management practices that enable all 'individuals' to achieve a 'balance' between work and life. This study explores the relationship between contemporary life friendly HR management policies and work/life balance for individuals as well as the effect of managerial support to the policies. Self-report questionnaire data from 1,241 men and women is analysed and discussed to enable organizations to consider the use of life friendly policies and thus create a convergence between the well-being of employees and the effectiveness of the organization.

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The present study aims to validate the current best-practice model of implementation effectiveness in small and mid-size businesses. Data from 135 organizations largely confirm the original model across various types of innovation. In addition, we extended this work by highlighting the importance of human resources in implementation effectiveness and the consequences of innovation effectiveness on future adoption attitudes. We found that the availability of skilled employees was positively related to implementation effectiveness. Furthermore, organizations that perceived a high level of benefits from implemented innovations were likely to have a positive attitude towards future innovation adoption. The implications of our improvements to the original model of implementation effectiveness are discussed.

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Background: It is predicted that China will have the largest number of cases of dementia in the world by 2025 (Ferri et al., 2005). Research has demonstrated that caring for family members with dementia can be a long-term, burdensome activity resulting in physical and emotional distress and impairment (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003b). The establishment of family caregiver supportive services in China can be considered urgent; and the knowledge of the caregiving experience and related influencing factors is necessary to inform such services. Nevertheless, in the context of rapid demographic and socioeconomic change, the impact of caregiving for rural and urban Chinese adult-child caregivers may be different, and different needs in supportive services may therefore be expected. Objectives: The aims of this research were 1) to examine the potential differences existing in the caregiving experience between rural and urban adult-child caregivers caring for parents with dementia in China; and 2) to examine the potential differences existing in the influencing factors of the caregiving experience for rural as compared with urban adult-child caregivers caring for parents with dementia in China. Based on the literature review and Kramer.s (1997) caregiver adaptation model, six concepts and their relationships of caregiving experience were studied: severity of the care receivers. dementia, caregivers. appraisal of role strain and role gain, negative and positive well-being outcomes, and health related quality of life. Furthermore, four influencing factors (i.e., filial piety, social support, resilience, and personal mastery) were studied respectively. Methods: A cross-sectional, comparative design was used to achieve the aims of the study. A questionnaire, which was designed based on the literature review and on Kramer.s (1997) caregiver adaptation model, was completed by 401 adult-child caregivers caring for their parents with dementia from the mental health outpatient departments in five hospitals in the Yunnan province, P.R. China. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed as the main statistical technique for data analyses. Other statistical techniques (e.g., t-tests and Chi-Square tests) were also conducted to compare the demographic characteristics and the measured variables between rural and urban groups. Results: For the first research aim, the results indicated that urban adult-child caregivers in China experienced significantly greater strain and negative well-being outcomes than their rural peers; whereas, the difference on the appraisal of role gain and positive outcomes was nonsignificant between the two groups. The results also indicated that the amounts of severity of care receivers. dementia and caregivers. health related quality of life do not have the same meanings between the two groups. Thus, the levels of these two concepts were not comparable between the rural and urban groups in this study. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that the negative direct effect of gain on negative outcomes in urban caregivers was stronger than that in rural caregivers, suggesting that the urban caregivers tended to use appraisal of role gain to protect themselves from negative well-being outcomes to a greater extent. In addition, the unexplained variance in strain in the urban group was significantly more than that in the rural group, suggesting that there were other unmeasured variables besides the severity of care receivers. dementia which would predict strain in urban caregivers compared with their rural peers. For the second research aim, the results demonstrated that rural adult-child caregivers reported a significantly higher level of filial piety and more social support than their urban counterparts, although the two groups did not significantly differ on the levels of their resilience and personal mastery. Furthermore, although the mediation effects of these four influencing factors on both positive and negative aspects remained constant across rural and urban adult-child caregivers, urban caregivers tended to be more effective in using personal mastery to protect themselves from role strain than rural caregivers, which in turn protects them more from the negative well-being outcomes than was the case with their rural peers. Conclusions: The study extends the application of Kramer.s caregiving adaptation process model (Kramer, 1997) to a sample of adult-child caregivers in China by demonstrating that both positive and negative aspects of caregiving may impact on the caregiver.s health related quality of life, suggesting that both aspects should be targeted in supportive interventions for Chinese family caregivers. Moreover, by demonstrating partial mediation effects, the study provides four influencing factors (i.e., filial piety, social support, resilience, and personal mastery) as specific targets for clinical interventions. Furthermore, the study found evidence that urban adult-child caregivers had more negative but similar positive experience compared to their rural peers, suggesting that the establishment of supportive services for urban caregivers may be more urgent at present stage in China. Additionally, since urban caregivers tended to use appraisal of role gain and personal mastery to protect themselves from negative well-being outcomes than rural caregivers to a greater extend, interventions targeting utility of gain or/and personal mastery to decrease negative outcomes might be more effective in urban caregivers than in rural caregivers. On the other hand, as cultural expectations and expression of filial piety tend to be more traditional in rural areas, interventions targeting filial piety could be more effective among rural caregivers. Last but not least, as rural adult-child caregivers have more existing natural social support than their urban counterparts, mobilising existing natural social support resources may be more beneficial for rural caregivers, whereas, formal supports (e.g., counselling services, support groups and adult day care centres) should be enhanced for urban caregivers.

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The 21" century business environment is dominated by unprecedented change across a broad spectrum of social, economic, technological and cultural factors (Nowotny, Scott & Gibbons 2001). Among these, two broad trends -economic globalisation and rising knowledge intensity (Hart 2006)have come to distinguish organisational life. Under the weight of these transformational influences, the developed world, it seems, has arrived at a transformational moment. The far-reaching effects of the global financial crisis and its shadowy twin: the threat of a double dip recession, continue to exert an unsteadying influence on global and corporate finances. Growth in developed economies has slumped, share prices have declined, the market value of corporations has slipped and unemployment rates, in the vast majority of developed economies, have risen. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth has retreated from the strong growth experienced in the late 1990s to negative growth in 2009 and a sluggish and unsteady recovery in 2010. In response, the reach of Government in terms of its participation in markets has been extended, bringing with it the need to transition to new governance and regulatory arrangements. Ongoing concerns regarding the pace and sustainability of the recovery remains a front-of-mind concern with bailouts, buybacks, borrowings and BP dominating news services: 'We are witnessing the reweaving of the social, political and economic fabric that binds our planet, with long-term consequences that are as or more profound than those of the industrial era' (Tapscott & Williams 2006, p. 59).

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Objective: To determine whether remote monitoring (structured telephone support or telemonitoring) without regular clinic or home visits improves outcomes for patients with chronic heart failure. Data sources: 15 electronic databases, hand searches of previous studies, and contact with authors and experts. Data extraction: Two investigators independently screened the results. Review methods: Published randomised controlled trials comparing remote monitoring programmes with usual care in patients with chronic heart failure managed within the community. Results: 14 randomised controlled trials (4264 patients) of remote monitoring met the inclusion criteria: four evaluated telemonitoring, nine evaluated structured telephone support, and one evaluated both. Remote monitoring programmes reduced the rates of admission to hospital for chronic heart failure by 21% (95% confidence interval 11% to 31%) and all cause mortality by 20% (8% to 31%); of the six trials evaluating health related quality of life three reported significant benefits with remote monitoring, and of the four studies examining healthcare costs with structured telephone support three reported reduced cost and one no effect. Conclusion: Programmes for chronic heart failure that include remote monitoring have a positive effect on clinical outcomes in community dwelling patients with chronic heart failure.