The impact of bullying on health care administration staff : reduced commitment beyond the influences of negative affectivity

Background: Investigations of workplace bullying in health care settings have tended to focus on nurses or other clinical staff. However, the organizational and power structures enabling bullying in health care are present for all employees, including administrative staff.

Purposes: The purpose of this study was to specifically focus on health care administration staff and examine the prevalence and consequences of workplace bullying in this occupational group.

Methodology/Approach: A cross-sectional study was conducted based on questionnaire data from health care administration staff who work across facilities within a medium to large health care organization in Australia. The questionnaire included measures of bullying, negative affectivity (NA), job satisfaction, organizational commitment, well-being, and psychological distress. The three hypotheses of the study were that (a) workplace bullying will be linked to negative employee outcomes, (b) individual differences on demographic factors will have an impact on these outcomes, and (c) individual differences in NA will be a significant covariate in the analyses. The hypotheses were tested using t tests and analyses of covariances.

Findings: A total of 150 health care administration staff completed the questionnaire (76% response rate). Significant main effects were found for workplace bullying, with lower organizational commitment and well-being with the effect on commitment remaining over and above NA. Main effects were found for age on job satisfaction and for employment type on psychological distress. A significant interaction between bullying and employment type for psychological distress was also observed. Negative affectivity was a significant covariate for all analyses of covariance.

Practice Implications: The applications of these results include the need to consider the occupations receiving attention in health care to include administration employees, that bullying is present across health care occupations, and that some employees, particularly part-time staff, may need to be managed slightly differently to the full-time workforce.

Reduced food access due to a lack of money, inability to lift and lack of access to a car for food shopping : a multilevel study in Melbourne, Victoria

Objective: To describe associations between demographic and individual and arealevel socio-economic variables and restricted household food access due to lack of money, inability to lift groceries and lack of access to a car to do food shopping.
Design: Multilevel study of three measures of restricted food access, i.e. running out of money to buy food, inability to lift groceries and lack of access to a car for food shopping. Multilevel logistic regression was conducted to examine the risk of each of these outcomes according to demographic and socio-economic variables.
Setting: Random selection of households from fifty small areas in Melbourne, Australia, in 2003.
Subjects: The main food shoppers in each household (n 2564).
Results: A lack of money was significantly more likely among the young and in households with single adults. Difficultly lifting was more likely among the elderly and those born overseas. The youngest and highest age groups both reported reduced car access, as did those born overseas and single-adult households. All three factors were most likely among those with a lower individual or household socio-economic position. Increased levels of area disadvantage were independently associated with difficultly lifting and reduced car access.
Conclusions: In Melbourne, households with lower individual socio-economic position and area disadvantage have restricted access to food because of a lack of money and/or having physical limitations due difficulty lifting or lack of access to a car for food shopping. Further research is required to explore the relationship between physical restrictions and food access.

Hip adductor muscle strength is reduced preceding and during the onset of groin pain in elite junior Australian football players

Groin pain is a condition with a high prevalence in young Australian football players. It is considered that early identification of this condition allows for optimal management. Eighty-six players from two elite under-age Australian football sides were screened weekly for hip adductor muscle strength, using a hand-held dynamometer and for the onset of groin pain. The maximum variation in the average hip adductor muscle strength values of the sample was a 2.6% decrease from baseline in week 7 of the study. Twelve players (14% of the sample studied) reported groin pain for two consecutive weeks and were considered to have an onset of groin injury. The mean hip adductor muscle strength of these players was decreased significantly from baseline by an average of 11.75 ± 2.50% at the week of pain onset (F = 264.76 (1,11), p < 0.001), and 5.82 ± 5.16% in the week preceding the onset of pain (F = 14.03 (1,10), p = 0.004). These results confirm that hip adductor muscle strength is decreased both preceding and during the onset of groin injury in elite under-age Australian footballers.

Reduced graphene oxide/ZnO composite : reusable adsorbent for pollutant management

Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) coated with ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) was synthesized by a self-assembly and in situ photoreduction method, and then their application for removing organic pollutant from water was investigated. The RGO@ZnO composite nanomaterial has unique structural features including well-dispersed NPs on the surface and dense NPs loading. This composite exhibited a greatly improved Rhodamine B (RhB) adsorption capacity and an improved photocatalytic activity for degrading RhB compared to neat ZnO NPs. These properties made RGO@ZnO reusable for pollutant adsorbent. The composite showed an excellent cycling performance for organic pollutant removal up to 99% recovery over several cycles via simulated sunlight irradiation.

Fructose-1,6-Bisphosphatase overexpression in pancreatic [beta]-cells results in reduced insulin secretion : a new mechanism for fat-induced impairment of [beta]-cell function

Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (FBPase) is a gluconeogenic enzyme that is upregulated in islets or pancreatic beta-cell lines exposed to high fat. However, whether specific beta-cell upregulation of FBPase can impair insulin secretory function is not known. The objective of this study therefore is to determine whether a specific increase in islet beta-cell FBPase can result in reduced glucose-mediated insulin secretion.

To test this hypothesis, we have generated three transgenic mouse lines overexpressing the human FBPase (huFBPase) gene specifically in pancreatic islet beta-cells. In addition, to investigate the biochemical mechanism by which elevated FBPase affects insulin secretion, we made two pancreatic beta-cell lines (MIN6) stably overexpressing huFBPase.

FBPase transgenic mice showed reduced insulin secretion in response to an intravenous glucose bolus. Compared with the untransfected parental MIN6, FBPase-overexpressing cells showed a decreased cell proliferation rate and significantly depressed glucose-induced insulin secretion. These defects were associated with a decrease in the rate of glucose utilization, resulting in reduced cellular ATP levels.

Taken together, these results suggest that upregulation of FBPase in pancreatic islet beta-cells, as occurs in states of lipid oversupply and type 2 diabetes, contributes to insulin secretory dysfunction.

Reduced planum temporale volume and delusional behaviour in patients with schizophrenia

The structural abnormality of planum temporale (PT), a part of the superior temporal heteromodal association cortex involved in auditory and language processing, has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. However, its relationship to clinical manifestations remains unclear. Magnetic resonance images were obtained from 17 right-handed Japanese men with schizophrenia and from 22 age-, handedness-, and parental socioeconomic-status-matched healthy Japanese men in order to manually evaluate grey matter volumes of Heschl’s gyrus (HG) and PT. Psychiatric symptoms were assessed using positive and negative syndrome scale among the patients. Compared with healthy participants, patients with schizophrenia were associated with a statistically significant PT grey matter volume reduction without left or right lateralization, whereas HG volume was preserved. Smaller right PT volume was significantly correlated with more severe delusional behaviour in the patients. Previous investigations have focused on smaller-than-normal left PT in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia; however, the present results suggest a possible role of the right PT, which is involved in social cognition such as understanding the intentions of others, in the production of psychotic experiences in patients with schizophrenia.