Harassment at work? Empowerment and autonomy as coping strategies of young workers

There is a considerable number of researches about workplace violence, but few relate young workers and work harassment. This study aimed to investigate the reported perceptions of young apprentices and trainees about moral harassment at work and related coping strategies. Forty adolescent workers (22 men and 18 women) between 15 and 20 years old who received training by a non-governmental organization in Sao Paulo, Brazil, participated in the study. Data collection included individual and collective interviews. It was used an in-depth semi structured interview protocol. The discourses were analyzed using the hermeneutic-dialectic frame. Results showed that young workers reported little or no knowledge of strategies to cope with moral harassment at work, showing vulnerability to the effects of aggression. Effective coping strategies at work should embrace two important concepts of health promotion: empowerment and autonomy.

Central pain due to stroke: cognitive representation and coping according to gender

Objective: To identify and compare perceptions of pain and how it is faced between men and women with central post-stroke pain. Methods: The participants were 25 men and 25 women of minimum age 30 years-old and minimum schooling level of four years, presenting central post-stroke pain for at least three months. The instruments used were: Mini-Mental State Examination; structured interview for the Brief Psychiatric Scale; Survey of Sociodemographic and Clinical Data; Visual Analogue Scale (VAS); Ways of Coping with Problems Scale (WCPS) in Scale; Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R); and Beck Depression Inventory (BD). Results: A significantly greater number of women used the coping strategy "Turn to spiritual and religious activities" in WCPS. They associated their emotional state with the cause of pain in IPQ-R. "Distraction of attention" was the strategy most used by the subjects. Conclusion: Women used spiritual and religious activities more as a coping strategy and perceived their emotional state as the cause of pain.

Aplicabilidade da auriculoterapia para reduzir estresse e como estratégia de coping em profissionais de enfermagem

OBJETIVOS: trata-se de ensaio clínico randomizado com o objetivo de avaliar a auriculoterapia, para diminuição de níveis de estresse, em 75 profissionais de enfermagem de um hospital e analisar os principais domínios de coping que se modificaram após o tratamento. METODOLOGIA: os sujeitos foram divididos em grupos (controle, agulhas, sementes), receberam 8 sessões nos pontos Shenmen, rim e tronco cerebral. O grupo controle não recebeu nenhuma intervenção. RESULTADOS: constataram-se diferenças significativas pela ANOVA, para níveis de estresse entre o grupo agulha/controle na terceira e quarta avaliações, segundo escores de estresse da Lista de Sintoma de Stress de Vasconcelos. Para o Inventário de Folkman e Lazarus, obteve-se diferença estatística para o domínio afastamento entre os grupos agulha/controle, após tratamento; e, na análise dentro do mesmo grupo, obtiveram-se diferenças significativas para o domínio confronto, na quarta avaliação entre grupos agulha/controle e para suporte social, na terceira avaliação para os grupos agulha/semente. CONCLUSÕES: a auriculoterapia com agulhas diminuiu os níveis de estresse significativamente e houve diminuição da utilização dos domínios afastamento, confronto e suporte social para os grupos de intervenção, após o tratamento, sugerindo que a auriculoterapia tanto com agulhas quanto com sementes pode produzir impacto positivo para melhorar a estratégia de coping na equipe de enfermagem. Mais estudos, porém, fazem-se necessários para que se possa conhecer o alcance da técnica.

Coping Style and Depressive Symptomatology during Pregnancy in a Private Setting Sample

Aim: to evaluate the association of antenatal depressive symptomatology (AD) with life events and coping styles, the hypothesis was that certain coping strategies are associated to depressive symptomatology. Methods: we performed a cross sectional study of 312 women attending a private clinic in the city of Osasco, Sao Paulo from 27/05/1998 to 13/05/2002. The following instruments were used: Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Events (SSRS), Folkman and Lazarus Ways of Coping Questionnaire and questionnaire with social-demographic and obstetric data. Inclusion criteria: women with 110 past history of depression, psychiatric treatment, alcohol or drug abuse and no clinical-obstetrical complications. Odds ratios and 95% CI were used to examine the association between AD (according to BDI) and exposures variables. Hypothesis testing was done with chi(2) tests and a p value < .05. Results: AD occurred in 21.1% of pregnant women. By the univariate analyses, education, number of pregnancies, previous abortion, husband income, situation of marriage and score of SSRS were associated with AD. All coping styles were associated with AD, except seeking support and positive reappraisal. By the multivariate analyses, four coping styles were kept in the final model: confront (p = .039), accepting responsibility (p < .001), escape-avoidance (p = .002), problem-solving (p = .005). Conclusions: AD was highly prevalent and was associated with maladaptive coping styles.

Avaliações congnitivas, emoções e coping: um estudo com futebolistas portugueses

[ES] Este estudio tuvo como objetivo analizar los patrones y las asociaciones de las estrategias de coping, evaluación cognitiva, ansiedad y otras emociones de jugadores de fútbol.

Partis politiques et stratégies électorales à Parakou /// Arbeitspapiere / Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien ; 22

partis politiques, acteurs politiques, périodes électorales, popularité, stratégies, pouvoir local

Use of behavioural patterns to analyze transport stress in piglets and young bulls. The influence of individual coping characteristics in stress response.

In modern farm systems the economic interests make reducing the risks related to transport practice an important goal. An increasing attention is directed to the welfare of animals in transit, also considering the new existing facilities. In recent years the results coming from the study of animal farm behaviour were used as tool to assess the welfare. In this thesis were analyzed behavioural patterns, jointly with blood variables, to evaluate the stress response of piglets and young bulls during transport. Since the animal behaviour could be different between individuals and these differences can affect animal responses to aversive situations, the individual behavioural characteristics were taken in account. Regarding young bulls, selected to genetic evaluation, the individual behaviour was investigated before, during and after transport, while for piglets was adopted a tested methodology classification and behavioural tests to observe their coping characteristics. The aim of this thesis was to analyse the behavioural and physiological response of young bulls and piglets to transport practice and to investigate if coping characteristics may affect how piglets cope with aversive situations. The thesis is composed by four experimental studies. The first one aims to identify the best existent methodology classification of piglets coping style between those that were credited in literature. The second one investigated the differences in response to novel situations of piglets with different coping styles. The last studies evaluated the stress response of piglets and young bulls to road transportation. The results obtained show that transport did not affect the behaviour and homeostasis of young animals which respond in a different way from adults. However the understanding of individual behavioural characteristic and the use of behavioural patterns, in addition to blood analyses, need to be more investigated in order to be useful tools to assess the animal response in aversive situation.

The role of proactive coping strategies and perceived health status for Social well-being and life-project in old age.

The latter part of the 20th century was a period characterized by a fundamental demographic transition of western society. This substantial and structural demographic change proposes several challenges to contemporary society and fosters the emergence of new issues and challenges. Among these, none is more crucial than the comprehension of the mechanisms and the processes that lead people to positive aging. Rowe and Kahn’s model of successful aging highlights the interplay between social engagement with life, health, and functioning for a positive aging experience. Other systemic models of successful aging (Kahana et al., 1996; 2003; Stevernik et al., 2006) emphasize the role of internal and external resources for attaining positive aging. Among these, the proactive coping strategies are indicated as important active strategies for avoiding the depletion of resources, counterbalancing the declines and maintaining social and civic involvement. The study has analyzed the role of proactive coping strategies for two facets of positive aging, the experience of a high social well-being and the presence of personal projects in fundamental life domains. As expected, the proactive coping strategies, referred to as the active management of the environment, the accumulation of resources and the actualization of human potentials are confirmed as positive predictors of high level of social well-being and of many personal projects focused on family, culture, leisure time, civic and social participation. Perceived health status give a significant contribution only to the possession of many personal projects. Gender and level of school education give also a significant contribution to these two dimensions of positive aging, highlighting how positive aging is rooted not only in the possession of personal resources, but also in historical models of education and in positive longitudinal chains related to early development.

Cannabinoid CB1 receptor in the regulation of sociability, stress coping, and its interaction with the serotonergic system

Cannabinerge Substanzen können das Verhalten in einer dosisabhängigen, aber biphasischen Weise beeinflussen. Eine Erklärung für diese Art der Effekte könnte die Verteilung des CB1 Rezeptors auf verschiedenen Neuronentypen sein. CB1 Rezeptoren in glutamatergen und GABAergen Neuronen sind hier besonders wichtig, da die entsprechenden Neurotransmitter als Gegenspieler die neuronale Erregung kontrollieren. Spezifische Deletion des CB1 Rezeptor-Gens von einer der beiden Populationen führte zu gegensätzlichen Phenotypen, genauer gesagt, einem erniedrigten, bzw. einem gesteigerten Interaktiondrang. Tiere, bei denen der CB1 Rezeptor ausschließlich in striatalen, GABAergen „Medium Spiny“ Neuronen deletiert wurde, zeigten keinen veränderten Phänotyp. Dies legt nahe, dass der CB1 Rezeptor in kortikalen glutamatergen und GABAergen Neuronen für einen ausgeglichenen Interaktionsdrang entscheidend ist (siehe Kapitel 3).rnDiese dosisabhängigen, biphasischen Effekte auf das Verhalten können auch im „Forced Swim Test“ (FST) beobachtet werden. Ein möglicher Mechanismus, durch den Cannabinoide das Stressverhalten beeinflussen können, wäre die Regulierung der Monoaminausschüttung. Um die Abhängigkeit der Cannabinoideffekte von der Serotonintransmission zu untersuchen, wurden Dosen von CB1 Rezeptoragonisten und –antagonisten mit antidepressiv-induzierenden Eigenschaften bei gleichzeitiger Inhibition der Serotonintransmission im FST getestet. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass lediglich der Agonisteffekt durch die Inhibition der Serotoninauschüttung beeinflusst wird. Zusätzlich konnte die Abhängigkeit des Antagonisteneffekts von funktionsfähigen GABAergen CB1 Rezeptoren nachweisen werden. Interessanter Weise konnte der durch die Deletion von glutamatergen CB1 Rezeptoren induzierte Phänotyp durch Inhibition der Serotoninausschüttung blockiert werden (siehe Kapitel 4).rnEin indirekter Einfluss auf Serotoninausschüttung scheint also wahrscheinlich zu sein. Bis jetzt blieb jedoch unklar, inwieweit cannabinerge Substanzen direkt auf serotonerge Neuronen wirken können. Im Jahr 2007 konnte unsere Gruppe die Expression des CB1 Rezeptors in serotonergen Neuronen auf mRNA- und Proteinebene nachweisen. Die Züchtung und Analyse einer mutanten Mauslinie, in welcher der CB1-Rezeptor spezifisch in serotonergen Neuronen ausgeschaltet wurde, zeigte bei männlichen Tieren eine schwache, aber signifikante Verhaltensänderungen, die durch soziale Stimuli und lebensbedrohlichen Situationen ausgelöst wurde. So ist es erstmals gelungen nachzuweisen, dass serotonerge CB1-Rezeptoren eine physiologische Relevanz besitzen (siehe Kapitel 5).rn