Support Group

In this retrospective study we explore the life trajectory of Vietnamese HIV-positive AIDS widows over a period 2 years after their husbands' deaths in a patrilinear and patrilocal setting where HIV is stigmatized. Some options, such as widows living with their eldest son, are not available to young HIVpositive widows, but the women in our study furthered their own interest by joining support groups, looking for new partners, and strengthening relations with their own family. Most women who returned to live with their family found a new intimate relationship through support groups for HIV-positive persons. ?? Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Objective: To explore the clinical characteristics of users of an online support group for people with eating disorders (EDs). Method: One hundred and thirty-eight support group participants were recruited online and completed measures that were specifically adapted for internet administration. These included two subscales of the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-2); the 26-item version of the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26); the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS); and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE). Results: Participants scored significantly higher than published normative data on all measures. In addition, while the group scored in line with traditional clinical samples, some self-reported diagnostic groups scored significantly higher on all of the factors. Discussion: Participants demonstrated a clinical profile, in terms of reported distress, comparable to, and on some measures in excess of, samples diagnosed with an ED. Online support groups may be ideally placed to offer support and information to some people with EDs.

To determine the efficacy of a peer-led social support intervention involving support groups and telephone contacts compared with standard clinical care to enhance antiretroviral medication adherence. Design: Randomized controlled trial with follow-up. Participants were 136 HIV-positive indigent mainly African American and Puerto Rican men and women recruited from an outpatient clinic in the Bronx, New York. The 3-month intervention was delivered by other HIV-positive clinic patients trained in addressing barriers to adherence and sensitively providing appraisal, spiritual, emotional, and informational adherence-related social support. Main outcome measures: Medical chart-abstracted HIV-1 RNA viral load, antiretroviral adherence according to electronic drug monitoring and participant self-report, and social support and depressive symptomatology. All assessments conducted at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months. Results: Intent-to-treat and as-treated analyses indicated no between-conditions intervention effects on the primary outcome of HIV-1 RNA viral load or any of the secondary outcomes at immediate postintervention or follow-up. Post hoc analyses within the intervention condition indicated greater intervention exposure was associated with higher self-reported adherence, higher social support, and lower depressive symptomatology at follow-up, even after controlling for baseline adherence. Conclusion: Null findings, consistent with the limited literature on efficacious highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) adherence interventions, may be due to insufficient exposure to the intervention, its low intensity, or the nature of the sample-a heterogeneous HAART-experienced group of patients with high levels of substance use and multiple other competing stressors. Overall, findings highlight the need for more comprehensive and intensive efforts to battle nonadherence.

Healthy Steps (HS) represents a significant innovation in the way pediatric primary care can be delivered. Based on the standards and principles of Bright Futures and the American Academy of Pediatrics Health Supervision Guidelines, HS enhances and expands traditional pediatric care by including a child development specialist (Healthy Steps specialist) as part of the pediatric practice team. Services offered by this person, typically a nurse, early childhood educator, or social worker, include more time to spend discussing preventive issues during well-child visits, home visits, a telephone information line exclusively addressing developmental and behavioral concerns, new written materials, and more seamless linkages to community resources and parent support groups.

SUMMARY: This paper proposes a knowledge management framework for project definition of capital facility projects. The conceptual framework emphasizes project-based learning and the creation of group knowledge in early phase project planning and design activity. The use of multi-disciplinary expertise in this phase of project development acknowledges the use of multiple decision frames by which stakeholders approach project solutions. This research views project definition as a collaborative decision-making process, and ...

This paper presents design implications for educational groupware as revealed by GHT (Group Homework Tool), a same time different place groupware tool built to support synchronous, collaborative coding among novice programmers. We detail the design, implementation, evaluation, and redesign of GHT, focusing on the issues of awareness, control, evaluation and scaffolding. GHT capitalizes on trends of technology and collaboration in the traditional learning environment by supporting distance learning, remote access to TAs and tutors, and facilitating co-located and remote group work. Constructing such software for a computer science curriculum provides unique challenges as one must integrate the tools used by a programmer, the resources used by a learner, and the widgets used to support group interaction. By combining common groupware components with our own shared editor we were able to exploit the educational benefits in a modified version of extreme programming [1]. Our research informs future design efforts by building upon previous investigations of integrated, cooperative software in a learning environment [10, 12, 11].

Objective: Counsellor familiarity and engagement with technology-mediated communication represents an important factor in the ability to implement support programs to cancer patients. This study describes the experiences of a cohort of expert psycho-oncology counsellors who learned to facilitate online support groups (OSGs) and identifies the important elements of their learning experience that led to their engagement.

Purpose Migrants with cancer struggle to communicate with their health care team. This study aimed to identify health-care related unmet needs and communication issues for migrants who develop cancer and factors associated with these challenges. In this paper, the findings related to communication issues are presented. Patients and methods Seventy-three cancer patients diagnosed within the previous 3 years and 18 carers, who had migrated to Australia and spoke the designated languages, participated in focus groups or structured interviews. Participants were recruited from ethnic community support organisations, support groups and Oncology clinics within three metropolitan hospitals in two states of Australia. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted in participants' own language or English as preferred, audio-taped, transcribed and translated into English and analysed using qualitative methods. Results Four themes emerged: (1) cultural isolation, alienation and identification; (2) language and communication difficulties; (3) interpreter issues; and (4) advice for health professionals. Participants, especially those less acculturated, described feeling alone and misunderstood, failing to comprehend medical instructions, being unable to communicate questions and concerns and a lack of consistency in interpreters and interpretation.

u increase the profile of Nursing and Midwifery within our region, nationally and internationally u foster increased skill and confidence in writing for publication u build a culture of evidence based practice, critical review and sharing through publication u provide a vehicle for dissemination of information and clinical change projects and innovations u showcase the writing of nurses and midwives, either individually or in collaboration with other disciplines Scope: The journal will publish articles with a clinical focus that highlight the work of nurses and midwives and impact on patient outcomes across the range of clinical contexts. In particular, we are seeking articles that represent the diversity of clinical practice, the unique nature of this Area Health Service and its' populations and their health care needs, the challenges confronting clinicians and the innovative strategies they employ to overcome them.

Dat mantelzorgers zelf ondersteuning nodig hebben, wordt vandaag de dag algemeen onderkend. Vooral waar het gaat om de zorg voor chronisch zieken is er steeds meer aandacht voor de belasting van de mantelzorgers en hun behoefte aan specifieke ondersteuning.