Psychological distress, perceived burden and quality of life in caregivers of persons with schizophrenia

Background: Caregiving in schizophrenia is a demanding and exhausting activity that challenges the physical and emotional resources of family caregivers. In traditional societies such as India, this is further compounded by illiteracy, ignorance and religious and cultural explanations attributed to mental illness. Aims: This study aimed to assess primary caregivers of persons with schizophrenia in terms of their perceived burden, manifestation of psychological distress and quality of life (QOL). Methods: The study used a quantitative cross-sectional design and survey methodology to collect data from caregivers in a hospital setting in Thanjavur, India. Standardized instruments were used to collect data from patients and their caregivers. Results: High perceived burden and lower QOL were seen in the majority of caregivers. They also manifested high levels of anxiety and depression. Patient characteristics such as age, gender, symptoms and duration of illness did not influence the perceived burden of caregivers, while positive and negative symptoms and the duration of illness were correlated with their QOL. Conclusions: Findings indicate the need for intervention for family caregivers to enable them cope more effectively with the demands of caregiving. Psychoeducation and participation in peer support groups are advocated as low resource and effective outcome strategies for caregivers in India

Resilience its nature and significance (a theoretical overview)

The Positive Psychology movement has turned the focus on the strengths that people bring to deal with trauma and crisis. The concept of resilience has assumed increasing significance in this regard and looks at how people withstand the effects of adversity and return to a state of normalcy. The understanding of resilience has been approached from several disciplinary perspectives resulting in a plethora of definitions and explanations. It has been regarded as a personality attribute by some and a contextual disposition by others. This theoretical overview adopts a historical approach and seeks to consolidate and synthesise key points in the understanding of resilience. It examines the multi-faceted nature of resilience and other related concepts as detailed in the extant literature. Characteristics of resilient people and its importance in coping have also been discussed. The bio-psychosocial nature of resilience is explored in this paper with reference to the ecosystems perspective. The concluding section briefly outlines implications for intervention

Education Can Compensate for Society - a Bit

In this paper I reflect on the findings of a number of loosely related research projects undertaken with colleagues over the last ten years. Their common theme is equity, in formal education and beyond, in wider family and social settings, and with inequity expressed as the stratification of a variety of educational outcomes. The projects are based on a standard mixture of pre-existing records, official documents, large-scale surveys, observations, interviews and focus groups. The numeric data were largely used to create biographical models of educational experiences, and the in-depth data were used to try to explain individual decisions and disparities at each stage of the model. Data have been collected for England and Wales, in five other countries of the European Union and for Japan. A meta-view of these various findings suggests that national school intakes tend to be at least moderately segregated by prior attainment and socio-economic factors, and that learning outcomes as assessed by formal means, such as examinations, are heavily stratified by these same factors. There is no convincing evidence that compulsory schooling does very much to overcome the initial disparity in the resources and attainment of school intakes. On the other hand, there are indications that the nature of a national school system and the social experiences of young people in schools can begin to equalise educational outcomes as more widely envisaged, including learning to trust and willingness to help others, aspirations, and attitudes to continuing in education and training. The cost-free implications of the argument in this paper, if accepted, are that everything possible should be done to make school intakes comprehensive, and that explicit consideration, by teachers and leaders, of the applied principles of equity could reduce potentially harmful misunderstandings in educational contexts

But a walking shadow: designing, performing and learning on the virtual stage

Representing elements of reality within a medium, or taking aspects from one medium and placing them in another is an act of remediation. The process of this act, however, is largely taken for granted. Despite the fact that available information enables a qualitative assessment of the history of multimedia and their influences on different fields of knowledge, there are still some areas that require more focused research attention. For example, the relationship between media evolution and new developments in scenographic practice is currently under investigation. This article explores the issue of immediacy as a condition of modern theatre in the context of digital reality. It discusses the opportunities and challenges that recent technologies present to contemporary practitioners and theatre design educators, creating a lot of scope to break with conventions. Here, we present two case studies that look into technology-mediated learning about scenography through the employment of novel computer visualization techniques. The first case study is concerned with new ways of researching and learning about theatre through creative exploration of design artefacts. The second case study investigates the role of the Immersive Virtual World Second Life™ (SL) in effective teaching of scenography, and in creating and experiencing theatrical performances

Global value chains and human development: a class-relational framework

Global Value Chain proponents argue that regional and human development can be achieved through ‘strategic coupling’ with transnational corporations. This argument is misleading for two reasons. First, GVC abstracts firm-firm and firm-state relations from their class-relational basis, obscuring fundamental developmental processes. Second, much GVC analysis promotes linear conceptions of development. This article provides a class-relational framework for GVC analysis. The formation and functioning of GVCs and the developmental effects associated with them are products of histories of evolving and often conflictive, class relations. A study of export horticulture in North East Brazil provides empirical support for these arguments

Encoded

ENCODED is an immersive aerial dance performance and installation that uses the latest interactive technologies to build a projected digital environment that responds to the movements of the performers

Performativity, fabrication and trust: exploring computer-mediated moderation

Based on research conducted in an English secondary school, this paper explores computer mediated moderation as a performative tool. The Module Assessment Meeting (MAM) was the moderation approach under investigation. I mobilise ethnographic data generated by a key informant, and triangulated with that from other actors in the setting, in order to examine some of the meanings underpinning moderation within a performative environment. Drawing on the work of Ball (2003), Lyotard (1979) and Foucault (1977, 1979), I argue that in this particular case performativity has become entrenched in teachers’ day-to-day practices, and not only affects those practices but also teachers’ sense of self. I suggest that MAM represented performative and fabricated conditions and (re)defined what the key participant experienced as a vital constituent of her educational identities - trust. From examining the case in point, I hope to have illustrated for those interested in teachers’ work some of the implications of the interface between technology and performativity

Tourism policy and destination marketing in developing countries: the chain of influence

Tourism marketers including destination marketing organisations (DMOs) and international tour operators play a pivotal role in destination marketing, especially in creating destination images. These images, apparent in tourist brochures, are designed to influence tourist decision-making and behaviour. This paper proposes the concept of a “chain of influence” in destination marketing and image-making, suggesting that the content of marketing materials is influenced by the priorities of those who design these materials, e.g. tour operators and DMOs. A content analysis of 2,000 pictures from DMO and tour operator brochures revealed synergies and divergence between these marketers. The brochure content was then compared to the South African tourism policy, concluding that the dominant factor in the chain of influence in the South African context is in fact its organic image

Mental health status and perceived burden in caregiving spouses of persons with psychotic illness (a study from India)

Mental illness poses a great deal of burden on other family members, particularly the primary caregiver. In the Indian context for a married person with mental illness, the caregiving burden is usually experienced by the spouse, who is considered to be the ‘natural’ option. This quantitative study used survey methodology to assess caregiving burden in fifty spouses of persons diagnosed with a psychotic illness. Data was collected at a neuro-psychiatric facility in Tiruchirappalli, India. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale and the Burden Assessment Schedule were the instruments administered to assess the mental health status of the spouse and their perceived burden. Findings revealed that the majority of spouses were classified as experiencing ‘severe’ and ‘extremely severe’ in terms of their depression, anxiety and stress levels and ‘high’ in terms of perceived burden. The specific ‘type’ of clinical diagnosis, however, did not differentiate the spouses on the key variables studied. The correlation of these key variables with other background variables has also been examined. The implications of the results of this study for psychosocial intervention have also been discussed in this article