Claire McDonald, Fiona Seaman-Thornton, Che Ling Michelle Mok, Hanne Jakobsen and Simon Riches
Negative attitudes towards “personality disorder” are common among mental health professionals. This study aims to design a psychoeducational training targeting attitudes to…
Abstract
Purpose
Negative attitudes towards “personality disorder” are common among mental health professionals. This study aims to design a psychoeducational training targeting attitudes to “personality disorder” for staff working in a London psychiatric hospital. Its impact on staff attitudes was evaluated.
Design/methodology/approach
Mental health clinicians were recruited from five acute psychiatric wards. Feasibility of implementing the training was measured. A free-association exercise explored baseline attitudes to “personality disorder” and visual analogue scales assessed staff attitudes pre- and post-training. Content analysis of staff feedback was carried out.
Findings
Psychoeducational training was found to be feasible, well-attended and highly valued by ward staff (N = 47). Baseline results revealed negative perceptions of “personality disorder”. Post-training, significant improvements in understanding, levels of compassion and attitudes to working with service users with a diagnosis of a “personality disorder” were observed. Staff feedback highlighted desire for further training and support.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size was relatively small and there was no control group, so findings should be interpreted with caution.
Practical implications
The findings highlight the need for support for staff working with service users with diagnoses of “personality disorder” on acute psychiatric wards. Providing regular training with interactive components may promote training as a resource for staff well-being. Planning to ensure service users’ and carers’ views are incorporated into the design of future training will be important.
Originality/value
This study is innovative in that it investigates the impact of a brief psychoeducational training on “personality disorder” designed for mental health staff on acute psychiatric wards.
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Claire McDonald, Jessica Townsend and Caitlin Gillespie
Mental health staff often experience significant levels of stress working in the acute psychiatric inpatient setting. Team-building interventions can mitigate stress in…
Abstract
Purpose
Mental health staff often experience significant levels of stress working in the acute psychiatric inpatient setting. Team-building interventions can mitigate stress in health-care settings, via improvements in team-cohesion, staff interactions and communication skills. The “Tree of Life” (ToL) is a specific narrative therapy approach which uses the metaphor of a tree to facilitate the construction and sharing of strength-based stories. This study aims to describe the development of and evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and staff experiences of the “Team Tree”, an adapted Professional ToL (PToL) intervention.
Design/methodology/approach
A one-hour, Professional ToL intervention was designed for multidisciplinary acute inpatient staff teams working within a psychiatric hospital in London, UK. A mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and staff experiences of the session.
Findings
Participants were 46 multidisciplinary staff (33 women; 13 men) working across four acute psychiatric wards. The intervention was feasible to deliver and was acceptable to participants. Results showed significant improvements in self-reported mental well-being and team-cohesiveness scores post-session.
Practical implications
Psychologists face myriad barriers in working with staff teams in the acute inpatient setting. The “Team Tree” intervention was both well received by staff and practical to deliver within the challenging environment of the acute ward.
Originality/value
This adaptation of the original PToL emerged from the author’s work with distressed inpatient teams with limited time resources. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first description of this intervention using a single tree metaphor to facilitate a reflective and creative session with health-care teams.
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Maureen Dennehy, Hamieda Parker, Sarah Boyd and Claire Barnardo
The case introduces students to aspects of operations management (OM) and management theory and provides examples of the real-world challenges facing a practitioner. It requires…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
The case introduces students to aspects of operations management (OM) and management theory and provides examples of the real-world challenges facing a practitioner. It requires students to think about the operational manager’s responsibilities and how organisational context influences choices and possibly even fit within an organisation.
Case overview/synopsis
In this case, a factory lead protagonist presents her OM challenges and choices within a for-purpose, rather than for-profit, a social enterprise in South Africa. The context presented unusual constraints that required thoughtful adaptation and judicious choices. The case introduces students to aspects of OM and management theory and provides examples of the real-world challenges facing a practitioner. It requires students to think about the operational manager’s responsibilities and how organisational context influences choices and possibly even fit within an organisation.
Complexity academic level
The case is aimed at postgraduate business students studying OM.
Supplementary materials
Teaching Notes are available for educators only.
Subject code
CSS 9: Operations and logistics.
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Damien Arthur and Claire Eloise Sherman
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a marketer-sponsored edutainment centre as a consumer socialisation agent by examining effects on preference for the sponsor brands and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a marketer-sponsored edutainment centre as a consumer socialisation agent by examining effects on preference for the sponsor brands and the degree of socialisation children experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews were undertaken with 16 children in their analytical stage of development as well as one of their parents immediately prior, immediately after, and one week following a part-day visit to the heavily branded edutainment centre Kidzania.
Findings
Results suggest that children did experience consumer socialisation. There was a movement in brand preferences towards the sponsored brands. The children also demonstrated advances in transaction knowledge. Specifically, significant increases were found in product and brand knowledge, shopping scripts and retail knowledge, with some children moving beyond perceptual and analytical thought and demonstrating reflective thought. In contrast, most children did not demonstrate an analytical level of advertising and persuasion knowledge.
Research limitations/implications
Findings are constrained by the children’s specific experiences and the aptitude of both the children as interviewees and the parents as observers/interpreters. Although delayed measures were used this does not necessarily confirm permanency of the effects.
Originality/value
This is the first study to date to examine a marketer-sponsored edutainment centre as a socialisation agent. Specifically, the study contributes to the understanding of this new, participatory form of marketing communications by demonstrating its value in achieving brand objectives while fostering the consumer socialisation of children.
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Juliana Thompson, Glenda Cook, Claire Masterman, Mark Parkinson and Lesley Bainbridge
Different pathways of frailty care to prevent or delay progression of frailty and enable people to live well with frailty are emerging in primary and community care in the UK. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Different pathways of frailty care to prevent or delay progression of frailty and enable people to live well with frailty are emerging in primary and community care in the UK. The purpose of the study is to understand effective frailty care pathways and their components to inform future service development and pathway evaluation in primary- and community-care services.
Design/methodology/approach
A rapid evidence review was conducted: 11 research publications met the inclusion criteria and were analysed using narrative thematic synthesis.
Findings
There is strong evidence that resistance-based exercise, self-management support, community geriatric services and hospital at home (HAH) improve patient health and function. In general, evaluation and comparison of frailty care pathways, components and pathway operations is challenging due to weaknesses, inconsistencies and differences in evaluation, but it is essential to include consideration of process, determinant and implementation of pathways in evaluations.
Originality/value
To achieve meaningful evaluations and facilitate comparisons of frailty pathways, a standardised evaluation toolkit that incorporates evaluation of how pathways are operated is required for evaluating the impact of frailty pathways of care.
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Nathalia Christiani Tjandra, Ivana Rihova, Sarah Snell, Claire S. Den Hertog and Eleni Theodoraki
This paper aims to explore a multi-stakeholder perspective on brand meaning co-creation in the context of the Olympic Games as a unique mega sports event brand with a strong brand…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore a multi-stakeholder perspective on brand meaning co-creation in the context of the Olympic Games as a unique mega sports event brand with a strong brand identity, to understand how the brand manager may integrate such co-created meanings in a negotiated brand identity.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative methodology, the paper provides a tentative framework of co-created Olympic brand meanings by exploring the narratives of stakeholders’ brand experiences of the brand. Sixteen semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of Olympic stakeholders were conducted and analysed to identify key meanings associated with the Olympic brand.
Findings
Through their transformational and social experiences of the Olympic brand, stakeholders co-create brand meanings based on Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect. However, at the same time, they offer their own interpretations and narratives related to competing meanings of spectacle, exclusion and deceit. Alternative brand touchpoints were identified, including blogs; fan and sports community forums; educational and academic sources; and historical sources and literature.
Practical implications
The brand manager must become a brand negotiator, facilitating multi-stakeholder co-creation experiences on a variety of online and offline engagement platforms, and exploring how alternative brand touchpoints can be used to access co-created brand meanings.
Originality/value
The study contributes to tourism branding literature by providing exploratory evidence of how brand meanings are co-created in the relatively under-researched multi-stakeholder sports mega-event context.
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Raul Szekely, Syrgena Mazreku, Anita Bignell, Camilla Fadel, Hannah Iannelli, Marta Ortega Vega, Owen P. O'Sullivan, Claire Tiley and Chris Attoe
Many health-care professionals leave clinical practice temporarily or permanently. Interventions designed to facilitate the return of health-care professionals fail to consider…
Abstract
Purpose
Many health-care professionals leave clinical practice temporarily or permanently. Interventions designed to facilitate the return of health-care professionals fail to consider returners’ psychosocial needs despite their importance for patient care. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of a psychoeducational intervention in improving personal skills and well-being among UK-based health-care professionals returning to clinical practice.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 20 health-care professionals took part in the one-day intervention and completed measures of demographics, self-efficacy, positive attitudes towards work and perceived job resources before and after the intervention. A baseline comparison group of 18 health-care professionals was also recruited.
Findings
Significant associations were detected between return-to-work stage and study group. Following the intervention, participants reported improvements in self-efficacy and, generally, perceived more job resources, whereas positive attitudes towards work decreased. While none of these changes were significant, the intervention was deemed acceptable by participants. This study provides modest but promising evidence for the role of psychoeducation as a tool in supporting the psychosocial needs of returning health-care professionals.
Research limitations/implications
Additional research is needed to clarify the reliability of intervention effects, its effectiveness compared to alternative interventions, and the impact across different subgroups of returning health-care professionals.
Practical implications
Return-to-practice interventions should address the psychosocial needs of health-care professionals in terms of their personal skills and well-being. Psychoeducation can increase self-efficacy and perceptions of job resources among returning health-care professionals.
Originality/value
This study sheds light on a relatively understudied, but fundamental area – the psychosocial challenges of health-care professionals returning to clinical practice – and further justifies the need for tailored interventions.
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This industry viewpoint paper provides a comprehensive overview and critical viewpoint on the use of collectable toy premiums via instant reward programs (IRP) within the retail…
Abstract
Purpose
This industry viewpoint paper provides a comprehensive overview and critical viewpoint on the use of collectable toy premiums via instant reward programs (IRP) within the retail industry as a marketing tool.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws upon the uses of a “free” collectable toy premium promotion with a fixed purchase spend (via an IRP) in the supermarket industry as a marketing instrument to increase customer basket spend and repeat visits. Reflections on the recent use of toy premiums by Australian supermarket retailers are also utilised to highlight the ingredients for a successful promotion but also the controversies associated with such promotions.
Findings
One of the key findings suggest that the role of toy premiums is a successful marketing tool by retailers to increase customer total basket spending. However, notable points of caution regarding offering IRPs incorporating collectable toy premiums promotions are established, including environmental concerns and the social, ethical dilemma as to whether these promotions are indirectly targeted at children rather than adult consumers.
Practical implications
The findings have important implications for retailers to attract customer attention, increased market spend and repeat purchases through a desired collectable premium promotion (via an IRP).
Originality/value
This is the first paper to critically review the usage of collectable toy premiums within the supermarket retail industry.