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Residential Medication Management Reviews (RMMR) are a key component of safe, high-quality aged care service delivery. The RMMR is an interdisciplinary approach to medication management that relies on collaboration, communication and integration of systems. Acting as an improvement opportunity, the purpose of this paper is to present findings from a regional study, aimed at assessing the impact of RMMR on falls and hospital admissions and identifies barriers to impactful research in this area.

A three-year retrospective quantitative longitudinal practice audit was conducted in a regional state-managed high-care residential facility in Queensland, Australia. Data was collected pre-RMMR and six months post-RMMR.

The data collected was insufficient to achieve statistical significance or demonstrate the impact of RMMR on health outcomes. Factors impeding the research included limited ability to collect the data due to the lack of integration of information systems and limited stakeholder engagement resulting in poor recruitment. This highlights the need for improvement in RMMR processes and practices, and indeed wider research collaboration in the aged care sector.

Thís paper acts as a call to action to improve research and interprofessional collaboration in Australian aged care.

The aged care industry needs high-quality research to drive practice improvement and collaborative care and service delivery. This paper advocates for improvements in the aged care sector with respect to research engagement and communication pathways between service providers. Advancement in systems integration for information sharing, recruitment of participants and stakeholder engagement will support evidence-based practice and process change.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the transition to and early experience of secondary school for students with autism from the perspective of their parents. It aimed to gather the parents’ personal accounts of their views of the transition experience for their child and of their perceptions of both the positive and the negative factors inherent in the process of transition. There was an emphasis on seeking useful information for others from the parent’s perception, views and choices.

As parents were reporting on their own perceptions and also their child’s experiences, a qualitative exploratory descriptive method was required. Thematic analysis was used as a pragmatic method to report on the experiences, meanings and the reality of the transition to secondary school from a parent’s perspective (Braun and Clarke, 2012).

A variety of supports and strategies were described, parents were unanimous in their emphasis of the importance of communication to them. Parents were concerned about secondary schools not fully understanding the nature of autism, and the impact this can have on their child as an individual. Despite differing perceptions and views on the purpose or end product of secondary educations for their child, all the parents communicated a desire for their child to reach their potential and make progress within the secondary school system.

This was a small qualitative study with a self-selected group of parents in the Republic of Ireland, with fathers underrepresented. It did not take any account from any other stakeholders or the students themselves.

Parents would benefit from more practical support and communication during this time in the child’s education. Their recommendations and personal experiences may serve as a useful reference point for parents preparing for this time in their child’s school life.

The study highlights the need to better understand how children with autism can be supported in making social attainments and connections within mainstream secondary schools in Ireland.

There is a small body of knowledge related to the secondary school experience for students with autism. It contributes the parental perspective and highlights areas for further research and practice.

From the authors’ personal and professional experiences, they have observed that autistic women are uniquely at risk of interpersonal trauma. Given the tendency for autistic women to be overlooked in research and practice, this study aims to rectify this by exploring the relevant literature and including the voices of autistic women throughout this paper.

This study completed a literature review of quantitative and qualitative data relating to exposure to interpersonal trauma in autistic women. This study also reviewed relevant discursive evidence available on in memoirs and reports. This study also included dialogue between us as authors from an auto/“Autie”-ethnographic position.

Both clinical literature and discursive evidence support the idea that autistic women are uniquely at risk of interpersonal trauma, in particular, sexual victimisation. Explanatory factors are considered. Studies exploring rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were less consistent. Further evidence is required to better understand how autistic women experience and express PTSD and to inform assessment and treatment modifications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to integrate clinical literature and discursive evidence on the topic of interpersonal trauma in autistic women. It provides useful insights into the experiences of autistic women in this space, directions for urgently needed future research and modifications to clinical practice.

Towns and cities across Canada face rapidly changing economic circumstances and many are turning to a variety of strategies, including tourism, to provide stability in their communities. Community Economic Development (CED) has become an accepted form of economic development, with recognition that such planning benefits from a more holistic approach and community participation. However, much of why particular strategies are chosen, what process the community undertakes to implement those choices and how success is measured is not fully understood. Furthermore, CED lacks a developed theoretical basis from which to examine these questions. By investigating communities that have chosen to develop their tourism potential through the use of murals, these various themes can be explored. There are three purposes to this research: (1) to acquire an understanding of the “how” and the “why” behind the adoption and diffusion of mural-based tourism as a CED strategy in rural communities; (2) to contribute to the emerging theory of CED by linking together theories of rural geography, rural change and sustainability, and rural tourism; and (3) to contribute to the development of a framework for evaluating the potential and success of tourism development within a CED process.

Two levels of data collection and analysis were employed in this research. Initially, a survey of Canadian provincial tourism guides was conducted to determine the number of communities in Canada that market themselves as having a mural-based tourism attraction (N=32). A survey was sent to these communities, resulting in 31 responses suitable for descriptive statistical analysis, using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). A case study analysis of the 6 Saskatchewan communities was conducted through in-depth, in person interviews with 40 participants. These interviews were subsequently analyzed utilizing a combined Grounded Theory (GT) and Content Analysis approach.

The surveys indicated that mural development spread within a relatively short time period across Canada from Chemainus, British Columbia. Although tourism is often the reason behind mural development, increasing community spirit and beautification were also cited. This research demonstrates that the reasons this choice is made and the successful outcome of that choice is often dependent upon factors related to community size, proximity to larger populations and the economic (re)stability of existing industry. Analysis also determined that theories of institutional thickness, governance, embeddedness and conceptualizations of leadership provide a body of literature that offers an opportunity to theorize the process and outcomes of CED in rural places while at the same time aiding our understanding of the relationship between tourism and its possible contribution to rural sustainability within a Canadian context. Finally, this research revealed that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. Furthermore, particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are complex disorders characterized by pervasive symptoms of rigidity, emotion dysregulation and social cognitive difficulties. Comorbid ASD and BPD are recognized emerging clinical problem that may be challenging to treat.

The authors present a case study of a young person in the authors’ assessment clinic diagnosed with BPD and ASD who had received standard dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) with modest effects. The authors provide ASD-informed recommendations for continued DBT treatment.

The de-identified patient described in this case report met full criteria for ASD and BPD. The patient’s cognitive, behavioral, social and personality functioning are described in detail.

Other practitioners seeking to treat this complex comorbidity may make use of the authors’ treatment recommendations for their patients. The authors underscore the importance of individualized treatment planning and hope the authors’ exemplar will be useful to others.

Several evidence-based treatments exist for ASD and BPD symptom reduction. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no current treatments exist for comorbid ASD and BPD to target emotion dysregulation in individuals with restricted and repetitive interests and behaviors and disturbances in social and communication domains.