In the course of evaluating drug prevention programs for youth, we observed that although staff perceived the programs had quite favorably affected youths' attitudes and behavior, responses from these youths showed little significant impact on their use or attitudes related to drugs. This article explores several explanations for the disparity ...

Staff who provide services for persons with severe mental illness often have pessimistic attitudes about adopting behavioral innovations for their programs. Thirty-five staff members in psychiatric residential programs participated in eight months of interactive staff training, an organizational development strategy that helps the rehabilitation team develop behavioral approaches to changing ...

Staff members (N = 2,605) and supervisors (N = 55) of 39 administrative units in 2 healthcare organizations completed a survey measuring confidence in the organization, engagement with their work, and occupational hazards. A correlational analysis determined correspondence between the perspectives of supervisors with those of staff reporting to them ...

This article reviews the growth of IVCS usage from OR to bedside, including criteria set by professional organizations and regulatory agencies, and presents the development of a competency-based program for the IVCS monitor. The planning and implementation process for the IVCS competency program is discussed in terms of phases selection ...

More than a quarter of deaths occurred on wards which offered relatives and staff no privacy. In a fifth of cases no information was available on how to register a death. Almost half of the staff had received no training in bereavement. More than half of the staff wanted training ...

To meet the mandates of federal and accreditation bodies, home care organizations must be prepared to conduct required education. There is a need to be creative and heighten the interest of the staff while doing more with shrinking education dollars. This article presents one agency's approach to the annual mandatory ...

BACKGROUND: Little is known about staff development activities in adult day care (ADC) programs. Therefore, this descriptive study was used to compare existing center programs with research- and practice-derived "model staff development program" for orientation, inservice education, and continuing education opportunities. METHOD: A multi-step mail survey design was used to ...

Work-flow analysis can help you deal more efficiently with the pressure to produce more services with fewer staff by forcing you to ask the right questions of the process so improvements can be made. Bringing staff together for discussions on creating a work-flow description can improve relationships among staff members ...

After an incident of violence in an urban community mental health center, city police officers were hired to provide extra-duty coverage to one of its satellite programs. The boundaries between clinical and security functions were not clarified initially, leading to unclear expectations regarding roles and responsibilities when handling patient dyscontrol ...

A southeastern state implemented a multidisciplinary health care program for Medicaid eligible, medically high-risk pregnant women and their infants as part of a statewide effort to reduce perinatal morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this study was to obtain the staff's evaluation of this high-risk-pregnancy program. Clinical, supervisory, and clerical ...

In view of the recent vogue in some genitourinary medicine (GUM) units towards selective microscopy we aimed to assess the adequacy of culture plate inoculation in our own GUM clinic by the visual examination of 350 consecutively inoculated plates. Seventy-five (21%) plates were inoculated so lightly that no indentation in ...

Kupat Holim Clalit (KHC), Israel's largest sick fund, initiated a unique demonstration program to transform primary care clinics into autonomous budget-holding units. The program was accompanied by an evaluation study that examined the influence of the program on clinic staff, level of expenditure, quality of service and patient satisfaction. Few ...

Data regarding the cost of staff training associated with restructuring are scarce and incomplete, with little measurement of how staff performed after training. Effectiveness of staff education efforts are hampered by staff resistance to change, dysfunctional interdisciplinary team work, and existing system "glitches." The key criteria for successful education efforts ...

The impact of a new training procedure aimed at improving staff skills in the preventative and reactive management of severely challenging behaviours was investigated within a six-place residential treatment unit. The results showed that there was some evidence to support the notion that the training reduced the number of behavioural ...

Scales measuring commitment to abstinence-oriented policies, attitudes to drug addiction, and knowledge of methadone maintenance were refined and tested in a survey of staff working in 14 New York maintenance programs. Confirmatory factor analysis established the validity of a 9-item Abstinence Orientation Scale and a 6-item Disapproval of Drug Use ...

The purpose of this research utilization project was to select and implement a research-based Restraint Education Program for reducing the use of restraints in an acute care setting by changing the perception of the restraint coordinators about restraints in the direction of decreased importance. The Iowa Model, Research Based Practice ...

No previous investigation has considered dental student and teaching staff opinions on their relationship with each other. In a day when students are increasingly asked for feedback on the quality of teaching by staff, such investigations are of particular interest. This exploratory study was designed to compare the personality characteristics ...

OBJECTIVE: About one fourth of physicians report having received training on domestic violence. The purpose of this study was to determine the response of the ED house staff to an educational program on domestic violence against women. The research questions in this study were as follows: (1) What training topics ...

OBJECTIVE: To seek the opinion of staff and students of a new electronic method for collection of data related to student clinical activity. DESIGN: Questionnaire survey. SETTING: Staff and students in the Department of Child Dental Health, Dental School, Cardiff, and staff in the Community Dental Service who undertake clinical ...

The impact of size of residence on residents' opportunities for choice was examined for Australian adults with mental retardation who lived in staff-supported community residences housing one to five residents. Significantly greater choice was exercised by individuals living in smaller settings, even when personal characteristics of individual residents were controlled ...

Curriculum development in informatics must be underpinned by knowledge of the information environment new recruits encounter after qualification. A pilot study was carried out to identify the type of information handling tasks newly qualified healthcare professionals are expected to undertake. This data was related to the skills junior staff possess ...

Patients with brain injury at the agitated stage of recovery present a unique challenge to rehabilitation staff. The staff's patience is tested, and their personal comfort is threatened frequently during their interactions with patients. How can a healthcare team increase its comfort level and competence when working with these patients? ...

To test the effectiveness of providing chemical dependency (CD) staff with a knowledge-and-skills-building workshop on treatment of nicotine dependence, we employed a nested cross-sectional design with six outpatient CD programs in Nebraska (3 intervention, 3 control sites). Data on tobacco counseling provided by CD staff were obtained by telephone from ...

For children to progress in their use of augmentative communication systems, in-service training of staff in schools is required. This paper presents preliminary evaluation of a training package entitled 'My Turn to Speak'. Nineteen participants and 10 comparison staff were filmed before and after a five-session training workshop, interacting in ...

Helen and I hope that you have gained a deeper insight into what it means to be a dynamic leader. We are convinced that leadership skills can be learned. Once learned, they must be operationalized in practice. Practice makes perfect, and the more you use leadership skills the more you ...

Four violent juvenile offenders from a local correctional facility spoke to a class of U.S. undergraduates studying abnormal psychology. Two weeks later, the students attended a tour sponsored by the correctional facility that had provided the speakers. The results of a semantic differential scale administered both before and after the ...

The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate staff use of crisis prevention intervention (CPI) techniques in averting crisis episodes at the various levels (anxiety, defensive, and acting out) of a crisis (resulting in reduction of seclusion and restraint episodes and patient/staff injuries). A descriptive correlational research design was ...

Shortcomings in the technology for training support staff in methods of teaching people with severe disabilities recently have resulted in calls to improve the technology. We evaluated a program for training basic teaching skills within one day. The program entailed classroom-based verbal and video instruction, practice, and feedback followed by ...

Urinary incontinence (UI) effects people of all ages, but is especially prevalent in the elderly population. Also significant is a lack of knowledge about UI. A health promotion project was developed and implemented in six ethnically diverse, predominantly minority, inner city senior centers, a program designed to address an elder ...

This article describes how a staff group adapted to a change in students' learning requirements. Using the principles outlined in the nursing model being adopted by their college (Peplau 1980), the staff attempted to link their clinical environment with the students' objectives. The author concludes that by responding positively to ...

This study investigates children's experiences at 30 school-aged child-care (SACC) programs. Regulatable features such as total enrollment, child-staff ratio, and staff education were assessed via director report. Observers recorded positive/neutral and negative staff-child interactions, and rated programs in terms of flexibility and age appropriateness. Negative staff-child interactions were more frequent ...

Proper use of Critical Paths based on a solid educational foundation aids caregivers in meeting the ultimate challenge of today's healthcare environment: to provide a higher quality of care at a lower cost. The components for a comprehensive educational program for Critical Paths include general principles, Path contents, Path development, ...

This study assesses client satisfaction and canvasses staff opinions concerning the first year of a Goal Planning rehabilitation programme implemented with in-patients who had sustained a severe spinal cord injury. Questionnaires were completed by 33 patients. As a keyworker system is an integral part of Goal Planning, separate questionnaires were ...

Training for staff working with violent patients is frequently recommended, sometimes implemented, but rarely objectively evaluated. In this longitudinal study 47 nurses attending a training day to learn strategies for coping with violent psychiatric patients were compared with 108 non-attending control group subjects. The rate of assaults on staff on ...

The extent to which door and bar staff of licensed premises responded to possibly under-age patrons was assessed through the use of research assistants (young pseudo-patrons) selected for having the appearance of being under 18 years old. A total of 156 visits were made to 13 licensed premises: 1. before ...

Crisis intervention procedures for emergency services personnel and healthcare providers are increasingly being utilized to address the psychological sequelae of acute stress during critical incidents. While anecdotal evidence suggests the efficacy of these approaches, more formal experimental inquiry has been limited. This brief report outlines one strategy for conducting program ...

Information security is now recognized as an important consideration in modern healthcare establishments (HCEs), with a variety of guidelines and standards currently available to enable the environments to be properly protected. However, financial and operational constraints often exist which influence the practicality of these recommendations. This paper establishes that the ...

OBJECTIVE: To develop a system for enhancing the performance and reporting of autopsies in an effective and clinically useful manner. DESIGN: Twelve steps were defined as essential for the completion of the autopsy. Each step of the process was evaluated for usefulness and effectiveness. SETTING: Autopsies performed in a university ...

A multidisciplinary staff development department developed a continuous quality improvement project to study the consistently high absentee rate for scheduled training and its relationship to the class registration process. Data were collected using a 9-question survey of students who failed to attend scheduled training. Findings show that changes to the ...

To answer questions about staff's ability to identify, assess, and support victims of woman abuse, St. Joseph's Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, organized a task group that included a cross section of staff and representatives of a local women's shelter. A comprehensive literature review strongly confirmed the need for a program ...

The aim of this study was to audit the use of periapical radiographs taken during the endodontic treatment of traumatized incisor teeth in a Paediatric Dentistry Unit. Fifty consecutive radiographs and their accompanying written records were evaluated, using methods which were developed and applied by ten staff and postgraduate students ...

The St. Peter Hospital Kidney Dialysis Center began a peritoneal dialysis home training program in 1988, and demonstrated steady growth until the end of its sixth year at which time the census plummeted. Peritoneal dialysis staff sought to determine a cause for the reduction in census by evaluating the reasons ...

Delegating work, responsibility, and authority in a staff development department is difficult because it means letting others make decisions. Delegation, however, is necessary because it allows competent educators to perform and to get work done proficiently. Delegation is perhaps the hardest job directors have to learn. It requires planning, skill, ...

We carried out a longitudinal survey to evaluate the users' attitudes to the introduction of telemedicine into the dialysis units of a renal ward in South Australia. The first questionnaire was distributed to all members of staff involved with the introduction of the system. There were 44 responses (80%). Staff ...

Through analysis of video data of interaction between staff and clients with learning disabilities and limited vocal skills, it was possible to demonstrate that clients used gaze and body orientation to display a readiness that was often not responded to by staff. Yet staff could recognize that readiness from the ...

The purpose of this pilot was to improve the peer review process by enhancing the communication skills of staff nurses. Communication skill building was taught to staff members with practice time allotted. The paradigm shift occurred in teaching staff that communication is a learned skill built through practice and not ...

Within a behavioural framework, staff responses to challenging behaviours have been identified as likely to ensure the long-term maintenance of such behaviour. However, little has been done to understand why staff behave as they do. The present paper hypothesized that staff's beliefs about the causes of challenging behaviours may be ...

The authors describe an approach to training staff in psychiatric rehabilitation programs that is based on principles of organizational psychology. The approach promotes two shifts in the focus of training. First, training efforts should not only educate individual staff members about state-of-the-art rehabilitation skills but also organize the treatment team ...

Communication and consistency of care among nurses in a nephrology program improves continuity of care for end-stage renal disease patients. Programs and processes that one large nephrology program has used to improve communication among departments include contribution of all staff to one care plan, designation of an inpatient peritoneal dialysis ...

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated the cost-benefits of a staff communications training program designed to improve patient management skills and relieve staff stress. METHODS: The interpersonal communications program, based on the Carkhuff model, was specially designed for mental health settings. The training program focused on developing accurate empathy by teaching staff ...