Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Pandemic Influenza: A Global Challenge For Social Marketing Marketing, Sandra C. Jones, Donald C. Iverson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Recent years have seen increased attention and concern regarding the potential for pandemic influenza, following large-scale outbreaks of swine flu and bird flu. Governments and health agencies have time to develop social marketing strategies and specific messages that have the potential to minimize fear, refute or inoculate against misinformation that the public may encounter, and enhance the likelihood of the public taking the recommended preventive and remedial actions should these become necessary. This paper presents an overview of how social marketing can be used to tackle the global challenge of pandemic influenza. The potential pandemic influenza poses a major challenge …

Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (Act) For Psychological Adjustment After Traumatic Brain Injury: Reporting The Protocol For A Randomised Controlled Trial, Diane L. Whiting, Grahame K. Simpson, Hamish J. Mcleod, Frank P. Deane, Joseph Ciarrochi

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Following a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) there is a complex presentation of psychological symptoms which may impact on recovery. Validated treatments addressing these symptoms for this group of people are limited. This article reports on the protocol for a single-centre, two-armed, Phase II Randomised Control Trial (RCT) to address the adjustment process following a severe TBI. Participants will be recruited from Liverpool Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit and randomly allocated to one of two groups, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) or an active control (Befriending). The active treatment group utilises the six core processes of ACT with the intention of …

Psychosocial Aspects Of Anal Cancer Screening: A Review And Recommendations, Jodie Landstra, Joseph Ciarrochi, Frank P. Deane

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Cancer screening programs have the potential to decrease psychosocial wellbeing. This review investigates the evidence that anal cancer screening has an impact on psychosocial functioning and outlines considerations for supporting participants. The review suggested that screening has no significant effect on general mental health but may increase cancer-specific worry. Having worse anal or HIV symptoms, being younger, higher baseline distress or worse histology results were predictive of greater worry. The findings suggest the need to increase education campaigns, particularly targeting those with HIV infection and men who have sex with men. There is a need to develop a consensus on …

Conditional Recall And The Frequency Effect In The Serial Recall Task: An Examination Of Item-To-Item Associativity, Leonie M. Miller, Steven J. Roodenrys

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The frequency effect in short-term serial recall is influenced by the composition of lists. In pure lists, a robust advantage in the recall of high-frequency (HF) words is observed, yet in alternating mixed lists, HF and low-frequency (LF) words are recalled equally well. It has been argued that the preexisting associations between all list items determine a single, global level of supportive activation that assists item recall. Preexisting associations between items are assumed to be a function of language co-occurrence; HF-HF associations are high, LF-LF associations are low, and mixed associations are intermediate in activation strength. This account, however, is …

The Feasibility And Validity Of Ambulatory Self-Report Of Psychotic Symptoms Using A Smartphone Software Application, Jasper Palmier-Claus, J Ainsworth, M Machin, C Barrowclough, Graham Dunn, Emma Barkus, A Rogers, T Wykes, S Kapur, Iain Buchan, E Salter, Shon Lewis

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: Semi-structured interview scales for psychosis are the gold standard approach to assessing psychotic and other symptoms. However, such assessments have limitations such as recall bias, averaging, insensitivity to change and variable interrater reliability. Ambulant, real-time self-report assessment devices may hold advantages over interview measures, but it needs to be shown that the data thus collected are valid, and the collection method is acceptable, feasible and safe. We report on a monitoring system for the assessment of psychosis using smartphone technology. The primary aims were to: i) assess validity through correlations of item responses with those on widely accepted interview …

Does Training On Inhibitory Tasks Influence Alcohol Consumption And Attitudes?, Bronwyn Hegarty, Jacqueline A. Rushby, Stuart J. Johnstone, Peter Kelly, Janette Smith

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Response inhibition - the suppression of a prepotent or ongoing action - is an executive function central to the regulation of behaviour. Response inhibition can be assessed in the laboratory using the Go/No-go or Stop-Signal tasks which both assess the capacity to withhold an inappropriate response. In the Go/No-go task, participants are required to respond rapidly to Go stimuli but to withhold that response upon No-go stimuli. In the Stop-Signal task, participants are required to respond to Go stimuli but to withhold the response when an auditory stop signal occurs subsequent to the Go stimulus.

Generalisation From Three-Quarter Views Of Faces In The Yaw And Pitch Axes., Simone K. Favelle, Stephen A. Palmisano

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the 39th Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference, University of New South Wales, 12-15 April 2012

The Role Of Motion In Recognising Facial Expressions., Simone K. Favelle, A Tobin, M Demayo, R Palermo

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Poster presented at the 39th Australasian Experimental Psychology Conference, University of New South Wales, 12-15 April 2012

What Counts As Comprehension In Teacher Practice?, Susan Byers, Pauline T. Jones, Lisa K. Kervin

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Comprehension is generally considered to be an essential skill required in all learning areas. The Australian Curriculum argues that much of the explicit teaching of literacy occurs in the English learning area, and is strengthened, made specific and extended in other learning areas as students engage in a range of learning activities with significant literacy demands (ACARA, 2012, p. 9). This has important ramifications for all teachers because they are charged with the responsibility of ensuring their students acquire the literacy skills necessary for success in the discipline areas. Despite this, comprehension means different things to different people. This paper …

Knowledge About Language In The Australian Curriculum: English, Beverly Derewianka

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Somewhat surprisingly, an explicit knowledge about language has been often absent from English curricula. The new Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has taken a fairly radical step in placing knowledge about language at the core of classroom practice, thereby raising the issue of an appropriate model of language to inform the Language Strand of the Curriculum. This paper will outline the rationale behind the Language Strand, and will then make explicit its underlying model of language. The paper thus provides a context for the ensuing articles in this Special Focus Issue of AJLL, which take up various concerns in relation …

Serial Recall, Word Frequency, And Mixed Lists: The Influence Of Item Arrangement, Leonie M. Miller, Steven J. Roodenrys

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Studies of the effect of word frequency in the serial recall task show that lists of high-frequency words are better recalled than lists of low-frequency words; however, when high- and low-frequency words are alternated within a list, there is no difference in the level of recall for the two types of words, and recall is intermediate between lists of pure frequency. This pattern has been argued to arise from the development of a network of activated long-term representations of list items that support the redintegration of all list items in a nondirectional and nonspecific way. More recently, it has been …

Different Methods For Ethical Analysis In Health Technology Assessment: An Empirical Study, Samuli Saarni, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Bjorn Hofmann, Gert-Jan Van Der Wilt

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objectives: Ethical analysis can highlight important ethical issues related to implementing a technology, values inherent in the technology itself, and value-decisions underlying the health technology assessment (HTA) process. Ethical analysis is a well-acknowledged part of HTA, yet seldom included in practice. One reason for this is lack of knowledge about the properties and differences between the methods available. This study compares different methods for ethical analysis within HTA.

Methods: Ethical issues related to bariatric (obesity) surgery were independently evaluated using axiological, casuist, principlist, and EUnetHTA models for ethical analysis within HTA. The methods and results are presented and compared.

Results: …

Promoting Health And Nutrition Through Sport: Attitudes Of The Junior Sporting Community, Bridget Kelly, Louise A. Baur, Adrian E. Bauman, Lesley King, Kathy Chapman, Ben J. Smith

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study aimed to provide information on parents', children's and sporting officials' attitudes to sponsorship arrangements, and their support of potential policy interventions to reorient sponsorship to be more health promoting. Methods: Sports clubs (n=20) known to have food and beverage sponsors in Sydney, Illawarra and Canberra/Queanbeyan were selected. Parents and children at sports clubs were recruited through convenience sampling by approaching those attending the sports club at the time of the survey and those children who had a signed consent form. Sports clubs were visited between May and November 2010. At each club, one sports club official, ten parents …

Decision Making In A Crowded Room: The Relational Significance Of Social Roles In Decisions To Proceed With Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation, Rowena Forsyth, Camilla Scanlan, Stacy M. Carter, Christopher F. Jordens, Ian Kerridge

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Researchers studying health care decision making generally focus on the interaction that unfolds between patients and health professionals. Using the example of allogeneic bone marrow transplant, in this article we identify decision making to be a relational process concurrently underpinned by patients' engagement with health professionals, their families, and broader social networks. We argue that the person undergoing a transplant simultaneously reconciles numerous social roles throughout treatment decision making, each of which encompasses a system of mutuality, reciprocity, and obligation. As individuals enter through the doorway of the consultation room and become "patients," they do not leave their roles as …

A Randomised Controlled Trial To Compare Opt-In And Opt-Out Parental Consent For Childhood Vaccine Safety Surveillance Using Data Linkage: Study Protocol, Jesia G. Berry, Philip Ryan, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer, Katherine M. Duszynski, V Xafis, M S. Gold

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background

The Vaccine Assessment using Linked Data (VALiD) trial compared opt-in and opt-out parental consent for a population-based childhood vaccine safety surveillance program using data linkage. A subsequent telephone interview of all households enrolled in the trial elicited parental intent regarding the return or non-return of reply forms for opt-in and opt-out consent. This paper describes the rationale for the trial and provides an overview of the design and methods.

Methods/Design

Single-centre, single-blind, randomised controlled trial (RCT) stratified by firstborn status. Mothers who gave birth at one tertiary South Australian hospital were randomised at six weeks post-partum to receive an …

Portrayals Of Canine Obesity In English-Language Newspapers And In Leading Veterinary Journals, 2000-2009: Implications For Animal Welfare Organizations And Veterinarians As Public Educators, Christopher J. Degeling, Melanie Rock, Lorraine Teows

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In industrialized societies, more than 1 in 3 dogs and people currently qualify as overweight or obese. Experts in public health expect both these figures to rise. Although clinical treatment remains important, so are public perceptions and social norms. This article presents a thematic analysis of English-language mass media coverage on canine obesity from 2000 through 2009 and compares these results with a thematic analysis of articles on canine obesity in leading veterinary journals during the same time period. Drawing on Giddens's theory of structuration, this study identified articles that emphasized individual agency, environmental structure, or both as contributors to …

Relevance Of The International Prognostic Index In The Rituximab Era, Kevin Tay, David Tai, Miriam Tao, Richard Quek, Tam C. Ha, Soon Thye Lim

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Letter to the editor

The Alpha Health-Related Physical Fitness Test Battery For Children And Adolescents, Rute Santos, Jorge Mota

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In this issue of Nutricion Hospitalaria, Ruiz and colleagues present the new health-related fitness test battery for youth based upon the work developed by the ALPHA (Assessing Levels of Physical Activity) study. The ALPHA was a study funded by the European Union aimed "to provide a set of instruments for assessing levels of physical activity, its underlying factors (e.g. build environment, transport, and workplace), as well as, fitness in a comparable way within the European Union". The work presented in this issue by Ruiz and colleagues relates to the working package 6 of the ALPHA project -Assessing Healthrelated Physical Fitness- …

Metabolic Risk Factors, Physical Activity And Physical Fitness In Azorean Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study, Carla Moreira, Rute Santos, Jose Cazuza De Farias Junior, Susana Vale, Paula Clara Santos, Luisa Soares-Miranda, Ana I. Marques, Jorge Mota

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome has increased over the last few decades in adolescents and has become an important health challenge worldwide. This study analyzed the relationships between metabolic risk factors (MRF) and physical activity (PA) and physical fitness (PF) in a sample of Azorean adolescents.

Methods

A cross-sectional school-based study was conducted on 417 adolescents (243 girls) aged 15-18 from the Azorean Islands, Portugal. Height, weight, waist circumference, fasting glucose, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure were measured. A sum of MRF was computed, and adolescents were classified into three groups: no MRF, one MRF and two or more …

Evaluation Of Physical Activity Programmes For Elderly People - A Descriptive Study Using The Efqm' Criteria, Ana I. Marques, Maria J. Rosa, Pedro Soares, Rute Santos, Jorge Mota, Joana Carvalho

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: In the past years, there has been a growing concern in designing physical activity (PA) programmes for elderly people, because evidence suggests that such health promotion interventions may reduce the deleterious effects of the ageing process. Quality is an important issue when designing a PA programme for older people. Some studies support the Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) as an operational framework for evaluating the quality of an organization. Within this context, the aim of this study was to characterize the quality management models of the PA programmes developed by Portuguese Local Administration to …

Ability Of Different Measures Of Adiposity To Identify High Metabolic Risk In Adolescents, Carla Moreira, Rute Santos, Susana Vale, Paula Clara Santos, Sandra Abreu, Ana I. Marques, Luisa Soares-Miranda, Jorge Mota

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Introduction. This study aimed to evaluate the screening performance of different measures of adiposity: body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) for high metabolic risk in a sample of adolescents. Methods. A cross-sectional school-based study was conducted on 517 adolescents aged 15-18, from the Azorean Islands, Portugal. We measured fasting glucose, insulin, total cholesterol (TC), HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and systolic blood pressure. HOMA and TC/HDL-C ratio were calculated. For each of these variables, a Z-score was computed by age and sex. A metabolic risk score (MRS) was constructed by summing the Z-scores of all individual risk factors. …

Comparing Two Measures Of Mental Toughness, Lee Crust, Christian F. Swann

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper tested relations between two measures of mental toughness. A sample of 110 male athletes (M age = 20.81. years, SD = 2.76), derived from University sports teams and local sports clubs, gave informed consent before completing two questionnaires to assess mental toughness. It was hypothesized that scales and subscales from the two different instruments, which purported to measure the same or substantially overlapping scales, would be strongly correlated. Predictions concerning the expected relations were made a priori. Pearson correlations revealed a significant and positive relationship between higher order mental toughness scores (r= .75; p< .001). Correlations between similar mental toughness subscales were found to be positive and significant but somewhat lower than expected (r= .49-62). Results suggest instrument subscales with similar labels are not measuring the same components of mental toughness. 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

Walking The Walk: A Phenomenological Study Of Long Distance Walking, Lee Crust, Richard J. Keegan, David Piggott, Christian F. Swann

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Evidence suggests that regular walking can elicit significant psychological benefits, although little evidence exists concerning long distance walking. The purpose of this study was to provide detailed accounts of the experiences of long distance walkers. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with six long distance walkers. Data were transcribed verbatim before researchers independently analyzed the transcripts. Participants reported a cumulative effect with positive feelings increasing throughout the duration of the walk. Long distance walking elicited positive emotions, reduced the effects of life-stress, and promoted an increased sense of well-being and personal growth. Results are aligned to theories and concepts from positive psychology. …

The Effect Of Language Cues On Infants' Representational Flexibility In A Deferred Imitation Task, Jane S. Herbert

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Twelve- and 15-month-old infants who received simple verbal cues at encoding and retrieval exhibited superior representational flexibility on an imitation task compared to infants who did not receive those cues. Verbal cues can help early-verbal infants overcome perceptual dissimilarity and express knowledge in novel situations.

Perceptual Training Prevents The Emergence Of The Other Race Effect During Infancy, Michelle Heron-Delaney, Gizelle Anzures, Jane S. Herbert, Paul Quinn, Alan Slater, James Tanaka, Kang Lee, Olivier Pascalis

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Experience plays a crucial role in the development of the face processing system. At 6 months of age infants can discriminate individual faces from their own and other races. By 9 months of age this ability to process other-race faces is typically lost, due to minimal experience with other-race faces, and vast exposure to own-race faces, for which infants come to manifest expertise [1]. This is known as the Other Race Effect. In the current study, we demonstrate that exposing Caucasian infants to Chinese faces through perceptual training via picture books for a total of one hour between 6 and …

Visual Recognition Memory Across Contexts, Emily Jones, Olivier Pascalis, Madeline Eacott, Jane S. Herbert

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

In two experiments, we investigated the development of representational flexibility in visual recognition memory during infancy using the Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task. In Experiment 1, 6- and 9-month-old infants exhibited recognition when familiarization and test occurred in the same room, but showed no evidence of recognition when familiarization and test occurred in different rooms. In contrast, 12- and 18-month-old infants exhibited recognition irrespective of testing room. Thus, flexibility across a change of room was observed at a younger age than flexibility across a change of background that has previously been seen with the VPC procedure (Robinson & Pascalis, 2004). …

When Good Evidence Is Not Enough: The Role Of Context In Bowel Cancer Screening Policy In New Zealand, Kathy Flitcroft, James Gillespie, Stacy Carter, Lyndal Trevena, Glenn P. Salkeld

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Bowel cancer is a serious health problem in developed countries. Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and New Zealand (NZ) reviewed the same randomised controlled trial evidence on the benefits and harms of population-based bowel cancer screening. Yet only NZ, with the highest age standardised rate of bowel cancer mortality, decided against introducing a bowel cancer screening programme. This case study of policy making explores the unique resource, ethical, institutional and political environments in which the evidence was considered. It highlights the centrality of context in assessing the relative worth of evidence in policy making and raises questions about the suitability …

Preferences For Ct Colonography And Colonoscopy As Diagnostic Tests For Colorectal Cancer: A Discrete Choice Experiment, Kirsten Howard, Glenn P. Salkeld, Michael P. Pignone, Peter Hewett, Peter Cheung, Julie Olsen, Wayne Clapton, Ian Roberts-Thomson

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Objective Computed tomography colonography (CTC) is an alternative diagnostic test to colonoscopy for colorectal cancer and polyps. The aim of this study was to determine test characteristics important to patients and to examine trade-offs in attributes that patients are willing to accept in the context of the diagnosis of colorectal cancer. Methods A discrete choice study was used to assess preferences of patients with clinical indications suspicious of colorectal cancer who experienced both CTC and colonoscopy as part of a diagnostic accuracy study in South Australia. Results were analyzed by using a mixed logit model and presented as odds ratios …

Mental Illness In Policy Discourse: Locating The Criminal Justice System, Natalia K. Hanley, Stuart Ross

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the Australian Political Science Association 2011 Conference, 26-28 September 2011, Canberra, Australia

Ethnic Differences In Adolescent Mental Health Trajectories And The Influence Of Racism And Context: The Determinants Of Adolescent Social Well-Being And Health (Dash) Study, Thomas E. Astell-Burt, Maria J. Maynard, Erik Lenguerrand, Seeromanie Harding

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Inaugural Conference, 22-24 September 2010, Cambridge, United Kingdom.