Instrumental and affective communication with patients with limited health literacy in the palliative phase of cancer or COPD

Background Patients have a ‘need to know’ (instrumental need) and a ‘need to feel known’ (affective need). During consultations with patients with limited health literacy (LHL) in the palliative phase of their disease, both the instrumental and the affective communication skills of healthcare providers are important. The study aims to explore instrumental and affective communication between care providers and LHL patients in the palliative phase of COPD or cancer. Methods In 2018, consultations between LHL patients in the palliative phase of cancer or COPD and their healthcare providers were video-recorded in four hospitals in the Netherlands. As there was no observation algorithm available for this setting, several items were created to parameterize healthcare providers’ instrumental communication (seven items: understanding, patient priorities, medical status, treatment options, treatment consequences, prognosis, and information about emotional distress) and affective communication (six items: hope, support, reassurance, empathy, appreciation, and emotional coping). The degree of each item was recorded for each consultation, with relevant segments of the observation selected and transcribed to support the items. Results Consultations between 17 care providers and 39 patients were video-recorded and analyzed. Care providers primarily used instrumental communication, most often by giving information about treatment options and assessing patients’ care priorities. Care providers assessed patients’ understanding of their disease less often. The patients’ prognosis was not mentioned in half the consultations. Within the affective domain, the care providers did provide support for their patients; providing hope, reassurance, empathy, and appreciation and discussing emotional coping were observed less often. Conclusions Care providers used mostly instrumental communication, especially treatment information, in consultations with LHL patients in the palliative phase of cancer or COPD. Most care providers did not check if the patient understood the information, which is rather crucial, especially given patients’ limited level of health literacy. Healthcare providers did provide support for patients, but other expressions of affective communication by care providers were less common. To adapt the communication to LHL patients in palliative care, care providers could be less wordy and reduce the amount of information, use ‘teach-back’ techniques and pay more attention to affective communication.

Exploring How Workplace Factors Are Associated With Role Strain Among Jail Staff: A Replication and Expansion Study

Role strain has many negative outcomes. While the majority of role strain research has focused on its effects, this study explored possible antecedents of role strain among staff at a large, urban Southern jail in the United States. Based on regression analysis of survey data, instrumental communication, views that policy is followed, input into decision-making, formalization, and supervisory support each had significant negative effects on role strain. Administrative support and positive relations with coworkers, however, had nonsignificant effects. Jail administrators should attempt to reduce role strain by creating clear structure of job duties and expectations (formalization), providing staff with a greater organizational voice (input into decision-making), explaining the importance of organizational policies being followed and how they benefit staff, improving the flow of critical information about job and organizational matters (instrumental communication), and training supervisors about how to provide support to their subordinates and reward them for doing so (supervisory support).

Instrumentalna komunikacija i roditeljska kontrola u odnosu na indeks sopus adolescenata

The aim of this investigation was to see if daily togetherness of families in urban settings (DTOFUS) was in correlation with parent instrumental communication as well as with parent control over certain aspects of adolescent behaviour.The investigation was conducted on the sample of 296 pupils (boys) in second and third grades od middle school. The average age was 16,5. The investigation was conductied by means of the following: The questionnaire DTOFUS-BM. the scale for investigation of parent control and the scale for parent instrumental communication. The obtained results show that index DTOFUS is in significant correlation with instrumental communication as with parent control of adolescent behaviour.Results were discussed and on the basis of this it is concluded the index DTOFUS is a crucial variable in the investigation of socialization of the young and thus also for the parent control and instrumental communication. The latter are a part of socializing tools which parents use in the realization of their roles in the socialization process of the young.

Raymond Williams’ communicative materialism

Raymond Williams is one of the most important and influential cultural theorists. Although he wrote on communication(s), the main reception of his works is today predominantly focused on his works on literature and culture. This article therefore presents an overview of his notion of communication and asks: How does Raymond Williams conceive of communication? How can we use his communicative materialism today for understanding digital communication? Williams advanced a materialist understanding of communication. His elements of a materialist communication theory help us to illuminate communication in the context of the base/superstructure problem, and ideology as a peculiar form of instrumental communication. He provides concepts that we need for a materialist understanding of digital media. The article concludes that we need the approach of communicative materialism for grounding a Marxist theory of communication that is relevant to the analysis of digital media. This article forms part of ‘On the Move’, a special issue that marks the twentieth anniversary of the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Skills of Digital Literacy to Address the Risks of Interactive Communication

New technologies are fully integrated into the lives of children, so every day they spend more and more time using them. It is noteworthy that technologies offer many opportunities and benefits for children, but they are also associated with disadvantages and dangers. For this reason, parents and educators fear that children could suffer any of the network risks: exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, sexual harassment or grooming, sexting, contact with strangers, and impersonation. In this situation, the authors should not deprive minors of the use of digital technologies. Nevertheless, the solution is to provide them with digital skills so they become digital literate and can use these tools safely. Therefore, through this study they sought to identify the skills that compound digital literacy: technological or instrumental, communication, information, critical, and security. Finally, the authors propose the implementation of a literacy intervention with the aim of providing the children with these skills.

Effects of work environment variables on Chinese prison staff organizational commitment

Staff are critical for the proper functioning of a prison; empirical research into the forces that affect salient organizational attitudes of staff, such as organizational commitment, is equally important. A survey instrument measuring affective commitment and personal (i.e. gender, tenure, age, and educational level), job (i.e. perceived dangerousness of the job, job variety, and supervision), and organizational variables (i.e. instrumental communication and input into decision-making) was completed by 322 employees in two prisons in southern China. The results of ordinary least squares regression showed that job and organizational variables of perceived dangerousness of the job, job variety, supervision, instrumental communication, and decentralization explained 54% of the variance in the dependent variable organizational commitment and were much stronger predictors than personal characteristics. Among the significant variables, decentralization had the largest sized effect, followed by perceived job dangerousness, job variety, and instrumental communication. Except for the organizational variable of perceived supervision quality, the job and organizational predictors of affective commitment for these Chinese prison staff appear to mirror those typically found for staff in US prisons.

Skills of Digital Literacy to Address the Risks of Interactive Communication

New technologies are fully integrated into the lives of children, so every day they spend more and more time using them. It is noteworthy that technologies offer many opportunities and benefits for children, but they are also associated with disadvantages and dangers. For this reason, parents and educators fear that children could suffer any of the network risks: exposure to pornography, cyberbullying, sexual harassment or grooming, sexting, contact with strangers, and impersonation. In this situation, the authors should not deprive minors of the use of digital technologies. Nevertheless, the solution is to provide them with digital skills so they become digital literate and can use these tools safely. Therefore, through this study they sought to identify the skills that compound digital literacy: technological or instrumental, communication, information, critical, and security. Finally, the authors propose the implementation of a literacy intervention with the aim of providing the children with these skills.

Le portail institutionnel Persée à l’épreuve des usages : croiser les approches méthodologiques en Sciences Humaines pour améliorer le partage de connaissances scientifiques en libre accès

Les recherches antérieures spécifiques menées par 4 enseignants-chercheurs en Sciences de l’Information et en Sémiotique trouvent un terrain de convergences dans une étude des usages du portail institutionnel Persée. Ergonomie visuelle, organisation documentaire hypertextuelle, sémiotique du dispositif et communication instrumentée constituent autant des aspects saillants par lesquels l’étude est menée et qui accompagnent la mise en œuvre de la nouvelle version du portail. The specific previous studies conducted by 4 teacher-searchers in Information Science and Semiotics find a convergence ground with a study on uses of the institutional portal Persée. Visual ergonomics, hypertext organization, disposition of the semiotics and instrumental communication are the key aspects of this study and form the base of the implementation of the portal new version.