Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been entangled in a cycle of violence. Extensive crimes that include summary executions, rapes, and the use of child soldiers are frequent in the eastern provinces of the DRC. Little is known, however, about the factors that have contributed to the emergence of these ongoing acts of terror. The study provides insights into the antecedent conditions of terrorism in this country. The purpose of this quantitative correlational research study is to examine the precursors of the conflict in the DRC. The study provides the opportunity to understand the degree and possible strength of the relationship between the criterion 'terrorist incidents' and the following predictors: political instability and economic activities in the DRC. Aberle's relative deprivation theory provided structure for the study. Research questions focused on the correlation between terrorist incidents and the 2 predictors: political stability and economic growth. A quantitative correlational study design was employed, using longitudinal secondary data 91 cases' obtained from 2 organizations: (a) the World Bank and (b) the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Data from these sources were analyzed using a panel data regression. Results indicated a significant, but negative, association between terrorist incidents and political stability. No significant correlation appeared between terrorist incidents and economic growth. The implications for social change include informing the Congolese government, the African Union's leaders, and the international community about the precursors to these terrorist acts, as well as the need to improve the socioeconomic conditions of civilian and restore the credibility of the governments.

<p>What affect if an incident is reported?</p><p>- an interview study with nurses</p><p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Everyday in health care, there are incidents which can harm patients. However, reporting these incidents is not always a positive experience. The number of incident reports which are documented are a lot fewer than the number of incidents that actually occur. The purpose of the present study was to describe factors that affect nurses’ decisions on whether to report an incident or not. Interviews were carried out with ten nurses. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. Collected data were analysed, inspired by Burnard’s model of content analysis. The result showed two categories which can affect the decision of whether to report or not report an incident. One category Personal considerations, described that personal consequences for all concerned were important, that is, consequences for themselves, the patient, workmates and their own family. They also felt a moral responsibility and claimed that their conscience sometimes guided them when they chose whether to report an incident or not. The second category, Leadership and organisation described practical consequences; nurses wanted feedback and wanted to see that reporting incidents led to changes being made. They also claimed that the culture and routines in the workplace influenced their decision to report an incident. Hopefully, in order to ensure patient safety, the result in this study can contribute to preventive measures being taken so that even more incidents are reported, as this affects patient safety in the highest degree.</p>

Experience feedback from accidents is important for preventive work in companies, authorities and other organisations. This thesis focused on experience feedback from accidents that take place in everyday life, in our neighbourhoods, in our workplaces, in our schools, in traffic and transportation. Essay I is an overview of the literature on learning from accidents and incidents. The focus in this essay is on literature that evaluates the effectiveness and usefulness of different methods in accident investigations. Conclusions drawn from this literature review are that the dissemination of results and knowledge from accident investigations must be improved, and experience feedback systems should be integrated into overall systems of risk management. Essay II is based on an evaluation of the investigation board for workplace accidents (HAKO) that was carried out on commission of the Swedish Work Environment Authority. It was concluded that the accident reports published by HAKO had a high qualitative level but the dissemination of results from the investigations was weak. Essay III investigates twenty-eight supervision cases from eleven Swedish local Environment and Health Administrations. The overall goal of the study was to find out how, and to what extent, experience feedback occurs in Swedish municipalities. Two major problems relevant for the experience feedback have been found; namely that the inspectors do not have enough guidance on how to interpret the law and that they would like more information on what happens to legal cases that they have handed over to the public prosecutors and the police. Essay IV is a document study of incident reports from two municipal fire and rescue services. The overall purpose of this study was to investigate if information from the rescue services could be used to improve experience feedback in sectors where it is weak or non-existent. In the 1120 incident reports that were studied, we found 217 proposals for improvement but these proposals were not used for experience feedback. It is concluded that the reports contain valuable information but this information is not used to prevent future accidents. Essay V investigates experience feedback in Swedish authorities working with accident prevention. The essay is based on two interview studies. In the first study, 21 Swedish authorities participated, and several of these authorities seem to have a functioning experience feedback despite the lack of systematic routines and methods. Yet, only four of the 21 authorities actually handle the whole experience feedback process. These four have at least one common denominator; they have an experience feedback that is turning more inwards than outwards. The second study was a follow-up study of some of the results from the first study, concerning the dissemination of results from experience feedback. / QC 20101209

I den svenska vården drabbas uppskattningsvis var tionde patient av en vårdskada, det vill säga en undvikbar skada direkt orsakad av vården (Socialstyrelsen, 2008; Ödegård, 2007). Vårdskador ska registreras som avvikelser som sedan ska analyseras för att finna orsak och ligga till grund för förbättringsarbete (Socialstyrelsen, 2008). Syftet med studien är att beskriva innehållet i de patientavvikelser som registrerats av personal på sjukhus. Innehållet beskrivs avseende vilka händelser som registrerats och vårdpersonalens beskrivningar av händelseförloppet. Studien innehåller både kvalitativa och kvantitativa delar. Den kvalitativa delen genomfördes med innehållsanalys enligt Graneheim och Lundman (2004). Den kvantitativa delen redovisas med hjälp av deskriptiv statistik. Resultatet av studien visar att de flesta avvikelser berör Organisation/regler/resurser, Vård och behandling samt Halk/fall. Patienter i åldern 70-90 år drabbas i störst utsträckning. Händelseförloppet är ofta detaljerat beskrivet. Personal är däremot mindre benägen att skriva vad de anser vara orsak till det inträffade, samt bidra med förbättringsförslag. Teman som kom ur den kvalitativa analysen var: ”Det blir arbetsamt när andra gör fel”, ”Att vara nära men inte inpå” och ”Att lindra lidande”.

Anstalten Hall utanför Södertälje tillhör säkerhetsklass A, vilket innebär att de intagna utgör en hög risk för allmänheten. De anställda har därmed ett stort ansvar i att upprätthålla säkerheten på anstalten. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka möjliga samband mellan kriminalvårdarnas personlighet, deras upplevelse av säkerhetsklimatet och upplevda incidenter. Vidare studerades könsskillnader avseende personlighetsdrag och upplevelse av säkerhetsklimat. För att undersöka detta användes säkerhetsformuläret NOSACQ-50 och personlighetsskalan Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP). Totalt ingick 30 deltagare i studien. Signifikanta samband fanns mellan personlighetsdragen misstroende, bitterhet, somatisk ångestbenägenhet, social konformitet och verbal aggressionsförmåga i förhållande till hur de anställda upplevde säkerhetssystemet samt ledningen och kollegornas säkerhetsarbete.  Signifikanta skillnader i personlighetsdragen fanns endast mellan mäns och kvinnors somatiska ångestbenägenhet, där kvinnor hade utmärkande högre värden. I övrigt visades inga signifikanta skillnader mellan personlighetsdragen. Vad det gällde upplevelser av säkerhetsklimatet på anstalten mellan könen kunde vissa skillnader utläsas, men dessa var inte signifikanta. Resultaten antyder att människor som arbetar inom kriminalvården är ganska lika varandra och att personlighetsdrag till viss del kan inverka på upplevelsen av arbetsplatsens säkerhetsklimat. Då antalet deltagare är begränsat bör dock slutsatser dras med försiktighet. / The prison Hall near Södertälje has safety class A. This means that prisoners constitute a high risk to the public and the employees have a great respons­ibility in maintaining security at the prison. The purpose of this study was to explore possible relationships and differences between the prison officers’ views on safety climate and their personal traits. Furthermore gender differences in personality traits and experience of safety climate were studied. The security form NOSACQ-50 and Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP) were used. A total of 30 participants were included in the analysis. Significant correlations were found between the personality traits mistrust, embitterment, somatic trait anxiety, social desirability and verbal trait aggression in relation to how the employees experienced the safety climate. Significant differences in personality traits were found between male and female only in somatic trait anxiety, where women had distinctively higher values then men. When it came to perceptions of safety climate between the sexes some differences could be seen, but these were not significant. The results suggest that men and women working in prisons are quite similar and that personality traits may to some extent affect the experience of the workplace safety climate. As the number of participants is limited, however, care should be taken when making conclusions.

The European University Viadrina at Frankfurt (Oder) is, due to its location on the German-Polish border and its high rate of international students (40 %), a place predestined to explore the subject of intercultural communication. However, the students in fact do not notice the interculturalism in their everyday lives. German and Polish students form two big groups which are distant from one another and the communicative interaction is very limited. As former studies have already asserted, the contact hypothesis works only under special conditions. The origins of the group formation and the mutual lack of interest are complex. This study especially considers one of all possible aspects and analyses it: failed communication caused by cultural differences. With the analysis of the Critical Incidents, several characteristic fields of culturally-caused conflicts between German and Polish students were able to be identified. (author´s abstract) / Series: WU Online Papers in International Business Communication / Series One: Intercultural Communication and Language Learning

En positiv eller negativ livsinställning, djur, natur, tro och utbildning, är det faktorer som har skyddande egenskaper? Personerna som fått behandling professionellt, har bearbetat händelserna de varit med om bättre än de som inte har fått hjälp med bearbetning. De personer som har en positiv livsinställning, i kombination med att de fått professionell hjälp av någon, har bearbetat de traumatiska händelser de varit med om bättre, än personer som har en negativ livsinställning, eller inte fått professionell hjälp. Några av personerna som intervjuats har även haft stor hjälp av att vistas ute i naturen tillsammans med sina hundar. Hundarna har varit ett stort stöd mentalt och en god vän som lyssnat när de mått dåligt. / A positive or negative approach to life, animals, nature, faith and education, are those factors with protective characteristics? Persons that have got professional treatment, have processed the experienced incidents, better than those who have not received help to process the incidents. Those who have a positive approach to life, combined with professional treatment, have processed traumatic experiences better than persons with a negative approach to life, or those with no professional treatment offered. Some of the interviewed persons have gained a lot by spending time with their dogs in nature. The dog has acted as mental support and a good friend, who has listened when the person has been depressed and in need of support.

Enligt många psykoterapiforskare förklarar arbetsalliansen en stor del av variansen i behandlingsutfallet. Tidigare kvantitativ forskning anger att variationer av terapeutens egenskaper, personliga drag och interventionsteknik stärker eller hindrar arbetsalliansen. Denna undersöknings syfte var att explorativt undersöka terapipatienters egna uppfattningar av alliansförknippade faktorer. Nio patienter i pågående psykoterapi intervjuades med Critical Incidents Technique. Tematisk analys resulterade i tre huvudkategorier av allianskopplade faktorer: Inom Stärkande faktorer betonades terapeutens strukturansvar, villkorslösa värme och respekt, auktoritet, förmåga till känslohantering och medvetandegörande. Hindrande faktorer innefattade bl.a. otydlighet, bristande uppmärksamhet och skuldbeläggande. Villkorsförknippade faktorer inbegrep terapeutens grundlighet, självutlämnande och införandet av nya metoder vilket verkade antingen hindrande eller stärkande för allansen. De stärkande och hindrande faktorerna går i linje med tidigare forskningsfynd. De villkorsförknippade faktorerna fanns inte omnämnda i tillgänglig litteratur. Resultatets tillförlitlighet, metodens styrkor och svagheter, författarnas bias och kliniska implikationer diskuteras. Trots urvalets begränsande inverkan på resultatens generaliserbarhet föreslås vidare forskning om villkorsförknippade faktorer.

<p>The subject of this licentiate thesis is experience feedback from accidents and incidents. The thesis aims to contribute to an understanding of how the learning processes within organizations, companies and authorities could be improved.</p><p><i>Essay I </i>(written together with Sven Ove Hansson) reports on an evaluation carried out in 2004 by the Swedish Work Environment Authority’s Accident Investigation Board, called HAKO (Haverikommissionen). An important outcome of this evaluation shows that HAKO have not been able to manage the dissemination of their written reports, which is unfortunate, since the reports are thoroughly written.</p><p><i>Essay II</i> (written with Sven Ove Hansson and Carl Rollenhagen) is an overview of the literature on learning from accidents and incidents. The focus in this essay is on literature that evaluates the effectiveness and usefulness of different methods in accident investigations. The conclusions drawn from this literature review are that the dissemination of results and knowledge from accident investigations must be improved, and experience feedback systems should be integrated into overall systems of risk management.</p><p>The starting point for<i> Essay III </i>was an empirical study conducted in 2005/2006. Twenty-eight supervision cases from eleven local Environment and Health Administrations in Sweden were examined. The overall goal of the study was to find out how, and to what extent, experience feedback occurs between different municipal authorities. Two major problems affecting experience feedback have been found; namely, that the inspectors do not have enough guidance on how to interpret the law, and that they would like more information on what happens to legal cases they have reported to public prosecutors and police.</p>

ABSTRACT There has been a renewed interest in the inclusion of ethics as part of educators' training and interest in understanding the moral and ethical dimensions of educational practice. This research was designed to study the types of dilemmas school level leaders face, the characteristics of typical dilemmas, and the implications for leader preparation, professional development, and practice. In documenting the lived experiences of former school level leaders, the grounded theory approach to qualitative inquiry and the critical incident technique (CIT) were employed. Data collected from interview sessions, dialogs, journals and reflections were used to analyze the types of dilemmas school level leaders faced, the characteristics of typical dilemmas, and the implications for leader preparation, professional development, and practice. This study confirmed the prevalence of ethical dilemmas for school level leadership. The critical incidents shared by the participants revealed that school leaders were guided by district policies and experienced dissonance or tension between their guiding ethical beliefs and policies or expectations of the district. The data determined that school level leaders sought to act in the best interests of students. Participants acknowledged that the core of their ethical and moral fiber was developed early in their youth and was reinforced by pivotal life experiences. This acknowledgement suggested that pivotal life experiences could influence an individual's ethical and moral fiber. The findings also indicated that professional development in ethics could be effective for school level leaders. Additionally, the data revealed a dichotomy around whether ethics could be taught. The findings were inconclusive in determining how race and/or gender played a significant role in the dilemmas that school level leaders face or the resolution of the dilemmas. Further research and study of this issue may be warranted in light of the changing demographics of our schools, communities, and school level leaders. Critical reflection proved to be a process that could benefit practicing and aspiring school level leaders. Exploring how this process could be implemented in school leader preparation and professional development programs is a phenomenon worthy of further research.