The objective of this thesis is to examine random effect models applied to binary data. I will use classical and Bayesian inference to fit generalized linear mixed models to a specific data set. The data analyzed in this thesis comes from a study examining the injection practices of needle exchange clientele in Victoria, B.C. focusing on their risk networks. First, I will examine the application of social network analysis to the study of injection drug use, focusing on issues of gender, norms, and the problem of hidden populations. Next the focus will be on random effect models, where I will provide some background and a few examples pertaining to generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs). After GLMMs, I will discuss the nature of the injection drug use study and the data which will then be analyzed using a GLMM. Lastly, I will provide a discussion about my results of the GLMM analysis along with a summary of the injection practices of the needle exchange clientele. / Graduate / 0463

Deliberate self-harm are a growing problem among young people in Sweden. It's not only the child that suffers from the behaviour, even the whole family. Parent´s need the right support from the healthcare staff for their own wellbeing, but also to be able to give good support for their child. Par-ent´s experiences are of importance for the nurse in the healthcare of the child and their families. The aim of this study was to describe parent´s experiences of living with a child with a deliberate self-harm behavior. In this literature study ten qualitative articles were analyzed using the method of Friberg (2012). Eight articles were found by a systematic search and two articles were found in an unsystematic search. This study showed four main themes and ten subthemes. Main themes were parent´s experience of support, parent´s experience of different feelings, parent´s experience of fam-ily relations and parent´s experience of parenting. Subthemes were to experience lack of support from healthcare staff, to need support from the environment, to feel guilt and shame, to feel concern and fear, to experience chock, to communicate with their child, to experience a different relation-ship in the family, to maintain trust in the relationship between parent and child, wanting to protect their child, to feel unsecure in their parenting. Conclusion were that parent´s need better support from the healthcare staff and from others in their environment. Nurses need more knowledge about parent´s experiences to be able to understand their needs and to be able to support them.

The thesis presents a case study of New Zealand's Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act 1966 - a civil commitment law used to detain alcoholics and drug addicts for up to two years in state-certified residential treatment facilities. The thesis positions itself as a call for legislative reform. The central argument is that the Act is an anachronistic and potentially draconian piece of social legislation which has no place on the modern-day New Zealand statute book. In the first part of the thesis, Chapter 1 introduces the research, outlines the structure and methodology of the thesis, and locates the study within a wider tradition of scholarship on the management of people with alcohol problems. Chapter 2 summarises the analytical framework that is used to evaluate the Act, attaching particular importance to both the philosophical traditions and the practical strategies of harm minimisation and therapeutic jurisprudence. Chapter 3 gives a positivist reading of the legislation : outlining the evolution of the Act, essaying its major provisions, and noting the efforts that have been made to refine or reform the statute since it was passed in the mid-1960s. Chapter 4 draws on the limited amount of data available to describe how the Act is currently operating 'on the ground'. In the second part of the thesis, the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act is put into a comparative context by describing examples of similar-type statutes that exist in two other jurisdictions. Chapter 5 focuses on the New South Wales Inebriates Act 1912; Chapter 6 focuses on the Swedish Act on Care of Addicts in Certain Cases 1989. The final part of the thesis builds a case for reform of the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act. Chapter 7 identifies various practical and clinical problems with the Act, which mean that the statute does not work in instrumental terms. It is submitted that the Act cannot be said to make better provision for the care and treatment of alcoholics. Chapter 8 highlights several legal and philosophical difficulties with the Act, which mean that the legislation does not work in value terms. It is submitted that the Act is offensive to the right to refuse treatment and fundamentally conflicts with the principles of individual autonomy and informed consent. Chapter 9 proposes three options for reforming the Act, expressing a preference for the outright repeal of the statute. Finally, Chapter 10 draws conclusions from the preceding discussion, and speculates on the likelihood that the recommended reforms will be implemented.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 61 p. Includes bibliographical references.

The Dr. Peter Centre (DPC), an HIV care facility, provides integrated health care services incorporating harm reduction strategies as part of service provision. These services include a “Harm Reduction Room” for those members who inject drugs, to do so in a supervised environment. In this thesis, I explore the perspectives of DPC members on the harm reduction approach as part of a larger study titled A mixed Method Evaluation of the Impact of the Dr. Peter Centre on Health Care Access and Outcomes for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS who use Illicit Drugs. Thirty DPC members were recruited as part of the qualitative portion of the larger mixed-method study. One-on-one in depth interviews were conducted with each participant and audio-recorded and then transcribed verbatim. Participant narratives reflected positive experiences with nurses and other staff, and with the harm reduction philosophy at the DPC. Narratives from both participants who inject drugs and participants who do not inject drugs indicated support for the harm reduction room because of the safety it provides. Safety was related to reducing the direct harmful effects of injection drugs such as infection and overdose, and also to the refuge from the street and freedom from stigma of drug use that the DPC provides. Participant accounts expressed a sense of acceptance and belonging as a part of the community at the DPC highlighting the role of DPC in shifting drug use patterns. This thesis emphasizes that the harm reduction philosophy and the provision of harm reduction services at the DPC contributes to the overall health and well being of participants. / Graduate

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-09Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:17:02Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 anacleto_aaa_me_bauru.pdf: 1209451 bytes, checksum: 094c11bb316384eb3e170678be19c80a (MD5) / Uma nova modalidade de atendimento para enfrentar a problemática do uso de drogas e suas consequencias psicossociais refere-se a uma proposta de redução de danos (PRD). Ainda desconhecida por muitos e polêmica entre diferentes profissionais, essa proposta representa um novo olhar sobre as populações vulneráveis e procura garantir a saúde pública, por meio de ações que tentam reduzir os danos causados pelo consumo de drogas lícitas e ilícitas, bem como práticas sexuais de risco para DTS/AIDS, com esclarecimento e orientações ao invés de proibição e punição. A implementação dessa proposta pro parte de psicólogos às pessoas que se encontram em situação de vulnerabilidade pelo exercício de práticas de risco e seus familiares ainda é um tema pouco estudado. Este estudo objetivou investigar a opinião de psicólogos, sejam esses atuantes em clínicas particulares ou em um Centro de Atenção Psicossocial, sobre a proposta de Redução de Danos e sua relação com os temas de sexualidade e vunerabilidade, por meio de entrevistas e análise de conteúdo em categorias temáticas: o conceito de redução de danos, a avaliação da proposta de redução de danos, a articulação da redução de danos com a sexualidade e a implicação da redução de danos em suas atuações profiessionais. Os dados revelaram a falta de informalção referentes ao tema da política de redução de danos nos dois grupos de psicólogos e como suas ações ainda são incipientes nos espaços de promoção de saúde pública. Espera-se contribuir para o esclarecimento e o debate necessário entre os psicólogos que atuam junto a profissionais da saúde no atendiemnto a esta população beneficiando enfim o pleno desenvolvimento humano / A new modality of treatment to address the problem of drug abuse and its psychosocial consequences refors to a proposal for Harm Reduction (PRD). Still unknown to many and controversy between the experts, this proposal represents a new focus on vulnerable population and seeks to ensure public health, through actions that attempt to reduce damage caused by the consumption of licit and ilicit drugs and sexual practices risk for HIV/AIDS, with clarification and guidance rather than prohibition and punishment. The implementation of this proposal by psychologists for people who find themselves in a vulnerable situation by the exercise of risk practices and their relatives is still little research. This study aimed to investigate the option of psychologists, are those working in private practices or in a Psychosocial Care Center on the proposal of Harm Reduction and its relation to the themes of sexuality and vulnerability, through interviews and content analysis themes: the concept of harm reduction, assessment of the proposed harm reduction, the articulation of harm reduction with sexuality and the implication of harm reduction in their profissional appearances. The data revealed the lack or information regarding the issue of harm reduction policy in the two groups of psychologists and how their actions are still incipient in the spaces to promote public health. Expected to contribute to the classification and necessary debate among psychologists who work with health providers to care for this population ultimately benefiting the full human development

The prevalence of sexual harassment among college women has been reported to range from 33% to 97% (Klein, Apple, & Khan, 2011; Yoon, Funk, & Kropf, 2010) across the lifespan. In any one year of college, the prevalence of sexual harassment reported by women ranges from 33% to 57% (Crown & Roberts, 2007; Huerta, Cortina, Pang, Torges, & Magley, 2006). The severity and frequency of sexual harassment has been found to be related to reports of psychological distress (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012), feelings of shame (Yoon et al., 2010), anxiety and depression symptoms (Murdoch, Pryor, Polusny, & Gackstetter, 2007), and social isolation (Pershing, 2003). These consequences of sexual harassment are concerning given the association between depression, isolation, and suicidality (Boardman, Grimbaldeston, Handley, Jones, & Willmott, 1999; DeWall, Gilman, Sharif, Carboni, & Rice, 2012). While there are numerous studies documenting the negative consequences experienced by women who are sexually harassed, little is known about the relationship of sexual harassment to the more severe negative outcomes of suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors and what variables might facilitate this hypothesized relationship. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore whether the experience of sexual harassment is related to increased suicidality and if this hypothesized relationship is mediated or moderated by other factors such as an individual’s response style and/or degree of connection to or isolation from others.

This thesis investigates Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) communication in the setting of South Sudan. More precisely, the thesis investigates MSF’s engagement in a discussion regarding the potential harm NGOs, both other and themselves, might cause in terms of conflict dynamics. The thesis takes off in the perceived conflict between the adaptation of the Hippocratic Approach, as outlined by Mary B Anderson, and the increased necessity of branding in today’s humanitarian industry and seeks to understand how this might unfold in practice. Demonstrating MSF’s commitment to ideals in line with the Hippocratic Approach, which encourage self-criticism and accountability, the thesis moves on to illustrate how branding has become an inevitable measure for NGOs to remain operational. Based on previous research identifying a successful branding as information, trust and image, where self-criticism might be counter-productive, the thesis tries to identify the conflict between the two fields. The thesis sets out to uncover some of the tensions more concretely by investigating MSF’s communication in the conflict-settings of South Sudan. It does so utilizing the method Qualitative Content Analysis. The material stems from MSF’s self-published reports, reviews and articles. In conclusion, the thesis finds that MSF does engage in a discussion about harms caused by other organizations as well as harm caused by themselves. However, the harms discussed are not put in terms of conflict dynamics in South Sudan. Furthermore, the thesis identifies some disproportion in criticism towards other organizations versus self-criticism. The thesis refrains from drawing any permanent conclusions and suggest a comparative case study to better understand the tensions in NGO’s building of a Hippocratic brand.

The current study examined the relationship between psychopathic personality traits and various forms of deception. Through the use of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment to measure psychopathy, and several different assessment tools to measure deception, including the Multidimensional Deception Inventory (MDI), the relationship between psychopathic personality traits and deception was examined. Using an undergraduate sample of 261 participants at a large research university in the Southeastern United States, the relationship between the aforementioned constructs was explored. Results indicated that the overarching personality traits of Antagonism and Disinhibition were positively related to multiple dimensions of lying behavior. Frequency of lies told, Duping Delight (lies told for enjoyment), and lies told for personal gain/impression management and to avoid disclosing pertinent information were positively related to both Antagonism and Disinhibition. Results point to the need for future study in this area, as limited previous research has looked at the overlap between psychopathic personality traits and deception.

The widespread practice of non-suicidal self-injury suggests that it might no longer be reasonable to frame such behaviours as individual pathologies and highlights the need to understand such acts as sociological phenomena instead. This dissertation therefore explored the core elements of self-injury such as the self, the body, and meanings ascribed to acts of injuring the self/body, in relation to forms of sociation. Focusing on intent and aetiology, this qualitative enquiry used an interpretive mode of explanation, and collected data via indepth face-to-face interviews from a characteristically diverse community sample of fifteen participants. Findings indicated that respondents' aetiologies of self-injury were located in social interactions characterised by abuse, neglect, bullying, and invalidation. Individuals who perceived themselves as worthless and unlovable objects punished themselves, or branded themselves as failures. Paradoxically, sufficient castigation averted the complete annihilation of the existential self. Findings concur with previous studies which reported that, at its deepest level, self-injury is antithetical to suicide. This study also highlighted the body's communicative role in the symbolic expression of traumatic experiences, and emphasised its physiological role in (a) emotion regulation and (b) self-injury's propensity to become addictive. From a sociological perspective, instant emotion regulation via self-injury allowed individuals to avoid social stigma; well managed social performances in turn protected social bonds. Although self-injury constitutes a maladaptive coping mechanism, its reported physiological, psychological and social gains are significant and need to be considered in intervention programmes and policy. This dissertation therefore makes two recommendations: firstly, restorative practices should be reinstituted, particularly in schools; secondly, the growing and alarming trend of copycat behaviours reported in children and young teens needs to be researched further in relation to the mediation, ideation and imitation of self-injurious behaviours.