Tam, Kok-wing = 從質性研究探討中國香港女性大學生運動習慣的決定因素 / 譚玨穎. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-116). / Text in English; abstracts in English and Chinese. / Tam, Kok-wing = Cong zhi xing yan jiu tan tao Zhongguo Xianggang nü xing da xue sheng yun dong xi guan de jue ding yin su / Tan Jueying. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / List of Tables --- p.vii / List of Figures --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER ONE / Introduction --- p.1 / Background --- p.1 / Purpose of Study --- p.6 / Operational Definition of Terms --- p.6 / Assumptions --- p.7 / Delimitations --- p.8 / Limitations --- p.8 / Significance of the Study --- p.8 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO / Review of Literature --- p.10 / Psychological Aspects of Physical Activity --- p.10 / Theoretical Background --- p.10 / Reduction of Stress and Depression --- p.11 / Enhancement of Mood --- p.13 / Improvement in Self Concept --- p.14 / Higher Quality of Life --- p.15 / Reasons for Exercise Participation --- p.16 / Exercise Determinants --- p.17 / Research Related to the Determinants of Physical Activity --- p.18 / Personal Characteristics --- p.18 / Psychological and Behavioural Determinants --- p.19 / Environmental Determinants - Social factors --- p.21 / Environmental Determinants - Physical factors --- p.22 / Physical Activity Characteristics --- p.23 / Exercise Facilitators --- p.24 / Exercise Barriers --- p.24 / Gender --- p.25 / Decline of Young Adult Exercise Pattern --- p.27 / The Transtheoretical Model --- p.28 / Theoretical Background --- p.28 / The Five Stages of Change --- p.31 / Precontemplation Stage - --- p.31 / Contemplation Stage --- p.31 / Preparation Stage --- p.31 / Action Stage --- p.32 / Maintenance Stage --- p.32 / Research related to the Transtheoretical Model and physical activity --- p.33 / Summary --- p.35 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE / Method --- p.36 / Participants --- p.36 / Survey sample --- p.36 / Interview sample --- p.37 / Procedures --- p.37 / Surveying --- p.37 / In-depth interviewing process --- p.38 / Instrumentation --- p.39 / Questionnaire for the Survey Sample (818 students) --- p.39 / Exercise Stage Assessment --- p.39 / Interview guide for the interview sub-sample --- p.40 / Data Analysis --- p.42 / Questionnaire Analysis --- p.42 / Data analysis for the interview --- p.42 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR / Results --- p.46 / The General Results from Exercise Stage Assessment --- p.46 / Background of the 15 Interviewees --- p.47 / Reasons for sedentary behaviour of the non-exercisers --- p.50 / Personal Characteristics --- p.52 / Psychological and Behavioural Determinants --- p.53 / Exercise Determinants - Physical aspects --- p.55 / Exercise Determinants - Social aspects --- p.58 / Physical Activity Characteristics --- p.60 / Reasons for the non-exercisers to change their sedentary behaviour- --- p.61 / Personal Characteristics --- p.62 / Psychological and Behavioural Determinants --- p.63 / Exercise Determinants - Physical aspects --- p.65 / Exercise Determinants - Social aspects --- p.66 / Physical Activity Characteristics --- p.67 / Reasons for the exercisers to be active --- p.67 / Personal Characteristics --- p.68 / Psychological and Behavioural Determinants --- p.70 / Exercise Determinants - Physical aspects --- p.72 / Exercise Determinants - Social aspects --- p.72 / Physical Activity Characteristics --- p.74 / Reasons for the exercisers to terminate their active behaviour --- p.75 / Personal Characteristics --- p.76 / Psychological and Behavioural Determinants --- p.76 / Exercise Determinants - Physical aspects --- p.78 / Exercise Determinants - Social aspects --- p.81 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE / Discussion --- p.83 / Exercise Determinants in Personal Characteristics --- p.85 / Exercise Determinants in Psychological and Behavioural Dimensions --- p.89 / Exercise Determinants in Environmental - Physical aspects --- p.91 / Exercise Determinants in Environmental - Social aspects --- p.95 / Exercise Determinants in Physical Activity Characteristics --- p.96 / Summary and Conclusion --- p.97 / Recommendations --- p.100 / References --- p.102 / Appendix A --- p.117 / Appendix B --- p.119 / Appendix C --- p.120 / Appendix D --- p.122 / Appendix E --- p.124 / Appendix F --- p.126 / Appendix G --- p.128 / Appendix H --- p.130 / Appendix I --- p.131 / Appendix J --- p.133 / Appendix K --- p.135

There is no abstract available for this thesis. / Department of Sociology

M.Cur. / The problems women in our community are faced with are multi-dimensional and there is absolutely no community that can be declared problem-free. Many women face the pressure of having a number of responsibilities namely working, being a wife and mother, taking care of their families and perhaps caring for aging parents. Sometimes the pressure can be too overwhelming to manage. As a result, many women become depressed. The genuine life events that most often appear in connection with depression are various, but there is one distinguishing feature that appears in many cases, over and over: loss of self-esteem, of empowerment, of self confidence accompanied by feelings of worthlessness. In general, any life change, often caused by events beyond one's control, will damage the structure that gave life meaning. The likelihood of becoming depressed is increased by the lack of supportive, confiding relationship with a partner, spouse, friend, stressful life events and poor communication patterns within relationships. Studies on depression among Black-African women could not be traced. Despite the fact that considerable research on the women and depression has been done in other parts of the world, no studies have been done on similar subjects in Namibia. It was therefore considered necessary to find out how women suffering from depression from this part of the world tell their life stories. The purposes of the study were two-fold. Firstly, to explore and describe the life stories of adult depressed women in perk urban Namibia. Secondly, to use the information obtained to describe guidelines for the compilation of a health education support program for psychiatric nurses working with these patients at psychiatric outpatient clinic as well as in the community. The research questions that were generated are: how do adult depressed women tell their life stories, and then how can the information be utilised to describe guidelines to support psychiatric nurses to assist depressed women in their quest for mental health? The researcher used an exploratory, descriptive, contextual and phenomenological qualitative design to answer these research questions. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with ten (10) respondents who have been purposively selected. This was done after obtaining the necessary permission from the Ministry of Health and Social Services and informed consent from the research participants. The interviews were conducted by the researcher in Oshiwambo and English. Steps were taken throughout the course of the study to ensure trustworthiness. All the interviews were transcribed verbatim. Data was analysed following Tesch's method and the service of an independent coder was obtained. The results indicate that impaired interpersonal interactions and stressful life events have a negative influence on the daily life of women leading to the development of depressive symptoms. Guidelines intended to support psychiatric nurses were drawn up based on the themes that emerged from the raw data. These guidelines are strategies to be used by psychiatric nurses working with depressed women to assist them in managing their own depression. Possibilities for the application of the results in nursing education, nursing practice, nursing research are discussed. It is concluded that women suffering from depression need support from the psychiatric nurses in order to facilitate the promotion, maintenance and restoration of their mental health, which is an integral part of health.

This ex post facto correlational study seeks to identify if a relationship between blood glucose values and vasomotor instability intensity exists. The population consisted of a convenience sample of seven type 2 diabetic postmenopausal women experiencing vasomotor instability living in Southern Alberta. This study hypothesizes that a significant negative correlation would be identified between these two variables based on research done by Dormire and Reame (2003). The correlational results suggest that a small to moderate significant positive relationship exists between blood glucose and vasomotor instability: increased vasomotor instability was associated with increased blood glucose values. Overall, this study suggests a relationship exists between blood glucose and vasomotor instability but causality or direction of this relationship cannot be determined. Further research studies are recommended to clarify and validate this research. In particular, such a study should include type 1 diabetic postmenopausal women, a larger sample size, and sampling a wider geographical area. / ix, 109 leaves ; 29 cm.

M.A. / The rationale behind the study of abused women should be a public and not an individual concern. Acknowledging anti considering abuse of women to be unacceptable is not enough. However, the public needs to be further educated as to its prevalence and seriousness. In the present study an attempt is made to redress some of these differences by studying women abuse in South Africa. The most important aim of the research is to understand the ways in which three abused women have managed to have the courage to relate and be honest about their experiences of abuse that they have suffered for many years. The research study will be based on the qualitative research method. The narrative approach will be integrated, whereby the three abused women will tell their different stories of abuse by their husbands. The researcher has found this study to be of utmost importance in contextualising the insight of women abuse although the sample of the three women does not represent all the abused women in South African context.

M.A. / Wife battering is one of the most pervasive forms of violence used against any individual in south Africa. The problem of battered women only came into the limelight in the early 1970's in the United States, its progression into public awareness corresponding with the growth of the women's movement. In South Africa, concern about wife battering started in the early 1980's. Inspired by the actions of overseas movements, South African feminists began to mobilise around violence against women. People Opposing Women Abuse opened the first shelter for battered women in Johannesburg in the eighties, followed by Rape crises in Cape Town. This study is anchored by a commitment to document battered women's experiences of marital violence in order that appropriate actions may be taken to ameliorate their situations. In undertaking this research, the intention is to learn from battered women about the context of their daily lives, exploring their educational and employment statuses, to describe the development and nature of their relationships with men who abuse them, establish the type of abuse they experience, and most importantly, to find out why they stay in such relationships. Data for this study is derived from questionnaires with fourteen abused women from two shelters (People Opposing Women Abuse, and NISSA Institute for Women Development).

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Women who fail to confront sexism can experience negative intrapersonal consequences, such as greater negative self-directed affect (negself) and greater obsessive thoughts, particularly if they are highly committed to challenging sexism. Female undergraduates (N = 392) were sampled to investigate whether failing to confront past sexism influences future task performance and whether any effects on performance occur through the depletion of cognitive resources. Participants were randomly assigned to recall either confronting or failing to confront past sexism, then completed measures of affect, obsessive thoughts, working memory, and performance. Women who recalled failing to confront were expected to have greater negself and obsessive thoughts related to the situation and lower working memory and performance, and desire to respond to the situation was expected to moderate these effects. As predicted, compared with women who recalled confronting, women who recalled failing to confront reported greater negself. Contrary to predictions, there was no significant effect of confrontation condition on obsessive thoughts, working memory, or performance. However, condition interacted with desire to confront, such that the more women who recalled failing to confront wanted to respond to the situation, the more negself they reported and the lower their working memory. In addition, for women who recalled confronting, greater desire to respond was associated with higher performance, while desire to respond was unrelated to performance for women who recalled failing to confront. In contrast to predictions, neither obsessive thoughts nor working memory mediated the failure to confront-performance relationship, and there was no evidence of moderated mediation. In sum, although the cognitive variables of obsessive thoughts and working memory did not mediate the effect of failing to confront on performance, the results nevertheless demonstrate the importance of confronting sexism, particularly when one wants to do so, and have important implications for settings like the workplace where women may face discrimination and have to decide whether or not to confront.

M.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how rural Ugandan women engage with discussions of HIV and AIDS on community radio. It explored how this audience may relate such broadcast discussions to their own lived experience of HIV and AIDS. It is explained in the study that, while the Uganda government has an official policy of openly discussing matters of HIV and AIDS, health communication strategies still operate within a context where there is an underlying "culture of silence" that discourages openness about sexual matters. It is also pointed out that there are widespread gender disparities among rural communities, which severely limit women's ability to make use of health communication initiatives aimed at educating them. Against this backdrop, the study sets out to explore audience responses to a particular example of Speak Out and Listen, a weekly programme broadcast on Mama FM, a Kampala-based radio station managed by the Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA). The study maps out responses to the programme by a particular group of rural women. It is argued that these research participants' comments confirm the importance, noted in literature dealing with health education, of drawing for content on what members of an audience have to say about their own lived context. It is proposed that, despite the existence of a 'culture of silence', the women's comments demonstrate an ability to speak with confidence about their experience of living with HIV and AIDS. Thcy are able, more particularly to discuss the constraints placed by gendered power relations on women's ability to draw on the educational content of programming that targets people living with HIV and AIDS. As such, the comments that such women offer represent a valuable resource for HIV and AIDS related programming. The principal conclusion of the study is that health communication initiatives such as Speak Out and Listen would benefit from facilitating conversations with their target audience about their lived experience of HIV and AIDS, and incorporating such discussion into their programmes

M.Sc. / The present study explores the personal narratives of three battered women who have been involved in the killing of their batterers, with regards to the processes of the perpetuation of abuse and victimising patterns in contexts of the battering - relationships, the criminal justice system and the prison system, which contribute to the co-creation of the women's sense of self and identity. The narratives unfold from a prison setting, where these three women are serving long-term sentences. The narratives are described within a social constructionist perspective. Two-tape recorded conversations of an hour and a half were held with each of the participants in this study. The conversations included a written dialogue from the women. In-depth interviews were used to guide the emerging narratives. The reflections of the researcher are linked to the analysis of the co-created narratives. The narratives suggest that the recognition of these women as victims of violence is clouded by the need for larger systems, namely, the criminal justice system and the prison system to identify the women as perpetrators of violence. The prison system parallels the battering relationship in positioning the women as victims. Suggestions around the treatment of- battered women who kill in prison, include communally validating the experiences and feelings of these women through the processes of group therapy. Re-categorising the women in prison, as battered women who kill, rather than murderers so as to recognise the context of the battered women is suggested. Community service is considered as an alternative to long term imprisonment. Community outreach programs from prison to share knowledge of battered women who kill is also suggested. Government policies, where possible, should be made accessible and government sponsored shelters should be established so as to recognise battered women who kill as victims of violence. Children of battered women who kill should be given assistance and provided with necessary treatment. Empirical research is needed in order to determine the prevalence of battered women who kill. Comparative studies are needed to determine whether these findings can be generalised to the general population of battered women who kill.