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Family/friend caregivers of persons with dementia often do not feel prepared for end-of-life, which contributes to high rates of complicated grief, depression and anxiety in bereavement. This mixed methods study used an exploratory sequential design to explore the core concepts and indicators of preparedness, develop and evaluate a multidimensional questionnaire aimed at measuring caregiver preparedness for end-of-life for persons with dementia. In Phase 1, a qualitative study with an interpretive descriptive design was used to explore the core concepts and indicators of preparedness with 16 bereaved family caregivers recruited from six long-term care homes located in Ontario, Canada. In Phase 2, a quantitative, cross-sectional Delphi-survey was conducted with 5 caregivers and 12 diverse professional experts to select preparedness indicators/items and develop the Caring Ahead questionnaire. Lastly in Phase 3, the self-report, paper format questionnaire was evaluated for evidence of validity and reliability using a quantitative cross-sectional design. In this final phase, the questionnaire was completed through the postal mail by 134 caregivers from over 50 long-term care homes/residential care facilities, primarily in Ontario, Canada. Evidence for internal structure and concurrent validity was generated along with reliability coefficients suggesting internal consistency and stability in a test-retest. Findings from this study contributed to the conceptualization and operationalization of preparedness and produced the new, multidimensional questionnaire titled Caring Ahead: Preparing for End-of-Life with Dementia with preliminary evidence for validity and reliability. This questionnaire aims to fill an existing gap expressed by researchers who aim to design and evaluate interventions promoting preparedness through a palliative approach. In addition, policy-makers should benefit from introduction of the Caring Ahead questionnaire as an outcome measure to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of policies surrounding a palliative approach. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / Providing care to a family member or friend with dementia can be very challenging and different than caring for persons with other disorders. Healthcare providers should provide a palliative approach to care which focuses on quality-of-life and helping family caregivers prepare for end-of-life. However, many family caregivers do not feel prepared for death and this can lead to serious mental health problems in bereavement. This thesis explores what feeling prepared for death means and describes the development and testing of a questionnaire to assess how prepared family caregivers feel for the end-of-life of someone with dementia. Through interviews and surveys with caregivers and professional experts, we developed and tested the Caring Ahead: Preparing for End-of-Life with Dementia questionnaire. Use of the new Caring Ahead questionnaire aims to help us understand how prepared family caregivers are feeling for end-of-life and what supports are needed.

No / There is a common assumption that a postal questionnaire is an inappropriate research instrument for collecting rich qualitative data. In this article we challenge this and argue that in some circumstances such instruments can be used to yield rich thick descriptions of the kind normally associated with interviewing. We give the example of research into lesbian identities. Our experience led us to question what we call the epistemology of presence and the assumption that presence guarantees authenticity. We also suggest that the ethics of the face-to-face encounter may be different from those occurring at a distance. We conclude by arguing that researchers should be more open to the possibilities that postal questionnaires may be capable of generating authentic qualitative data, and that interviewing should be an explicit choice not the default position in qualitative research.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The purpose of this study is to determine which items on a personality rating scale are most valid in describing individuals who have been selected on the basis of social acceptance.

Yes / This article discusses the data obtained from an online survey of academic staff who are involved in module design and who are employed within one university. The survey was used as a baselining tool to explore the nature of current module design practice within the survey sample. Do academics consistently employ the pragmatic approaches recommended by educational developers and theorists or is module and curriculum development a more informally constructed process? By comparing the initial findings of this project with survey and interview data produced by evidence-based projects, this article suggests that module design practice is not set in stone and that we need a deeper analysis of the process of module and curriculum design in terms of social practice and socio-cultural theory in order to gain a deeper understanding of it.

Research report presented to SBL, Unisa, Midrand. / This study aims to examine how manager's leadership styles correlates with leadership outcomes and perceptions of subordinates and management in the construction industry. Leadership styles, conception and leadership outcomes in terms of effectiveness and operationalization were measured using a modified Bass and Avolio's multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) and a modified Porter et al.'s organizational commitment questionnaire (OCQ).

The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire is an internationally widely used instrument assessing different eating styles that may contribute to weight gain and overweight: emotional eating, external eating, and restraint. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the 30-item German version of the DEBQ including its measurement invariance across gender, age, and BMI-status in a representative German population sample. Furthermore, we examined the distribution of eating styles in the general population and provide population-based norms for DEBQ scales. A representative sample of the German general population (N = 2513, age > 14 years) was assessed with the German version of the DEBQ along with information on sociodemographic characteristics and body weight and height. The German version of the DEQB demonstrates good item characteristics and reliability (restraint: α = .92, emotional eating: α = .94, external eating: α = .89). The 3-factor structure of the DEBQ could be replicated in exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and results of multi-group confirmatory factor analyses supported its metric and scalar measurement invariance across gender, age, and BMI-status. External eating was the most prevalent eating style in the German general population. Women scored higher on emotional and restrained eating scales than men, and overweight individuals scored higher in all three eating styles compared to normal weight individuals. Small differences across age were found for external eating. Norms were provided according to gender, age, and BMI-status. Our findings suggest that the German version of the DEBQ has good reliability and construct validity, and is suitable to reliably measure eating styles across age, gender, and BMI-status. Furthermore, the results demonstrate a considerable variation of eating styles across gender and BMI-status.