Disengagement from mental health services by patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders is an important issue. Most research in this area has been focused on studying the patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics that may be related to disengagement. However, research on patients’ perspective in regard to their decision of disengagement has been limited. An assessment tool developed based on an in--‐‑depth understanding of patients’ subjective experiences may capture other crucial factors. This may widen our scope of understanding of this phenomenon. Therefore, a mixed research method was employed in this thesis and three independent studies with distinctive research aims were carried out. The first study was a qualitative study which aimed at exploring reasons and factors that patients perceived influential to their decision of disengagement. Six ever--disengaged male patients aged between 18 and 28 with schizophrenia spectrum disorder were interviewed as a purposive sample after a thorough subject identification procedure. A thematic analysis of the data yielded seven themes which grouped into three domains: service (patient--‐‑clinician communication, service orientation, clinic operation); patient (psychological response, perception of illness); and medication (side effects and uncertain efficacy). A 16--‐‑item self--‐‑administered questionnaire, the Patient’s Perception of Psychiatric Service (PPPS) questionnaire, was developed. The construction of PPPS was based entirely on the themes identified from the first qualitative study. This questionnaire measured the subjective perception of the patient about the service and patient--clinician communication. Validation of the PPPS questionnaire was conducted in the second study by recruiting 50 patients with a diagnosis of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder from a psychiatric outpatient clinic. Results demonstrated that the PPPS questionnaire has good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity. The Singh O'ʹBrien Level of Engagement Scale (SOLES), Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ), and an internalized stigma scale were also translated and validated in this study for use in the third study. The third study explored the relationship between disengagement and the patient’s perception of service, using PPPS, level of engagement (SOLE), satisfaction with service (CSQ), and other factors including clinical characteristics and service utilization. One hundred and fifty patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder were recruited from two specialized outpatient clinics. In view of local clinical observation, patients who had more than one disengagement episode and each lasted more than two weeks were classified into the severe--‐‑disengagement group. In a forward stepwise regression model, results suggested that PPPS and length of service predict severe disengagement. In this thesis, the use of mixed study methods showed that it was pertinent to incorporate patients’ first person experience into an assessment tool. Measuring patients’ perception of service, by using PPPS, can effectively identify patients with severe disengagement history. PPPS as a patient--‐‑rated self--‐‑administered questionnaire can be used in clinical settings to enhance the understanding of a patient’s appraisal of the service and thus proactive measures can be taken to reduce service disengagement. / published_or_final_version / Psychiatry / Master / Master of Philosophy

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No description available.

In the wake of massive displacement following World War II, the U.S. Congress passed the first U.S. refugee legislation, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. In the years following 1948, the U.S. accepted refugees for resettlement through a patchwork of ad hoc policies. The cornerstone of the U.S. refugee resettlement program is the Refugee Act of 1980, the first legislation to define “refugee” and create a uniform procedure for admissions. Three agencies in separate federal agencies process participate in the resettlement program: the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in the State Department, the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security. Refugee resettlement is further segmented between the federal and local level as local nonprofit agencies provide the direct services associated with resettlement. This report examines the need for reform in the U.S. refugee resettlement program, with a focus on structural concerns. In particular, this report probes the transition from programs providing services overseas to those providing services on the domestic level. This examination is conducted through a literature review developed from recent academic literature. Additionally, the report will incorporate program evaluations, relevant legislation, and regulations from mixed sources, including academic literature, governmental documents and other public records. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The purpose of the writer is to create public understanding about the social, educational and economic needs of the blind in India; to build up a program for the quick amelioration of their sad condition and to provide for free and compulsory basic education and vocational training of blind children and young adults along with the sighted, in accordance with their individual talents and aptitude.

The evolution and growth of e-commerce has had a major impact in the daily living for the past few years [28]. It has brought and introduced new ways of trading and doing business. It enabled customers to negotiate business deals with companies and come into agreement about the services and goods to be purchased; and even come to the finalization and conclusion of the deals without ever being in the same place or meeting during all those negotiations. The e-commerce systems target the desktop or personal computers (PC s) as the hardware platform for clients. With all such good features and benefits e-commerce has, there is, to mention the least, one limitation that it has and that is mobility . People would still want to engage themselves in business deals whilst mobile. Mobile commerce or m-commerce appears into the scene to complete the journey started by e-commerce, thus it is seen as an extension of e-commerce [21]. Many services have migrated from the traditional e-commerce to m-commerce and that has allowed customers and clients to have access to their services whilst mobile or in motion. The lack of mobility in students services is being seen as a hassle and a problem by some students as they are forced to be fixed in one point at a time in order to get their services. The dissertation aims at addressing the service-related problems students encounter due to the lack of mobility in the University campus. It intends to develop a prototype called Open Mobile Student Portal that would demonstrate how some of the student services could be rendered in the mobile environment. The students could be able to get their balance or fees statements via their cell phones instead of having to go to the finance department in order to get their balance statement. Also, some library services could be rendered in the mobile environment so as to enable students to search for books in the library databases and book such books using their cell phones. / Professor Sebastiaan von Solms

The case study documented in this dissertation emerged in response to the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, and it promoted the participation rights accorded all children in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A unifying theme of this research was listening to the children's voices during their participation in a Primary-level curriculum for children's rights education entitled The World Around Us. This research was conducted within one Grade 3 classroom of nineteen students over a three-month period, when qualitative data were systematically collected via interviews, narratives, and observations. The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore how curricular experiences influenced the child participants' emerging conceptions of their participation rights and responsibilities, with a view to benefiting future curriculum materials for children's rights education. This research led to identifying learning and teaching strategies, which promoted the children's emerging conceptions, in light of the research goal of informing educational practice. In addition, this research led to devising a framework of participatory indicators, which reflected the child participants' emerging conceptions of their participation rights and responsibilities, in light of the research goal of building educational theory. / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work