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The study aimed to extend the existing discussion on assessment literacy by focusing on English teachers’ ability to implement it in South Korea where a new assessment policy was implemented as part of educational reform. Scholars have pointed out a lack of teachers’ assessment knowledge and gaps in their ability to conduct the appropriate assessment for effective instruction. Thus, the scope of teacher assessment literacy needs to include teachers’ ability to implement it appropriately in given contexts. Grounding our study in the notion of teacher-based assessment as a guiding framework and using a mixed-methods design, we examined how Korean teachers perceived performance assessment emphasized in the reform and how they put it into practice. One hundred and twenty-seven teachers participated in survey questionnaires and 15 teachers were interviewed as a follow-up. The findings of the study showed that there were discrepancies between the teachers’ perceptions of assessment and their assessment practice and that the teachers showed diverse reactions toward teacher-based assessment from being capable to feeling powerless depending on their assessment knowledge and contextual constraints. The study suggests the importance of teachers’ agency in assessment literacy as a prerequisite for teacher-based assessment.

Background Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is a form of non-invasive ventilatory support which is increasingly used in low- and middle-income countries to treat neonates with acute respiratory distress. However, it may be harmful if used incorrectly. We aimed to explore the experiences of doctors and nurses using CPAP in neonatal units in India and their views on enablers and barriers to implementation of CPAP. Methods Participants from 15 neonatal units across Andhra Pradesh were identified through purposive sampling. Eighteen in-depth interviews (IDI) with doctors and eight focus group discussions (FGD) with 51 nurses were conducted. Data were analysed thematically using the framework approach. Results Common structural factors that limit the use of CPAP include shortages of staff, consumables and equipment, and problems with regard to the organisation of neonatal units in both district hospitals and medical colleges. This meant that CPAP was often not available for babies who were identified to need CPAP, or that CPAP use was not perceived to be of the highest quality. Providing care under constrained circumstances left staff feeling powerless to provide good quality care for neonates with acute respiratory distress. Despite this, staff were enthusiastic about the use of CPAP and its potential to save lives. CPAP use was mostly perceived as technically easier to provide than ventilation and allowed nurses to provide advanced neonatal care, independently of doctors. Conclusions Doctors and nurses embraced CPAP use but identified barriers to implementation which will need to be addressed in order not to impact on safety and quality of care. Ensuring a supportive and enabling environment is in place will be crucial if CPAP is to be scaled-up more widely. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12887-018-1311-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Stillbirth is a tragedy that can leave parents feeling powerless and vulnerable. Respectful and supportive bereavement care is essential to reducing adverse psychosocial impact. Initiatives of the Australian Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth are designed to improve care after stillbirth. At their heart are the voices of perinatally bereaved parents and support organisations and shared decision making between parents and health care providers. Priorities in future perinatal bereavement care research include ensuring appropriate care for population groups who experience higher rates of stillbirth and addressing implementation challenges to best practice in respectful and supportive bereavement care within our health systems.

Incarcerated youth have numerous healthcare needs, yet access to healthcare following community reentry is limited. Healthcare and juvenile justice providers, along with parents, strongly influence access to care for youth undergoing reentry. However, their perspectives are often missing from the literature. We examined parent and provider perspectives on youths' access to healthcare during community reentry. We conducted 72 longitudinal interviews with parents of youth undergoing reentry (n= 34 parents) and cross-sectional interviews with health and juvenile justice providers (n=20 providers). We performed inductive analysis of interview transcripts to identify the major themes related to access to healthcare during reentry. Respondents identified key leverage points that influence access to healthcare along the spectrum of individual, community, and policy-level factors. Parent and provider perspectives demonstrated substantial overlap, strongly concurring on the essential role of parents in linking youth to care and the external factors that limit parents' ability to connect youth to care. However, providers discussed parents not buying-in to treatment plans as a barrier to care, and parents uniquely described feeling powerless when their children were not motivated to receive care. Parents and providers agreed on priority solutions for improving care access during reentry. Immediate solutions centered on: 1) increasing reliability and continuity of providers, 2) providing free or low-cost transportation to healthcare visits, and 3) eliminating gaps in Medicaid coverage post-incarceration. Findings also signal the broader need to pursue strategies that increase family engagement in healthcare during reentry. In doing so, health and juvenile justice providers can partner with parents to overcome barriers to healthcare for youth during reentry.

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Aim: To explore the experience of readmissions to hospital from the perspective of older adults. Methods: A systematic review with an interpretative approach was conducted. CINAHL, Embase, and Medline were consulted in October 2016. Results: Six studies with data collection between 2004 and 2013 fit the relevant criteria and included a total of 68 older adults. Two overarching themes were developed with relevant subthemes: Experience during initial hospital stay distinguished by exclusion (Feeling powerless; Feeling disregarded; Perception of readiness for discharge); Patients experience uncertainty following discharge (Perception that community-based services are not available or adequate; Perception that hospital is the only safe place; Difficulty in adapting to a “new normal”). Conclusions: A cycle of exclusion exists during the initial hospital stay and beyond. The experience of being readmitted to hospital is challenging, mostly perceived as negative, and, existential, emotional and psychological well-being is not satisfactorily addressed by healthcare professionals.

PurposeThis study investigated the experiences of Japanese women who underwent emergency cesarean sections (c-sections), including their experiences during labor before to the decision for surgery, during surgery, and during the first postnatal week.MethodsEleven Japanese women who delivered live babies by emergency c-section at a private maternity hospital were interviewed in a semi-structured manner on the second and seventh postpartum days. Interviews were tape-recorded, and transcripts and participant observation in the postnatal ward assisted the interpretation. Data were analyzed qualitatively and inductively.ResultsEleven women (seven primiparas, four multiparas) participated in the study. The main reasons for surgery were fetal distress (n=9) and arrest of labor (n=2). The time between making the decision to perform surgery and birth ranged from 15 to 69 minutes. Six themes were evident from the women's experiences: shock of disappointed expectations, unavoidable fear and responsibility, release from pressure, re-experience of fear and pain, being "saved" by the baby, and getting out of a vicious cycle. Trying labor pain, shock, fear of their babies' or their own deaths, and feeling powerless and guilty contributed to the women's negative feelings about their birth experiences by emergency c-section. After surgery, however, women felt loving toward their babies, who had been born safely as a result of the surgery, and eagerly breast-fed or took care of the infants with midwifery/nursing support.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that prenatal childbirth classes need to include information on and discussion of possible emergency c-section and that emotional support from midwives and nursing staff in the operating room/postpartum unit helps to decrease a woman's negative feelings about birth experiences by emergency c-section and enhance her experiences as a mother. In addition, medical staff should be more aware of the birth trauma felt by the expectant mother surrounding emergency c-section.

Simple Summary In rental housing policy, pets are rarely considered as valued household members. Instead, landlords and property managers are often permitted to ban pets outright, or to advertise them as merely negotiable in their listings for rental housing. In fact, previous research has shown that moving and renting are key reasons for animal relinquishment. To reduce the number of animals that are given up each year due to housing issues, we surveyed landlords and property managers about their perspectives towards pets. Also, because younger adults are disproportionately tenants and because dogs are often banned from rental housing, we interviewed younger tenants with dogs about their recent experiences in the rental market. Our results confirm that dog owners face difficulties in finding rental housing. To keep their pets, tenants made compromises on where and how they lived, which held consequences for their health and that of their pets. Suggestions for improvement are provided, as are implications for research, policy, and practice. Abstract Previous research has shown that housing insecurity contributes to animal relinquishment and that tenants with dogs face disadvantages in the rental market. Still, little is known about how dog owners navigate rental markets, nor how landlords and property managers perceive dogs and other pets. This case study reports on in-depth interviews with younger tenants with dogs and on open-ended survey responses from landlords and property managers. In their housing searches, tenants with dogs reported feeling powerless in negotiations and feeling discriminated against. They described settling for substandard properties, often located in less desirable neighborhoods. Also, some said they felt obliged to stay put in these rentals, given how difficult it had been to find a place that would accommodate their dogs. Meanwhile, landlords and property managers indicated that listings advertised as “pet-friendly” tend to receive more applicants than listings in which pets are prohibited. Suggestions for improvement included meeting pets prior to signing the lease; getting everything in writing; steering clear from furnished units; charging utilities to tenants; and speeding up the pet approval process when dealing with condominium boards. These suggestions offer implications for future research, partnerships, and policy options to improve the prospects of pets and their people in rental housing.

Cure sometimes, treat often and comfort always – Hippocrates As clinicians, we are in a uniquely privileged position; we have passive admittance to the most private aspects of human life and often find ourselves silent observers of death. Sometimes we may be left feeling powerless and that maybe we have failed, given the expectations of modern medicine. In this issue of the Future Healthcare Journal we explore the complexities of creating sustainably resourced end-of-life and palliative care services. These require a foundation of specialist education and skills to empower clinicians, not …

Fred Cummings is an ABD working on his dissertation at a land grant institution in the Midwest. Unfortunately, four of the five members on his dissertation committee are making it difficult for him to complete it. Feeling powerless and vengeful, he plots four distinct plans to get back at each one of his faculty tormentors. His schemes have some unexpected results.

Submitted by Guilherme Lemeszenski (guilherme@nead.unesp.br) on 2013-08-22T19:03:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 S1413-81232011000400026.pdf: 40418 bytes, checksum: 25eaccffc7d26fc4fb2ffd08b7236d01 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2013-08-22T19:03:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 S1413-81232011000400026.pdf: 40418 bytes, checksum: 25eaccffc7d26fc4fb2ffd08b7236d01 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-01 Made available in DSpace on 2013-09-30T20:06:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 S1413-81232011000400026.pdf: 40418 bytes, checksum: 25eaccffc7d26fc4fb2ffd08b7236d01 (MD5) S1413-81232011000400026.pdf.txt: 33496 bytes, checksum: 7340f84d8787cf7592ae218ae56afda6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-01 Submitted by Vitor Silverio Rodrigues (vitorsrodrigues@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2014-05-20T13:34:50Z No. of bitstreams: 2 S1413-81232011000400026.pdf: 40418 bytes, checksum: 25eaccffc7d26fc4fb2ffd08b7236d01 (MD5) S1413-81232011000400026.pdf.txt: 33496 bytes, checksum: 7340f84d8787cf7592ae218ae56afda6 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-20T13:34:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 S1413-81232011000400026.pdf: 40418 bytes, checksum: 25eaccffc7d26fc4fb2ffd08b7236d01 (MD5) S1413-81232011000400026.pdf.txt: 33496 bytes, checksum: 7340f84d8787cf7592ae218ae56afda6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-01 A busca por espaços comunicativos para reflexão sobre o exercício e a prática da enfermagem, usando referenciais bioéticos, teve o objetivo de apreender como os enfermeiros participantes do estudo interpretam a realidade da sua prática perante a observância da justiça. Utilizou-se a técnica de grupo focal para coleta de dados e, para análise, a Grounded Theory. Foram identificados três fenômenos: conceituando senso de justiça; sentindo-se impotente em conviver com iniquidades/injustiças; movendo-se em direção às lutas por justiça. da inter-relação deles, emergiu a categoria central: construindo mecanismos de superação de injustiças e iniquidades que minam a qualidade da assistência de enfermagem: a experiência de enfermeiros recém-formados em um hospital estadual do interior paulista. A estratégia de grupo focal mostrou-se muito adequada à consecução dos objetivos propostos, e a Grounded Theory permitiu a compreensão do movimento empreendido pelos enfermeiros nessa experiência. The search for communicative settings for reflection concerning the exercise and practice of nursing based on bioethical frameworks sought to comprehend how participant nurses interpret the reality of their praxis vis-à-vis the observance of justice. The focal group technique was used for data collection and the latter was analyzed using Grounded Theory. Three phenomena were identified: conceptualizing a sense of justice; feeling powerless in living with inequities/injustice; and moving towards the fight for justice. From the inter-relation of such phenomena, the core categories emerged, namely constructing mechanisms to overcome injustice and inequities which undermine quality in nursing care, and the experience of recently-graduated nurses in a public hospital in the interior of São Paulo State. Focal group strategy proved to be highly adequate for achieving the proposed objectives, and Grounded Theory made it possible to assess the movement undertaken by the nurses in this experience. Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Departamento de Enfermagem Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Departamento de Enfermagem

Although the BMJ briefly and objectively mentioned the ombudsman’s report,1 2 the medical profession is all too muted. Geriatric nurses seem afraid to support the critics, and some doctors report feeling powerless to change things. I would have expected far more anger and outrage. But the truth is unpalatable and people recoil …