Health Education Journal

To explore prisoners’ views on their own health, health promotion and harm reduction measures, prior to a period of significant change in the way these services are delivered in the prison setting.

Structured interviews with prisoners as part of a wider Health Needs Assessment of a local prison.

A high security prison in the West of Scotland with capacity for 700 male prisoners.

A structured questionnaire with prisoners recruited from education, regular wings, and protection wings. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis and statistical techniques.

Seventy-nine prisoners were interviewed. Most prisoners reported their health as good or excellent, despite reporting high levels of risk-taking behaviour. Nearly half thought their health had improved since incarceration, citing reduced drug and alcohol use and healthier lifestyles. Prisoners expressed mixed views on harm reduction initiatives, with concerns around confidentiality, bullying, and being exposed to drug use or sexual activity in their ‘home’ environment.

This study indicates the importance of listening to prisoners’ views about health promotion and harm reduction initiatives, and also of challenging their perceptions of what constitutes ‘good health’ and risk-taking behaviour. It also highlights the importance of environmental factors on prisoners’ health both within the prison and upon release.

‘Gay’ businesses providing physical and virtual sex spaces for men who have sex with men (MSM) have been shown empirically to be useful sites for public health and health promotion interventions. While HIV incidence in Europe has been more or less stable in recent years, the number of infections attributed to MSM has continued to increase with new cases almost doubling in Western and Central Europe between 2000 and 2006. Set within the context of the Everywhere Project, the objective of this study was to explore the feasibility and acceptability to ‘gay’ businesses of developing and implementing a European model of HIV prevention focusing on MSM that provides common prevention standards across eight European countries.

A qualitative study

‘Gay’ businesses that bring men together and facilitate sex between them in ‘gay’ tourist destinations and other European capital cities.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 54 ‘gay’ business representatives from different European cities. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, translated, and analyzed using a ‘framework’ approach.

Many representatives of ‘gay’ businesses reported being willing to provide HIV prevention activities that target MSM in their venues and perceive this as part of improving their corporate image of being a socially responsible enterprise. However, concerns were voiced around issues such as fear of alienating customers, and inciting stigma and discrimination, safe-sex fatigue and lack of knowledge of prevention messages, as well as the need for appropriate condom and lubricant distribution networks. Businesses also reflected on the potential benefits and disadvantages of being involved in a scheme that provides a common and recognizable framework for HIV prevention across multiple European countries.

Early conclusions from this exploratory research suggest that a European-wide model of HIV prevention is acceptable and feasible to those working in ‘gay’ businesses. Further investigations, however, are required to develop solutions in order to overcome identified social, cultural and practical barriers.

Action planning is regarded as an important correlate and predictor of health behaviour, but little is known about antecedents of action planning. Because personality constructs have been shown to moderate the effect of action planning interventions, the present study tested associations of personality dimensions with action planning and fruit consumption.

Cross-sectional data collected with self-administered questionnaires in a university setting.

Undergraduate students (n = 443; mean age = 21.45 (SD = 2.96) years, 68.7% females) who participated for course credits and completed measures of personality dimensions, action planning, intention, and fruit consumption based on validated questionnaires. The first set of analyses focused on antecedents of fruit consumption action planning employing stepwise regression analysis. The second set of analyses focused on intention and action planning as mediators of the personality–fruit consumption link using structural equation modelling.

Higher scores for fruit consumption action planning were found for more conscientiousness and less neurotic individuals. Further, more conscientious individuals consumed more fruits and this relationship was mediated by action planning.

Findings provide support for action planning as a mediator in the Conscientiousness–fruit consumption link and suggest that personality influences may need to be taken into account when developing action planning strategies aimed at increasing fruit consumption.

This article explores the experiences of professional hospice workers using a creative process for debriefing them in order to facilitate the expression and communication of complex thoughts and feelings. The creative arts workshops were developed with the understanding in mind that caring for terminally ill patients can be challenging and stressful and professional hospice workers are subsequently at risk of developing compassion fatigue. The workshops focussed on skills transfers as well as self-healing by experiencing and teaching a diverse range of creative arts like music, drama, art, touch therapy, storytelling and movement.

Case study design.

Gauteng, South Africa.

Data collection included individual interviews with 19 trainees at nine different hospices, focus group interviews, observations during the workshops as well as a researcher journal. Themes were generated through thematic analysis to describe the experiences of the caregivers.

We found that the expressive arts facilitated communication and self-care and improved the wellbeing of the professional hospice workers.

These findings add to understanding of the healing effects of the creative arts and especially the benefits in the hospice setting.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate an integrated theoretical model of health behaviour based on constructs from the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) and Self-determination Theory (SDT).

Cross-sectional.

Participants (N = 418) were students from five medical sciences universities located in northern Iran. Participants completed translated versions of Godin and Shephard’s Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire (LTEQ) and another questionnaire which included a range of constructs from the TTM and SDT. Data were analyzed using bivariate correlation and structural equation modeling.

The relationships between exercise behaviour and all of the constructs from the TTM and SDT (except external regulation) were statistically significant. The modified model provided a good fit to the data and explained 82% of the variance in current exercise behaviour. All of the structural pathways, with the exception of pros and cons, were significant and positive.

Study findings support the application of an integrated model of health behaviour combining constructs from the TTM and SDT to explain the exercise behaviour of Iranian college students.

Patterns of health behaviour and lifestyle established in childhood carry on into adulthood. Parents and carers have strong influences on the establishment of these patterns. Despite such influences, parents and carers are often omitted from the planning process in health-promotion and early intervention activities. This paper examines the literature to quantify the amount of consultation that occurs.

A systemic review of the available literature was conducted of papers published in English between 1998 and 2008 using OVID, Medline, CIAP, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, INFORMET and PubMed databases. The search was not limited to age; however, some papers indicted that their research were restricted to children over the age of five.

Three hundred and thirty one articles were retrieved of which 32 met the inclusion criteria. It was found that parents and carers are reliable and accurate reporters of the objective components of their child’s health, such as physical functioning, but unreliable when it comes to subjective components including pain and emotional psychosocial functioning of their children. However, parents and carers are often omitted or at best superficially included in the development of health-promotion and early intervention programmes in Australia.

The lack of consultation with parents and carers in health-promotion and early interventions programmes by policy makers, programme developers and health advocates results in decreased consumer ownership, dissatisfaction with service delivery and creates barriers to engagement. Without adequate and appropriate engagement of parents and carers, early interventions and health-promotion programmes will result in superficial and short-term health outcomes.

More knowledge is needed on the impact of expert patients within health intervention programmes. The University of East Anglia Impaired Fasting Glucose (UEA-IFG) feasibility programme was a structured dietary and exercise intervention to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in susceptible individuals. Lay volunteers with T2DM (T2 trainers) were recruited to support participants in adopting healthier lifestyles. This study aimed to explore the acceptability, perceived effectiveness and sustainability of lay trainers within the programme.

A qualitative focus group study.

A clinical research unit in Norwich, United Kingdom (UK).

Focus groups were conducted with: (1) T2 trainers (n = 15); (2) programme participants who had received their support (n = 11); and (3) salaried staff facilitators who had worked alongside the T2 trainers (n = 3). Framework analysis was applied to identify the different experiences of the lay trainer role.

All groups perceived advantages for peer support, particularly in sharing the day-to-day experiences of living with T2DM. However, staff facilitators raised the importance of role boundaries, emphasizing that T2 trainers should not provide medical advice. Acceptability of T2 trainers was enhanced by contacting participants at a convenient time and before substantial lifestyle changes had been made.

Lay trainers were seen as a complementary method to motivate individuals to reduce their risks of T2DM. A less prescriptive approach needs to be adopted to enable full integration of lay trainers, allowing them a greater level of contribution. To sustain effective use of lay trainers, health professionals need to work alongside volunteers and be trained to encourage peer involvement.

A basic knowledge and understanding of first aid can be invaluable for both teachers and students to be able to provide emergency care in the event of an accident, possibly saving lives and minimizing injury in school settings. The purpose of this research was to perform a comparison of online and face-to-face delivery modes for an introductory first aid course to determine if there existed a difference in student teachers’ success depending on the delivery modes.

The research compares participants’ achievements in a first aid class taught by the same instructor using either face-to-face or online delivery modes. In total, five sections of the course were assigned to either a face-to face or an online treatment condition.

The results of a paired samples t-test indicated that student teachers both in experiment and control groups performed adequately to attain the course goals (p < .05). The difference between the mean scores of all groups in pre- and post-tests verified the achievement of the participant learners. The results of a further independent t-test on groups’ performances on the post application of the achievement test showed a significant variance in favour of participants who received online teaching (p < .05).

The findings of the study suggest that, while both online and face-to-face mode can be effective in achieving learning goals of first aid content, online learning was found to be more effective in comparison to traditional classroom instruction.

Sedentary lifestyles are rising in many countries which has implications for global health. Health professionals are well placed to promote increased physical activity levels to their patients.

To examine the relationship between physicians’ and nurses’ personal physical activity and their physical activity promotion practices.

Cochrane Library, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychInfo, British Nursing Index and four Chinese databases were searched to March 2011. Extracted data were verified by a second researcher.

Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were cross-sectional surveys employing a variety of self-report questionnaires. The majority of studies found that a higher personal physical activity level was associated with higher physical activity-promoting practices, and that health professionals with positive attitudes towards physical activity were more likely to promote physical activity to their clients.

The findings of this review need to be confirmed by well-designed large studies which employ validated measures of physical activity and physical activity-promoting practices and involve multivariate analyses to identify the relative contribution of personal physical activity levels to physical activity-promoting practices.