Hospital libraries in West Germany: an overview of reference services.

This article presents a study on reference services in German hospital libraries. Information for the study was obtained through personal interviews conducted at four libraries in Stuttgart, West Germany in August 1985. A detailed questionnaire covering services provided, staff training, and use of computers was used during the interviews. While reference services are minimal at the libraries in the study, the commitment to patient library services in Germany is exceptional.     

A test of a cultural model of patients' motivation for verbal communication in patient‐doctor interactions

In theory, two‐way communication between patient and physician is desirable. However, there is a dearth of research that has explored the effects of patients’ culture and cultural orientations on patients’ ability to actively participate in the medical encounter. The purpose of this paper was to test the effects of patients’ culture and cultural orientations on assertiveness and communication apprehension during medical interviews. According to the proposed model, culture and self‐construals are causal antecedents to patients’ beliefs about verbal communicativeness. Our model suggests that cultural values (self‐construals) are determined in part by culture. In regards to the mediation process, the model proposes that the greater the patient's construal‐of‐self as independent, the more positive her/his beliefs regarding patient participation, which, in turn, leads to a higher degree of motivations to communicate verbally with a physician. Our model also suggests that the greater the patient's construal‐of‐self as interdependent, the more negative her/his beliefs regarding patient participation, which, in turn, leads to a higher degree of communication avoidance and apprehension during medical interview. The data were partially consistent with the theoretical predictions made. The implications of the model for theory and practice are discussed.     

Hospital Libraries in West Germany:

This article presents a study on reference services in German hospital libraries. Information for the study was obtained through personal interviews conducted at four libraries in Stuttgart, West Germany in August 1985. A detailed questionnaire covering services provided, staff training, and use of computers was used during the interviews. While reference services are minimal at the libraries in this study, the commitment to patient library services in Germany is exceptional.     

A Relative Commitment Approach to Understanding Power in Romantic Relationships

In some romantic relationships, one partner has more power over joint decisions than the other. This study examines relative commitment as a key predictor of which partner has more power and developed a model based on classic interdependence theory. A survey was conducted (N = 324) using new measures of the key variables to test the model. When desire for control was high, relative commitment predicted self-perceived power, which predicted major and minor decision making as well as dominant conflict strategies. These results are consistent with the proposed modification of interdependence theory concerning desire for control.     

Understanding the Nature,Uses, and Gratifications of Social Television: Implications for Developing Viewer Engagement and Network Loyalty

This study employed an online survey (N = 310) to explore how viewers’ motivations for social TV participation influence their involvement in social TV activities, their program commitment, and network loyalty. Findings show that social infotainment and social companionship are the primary motivations of social TV participation. However, only social infotainment significantly predicts the intensity of viewers’ social TV usage, which has a positive influence on program commitment and network loyalty. Additionally, the relationship between social TV usage and network loyalty is partially mediated by program commitment. These findings demonstrate the value of social TV to broadcasters and provide directions for initiating and maintaining long-term relationships with viewers.     

我国青年编辑组织承诺研究

组织承诺是组织行为的一个重要领域。青年编辑的组织承诺就是青年编辑愿意为单位付出心力,并希望留在单位服务的意念。我国青年编辑组织承诺结构模型的维度主要包括：感情承诺、规范承诺、经济承诺、机会承诺和理想承诺5个维度。青年编辑应当通过做好职业规划、发挥个人优势、提高职业素养与研究能力等来提高组织承诺。     

Promoting library services to qualified nurses:towards a market-led approach

This article summarizes a research projectcarried out with the nursing staff of South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust. A ‘communityprofile’ looked at nurses’ use of library and information services for patient carepurposes and found that only a small proportion of all categories of qualified staff were libraryusers. A postal questionnaire was used to investigate why nurses sought information,what they used it for, where they obtained it from and how valuable they perceived it to be. Theresults show that personal and departmental collections were used quite frequently and theinformation was widely disseminated by the nurses to patients and their families, to colleagues andto students. The overall message from the survey was that the information obtained is valuedhighly and is used for various important purposes in health care delivery, such as educatingpatients and their families and revising treatment plans. However, nurses have difficulty inaccessing libraries, which are judged to contain the most accurate, reliable and up-to-dateinformation. The data from the community profile and questionnaire were furtheranalysed using soft systems methodology, in order to identify problems in the traditional model ofinformation delivery to nurses via a conventional library and information service. These were theninvestigated further and a series of recommendations for action drawn up.     

The Relationships of Perceived Health Professionals’ Communication Traits and Credibility with Perceived Patient Confidentiality

Patients at a large medical clinic provided data permitting an analysis of the relationships of perceived communication behaviors (nonverbal immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness) and source credibility (competence and caring) with perceptions of the confidentiality of their medical records. Perceptions of physicians, nurses, and support staff were employed. The results indicate that patients’ perceptions of the communication behaviors and credibility of physicians, nurses, and support staff are meaningfully related to patients’ perceptions of confidentiality. The problems of actual confidentiality and perceived confidentiality are discussed in relation to the role of communication as part of the problem and a potential part of the solution.     

Interpersonal communication satisfaction and biological sex: Nurse‐physician relationships

This study examined the extent to which the biological sex of nurse‐physician interactants related to the interpersonal communication satisfaction experienced by the nurse. The sample included 153 male and female nurses. Results indicated that same‐sex interactions are more satisfying for female nurses, while mixed‐sex interactions are more satisfying for male nurses. Nurses reported greater communication satisfaction when interacting with female physicians.     

Players' perceptions of their coaches' immediacy,assertiveness, and responsiveness

This study involved players’ perceptions of their coaches’ nonverbal immediacy, assertiveness, and responsiveness. Previously in the classroom setting, Thomas, Richmond, and McCroskey (1994) found that in the classroom setting nonverbal immediacy was positively, moderately correlated to both assertiveness and responsiveness. College students (N = 192) were asked to fill out a questionnaire based on a coach that they had in high school. Players who perceived their coaches as being nonverbally immediate, also perceived their coaches as being responsive, and to a lesser extent, assertive. Future research directions include considering the relationships between a coach's nonverbal immediacy with player motivation and satisfaction.     

The Nursing Interest Subgroup: beginning the organization of nursing librarians

The Nursing Interest Subgroup (NISG) was established in 1980 to act as a focus for librarians providing services to nurses and to encourage understanding between the two professions. The NISG held social events, study days and produced regular newsletters for members. Relationships were developed with NHS Regional Librarians, where they existed, and links made with overseas colleagues. As a subgroup of the Medical, Health and Welfare Libraries Group of the Library Association, the NISG was called to comment upon developments in nurse training and education. Particular concerns were the generally inadequate level of resourcing for library provision, especially for qualified nurses, and the salary scales of nursing librarians. The NISG facilitated the sharing of experience, provided opportunities for professional and educational development and served to raise the profile of nurses’ libraries. In 1986 the group was renamed and lives on today as ‘Libraries for Nursing’.     

Information privacy in e-service: Effect of organizational privacy assurances on individual privacy concerns,perceptions, trust and self-disclosure behavior

The increasing use of the Internet for service delivery has paralleled an increase of e-service users' privacy concerns as technology offers ample opportunities for organizations to store, process, and exploit personal data. This may reduce individuals' perceived ability to control their personal information and increase their perceived privacy risk. A systematic understanding of individuals' privacy concerns is important as negative user perceptions are a challenge to service providers' reputation and may hamper service delivery processes as they influence users' trust and willingness to disclose personal information. This study develops and validates a model that examines the effect of organizational privacy assurances on individual privacy concerns, privacy control and risk perceptions, trust beliefs and non-self-disclosure behavior. Drawing on a survey to 547 users of different types of e-services – e-government, e-commerce and social networking – in Rwanda, and working within the framework of exploratory analysis, this study uses partial least square-structural equation modeling to validate the overall model and the proposed hypotheses. The findings show that perceptions of privacy risks and privacy control are antecedents of e-service users' privacy concerns, trust and non-self-disclosure behavior. They further show that the perceived effectiveness of privacy policy and perceived effectiveness of self-regulations influence both perceptions of privacy risks and control and their consequences; users' privacy concerns, trust and non-self-disclosure behavior. The hypotheses are supported differently across the three types of e-services, which means that privacy is specific to context and situation. The study shows that the effect of privacy assurances on trust is different in e-government services than in other services which suggest that trust in e-government may be more complex and different in nature than in other contexts. The findings serve to enhance a theoretical understanding of organizational privacy assurances and individual privacy concerns, trust and self-disclosure behavior. They also have implications for e-service providers and users as well as for regulatory bodies and e-services designers.     

个人数字遗产的概念、管理与对策

认为个人数字遗产是具有权利与财产属性的个人信息,界定个人数字遗产概念,强调其数字内容的合法性。依托网络调查数据结果,指明个人数字遗产在管理、继承与再利用方面需要注意的问题。概括总结个人数字遗产递交、继承方式以及管理过程模型,以期个人数字遗产能通过合理管理、继承与数据挖掘再利用实现价值增值。     

Adopting evidence-based practice in clinical decision making: nurses' perceptions, knowledge, and barriers

Objective:

Evidence-based practice (EBP) provides nurses with a method to use critically appraised and scientifically proven evidence for delivering quality health care to a specific population. The objective of this study was to explore nurses'' awareness of, knowledge of, and attitude toward EBP and factors likely to encourage or create barriers to adoption. In addition, information sources used by nurses and their literature searching skills were also investigated.

Method:

A total of 2,100 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to registered nurses in 2 public hospitals in Singapore, and 1,486 completed forms were returned, resulting in a response rate of 70.8%.

Results:

More than 64% of the nurses expressed a positive attitude toward EBP. However, they pointed out that due to heavy workload, they cannot keep up to date with new evidence. Regarding self-efficacy of EBP-related abilities, the nurses perceived themselves to possess moderate levels of skills. The nurses also felt that EBP training, time availability, and mentoring by nurses with EBP experience would encourage them to implement EBP. The top three barriers to adopting EBP were lack of time, inability to understand statistical terms, and inadequate understanding of the jargon used in research articles. For literature searching, nurses were using basic search features and less than one-quarter of them were familiar with Boolean and proximity operators.

Conclusion:

Although nurses showed a positive attitude toward EBP, certain barriers were hindering their smooth adoption. It is, therefore, desirable that hospital management in Southeast Asia, particularly in Singapore, develop a comprehensive strategy for building EBP competencies through proper training. Moreover, hospital libraries should also play an active role in developing adequate information literacy skills among the nurses.

Highlights

• Nurses in Singapore, as in other countries, support the idea of evidence-based practice (EBP) but have limited skills in the area of literature searching and understanding evidence, which limits their use of evidence-based practice.
• Only a small number of nurses were able to pick an appropriate search strategy for a given topic, indicating a lack of basic literature searching skills.
• Sufficient literature searching knowledge is essential to retrieve current, relevant, and accurate evidence. However, a majority of nurses do not know how to properly use Boolean and proximity operators, indexing, truncation, or limits.

Implications

• Librarians need to be part of providing ongoing training for clinical nurses in searching the evidence, especially in hospitals promoting EBP or seeking Magnet status.
• Training is needed for clinical nurses to be able to achieve the use of EBP, and librarians can support this goal by teaching the search strategies portion of an EBP skills course.
• This study''s instrument could be used by librarians as a needs assessment tool to measure their own clinical nurses'' information literacy skills, if justification is needed locally.

     

The Effect of Patient Self-Advocacy on Patient Satisfaction: Exploring Self-Compassion as a Mediator

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of self-compassion as a predictor and mediator of the relationship between patient self-advocacy and patient satisfaction in health care. A sample of 522 patients completed a questionnaire that asked for their perceptions of their own self-compassion, patient self-advocacy behaviors, including illness education, assertiveness, and mindful nonadherence, and patient satisfaction. This study found that both patient self-advocacy and self-compassion were positive predictors of patient satisfaction. More specifically, patients’ illness education and assertiveness positively influenced patients’ satisfaction with their physician. Self-compassion was also shown to be a mediator between patient self-advocacy and patient satisfaction. The implications of these findings and future directions are also discussed.     

Transparency,participation, and accountability practices in open government: A comparative study

In a comparative national study addressing the fiscal domain, we explored relationships between socio-cultural, political, economic, and government conditions and concepts critical to open government, defined as (a) budget transparency (b) participation in budget processes, and (c) accountability information. We found that democracy, human capital, and budget document disclosures are consistently related to transparency, accountability, and the involvement of the Supreme Audit Authority with the public. E-participation and commitment to the Open Government Partnership are each related to particular measures of transparency and accountability. Gross domestic product was negatively related to particular measures of transparency and accountability. Only democracy was related to public participation in budget discussions with the executive, and that was a minimal effect.     

Internal,External, and Government Political Efficacy: Effects on News Use,Discussion, and Political Participation

News use and political discussion are often studied as important factors in understanding the effects of political efficacy on participation. However, measurements of external efficacy often blur distinctions between personal ability and government responsiveness. This study establishes a measure for perceptions of competence in the institutions of democratic government—government efficacy (GE). Drawing on panel survey data from the United States, confirmatory factor analysis introduces GE as a unique construct. Political efficacy dimensions are tested for their impact on news consumption, discussion, and political participation. Results add to the extant literature revolving the role of political efficacy on news use, discussion, and participation.