Explore the vast range of titles available.

Background Early warning systems (EWS) are most effective when clinicians monitor patients’ vital signs and comply with the recommended escalation of care protocols once deterioration is recognised. Objectives To explore sociocultural factors influencing acute care clinicians’ compliance with an early warning system commonly used in Queensland public hospitals in Australia. Methods This interpretative qualitative study utilised inductive thematic analysis to analyse data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 acute care clinicians from Queensland, Australia. Results This study identified that individuals and teams approached compliance with EWS in the context of 1) the use of EWS for patient monitoring; and 2) the use of EWS for the escalation of patient care. Individual and team compliance with monitoring and escalation processes is facilitated by intra and inter-professional factors such as acceptance and support, clear instruction, inter-disciplinary collaboration and good communication. Noncompliance with EWS can be attributed to intra and inter-professional hierarchy and poor communication. Conclusions The overarching organisational context including the hospital’s embedded quality improvement and administrative protocols (training, resources and staffing) impact hospital-wide culture and influence clinicians’ and teams’ compliance or non-compliance with early warning system’s monitoring and escalation processes. Successful adoption of EWS relies on effective and meaningful interactions among multidisciplinary staff.

Background There is evidence reporting more positive outcomes from research capacity-building (RCB) programmes that include a research facilitator role. Further, it has been suggested that research facilitator roles can be a useful strategy in building the research capacity of healthcare clinicians. However, until now, little attention has been applied to identifying the characteristics of the research facilitator role and how this role contributes to clinicians’ engagement with the research process. The aim of this present study is to explore the characteristics required of the research facilitator role in the educational workshop phase of an RCB programme. Methods This qualitative study employed an inductive approach and utilized face-to-face interviews to gather data from a purposely selected cohort. Professionally transcribed responses were thematically analysed. Results The role of the research facilitator emerged as comprising two main themes: (1) facilitating the research process and (2) engaging expert clinicians as novice researchers. Pragmatically, analysis of data led to the development of a table outlining the responsibilities, skills and attributes related to each theme. Conceptually, theme 1 encapsulates the research facilitators’ skills and experience and their role as knowledge brokers and cocreators of knowledge. Theme 2 provides insight into the clinician-centric approach the research facilitators utilized to build and foster relationships and support the clinicians through their research journey. Conclusion This study reports on the characteristics of the research facilitator role in one phase of an RCB programme in one regional health service district in Australia and explains how the role fosters clinicians’ engagement with the research process. Findings from this study will inform the development of future RCB programmes, which is important considering that clinicians’ increased engagement with the research process is vital for developing a sound evidence base to support decision-making in practice and leads to higher levels of skills and greater ability to perform useful research.

Animal-assisted interventions (AAI) have been occurring in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF) for more than 40 years and may relieve loneliness and improve quality of life. The presence of animals in RACF poses an inherent risk to residents and the animals involved. Little is known about the policies and guidelines for including animals in the Australian RACF. We anticipated that most RACFs would have some policies, but they may lack the detail necessary to keep humans and animals safe. Using an adapted survey, we surveyed and interviewed a small but representative sample of Australian RACF managers. The results demonstrated that RACF did have animal policies; however, the content regarding the need for hand washing, infection prevention, and animal welfare was lacking. Including unregulated family pets in RACF was an unexpected additional risk factor identified during data analysis. There is a need for national guidelines tied to the national aged care policy, which includes training and educational resources for RACF and AAI providers.

The nomenclature used to describe animals working in roles supporting people can be confusing. The same term may be used to describe different roles, or two terms may mean the same thing. This confusion is evident among researchers, practitioners, and end users. Because certain animal roles are provided with legal protections and/or government-funding support in some jurisdictions, it is necessary to clearly define the existing terms to avoid confusion. The aim of this paper is to provide operationalized definitions for nine terms, which would be useful in many world regions: “assistance animal”, “companion animal”, “educational/school support animal”, “emotional support animal”, “facility animal”, “service animal”, “skilled companion animal”, “therapy animal”, and “visiting/visitation animal”. At the International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) conferences in 2018 and 2020, over 100 delegates participated in workshops to define these terms, many of whom co-authored this paper. Through an iterative process, we have defined the nine terms and explained how they differ from each other. We recommend phasing out two terms (i.e., “skilled companion animal” and “service animal”) due to overlap with other terms that could potentially exacerbate confusion. The implications for several regions of the world are discussed.

Background Little attention has been given to the process of implementing or evaluating a structured academic–clinician (university–health service) research capacity-building (RCB) model within healthcare settings. We have developed a model for collaborative multidisciplinary practice–research partnerships called the Research Ready Grant Program (RRGP). The RRGP is informed by Cooke’s (BMC Fam Pract 6:44, 2005) RCB framework and principles. The aim of the study outlined in this protocol is to conduct a process and outcome evaluation of the programme. We will explore how the RRGP's structured mentor model contributes to RCB of clinician-led multidisciplinary research teams. We will identify key factors at the organization, team and individual levels that affect research capacity of health professionals working in one regional health service district. This protocol describes the RRGP design and outlines the methods we will employ to evaluate an RCB programme, the RRGP, delivered in a regional health service in Australia. Methods The study will adopt an exploratory concurrent mixed-methods approach designed to evaluate the process of implementing an RCB model across one regional hospital and health service. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods over a 12-month period will be implemented. Data triangulation will be applied to capture the complex issues associated with implementing collaborative multidisciplinary practice–research partnerships. Discussion The RRGP is an innovative RCB model for clinicians in their workplace. It is expected that the programme will facilitate a culture of collaborative multidisciplinary research and strengthen hospital–university partnerships.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a social problem that often inflicts long lasting psychological trauma and leads to psychopathology, behavioural problems and re-victimization. Treating young people who are presenting with the detrimental effects of CSA is often difficult because these effects off-set efforts at establishing a therapeutic bond. Animals have been found to facilitate the development of the therapeutic alliance between client and practitioner and therapies utilizing horses have the added bonus of empowering clients. This study aimed to evaluate an Equine Facilitated Program (EFT) run by Phoenix House, a sexual assault referral centre in Queensland, Australia. Participants were six boys and nine girls (aged 8–11 years) and 15 adolescent girls (aged 12–17 years). All participants provided several measures of data designed to establish levels of psychological distress at three points in time. That is, Time 1—intake into the service; Time 2—following approximately 6 weeks of in-clinic counselling and pre-EFT; and Time 3 post-EFT (9–10 week duration). Significant improvements in functioning were found between Time 2 and Time 3 assessment across all psychometric measures and for both age groups. No, or non-significant, improvements were found between Time 1 and Time 2 assessments. Overall the results show that EFT proved an effective therapeutic approach for the children and adolescents referred to the service. Of particular note was the finding that efficacy was similar across gender, age and Indigenous/non-Indigenous status. Implications of this and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Animals are increasingly being used in a range of social work settings and extant research demonstrates they can offer a wide range of benefits to humans. With other professions, social work is oriented towards caring for people but does not officially recognise (nonhuman) animals. Given the rise in animal-related interventions and emergence of veterinary social work, we argue that this needs to change. We recognise that obstacles to change include social work's history of dichotomising (or falsely dividing) humans from animals, and focusing exclusively on human experiences of social problems (such as poverty). Using a programme example of a canine-assisted therapy project for child sexual abuse victims/survivors in Bundaberg (Central Queensland, Australia), we consider some of the ethical and practical issues associated with animal-assisted therapies (AATs). We examine whether AATs can benefit both humans and animals by positively changing people's attitudes and behaviours towards animals. We argue that the ethical legitimacy of AATs rests on their willingness to understand animals as sentient beings with needs of their own, not just possessions or tools for humans to use.

(1) Background: This study aimed to determine the level of knowledge and the perceptions of speech pathology held by a sample of regional mental health practitioners and to explore factors that facilitate understanding of the roles of speech pathologists in mental health. While mental health is recognised as an area of practice by Speech Pathology Australia, the inclusion of speech pathologists in mental health teams is limited. (2) Methods: An anonymous online survey was created using previously validated surveys and author generated questions and distributed to mental health practitioners in Central Queensland, Australia. (3) Results: Mental health practitioners had difficulty identifying speech pathology involvement when presented with case scenarios. Accuracy was poor for language-based cases, ranging from 28.81% to 37.29%. Participants who reported having worked with a speech pathologist were more likely to demonstrate higher scores on the areas of practice questions, [r(53) = 0.301, p = 0.028], and the language scenarios [r(58) = 0.506, p < 0.001]. They were also more likely to agree to statements regarding the connection between speech pathology and mental health, r(59) = 0.527, p < 0.001. (4) Conclusions: As found in this study, contact with speech pathologists is a strong predictor of mental health providers’ knowledge of the speech pathology profession. Thus, the challenge may be to increase this contact with mental health providers to promote inclusion of speech pathologists in the mental health domain.

Experience of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is both prevalent and under-reported in Australia as it is elsewhere in the world. The negative psychosocial and behavioural sequelae of such abuse may be severe and can often last for the lifetime of the individual if therapeutic intervention is not successful. Meta-analyses of treatment outcome evaluations suggest that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy based approaches tend to be the most successful in reducing psychological symptoms (such as PTSD, internalising and externalising disorders), however for some clients these approaches may not be appropriate or as efficacious due to variables such as cognitive maturity or ethnicity. The use of animals within therapy situations to help develop an effective therapeutic alliance is not new but methodologically strong evaluations of Animal Assisted Therapies (AAT) generally and Equine Facilitated Therapy (EFT) specifically are needed in order to provide a solid evidence base regarding for whom, and in what situations, these approaches are the most effective. The current study aimed to evaluate and compare the efficacy of an adjunct EFT program run by Phoenix House (a sexual assault referral centre in Queensland, Australia) for the reduction of depressive symptoms across three age cohorts of CSA victims (children, adolescents and adults). Participants included 15 children (aged 8-11 years), 15 adolescents (aged 12-17 years) and 14 adults (aged 19-50 years) with 10 of the 44 participants identifying as Indigenous Australians. A quasi-experimental, repeated measures design was used to evaluate changes in depressive symptoms with all participants responding on the Child Depression Index or Beck Depression Inventory (as appropriate) at three points in time. Comparisons of change scores between Time 1 (intake to service) and Time 2 (post in-clinic counselling) and Time 2 and Time 3 (post-EFT) indicated that regardless of age or ethnicity, EFT proved to result in a greater decrement in depressive scores than that seen between Times 1 and 2. Implications of this and directions for future research are discussed.

Utilising ideas from post-modernism and post-humanism this book challenges current ways of thinking about animals and their relationships with humans. Including contributions from across the social sciences the book encourages readers to reflect upon taken for granted ways of conceptualising human relaitonships with animals. It will be of interest to those in the broad field of human-animal studies as well as those within most social science and humanities disciplines including sociology, anthropology, philosophy and social theory.