Research Ethics: Cross Cultural Perspective of Research Ethics in Southeast Asia
Cross cultural perspective of research ethics in Southeast Asia is important in the brave new world of post colonial migration studies where border and boundary issues abound. Indeed, the boundary position of the outsider, or the intellectual at the margins made famous by Said (1994) is often that of the Western researcher conducting humanitarian research with chronically oppressed, disadvantaged populations in Southeast Asia. Interest in cross cultural perspective of research ethics developed from research into the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with migrants from Burma in Thailand (Authors names, 2009a 2009b). This paper deals with: issues encountered by researchers as they seek approval from Western ethics committees prior to conducting research; the ethical review process of ASEAN countries; the ethical involvement of interpreters in cross-cultural research; and the impact of interpreters on informed consent, data collection and analysis. The latter part of the paper contains discussion for improved Human Research Ethics Committees' deliberations and recommendations for good practice; educational implications and future research.
Working on the Edge: Positive Organisational Scholarship in Healthcare (POSH) and Looking for What's Good in Healthcare
As part of a larger research program on brilliant healthcare, this paper introduces positive organisational scholarship (POS) and discusses how it has influenced a new approach to theory and research in healthcare, titled POSH. The paper outlines how appreciative inquiry, a key approach in POSH, was used to inform an investigation of what is good in healthcare. Reflective practice is discussed as the central methodology used to explore public domain narrative evidence. The paper illustrates the use of reflective practice and introduces new understandings and insights garnered from using POSH. The paper concludes with a consideration of the implications of a POSH agenda for researchers and practitioners.
Finding brilliance using positive organizational scholarship in healthcare
Purpose - Positive organizational scholarship in healthcare (POSH) suggests that, to promote widespread improvement within health services, focusing on the good, the excellent, and the brilliant is as important as conventional approaches that focus on the negative, the problems and the failures. POSH offers different opportunities to learn from and build resilient cultures of safety, innovation, and change. It is not separate from tried and tested approaches to health service improvement - but rather, it approaches this improvement differently. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - POSH, appreciative inquiry (AI) and reflective practice were used to inform an exploratory investigation of what is good, excellent, or brilliant health service management. Findings - The researchers identified new characteristics of good healthcare and what it might take to have brilliant health service management, elucidated and refined POSH, and identified research opportunities that hold potential value for consumers, practitioners, and policymakers. Research limitations/implications - The secondary data used in this study offered limited contextual information. Practical implications - This approach is a platform from which to: identify, investigate, and learn about brilliant health service management; and inform theory and practice. Social implications - POSH can help to reveal what consumers and practitioners value about health services and how they prefer to engage with these services. Originality/value - Using POSH, this paper examines what consumers and practitioners value about health services; it also illustrates how brilliance can be theorized into health service management research and practice.
Quality in Delivery of Mental Health Services
Quality in health care is an important contemporary topic because of rising consumer expectations of health care amidst constrained health care budgets. Historically mental health services have been the poor cousin of health care services generally, and acute health care services specifically. At this time when quality in health care is occupying more space in the health care literature, it is opportune to review what inroads have been made as far as quality in delivery of mental health services. This chapter will examine the movement towards quality management in health care and explore the divide between quality in general health care and quality in mental health care. After this, what is considered quality in delivery of mental health services is discussed and finally the challenges to quality in delivery of mental health services and methods to overcome these challenges are analysed.
A Psychological/Medical Method to Help People Cope with Adversity: Nine Case Studies of Self-Defining Stories
Adversity is a personal and societal issue because it is part of the human condition, and many of society's resources are dedicated to relieving the suffering that stems from it. The disciplines of psychology and sociology have studied aspects of adversity and personality with the intention of finding constructive interventions.
Health Rights and Health Problems of Migrants Living in the Thai-Burma Border Region: Narcotics, Debt Bondage, and Refugee Camps
Migration is one of the most important social phenomena of this century and it contributes to the human movement and trade and information flows that are part of globalisation. Some of that human flow is forced as increasing numbers of people flee across borders to escape conflict and poverty induced by development and disasters. Migration, development and health are interactive within a socioeconomic political framework. This book examines this frameworks which impacts the lives of migrants who make up the asylum-migration nexus - those migrants who are recognised formally as refugees and those migrants who self-settle in a host country without the formal recognition of refugee status. Global institutions such as the United Nations and the World Health Organisation have provided treaties, conventions and funding arrangements to assist nation-states with managing migration and forced migration, in particular, so that human and health rights are upheld. Professionals work with these displaced people in varying contexts, and it is necessary to understand the issues and processes involved.
Making Opportunities out of the Global Crisis of Migration
Because of conflict and poverty induced displacement more people are on the move and living away from their home countries than ever before. There are 214 million international migrants in the world today with 15.4 million of those being refugees. Most of the irregular migrants have a tenuous existence living with a constant fear of deportation. They are unable to get work, have bank accounts or live in family groups. Migration is now a sustained crisis, with developing countries bearing most of the burden of these irregular migrants. The three durable solutions of repatriation, local integration and resettlement are continually being applied to the problems of migration. But these old solutions do not work. We need to make new opportunities where few existed before. Using the protracted refugee situation of the migrants from Burma who are living in Thailand as an example, this chapter puts forward some innovative ideas to make opportunities out of the global crisis of migration.
Employment and Mental Illness: Some Relevant Concepts
It is a surprising in some ways that the interaction between employment and mental health or illness has not been subject to greater scrutiny, considering the amount of time the average person spends at work in his lifetime and the risks to mental health that the working environment provides. Probably the stigma of mental illness from the point of view of the employee, and the financial concerns about liability from the point of view of the employer, link together to hinder the exploration of the topic. Nevertheless, contemporary views of health promotion and the Social Determinants of Health recognise the impact of employment on health and mental health and various strategies like Health Promoting Workplaces suggest ways of ameliorating the risks and improving employee health overall. It is however necessary to consider a wide definition of employee health to encompass (a) the health of individuals who perform work for a living, (b) the average forty year period of the life span in which employees are in the work environment, (c) the traditional concerns of work related injury but it is not restricted to this, and (d) the health promotion aims of quality of life or state of optimum health and striving to reach one's potential. This paper explores employment and mental illness with this definition of employee health in mind. The main discussion areas are: employment and its link to the burden of mental illness, risks within contemporary employment, and social relationships in the workplace. Employment must be considered in the genesis and treatment strategies of mental illness, and dialogue about mental illness needs to play a greater part in the employer-employee master narrative.
Employment and Mental Illness
It is a surprising in some ways that the interaction between employment and mental health or illness has not been subject to greater scrutiny, considering the amount of time the average person spends at work in his lifetime and the risks to mental health that the working environment provides. Probably the stigma of mental illness from the point of view of the employee, and the financial concerns about liability from the point of view of the employer, link together to hinder the exploration of the topic. Nevertheless, contemporary views of health promotion (WHO, 1986) and the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH, 2011) recognise the impact of employment on health and mental health and various strategies like Health Promoting Workplaces suggest ways of ameliorating the risks and improving employee health overall. It is however necessary to consider a wide definition of employee health to encompass (a) the health of individuals who perform work for a living, (b) the average forty year period of the life span in which employees are in the work environment, (c) the traditional concerns of work related injury but is not restricted to this, and (d) the health promotion aims of quality of life or state of optimum health and striving to reach one's potential. This chapter explores employment and mental illness with this definition of employee health in mind. The main discussion areas are: employment and its link to the burden of mental illness, risks within contemporary employment, and social relationships in the workplace. The key points that will be made are that employment must be considered in the genesis and treatment strategies of mental illness, and that dialogue about mental illness will need to play a greater part in the employer-employee master narrative.
Adversity and identity: Self-defining stories about work
This research is part of a wider study into the impact of adversity on a person's identity. This research asked people who had experienced very significant psychological trauma at work to tell their story about the way they were affected and how they have come to understand the experience as time had gone on. How adversity at work impacts on identity is important for understanding mental health and designing interventions.