scholarly journals A Quasi-Experimental Study on the Effectiveness of Dutch Cell Dogs in Incarcerated Youth

Author(s):  
Hanne M. Duindam ◽  
Hanneke E. Creemers ◽  
Machteld Hoeve ◽  
Jessica J. Asscher

This study examined the effectiveness of Dutch Cell Dogs (DCD), a prison-based dog training program that aims to improve socioemotional functioning of incarcerated youth by giving them the opportunity to train a shelter dog. Primary (aggression and institutional infractions) and secondary (wellbeing and therapeutic functioning) outcomes were assessed for the intervention ( n = 61) and comparison group ( n = 77) before the start of DCD, after 4 weeks, and after 8 weeks at posttest. Overall, DCD participation was not effective. Compared to the comparison group, institutional infractions decreased in DCD participants with an immigrant background and increased in DCD participants with a native Dutch background. In addition, DCD participation reduced the quality of the therapeutic alliance for younger participants and those in secure residential facilities. The current study demonstrated heterogeneity in DTP responsiveness. Future research with robust designs and sufficiently large samples is needed to further identify who benefits from DTPs.

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth M. Tappen ◽  
Rosemary F. Hall ◽  
Susan L. Folden

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of nurse-managed transitional care on the quality of care and functional ability of individuals following discharge from subacute units. Registered nurses employed on subacute units in a skilled nursing facility provided the nurse-managed transitional care. Using a quasi-experimental design, data were collected on admission to the subacute unit, at the time of discharge, 1 week following discharge, and 3 months following discharge on 242 treatment and comparison participants. The treatment group participants' overall function and quality of the care environment were significantly higher than the comparison group at 1 week and 3 months following discharge. Participants did not differ significantly on basic activities of daily living or number of readmissions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Grommon ◽  
Natalie Kroovand Hipple ◽  
Bradley Ray

Seeking to alleviate traditional criminal justice system processing for low-level non-violent crimes, community courts have emerged as a viable alternative. These courts use innovative community-based efforts to address the needs of defendants charged with quality-of-life crimes and attempt to improve the surrounding community. Using a retrospective quasi-experimental design, this research examines recidivism outcomes for a sample of 574 defendants who were referred to the Indianapolis Community Court. Repeated-measures ANOVA models were used to assess 1- and 3-year follow-up intervals. Survival models were used to determine whether significant differences between groups exist on the timing of recidivism events. The analysis revealed no statistically significant differences between those individuals who were processed through community court and those processed through traditional courts. The implications of these findings for future research and community court policy and practice are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Marie Mork Rokstad ◽  
Knut Engedal ◽  
Øyvind Kirkevold ◽  
Jūratė Šaltytė Benth ◽  
Maria Lage Barca ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTBackground:Day care that is designed for people with dementia aims to increase the users’ quality of life (QoL). The objective of the study was to compare the QoL of people with dementia attending day care with those not attending day care.Methods:The study is based on baseline data from a project using a quasi-experimental design, including a group of day care users (n = 183) and a comparison group not receiving day care (n = 78). Quality of Life-Alzheimer's Disease (QoL-AD) was used as the primary outcome, to collect both self-reported and proxy-based information from family carers on the users’ QoL. A linear mixed model was used to examine the differences between groups.Results:Attending day care was significantly associated with higher mean scores of self-reported QoL. There was no difference between the groups in proxy-reported QoL. Analyses of the interaction between group belonging and awareness of memory loss revealed that the participants with shallow or no awareness who attended day care had significant higher mean scores of QoL-AD compared to those not attending day care.Conclusions:Higher self-reported QoL was found among people attending day care designed for people with dementia compared to the comparison group. The difference in QoL ratings was found in the group of day care users with shallow or no awareness of their memory loss. Hence, day care designed for people with dementia might have the potential to increase QoL as it is experienced by the users.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (05) ◽  
pp. 416-426
Author(s):  
Bilge Mutlu ◽  
Melissa Duff ◽  
Lyn Turkstra ◽  
Margaret Flynn

AbstractAdults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often report reduced social participation and loss of friends, but little is known about quality of friendship after TBI. Our objective was to characterize social participation, friendship quantity, and friendship quality of adults with TBI and a comparison group of uninjured adults. Participants included 18 adults with moderate to severe TBI and 16 of their informant friends; and 18 uninjured adults and 11 of their informant friends. The main measures used were the Participation Assessment with Recombined Tools-Objective, the Social Network Questionnaire, and the McGill Friendship Questionnaire. Participants with TBI reported significantly less social participation and had fewer total friends, although this difference was not statistically significant. Adults with TBI differed from their friends on one measure of friendship quality, but reports for friendship quality were high in both groups. Adults with TBI reported overall high levels of friendship quality despite having lower levels of social participation compared with uninjured adults. Future research should investigate how the balance of quantity and quality of friendships relates to satisfaction with social participation and overall quality of life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S777-S777
Author(s):  
Marc A Cohen ◽  
Jennifer Hefele ◽  
Edward Miller ◽  
Pamela Nadash ◽  
Natalie Shellito ◽  
...  

Abstract Relatively few housing with services evaluations employ rigorous multiple group quasi-experimental designs rather than simple before/after research designs. This study employs a pre-post experimental design with a comparison group to analyze whether the R3 program led to reductions in certain key utilization measures, including emergency department visits, inpatient hospitalizations, ambulance usage, and skilled nursing facility admissions, over 18 months. Also examined is whether resident quality of life indicators changed over the period. Data derive from assessments with 410 residents in four intervention sites and 227 residents in five comparison group sites. Also obtained was data on emergency department transfers from first responder services and Medicare fee-for-service data from the local quality improvement organization. Results suggest that the program has positive implications for service utilization, costs, and quality of life. Early detection and intervention inherent in the R3 program may improve resident quality of life while lowering service utilization and costs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8192
Author(s):  
Xiaolong Cheng ◽  
Lawrence Jun Zhang

Writing is regarded as a crucial skill in English language curricula at the secondary and tertiary levels in the Chinese education system. Currently, Chinese teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) often adopt a product approach to teaching EFL writing, in which they emphasize the quality of their students’ written products and show little concern with the writing process. To help L2 learners achieve sustainable development of their writing proficiency, teachers employ a comprehensive approach to correct their students’ language errors as a common practice. However, empirical studies regarding its efficacy on different dimensions of L2 writing are insufficient. This study intended to fill this lacuna in a Chinese EFL context, which investigated the effects of sustained comprehensive written corrective feedback (WCF) on accuracy, complexity, fluency, and content and organization quality of EFL students’ writing. Quasi-experimental in design, it involved a comparison group and a treatment group receiving four sessions of direct comprehensive WCF. Results show that such WCF contributed to writing accuracy and fluency over time. Our textual analysis further reveals that it particularly benefited students’ grammatical accuracy, reducing some rule-based grammatical error types. However, it showed limited effects on complexity, content, or organization of students’ writing. Interestingly, the comparison group did not improve any dimensions of their writing. Possible implications are also discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2097-2108
Author(s):  
Robyn L. Croft ◽  
Courtney T. Byrd

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify levels of self-compassion in adults who do and do not stutter and to determine whether self-compassion predicts the impact of stuttering on quality of life in adults who stutter. Method Participants included 140 adults who do and do not stutter matched for age and gender. All participants completed the Self-Compassion Scale. Adults who stutter also completed the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering. Data were analyzed for self-compassion differences between and within adults who do and do not stutter and to predict self-compassion on quality of life in adults who stutter. Results Adults who do and do not stutter exhibited no significant differences in total self-compassion, regardless of participant gender. A simple linear regression of the total self-compassion score and total Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering score showed a significant, negative linear relationship of self-compassion predicting the impact of stuttering on quality of life. Conclusions Data suggest that higher levels of self-kindness, mindfulness, and social connectedness (i.e., self-compassion) are related to reduced negative reactions to stuttering, an increased participation in daily communication situations, and an improved overall quality of life. Future research should replicate current findings and identify moderators of the self-compassion–quality of life relationship.


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Meessen ◽  
Verena Mainz ◽  
Siegfried Gauggel ◽  
Eftychia Volz-Sidiropoulou ◽  
Stefan Sütterlin ◽  
...  

Abstract. Recently, Garfinkel and Critchley (2013) proposed to distinguish between three facets of interoception: interoceptive sensibility, interoceptive accuracy, and interoceptive awareness. This pilot study investigated how these facets interrelate to each other and whether interoceptive awareness is related to the metacognitive awareness of memory performance. A sample of 24 healthy students completed a heartbeat perception task (HPT) and a memory task. Judgments of confidence were requested for each task. Participants filled in questionnaires assessing interoceptive sensibility, depression, anxiety, and socio-demographic characteristics. The three facets of interoception were found to be uncorrelated and interoceptive awareness was not related to metacognitive awareness of memory performance. Whereas memory performance was significantly related to metamemory awareness, interoceptive accuracy (HPT) and interoceptive awareness were not correlated. Results suggest that future research on interoception should assess all facets of interoception in order to capture the multifaceted quality of the construct.


Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.


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