Educating patients and relatives about electroconvulsive therapy: the use of an information leaflet

1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Jenaway

Several studies in the United Kingdom have highlighted the lack of knowledge that patients show about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), both before treatment starts (Malcolm, 1989) and after it is completed (Freeman & Kendell, 1980; Hughes et al, 1981), with only 10 to 15% of patients having a full understanding of the treatment. In an American study (Baxter et al, 1986) patients seemed slightly better informed; this might be because they were given written information. However, subjects who watched a videotape of someone having the treatment did not score higher on a knowledge questionnaire than a control group and the authors postulated a ‘ceiling effect’. Bird (1979) demonstrated that access to media coverage about ECT improved patients' knowledge without increasing anxiety about the treatment.

Author(s):  
Janet Elizabeth Berrington ◽  
William McGuire ◽  
NIcholas David Embleton

Previous studies suggested that supplemental bovine lactoferrin (BLF) given to preterm infants (<32 weeks gestation) may reduce late onset sepsis (LOS) and necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), but have been underpowered. The Enteral Lactoferrin in Neonates (ELFIN) study, performed in the United Kingdom (UK), aimed to further address this issue with a well powered double blinded placebo controlled trial of >2200 preterm infants. ELFIN did not demonstrate a reduction in LOS or NEC, or several other clinically important measures. 316 (29%) of 1093 infants in the intervention group developed late-onset sepsis versus 334 (31%) of 1089 in the control group with an adjusted risk ratio of 0·95 (95% CI 0·86–1·04; p=0· 233). Reasons for the differences in ELFIN trial results and other studies may include population differences, the routine use of antifungals in the UK, timing of administration of the lactoferrin in relation to disease onset, or specific properties of the lactoferrin used in different trials. Further exploration is being undertaken in the UK NIHR funded Mechanisms Affecting the Guts of Preterm Infants in Enteral feeding trials (MAGPIE) study, for which results should be available soon.


Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 1323-1342
Author(s):  
Damian Guzek

Existing studies have examined the significance of UK media coverage of the 7/7 London bombings. This article seeks to widen this analysis by exploring the coverage of 7/7 in the leading newspapers of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Poland comparatively using a new agenda-setting perspective that is grounded within network analysis. The study is devised to respond specifically to the contrasting arguments about the influence of media globalization versus religion and ethnicity on this reporting. It finds that the diverse approaches to religion within the countries of the analyzed newspapers appear to mitigate the reproduction of shared religious narratives in this reporting. Nevertheless, the analyzed coverage does carry common attributes and these, it argues, can be explained broadly by the influence of a US-dominated ‘lens on terror’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Massarani ◽  
Luiz Felipe Fernandes Neves

The search for an effective solution to control the COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized an unprecedented effort by science to develop a vaccine against the disease, in which pharmaceutical companies and scientific institutions from several countries participate. The world closely monitors research in this area, especially through media coverage, which plays a key role in the dissemination of trustful information and in the public’s understanding of science and health. On the other hand, anti-vaccine movements dispute space in this communication environment, which raises concerns of the authorities regarding the willingness of the population to get vaccinated. In this exploratory study, we used computer-assisted content analysis techniques, with WordStat software, to identify the most addressed terms, semantic clusters, actors, institutions, and countries in the texts and titles of 716 articles on the COVID-19 vaccine, published by The New York Times (US), The Guardian (United Kingdom), and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil), from January to October 2020. We sought to analyze similarities and differences of countries that stood out by the science denialism stance of their government leaders, reflecting on the severity of the pandemic in these places. Our results indicate that each newspaper emphasized the potential vaccines developed by laboratories in their countries or that have established partnerships with national institutions, but with a more politicized approach in Brazil and a little more technical-scientific approach in the United States and the United Kingdom. In external issues, the newspapers characterized the search for the discovery of a vaccine as a race in which nations and blocs historically marked by economic, political, and ideological disputes are competing, such as the United States, Europe, China, and Russia. The results lead us to reflect on the responsibility of the media to not only inform correctly but also not to create stigmas related to the origin of the vaccine and combat misinformation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxana Bratu ◽  
Iveta Kažoka

This article explores the symbolic dimension of corruption by looking at the metaphors employed to represent this phenomenon in the media across seven different European countries (France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and the United Kingdom) over 10 years (2004–2014). It focuses on the media practices in evoking corruption-related metaphors and shows that corruption is a complex phenomenon with unclear boundaries, represented with the use of metaphorical devices that not only illuminate but also hide some of its attributes. The article identifies and analyses the metaphors of corruption by looking at their sources and target domains, as well as unpacking the contexts in which media evoke corruption-related metaphors.


1981 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Salmons ◽  
Andrew Sims

SummaryA detailed record of the smoking habits of 83 patients treated in hospital for neurosis was compared with national statistics derived from the General Household Survey and Statistics of Smoking in the United Kingdom, and with a control group of patients admitted for treatment of varicose veins. Neurotic patients were more likely to be smokers. They started to smoke at a younger age, smoked more cigarettes and were more likely to inhale deeply. It is concluded that neurotic patients have a greater exposure to the potentially toxic effects of cigarette smoking than non-neurotic individuals.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (6) ◽  
pp. 664-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Bowes ◽  
Niamh Kitching

In May 2018, the men’s European Tour invited five female professional golfers to compete in its GolfSixes event in England, against 27 professional male players. This was significant, particularly given the female struggle for equality of access, participation, employment and decision making in golf settings. This research investigates the print media representation of these five female professional golfers competing in this male domain. Using the Nexis database, data were collected from print newspapers in the United Kingdom and Ireland over six days before, during and after the event. Following thematic analysis, findings highlight a double-edged sword with regard to media coverage of female athletes competing against men: women received greater media coverage when in the male sport spotlight, but the coverage was framed by gendered discourses. The results document a slow shift towards more equal and equitable print media coverage of female athletes, whilst drawing attention to the problematic ways in which sportswomen are represented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Gagnon

This article explores the limits of student engagement in higher education in the United Kingdom through the social construction of student activists within media discourses. It scrutinises the impact of dominant neoliberal discourses on the notion of student engagement, constructing certain students as legitimately engaged whilst infantilising and criminalising those who participate in protest. Exploring media coverage of and commentary on students engaged in activism, from the 2010 protests against university fee increases and from more recent activism in 2016, the article draws upon Sara Ahmed’s (2014) Willful Subjects and Imogen Tyler’s (2013) Revolting Subjects to examine critically the ways in which some powerful discourses control and limit which activities, practices and voices can be recognised as legitimate forms of student engagement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. Walker ◽  
M. Sulyok

Abstract The current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic offers a unique opportunity to conduct an infodemiological study examining patterns in online searching activity about a specific disease and how this relates to news media within a specific country. Google Trends quantifies volumes of online activity. The relative search volume was obtained for ‘Coronavirus’, ‘handwashing’, ‘face mask’ and symptom related keywords, for the United Kingdom, from the date of the first confirmed case until numbers peaked in April. The relationship between online search traffic and confirmed case numbers was examined. Search volumes varied over time; peaks appear related to events in the progression of the epidemic which were reported in the media. Search activity on ‘Coronavirus’ correlated well against confirmed case number as did ‘face mask’ and symptom-related keywords. User-generated online data sources such as Google Trends may aid disease surveillance, being more responsive to changes in disease occurrence than traditional disease reporting. The relationship between media coverage and online searching activity is rarely examined, but may be driving online behavioural patterns.


2020 ◽  
pp. 205943642098007
Author(s):  
Xiaoling Zhang ◽  
Gareth Shaw

This article addresses one question: how is the coronavirus outbreak and its management in China reported in the UK media in general, and on the Internet in particular? It does so by examining how the online versions of the BBC, the Guardian and the Daily Mail reported on the coronavirus outbreak in China, but more importantly, on how China handled it, over a 20-week timeframe. The sentiment analysis and thematic analysis show that although the selected media are of different types in the United Kingdom, the themes and topics are not substantially different from each other. This implies that the general media-consuming public in the United Kingdom would regard China’s handling of the virus as largely negative or neutral. However, the ways of discussing and presenting those topics were subject to variation between the publications, which in turn is reflected in the attitudes and perceptions of their readers.


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