Attitude of General Public, Family Members, and Health Professionals Towards People With Intellectual Disabilities (PWID)

Attitude defines one's behavior towards the people with intellectual disability (PWID). History on PWID indicates influence of psycho-social, biological, religious, and educational factors for the existence of stereotypical attitudes. But since the early part of the 21st century efforts have been reported across countries in integrating the PWID in the community at large. Families of PWID undergo high levels of stress and emotional reactions which call for intervention. Families often adopt strategies to hide the existence of a disability, which delays the treatment and rehabilitation of PWID. Also, stakeholder attitudes towards them highly influences their rehabilitation and integration in the mainstream society. Hence, this chapter is an attempt to focus on the importance of attitude towards individuals with intellectual disability by general public, family members, teachers, students, employers, and health professionals and its implications and further recommendations for the betterment of their condition.

Exploring stakeholder attitudes towards AI in clinical practice

ObjectivesDifferent stakeholders may hold varying attitudes towards artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare, which may constrain their acceptance if AI developers fail to take them into account. We set out to ascertain evidence of the attitudes of clinicians, consumers, managers, researchers, regulators and industry towards AI applications in healthcare.MethodsWe undertook an exploratory analysis of articles whose titles or abstracts contained the terms ‘artificial intelligence’ or ‘AI’ and ‘medical’ or ‘healthcare’ and ‘attitudes’, ‘perceptions’, ‘opinions’, ‘views’, ‘expectations’. Using a snowballing strategy, we searched PubMed and Google Scholar for articles published 1 January 2010 through 31 May 2021. We selected articles relating to non-robotic clinician-facing AI applications used to support healthcare-related tasks or decision-making.ResultsAcross 27 studies, attitudes towards AI applications in healthcare, in general, were positive, more so for those with direct experience of AI, but provided certain safeguards were met. AI applications which automated data interpretation and synthesis were regarded more favourably by clinicians and consumers than those that directly influenced clinical decisions or potentially impacted clinician–patient relationships. Privacy breaches and personal liability for AI-related error worried clinicians, while loss of clinician oversight and inability to fully share in decision-making worried consumers. Both clinicians and consumers wanted AI-generated advice to be trustworthy, while industry groups emphasised AI benefits and wanted more data, funding and regulatory certainty.DiscussionCertain expectations of AI applications were common to many stakeholder groups from which a set of dependencies can be defined.ConclusionStakeholders differ in some but not all of their attitudes towards AI. Those developing and implementing applications should consider policies and processes that bridge attitudinal disconnects between different stakeholders.

Is the future of internships online? An examination of stakeholder attitudes towards online internships

PurposeThe world of work is becoming digital, a process accelerated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic and resultant remote working guidelines. Online internships have become more popular in this context, and yet there remains a lack of research investigating how these internships are perceived across stakeholders. The purpose of this paper was to begin to address this research gap by exploring academic, student and employer perceptions of online internships with a focus on employability.Design/methodology/approachThe research explored 156 stakeholders (53 students, 50 academics and, 53 employer/professionals) perceptions via a mixed-methods online study encompassing quantitative responses to internship vignettes, alongside open-ended questions designed to explore stakeholder attitudes in more depth.FindingsStakeholder groups reported similar attitudes towards online internships. Overall, online internships were viewed as valid, flexible, work experience, linked to skill development and likely to enhance student employability. However, concerns were raised regarding communication protocols and development, intern isolation and a lack of organisational immersion.Practical implicationsBased on the research, the authors make three recommendations to continue to enhance and develop the online internship experience: ensure multiple methods of regular communication between student and organisation, attempt virtual immersion in the organisation and assign each intern additional support beyond their immediate supervisor.Originality/valueBased on a holistic and novel analysis of key stakeholders' viewpoints, this paper provides much needed insights and evidence on how to design and quality assure effective online internship practice.

Is the future of work experience online? An examination of stakeholder attitudes towards online internships.

PurposeThe world of work is becoming digital, a process accelerated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic and resultant remote working guidelines. Online internships have become more popular in this context, and yet there remains a lack of research investigating how these internships are perceived across stakeholders. The purpose of this paper was to begin to address this research gap by exploring academic, student and employer perceptions of online internships with a focus on employability.DesignThe research explored 156 stakeholders (53 students, 50 academics, 53 employer / professionals) perceptions via a mixed-methods online study encompassing quantitative responses to internship vignettes, alongside open-ended questions designed to explore stakeholder attitudes in more depth.FindingsStakeholder groups reported similar attitudes towards online internships. Overall, online internships were viewed as valid, flexible, work experience, linked to skill development and likely to enhance student employability. However, concerns were raised regarding communication protocols and development, intern isolation and a lack of organisational immersion.ImplicationsBased on our research we make three recommendations to continue to enhance and develop the online internship experience; ensure multiple methods of regular communication between student and organisation, attempt virtual immersion in the organisation, and assign each intern additional support beyond their immediate supervisor.OriginalityBased on a holistic and novel analysis of key stakeholders’ viewpoints, this paper provides much needed insights and evidence on how to design and quality assure effective online internship practice.

Elephant tourism conservation and the need for a new strategy: Thai stakeholder attitudes.

This chapter presents the results of interviews with people involved in the elephant camp business in Thailand regarding how elephant camps can be better managed and what makes for success. Interview questions included: How have elephant camp managers responded to the changes in animal welfare perceptions? How have managers responded to travel agencies and tourists opposed to using elephants for tourism entertainment activity? Are these animal welfare rules effective? How do they organize elephant tours in a sustainable way? How are mahouts recruited and trained? Finally, what are their thoughts on elephant tourism innovations such as coffee beans collected from elephant dung and elephant volunteer tourism?