Survey research into patient satisfaction has been responsible for developing a number of related concepts concerning the ways in which patients evaluate the health care that they receive. Recently doubts have been expressed as to the adequacy of this approach for understanding how patients anticipate and respond to medical encounters. This paper reports a study of patients attending neurological outpatient clinics. The results suggest that the conceptual framework deriving from patient satisfaction research provides only partial and sometimes misleading insights into the perspectives of the patients studied. The paper concludes that patients' varying concerns with regard to their iUness need to be more directly considered in explaining different responses to medical consultations. This approach enables a more sensitive evaluation of health care from the patient's point of view.
International research provides support for yoga as a well-being intervention in prison. No systematic research has been undertaken in Australia to assess the effectiveness of prison yoga programs. In 2017, the authors, in partnership with Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Corrective Services and the Yoga Foundation, introduced a weekly pilot yoga program at the ACT prison. This article presents quantitative and qualitative findings from the program. Although the small sample size ( n = 8) is acknowledged, our findings indicate that participants attained statistically and clinically significant benefit from the program, demonstrated by improvements in their levels of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, goal-direction, negative affect, and non-acceptance. They also reported improved flexibility, sleep and relaxation, pain reduction, and identified improvements in their mental well-being, commenting that the program made them feel “calm” and “at peace.” The article concludes by advocating for the expansion of such programs in Australian prisons and further research on such programs.
Recidivism represents the failure of the criminal justice system to adequately respond to cycles of crime and dysfunction. With increasing reoffending rates, Australia is demonstrably failing to reduce recidivism and facilitate desistance from crime. Therapeutic jurisprudence (‘TJ’) seeks to understand how law and legal process operate therapeutically. This article considers TJ insights and principles to examine the extent to which Australian parole laws and processes promote desistance. We argue that applying a TJ analysis provides a valuable perspective to understanding how these laws can operate to break the cycle of recidivism in Australia. We then examine the Compliance Management or Incarceration in the Territory (‘COMMIT’) program recently implemented in the Northern Territory, drawing on legislative and policy frameworks and comments from key stakeholders. We find that COMMIT appears to be a promising, TJ-informed, reform, which may represent a shift towards a more therapeutic, and effective, approach to parole compliance.
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