Within the university community, student demographic data highlights a high level of cultural diversity and an "at-risk population" for the onset of mental health problems. Moreover, the transition to higher education is itself associated with a range of emotional, social and academic demands that can cause psychological distress. Therefore, at any one time a substantial number of students may be attempting to complete university studies while managing problematic symptoms, behaviours, or an emerging, or diagnosed, mental disorder. The aim of this paper is to provide a snap shot of these students' experiences to enable strategic planning of future university support services. Of particular importance was the identification of facilitators and barriers that this group of students faced while engaged in university life. Participants were 1378 students enrolled at a Western Australian university who accessed a text-based online survey during May 2009. The students provided descriptions of the range of problematic symptoms, behaviours and/or disorders that were causing interference with their lives, and university career. Not surprisingly, the most commonly identified disorders with the participant population were depression, anxiety, and stress-related concerns. More than half the sample had not sought professional help for their concerns. The results highlight the fact that universities are well placed to have a major role in improving the pathways to primary care and early intervention for students with an emerging, or diagnosed, mental health problem, and to identify and support students trying to manage the "normal" psychological demands associated with higher education.
A non-comparative design and mixed-methods approach was used to examine the resilience and wellbeing of 20 children in the full-time care of their grandparents. A self-report measure of self-concept and emotional wellbeing, and a semistructured interview were used to explore the personal experiences and impact of children living with their grandparents. Scores derived from the self-report measure indicated that the children's self-worth and emotional health were within the range expected of children of comparative age and sex. Qualitative data, however, suggested a complex emotional environment and a continuum of responses. Analysis revealed three themes that captured broad issues around Emotional health, Material factors, Current issues and Past experiences and Coping strategies. The results of the study reveal the ongoing concerns associated with the children's family circumstances, as well as the notable adaptation and resilience of the children in managing their life experiences.
Background Privacy preserving record linkage (PPRL) methods using Bloom filters have shown promise for use in operational linkage settings. However real-world evaluations are required to confirm their suitability in practice. Methods An extract of records from the Western Australian (WA) Hospital Morbidity Data Collection 2011–2015 and WA Death Registrations 2011–2015 were encoded to Bloom filters, and then linked using privacy-preserving methods. Results were compared to a traditional, un-encoded linkage of the same datasets using the same blocking criteria to enable direct investigation of the comparison step. The encoded linkage was carried out in a blinded setting, where there was no access to un-encoded data or a ‘truth set’. Results The PPRL method using Bloom filters provided similar linkage quality to the traditional un-encoded linkage, with 99.3% of ‘groupings’ identical between privacy preserving and clear-text linkage. Conclusion The Bloom filter method appears suitable for use in situations where clear-text identifiers cannot be provided for linkage.
This paper discusses a strategic collaborative partnership between a Western Australian university and a community health service based on a Practice-Research Model. The partnership has involved a senior academic (0.2 FTE) working in the community health setting as a Nurse Research Consultant since 1998. The first section of the paper draws on the nursing literature on collaborative models and describes the broad background to the partnership and development of the Model. The second section presents in detail the results of a recent evaluation that involved a brief survey and follow-up interviews to determine community health nurses' understanding and perceptions of the partnership Model. Three main themes emerged from the interviews: (1) Advancement of learning captured the extent to which the Nurse Research Consultant position helped to educate nurses and promote and develop research and best-practice; (2) Job satisfaction and self-confidence encompassed the extent to which participants felt nursing management were supportive of their professional education and pursuit of best-practice solutions, and (3) Situational opportunity, which reflected the more negative comments expressed by participants and related mostly to the restricted availability of Nurse Research Consultant and a focus on mainstream research priorities. The results suggest that the partnership Model provided the nurses with the opportunity to develop an increased understanding of the role of research in clinical practice and confidence in their own ability to reflect on current nursing practice. This allowed them to identify clinical problems in order to deliver and evaluate best-practice solutions, as evidenced by a change in attitude from the previous evaluation. However, it was also noted that the operational performance of the Model needs continual monitoring to ensure that all nurses have equitable access opportunities.
IntroductionWhile the quantity and type of datasets used by data linkage projects is growing, there remain some datasets that are ‘not available’ or ‘hard to access’ by researchers and linkers, either due to legal/regulatory constraints restricting the release of personally identifying information or because of privacy or reputational concerns. Advances in privacy-preserving record linkage methods (e.g. PPRL-Bloom) have made it possible to overcome this impasse. These techniques aim to provide strong privacy protection while still maintaining high linkage quality. PPRL-Bloom methods are being used in practice. The Centre for Data Linkage (CDL) at Curtin University has been involved in several PPRL linkage and evaluation projects using real-world data. As the methods are relatively new, published information on achievable linkage quality in real-world scenarios is limited. Objectives and ApproachWe present and describe several real-world applications of privacy preserving record linkage (PPRL-Bloom) where the quality of the linkage could be ascertained. In each case, data was linked ‘blind’; that is, without linkers having access to the original personal identifiers at any stage, or having any additional information about the records. Evaluations include a linkage of state-based morbidity and mortality records, a linkage of a number of general practice datasets to morbidity and emergency records, and a linkage of a range of state-based non-health administrative data, including education, police, housing, birth and child protection records. ResultsThe privacy preserving record linkage performed admirably, with very high-quality results across all evaluations. Conclusion / ImplicationsPrivacy preserving linkage is a useful and innovative methodology that is currently being used in real world projects. The results of these evaluation suggest it can be an appropriate linkage tool when legal or other constraints block release of personally identifying information to third party linkage units.
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