BackgroundAdmission to an acute hospital can be distressing and disorientating for a person with dementia, and is associated with decline in cognitive and functional ability. The objective of this audit was to assess the quality of dementia care in acute hospitals in the Republic of Ireland.MethodsAcross all 35 acute public hospitals, data was collected on care from admission through discharge using a retrospective chart review (n = 660), hospital organisation interview with senior management (n = 35), and ward level organisation interview with ward managers (n = 76). Inclusion criteria included a diagnosis of dementia, and a length of stay greater than 5 days.ResultsMost patients received physical assessments, including mobility (89 %), continence (84 %) and pressure sore risk (87 %); however assessment of pain (75 %), and particularly functioning (36 %) was poor. Assessment for cognition (43 %) and delirium (30 %) was inadequate. Most wards have access at least 5 days per week to Liaison Psychiatry (93 %), Geriatric Medicine (84 %), Occupational Therapy (79 %), Speech & Language (81 %), Physiotherapy (99 %), and Palliative Care (89 %) Access to Psychology (9 %), Social Work (53 %), and Continence services (34 %) is limited. Dementia awareness training is provided on induction in only 2 hospitals, and almost half of hospitals did not offer dementia training to doctors (45 %) or nurses (48 %) in the previous 12 months. Staff cover could not be provided on 62 % of wards for attending dementia training. Most wards (84 %) had no dementia champion to guide best practice in care. Discharge planning was not initiated within 24 h of admission in 72 % of cases, less than 40 % had a single plan for discharge recorded, and 33 % of carers received no needs assessment prior to discharge. Length of stay was significantly greater for new discharges to residential care (p < .001).ConclusionDementia care relating to assessment, access to certain specialist services, staffing levels, training and support, and discharge planning is sub-optimal, which may increase the risk of adverse patient outcomes and the cost of acute care. Areas of good practice are also highlighted.

Recent research has provided clear evidence that personality factors are associated with job performance. The construct of conscientiousness has been shown to be a particularly promising predictor of overall job performance. Some authors have proposed that conscientiousness might be the ‘g’ of personality and predict performance in most occupational areas. The nature of the construct of conscientiousness is reviewed and consideration given to the likely behaviour associated with high conscientiousness. It is hypothesized that, given the requirements of managerial work, the criterion‐related validity of conscientiousness may not extend to all managerial jobs. Conscientiousness scores are derived for a sample of managers (N= 437), with the aid of personality questionnaire data. In a concurrent validity design these scores are correlated with indicators of current job performance, promotability and specific job performance factors. The correlation of conscientiousness with current performance is close to zero and the correlation with promotability is ‐.20. The pattern of relationships between conscientiousness and the job performance factors is used to interpret the finding that conscientiousness is not influential in determining managerial performance. The results suggest that there may be limits to the range of occupational areas in which conscientiousness is closely linked with job performance.

This article explores current research on online cancer support groups. A review of the literature revealed 9 research articles (describing 10 research studies) that focused on computer-mediated or Internet cancer support groups. The researchers in 9 of the 10 studies concluded that online cancer support groups helped people cope more effectively with their disease. Most of the research studies had small sample sizes. Six of the 10 studies did not include men, and six focused on Caucasian women with breast cancer. Information seeking/giving was prevalent in the online groups. Gender differences, negative psychological effects, and barriers to using online groups were identified. The few studies that were found in the literature suffered from a lack of experimental design, small and homogenous samples, and lack of outcome measures, thereby limiting applicability of results.

In a study to determine how children describe the experience of pain, we queried a convenience sample of 100 children in hospitals and 114 children in church and private schools who were between 9 and 12 years old. The questions were designed to seek correlations by age among boys and girls, and between hospitalized and non-hospitalized children that would aid health professionals in strategies that will identify and assist the child who is in pain. The preliminary results show that children clearly describe pain, that there are no appreciable differences by age groups, but that children who are hospitalized describe pain differently from children who are not.

This paper attempts to provide some insight into the individual attributes underlying managerial performance. Managerial performance, like all aspects of human behaviour, is a function of both the personal attributes of the actor and the situation in which he or she exists. Managers work in a wide variety of situations and it is clear that job demands, job role, colleagues, organization systems and other situational factors will exert an influence on the behaviour of any individual manager. It is also reasonable to expect, on the basis of everyday experience and research evidence, that the individual attributes of a manager will influence his or her behaviour. The theoretical basis for this paper recognizes that behaviour is a result of the complex, reciprocating interplay of situational, personal and behavioural factors (Bandura, 1982;Robertson, 1993). Even a complete understanding of the specific personal factors involved in determining managerial behaviour would provide an incomplete model for understanding and predicting managerial performance, since situational factors also have a clear role to play in determining behaviour. Nevertheless, a clear grasp of these personal attributes should provide some help in seeking to unravel the complex interplay of behavioural, situational and personal factors.The empirical focus for this paper is on the personal, psychological attributes associated with managerial behaviour. In the past decade or so there has been considerable interest in the identification of the competencies associated with successful managerial performance (Boam and Sparrow, 1992;Boyatzis, 1982;Dulevwicz, 1989;Thornton and Byham, 1982). The competency approach provides a useful framework for examining managerial effectiveness but it has not yet been developed to the point where there is agreement on the key competencies involved in managerial performance. In fact, definitions of competencies are often poor and contradictory. Although some authors have proposed sets of competencies with broad applicability (e.g. Cockerill, Current models of the factors underlying management performance make use of a variety of variables at different levels of analysis. A framework is presented in which variables of three different types are linked together. Using data from a sample (n = 437) of British managers this article explores relationships between personality factors (using the big-five factors), work competencies and managerial performance. Results from the analyses reveal a set of underlying competency factors, which show different patterns of correlation with two facets of performance: current proficiency and promotability. In turn, these factors and the facets of performance show relationships with the big-five personality factors. Current proficiency is more closely related to competencies of organization, specialization and analysis -competencies more likely to be displayed by people who are conscientious and introverted. Promotability is linked more closely to competencies concerning action/motivation, fl...