Psychologists define fear of crime as having three components: cognitive, emotional and behavioural. A person must perceive the circumstances as threatening, thereby triggering an emotional ...response—fear and protective or avoidance behaviour. While one can find some circumstantial evidence that emotional response mediates the relationship between cognition and behaviour, to our knowledge the full mediation model has never been directly tested, which was the main objective of the current study. For this purpose, interviews with young adults were performed to revisit the understanding of the phenomenon of fear of crime and help with the operationalisation of its three components. An online survey of 246 young adults was performed, the measurement validity and reliability of the proposed questionnaire were established, and the full mediation model was tested. The results fully support the theoretical conceptualisation of the fear of crime, suggesting that emotional response does indeed fully mediate the relationship between cognition and behaviour. Some novel behavioural responses in comparison to other studies is found and direct empirical evidence in support of existing theory is provided.
Abstract The use of leading questions as part of interrogation techniques and the factors associated with the witness suggestibility are well researched in the scientific literature. Nevertheless, ...literature on suggestibility in intentionally or unintentionally poorly designed social opinion surveys and push polls is scarce. The objective of this paper was to test how easily the public is swayed by leading questions in poorly designed surveys, whether certain group types of respondents in terms of their susceptibility exist, and to investigate the relationship between several demographic and personality characteristics and susceptibility. For this purpose, an online self-administered survey was conducted, containing a block of neutral and several blocks of leading questions about the respondents’ opinions on minority groups. The results indicated that the negative wording in questions was reflected in a more negative opinion on minority groups, while there are differences between respondents in their level of suggestibility. Three groups of respondents exist, i.e., non-suggestible (with no shift in opinion), suggestible (who express a more negative opinion on minorities following the suggestion), and contra-suggestible respondents (who react on the contrary and give a more positive opinion after a negative suggestion). Susceptibility to suggestion is associated with respondents’ age, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and social desirability. The results suggest that contra-suggestibility might counterbalance the error made by the leading questions, at least when more controversial topics are being surveyed.
The role of social support in the online setting is explored in this study. For this purpose, the posts of infertility treatment patients participating in an infertility treatment online support ...group between 2002 and 2016 were retrieved. Members who contributed at least 100 words were divided into two groups according to the treatment outcome they reported (pregnancy). The association between the length of group membership, type of support provided, intensity of interaction, active support seeking, overall sentiment and the amount of sadness, anxiety and anger words and the treatment outcome was examined. The findings suggest that online social, in particular emotional, support acts as a buffer between the stressor and the treatment outcome. The expression of anger and initiating of communication by new members diminish this relationship.
The safety and quality of patient care are basic guidelines in finding new and improved solutions in nursing. Important and influential factors shape the nurses' work environment in hospitals.
With ...the study, we intended to investigate whether the perception of nurses' work environment is related to the safety culture and the quality of patient care and whether it differs according to nurses' level of education.
The study with a quantitative research method was conducted at the six clinical departments of the University Medical Centre, Ljubljana in 2019. We used a survey questionnaire from the European survey Nurse forecasting in Europe (RN4CAST).
270 nurses were included in the study. The response rate was 54%. The study confirmed that there is a correlation between the assessment of the nurses' work environment and the general assessment of patient safety (r = 0.36; p <0.001), the general assessment of the quality of nursing care (r = 0.32; p <0.001), the confidence in patient self-care at discharge (r = 0.29; p <0.001) and the quality of patient care in the previous year (r = 0.27; p = 0.001). The results showed frequent verbal abuse of nurses, in 44.9% by patients and their relatives and in 35.4% by staff. Graduate nurses rated the work environment more negatively than healthcare technicians (p = 0.003).
We confirmed the correlation between the assessment of nurses' work environment and patient safety and the quality of health care, and that employees' education influences the assessment and perception of the work environment.
The aim of the study was to investigate the real-life experience of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Slovenia in the first pandemic wave and how the buffering effect of social and informational ...support affected negative feelings. We used a self-administrated questionnaire. There were 1182 eligible notified cases with the response rate 64.9%. At least 62% of responders were able to follow the isolation rules, while 21.1% did not or could not organize their living separately from other household members. The main providers during the isolation period were close family members. The most prevalent emotion in our study was worry (70.3%) and fear (37.6%). Worry and fear during the illness were less probable for men than women, but more probable for older patients. Participants with strong emotional support had lower odds of being sad. Those who were exposed to a larger number of sources of information had higher odds of being worried. Those patients who used a higher number of more credible sources of information had higher odds of being afraid during illness. Pets did not play a special role in psychological well-being. The role of the media and public health communications should be explored further to achieve an improved response.
There is a strong inclination towards using shorter scales for assessment of personality traits. Big Five Inventory scale with 10 items (BFI-10) exhibited good psychometric properties in several ...countries. The objective of this research was to assess validity and reliability of the BFI-10 questionnaire, translated in Slovenian language. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted among the students and smart phone users. Low correlations between items measuring openness and agreeableness were found and this resulted in low validity and reliability of measuring these two dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis resulted in severe problems with fitting the model. To overcome these difficulties substitutional items for measuring each personality dimension were introduced and final confirmatory factor analysis model fitted the data well. The modifications of the original scales seem promising for future use.
Employers are increasingly including volunteer activities in their social responsibility programs. At companies at which this is done in a planned manner, we can speak of the development of a ...corporate volunteering, which correlates with numerous positive psychological outcomes at both the individual and the organizational level. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the corporate volunteering programs and job characteristics, connected with work engagement. In our study we were interested in identifying the role of the corporate volunteering in the evaluation of job resources and work engagement. The study included 274 employees from 15 Slovenian companies, of whom 62% participate in their organizations' volunteer activities. They filled out the Job demands and resources questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-17) and a scale for measuring the corporate volunteering climate. The results indicate that the carrying out of volunteer activities correlates with the perception of the corporate volunteering climate. Employees whose employers implement volunteering programs are more engaged and report higher levels of both autonomy and support from their co-workers and supervisors. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
The goal of the research is to determine how compensation affects the safety behavior of truck drivers and consequently the frequency of traffic accidents. For this purpose, a survey was conducted on ...a sample of 220 truck drivers in international road transport in the EU, where the results of the Structural Equation Model (SEM) show that in the current state of the transport sector, financial and non-financial incentives have a positive impact on the work and safety behavior of drivers. Financial incentives also have an impact on drivers' increased perception of their driving ability, while moving violations continue to have a major impact on the number of accidents. The proposed improvements enable decision-makers at the highest level to adopt legal solutions to help manage the issues that have been affecting the industry from a work, social and safety point of view for the past several years. The results of the research therefore represent an important guideline for improvements to the legislature as well as in the systematization of truck driver compensation within companies.
The work of private detectives is a young profession in Slovenia. It has only existed for about three decades, and as such has been rarely researched. So far there has been no study on what Slovenian ...private detectives actually do in the framework of the tasks that are stipulated by law. Therefore, the aim of a survey presented in the article is to find out what private detectives do on a daily basis and what competences they need to perform their tasks. Since there are only around 90 private detectives in Slovenia, they must all have good knowledge of several areas simultaneously. However, our survey suggests that based on the work tasks performed, Slovenian private detectives can be classified into three groups – “business-oriented private detectives,” “typical private detectives” and “multitasking private detectives”. For every task they perform, private detectives need certain general and specific competences. The private detectives who participated in this study agree that they must be able to collect and generate important information from a large amount of data, be IT literate and very self-disciplined. Additionally, they must have extensive legal knowledge and organizational skills. The least important skills for private detectives, in their opinion, are public speaking and martial arts. The only difference found among the groups used to classify private detectives is the importance of analysing large amounts of data. Bearing in mind the findings of the study, it is clear that more work is available for those private detectives who can perform a broader spectrum of tasks and possess more competences.
Objectives
To determine whether azithromycin (AZI) as an adjunct to scaling and root planing (SRP), when compared to placebo, decreases the number of sites demonstrating pocket depth (PD) ≥ 5 mm and ...bleeding on probing (BOP) 12 months post-treatment in stage III/IV periodontitis patients.
Materials and methods
In a double-blind randomized parallel-arm placebo-controlled trial, 40 stage III/IV periodontitis patients received steps 1 and 2 of periodontal treatment in two sessions within 7 days. Patients then received systemic antibiotic therapy (
n
= 20; AZI 500 mg/day, 3 days) or placebo (
n
= 20). Additional instrumentation of residual diseased sites (DS) — sites with PD ≥ 5 mm and BOP — was performed at the 3-, 6- and 9-month follow-ups. The primary outcome variable was the number of DS at the 12-month re-evaluation. Using a multivariate multilevel logistic regression model, the effects of gender, age, antibiotic therapy, presence of
Porphyromonas gingivalis
or
Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans
, smoking, tooth being a molar and interdental location were evaluated.
Results
The number of DS after 12 months was similar in the test (median (Me) = 4, interquartile range (IQR) = 0–6) and control (Me = 3, IQR = 1–6.5) groups. Both groups showed substantial but equivalent improvements in periodontal parameters, with no intergroup differences at initially shallow or deep sites. The logistic regression showed a lower odds ratio (OR) for the healing of DS on molars (OR = 0.29;
p
< 0.001) and in smokers (OR = 0.36;
p
= 0.048).
Conclusion
Stage III/IV periodontitis patients showed significant but comparable improvements in periodontal parameters and the number of residual DS at the 12-month revaluation regardless of treatment type. This may have been the result of the additional instrumentation received by patients at residual DS in both treatment groups.
Clinical relevance
Treatment with AZI + SRP provided no additional benefits after 12 months in terms of periodontal parameters or the number of persisting sites with PD ≥ 5 mm + BOP as compared to SRP plus placebo.
Trial registration
EUDRA-CT: 2015-004306-42;
https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/trial/2015-004306-42/SI
, registered 17. 12. 2015.
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