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The growing demand for aged care services coupled with a global shortage of skilled nursing staff has hindered long-term care facilities' ability to provide necessary services to their residents. Healthcare information technology is expected to mitigate this challenge by streamlining nursing work, while also improving quality of care and productivity. This study set out to examine how nurses and care workers work, the role of information technology (IT) in their work and what contradictions they face in their IT mediated work. Ethnographic study informed by six components of activity theory: subject, object, tool, rule, community and division of labor. Eight care units in two long-term care facilities in Australia. Eleven staff from two long-term care facilities including registered nurses (n = 2), endorsed enrolled nurses (n = 5) and personal care workers (n = 4) participated in this study. Participants were shadowed during morning shifts (6:30 am to 3:00 pm). A total of 24 morning shifts were observed over four months. Field notes were created based on observational data and informal interviews, in addition to document review. Through the lens of activity theory, the work activity system of nurses and care workers in the long-term care facilities consisted of the subject (nurses and care workers), their object (resident care), tools used for work including IT, rules of work, community, and division of labor. These components interacted through work processes; therefore, a "process" component was added in the activity system. Special attention was given to the role of IT as the conduit of information in the work processes. Although IT helped track medication rounds, automated documentation and communication among the staff, it introduced contradictions. Seven contradictions involving IT were identified, including contradictions within the IT tool, between the IT tool and the object of work, between the subjects and documentation rules, between the work activity system using paper records and the system using IT, and between the activity system within the long-term care facility and the pharmacists' work activity system outside the facility. Activity theory provided a theoretic framework to model the work activity system of nurses and care workers. Information technology played an important role in supporting information flow in this system, however it also caused contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is significant interest in comparing countries on many different indicators of social problems and policies. Cross-national comparisons of drug prevalence and policies are often hampered by differences in the approach used to reach respondents and the methods used to obtain information in national surveys. The paper explores how much these differences could affect cross-country comparisons.Methods: This study reports prevalence of drug use according to the most recent national household survey and then adjusts estimates as if all national surveys used the same methodology. The analysis focuses on European countries for which the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reports data, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Adjustment factors are based on US data.Findings: Adjusting for modality differences appears likely to modestly affect the rankings of countries by prevalence, but to an extent that could be important for comparisons. For example, general population surveys suggest that the US had some of the highest cannabis and cocaine prevalence rates circa 2012, but this is partially driven by the use of a modality known to produce higher prevalence estimates. This analysis shows that country rankings are partly an artifact of the mode of interview used in national general population surveys.Conclusions: Our preliminary efforts suggest that cross-national prevalence comparisons, policy analyses and, other projects such as estimating the global burden of disease could be improved by adjusting estimates from drug use surveys for differences in modality. Research is needed to create more authoritative adjustment factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much work has been undertaken to publicize the plight of female rape survivors, but until recent years the rape and sexual assault of adult males received little research or public attention. The aim of this paper is to selectively review the literature on male survivors of sexual violence highlighting, where relevant, timely implications for policy and practice. First, changes in UK legislation relating to male rape are discussed, with cross-national comparisons made against United States, Australian and Canadian statute to overview developing definitions and legal good practice. Second, prevalence issues relating to the under-reporting and long-term consequences of male sexual victimization are outlined. Third, the current dearth of UK service provision for male rape survivors is reported. Finally, literature on how male rape myth acceptance, victim blaming and homophobia relate to the secondary victimization of male survivors is considered. Suggestions for continued research in this developing area of work are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]