Search

Neighbourhoods are known to help maintain functional abilities and enable out-of-home activities and social participation for people living with dementia. Dementia friendly and inclusive communities (DFC) frameworks recognize the importance of developing supportive and empowering environments for people living with dementia and their families. Beyond the core objective of raising awareness and eliminating stigma associated with dementia, most DFC frameworks also focus on improving accessibility and navigability in the neighbourhood environment. Limited research on this topic points to the importance of evidence-based design of the neighbourhood built environment to promote mobility and wayfinding, legibility, familiarity, and safety for people living with dementia. Increased relevance of DFCs for policy and practice calls for expanding this body of knowledge. The proposed study, titled "Dementia-inclusive Spaces for Community Access, Participation, and Engagement (DemSCAPE)," focuses on identifying neighbourhood destinations considered important by people living with dementia, as well as neighbourhood built environmental features relevant for their outdoor mobility, engagement, and social participation. This study protocol paper offers key information on 1) the need for mixed methods research on this topic and its theoretical and methodological underpinnings, 2) study sampling and recruitment strategy, 3) data collection methods, which include a series of structured and semi-structured sit-down interviews and a walk-along interview, 4) procedure for data analysis, 5) ethical and methodological considerations, and 6) measures taken to enhance study rigour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a significant health concern for sexual minority women, there is little qualitative research investigating their experiences of childhood trauma and suicidality. In this study, we used photovoice methods and an intersectionality framework. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we inductively derived three themes (a) Traumatized and discredited, (b) Cascading marginality, estrangement, and suicidality, (c) Reconstruction and reclaiming resilience. In Traumatized and discredited, we describe the sense of abandonment flowing from childhood trauma heightened by a lack of protection and neglect on the part of parents/guardians. The lack of support to deal with childhood trauma and the layering effects of marginality characterizes the theme Cascading marginality, estrangement, and suicidality. In the third theme, we discuss strategies for reconstruction and reclaiming resilience as participants worked to overcome these challenging experiences. Our study findings offer guidance to suicide prevention counseling programs for sexual minority women and affirm actions to address health inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social isolation has featured as a significant and oftentimes all-encompassing risk factor for male suicide, yet, as an explanatory mechanism, it has not been unpacked in terms of what it constitutes in everyday life. The current photovoice study explores the various dimensions of the lived experience of social isolation, as embedded in accounts of suicidality drawn from 35 Canadian men. Study participants narrated the following factors as underpinning their social isolation: (a) family dysfunction and estrangement, (b) marginality and feeling like misfits at school and work, (c) alienation and provisional acceptance of health care, (d) ineffectual and self-harming management, (e) intrusive dislocating thoughts, and (f) society's burdensome and immoral subjects. These interwoven but discrete spheres provide a means for understanding the phenomenology of social isolation and a basis for melding ideas about connectedness, relationality, personal history, and care, along with strategies to support and reduce men's suicidality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]