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Copyright of Direito e Práxis is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article stems from an interest taken in discussing the usage of the terms ambivalence and ambiguity, which are very present in Psychology's publications and savoir faire. It is important to reiterate that in common sense and even in scientific publications these terms are often used as synonyms or notions of little conceptual delimitation. The relevance of such differentiation is proposed once these notions participates of the emergence of the new in human subjective experience, and, in a methodological approach, ambiguity and ambivalence are dimensions that leads the researcher goes beyond a repetitive sterile description of the subject's speech, moving towards new perspectives of the psychological data. This paper aims to retrieve the qualifying power of such notions by making a broader reflection on the functions of language in the production of interpretive realities. We also propose to bring up a reflection about ambiguity in the construction of meaning and to reiterate ambivalences as inherent to human nature, its affective record and the process of human becoming. As a way to explain the proposed themes, we will analyse an excerpt from the documentary "Últimas Conversas", produced by the Brazilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho, in which high school students from public state schools in Rio de Janeiro tell their stories, speaking of dreams and shared challenges. The character Rafaela was selected for this article because of the emergence of unspeakable emotions from her narrative about an expected future as a promise of reconciliation with the alterity of her life story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To ascertain whether factors of the family environment and gestational period are associated with the appearance of ADHD in children, as reported by various different informants (mothers and teachers). Methods: This paper presents results from the dataset of a longitudinal study to evaluate behavioral problems among schoolchildren in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro State, in 2005 and 2006. The cross-section considered for this paper comprises records of exposure factors and ADHD. In all, 370 schoolchildren of the public school system were assessed by 3-stage cluster sampling. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Teacher Report Form (TRF) were used to measure outcomes. The exposure factors examined were: profile of child and mother, variables relating to the family environment, and perinatal considerations. The questions were answered by mothers and teachers. A hierarchical logistic regression model was used. Results: Precariously functioning families, lack of social support for mothers, adverse life events and discord during pregnancy were the factors associated with mother-reported ADHD. When ADHD was reported by teachers, the variables selected were: Intelligence quotient (IQ) and sex, with children with low IQ scores and boys more likely to display the disorder. Conclusions: Assessment of ADHD by teachers or mothers reveals specific characteristics that reflect how each of these informants understands the children. This highlights the importance of using informants from different environments in diagnosing the disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how iatrogenic stigma, or stigma that is produced through a patient's encounter with physicians or with biomedicine in general, might emerge in outpatient treatment for Hansen's disease, or leprosy. Based on in-depth interviews with people affected by Hansen's disease and observations conducted at several public health clinics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this research identified several aspects of the biomedical encounter that generated or contributed to stigma, either felt or enacted. Also noted in the research were positive examples of techniques used by physicians and health care workers for minimizing or circumventing stigma. The paper touches upon several topics, such as culturally mediated responses to medication side effects and communication between health care workers and patients, that might be salient or useful for health educators and others who are attempting to reduce health-related stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of gunfights between drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro's favelas on student achievement. We explore variation in violence that occurs across time and space when gangs battle over territories. Within-school estimates indicate that students' scores are lower in math in years in which they are exposed to drug battles. The effect increases with conflict intensity, duration, and proximity to exam dates and decreases with the distance between the school and the conflict location. School supply is an important mechanism. Gunfights are associated with higher teacher absenteeism, principal turnover, and temporary school closings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contracampo: Brazilian Journal of Communication is the property of Revista Contracampo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Because of violence, poverty, and inequality worldwide, teachers are increasingly working in high-risk situations. To support teacher development, education researchers can usefully study professionals in the field to understand their working environments. This paper presents theory, method, and findings to consider how teachers in the high-risk favelas of Rio de Janeiro understand risk. Based on narrative inquiry design and analysis, findings indicate that what appears to be avoiding reality, coping, or being resilient, comes into view as teachers’ ways of narrating to mediate professional and community circumstances. We conclude with a discussion for ongoing research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to WHO, obesity and depression are among the greatest Public Health problems worldwide. Some studies show important association between these diseases that can worsen the prognostic for co-morbidities, reduce compliance with treatment, increase morbidity and mortality, and deteriorate the functional and psychosocial roles of obese people. This paper comes out from a Master thesis research in Family Health, aiming to investigate the perception of depressed obese people about the factors linked with the maintenance of their obesity. This is a qualitative exploratory study in a Family Health Service in Rio de Janeiro city. Sixty-eight obese people were randomly selected, and, among them, 21 showed depression scores, measured by the Beck Depression Inventory. Out of these, 19 were interviewed and the resulting data were analyzed through the content analysis technique. Some of the main categories found were physical suffering, sedentary behavior, emotional suffering, self-image dissatisfaction, inadequate eating behavior, family and social relationships, and the motivation for change. They were grouped in five thematic axes: the perception of one's obesity, the feed behavior, the family environment, the social retraction, and the lack of motivation. Taken together, the perceptions of these people were mapped in a complex net of mutually reinforcing factors associated with the maintenance of the obesity, and this is aggravated by depression. These results could help to conceive new strategies for an integral and specific care of obese people, mostly those who are depressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Smoking is a worldwide public health problem, and various communication strategies aimed at its cessation have been used. The objective of this paper was to explore differences over time of two communication strategies (gain-framed versus loss-framed) in encouraging calls to a Quitline, according to smoker''s degree of dependence. A study was conducted for four weeks among passengers of two selected subway stations in the city of Rio de Janeiro-Brazil (N average =12,500 passengers a day per station). The interventions – large posters with images and text based on central theme “shortness-of-breath” – also contained the Quitline number. Call rate differences between the strategies, overall and specific per study week, were calculated. Light smokers exposed to the positive-content message called on average 2.2 times more often than those exposed to the negative-content message (p <0.001). The absolute difference in call rates decreased after the first week of the study (p for the additive interaction between intervention and study week, 0.02). For heavy smokers, no differences between the two stations were observed. Additive interaction was found between type of smoker – light or heavy – and intervention (p =0.02). The results suggest that short-term positive-content campaigns based on issues pertaining to individuals'' daily routine could be effective in capturing light smokers. These results may have considerable public health impact, as the prevalence of less dependent smokers is much higher than that of heavier smokers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article discusses an innovative experiment in transforming citizen journalism from a general discourse to a specific set of criteria that can be reproduced in classroom settings. Specifically, it discusses how the Rio de Janeiro-based non-governmental organization Viva Rio created a set of classes called Citizen Health Journalism that attempted to train community health workers (titled “health agents”) in the technical and philosophical dimensions of this mode of journalistic production. The classes looked to capitalize on the unique identities of these agents. Recruited from the favelas (or unincorporated urban slums) of Rio to be public health workers within their own communities, these individuals had both the life experiences (as residents) and professional experience (as healthcare workers) to offer unique insights about their communities. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of training materials and participant observation in 2013 at the training courses, I argue that while turning citizen journalism into a curriculum can help make the discourse more accessible to neophytes, it also potentially sacrifices the convictions and attitudes that encourage individuals to act as citizen journalists in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Universitas Psychologica is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A cross-sectional study was designed to assess safe sexual behaviour among heterosexual couples after the woman learned of her partner's infection with HIV. Female partners who had known their partners' serostatus for at least 4 weeks were eligible for participation. Couples were interviewed separately and independent predictors of safe sexual behaviour were identified using multiple logistic regression. Safe sexual behaviour was defined as no unprotected vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse. Of 328 women, 197 (60%) reported safe sexual behaviour since learning of their partners' infection. Significant independent predictors of safe sexual behaviour included older women (>30 years old) (odds ratio [OR]=1.89; 95% confidence intervals [CI]=1.01-3.51), current negative HIV serostatus (OR=2.72; 95% CI=1.50-4.94), advanced clinical stage of the index case (OR=1.96; 95% CI=1.07-3.59), longer duration of relationship (10+ years) (OR= 2.35; 95% CI=1.15-4.82), fewer sex contacts (<100) (OR=2.01; 95% CI=1.14-3.56), only one lifetime partner (OR=2.29; 95% CI=1.26-4.17), non-smoking (OR=2.67; 95% CI=1.43-4.99), not practising oral sex (OR=3.35; 95% CI=1.82-6.19) and previous HIV testing (OR=2.11; 95% CI=1.09-4.07). In addition, women who had known their partner's infection for longer were less likely to report safe sexual behaviour (P < 0.001). Our results indicate that among female partners of HIV-positive Brazilian men, learning of their partner's infection does not uniformly result in safe sexual behaviour. Counselling must emphasize disclosure of serostatus to female partners and target couples with short-term relationships, as well as those where the woman has known about her male partner's infection for a long time, because these are the least likely to maintain safe sexual behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]