OBJECTIVE To review the effectiveness of education programs to improve emotional status, daily living and self-efficacy in adults older than 60 years with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHOD Electronic searches of three databases and manual searches of references lists located randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental studies. Health education programs aimed at inc...

Researchers, the Deaf community, teachers of deaf children and speech and language therapists all share a concern about how to improve deaf children’s written language skills. One part of literacy is story writing or narrative. A fi nding from a small number of studies is that children exposed to sign language from early childhood onwards achieve the highest level of bilingualism and become ski...

Using the example of a failed software implementation, we discuss the role of artifacts in shaping organizational routines. We argue that artifact-centered assumptions about design are not well suited to designing organizational routines, which are generative systems that produce recognizable, repetitive patterns of interdependent actions, carried out by multiple actors. Artifact-centered assum...

BACKGROUND Sharing interim data, results or result extrapolations is an important issue that can affect trial integrity. The different ways in which Data Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMBs) share interim results with non-DSMB members and the acceptability of such practices are poorly understood. Our objective was to undertake a narrative review specifically on what kind of interim results, if any,...

How does a particular language influence the way its speakers perceive the world? One of the long-standing critical debates in language studies involves the relationship between language and thought processes. The linguistic relativity hypothesis (Whorf, 1956) claims that speakers of different languages think differently, and that they do so because of the differences in the languages they spea...

BACKGROUND Peer support programmes use individuals with specific experiences to improve engagement and outcomes among new clients. However, the skills and techniques used to achieve this engagement have not been mapped. This potentially restricts the development and replication of successful peer advocate models of care. This study explored how a group of peer advocates with experience of homel...

Medicine is a narrative art based on science. Narrative training, according to Dr Rita Charon, a general internist with a PhD in English, improves clinical skills in medicine. Charon defines narrative medicine as “medicine practised with narrative competence, that is, the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others.”2 As family doctors, we act on the ...

BACKGROUND A significant number of children now enter formal education in England with reduced levels of proficiency in oral language. Children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and who are English language learners (ELL) are at risk of limited oral language skills in English which impacts on later educational achievement. AIMS This paper reports the development of a theoretically motiv...

BACKGROUND Several recent studies have indicated that children with language impairment experience difficulty with various aspects of emotion understanding. Because emotion understanding skills are critical to successful social interaction, it is possible that these deficits play a role in the social problems frequently experienced by children with language difficulties. AIMS To explore furth...