Bagshaw S

Association Between Availability and Quality of Health Services in Schools and Reproductive Health Outcomes Among Students: A Multilevel Observational Study

OBJECTIVES We determined the association between availability and quality of school health services and reproductive health outcomes among sexually active students. METHODS We used a 2-stage random sampling cluster design to collect nationally representative data from 9107 students from 96 New Zealand high schools. Students self-reported whether they were sexually active, how often they used condoms or contraception, and their involvement in pregnancy. School administrators completed questionnaires on their school-based health services, including doctor and nursing hours per week, team-based services, and health screening. We conducted analyses using multilevel models controlling for individual variables, with schools treated as random effects. RESULTS There was an inverse association between hours of nursing and doctor time and pregnancy involvement among sexually active students, with fewer pregnancies among students in schools with more than 10 hours of nursing and doctor time per 100 students. There was no association between doctor visits, team-based services, health screening, and reproductive health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS School health services are associated with fewer pregnancies among students, but only when the availability of doctor and nursing time exceeds 10 hours per 100 students per week.

Postdisaster Counselling: Personal, Professional, and Ethical Issues

ABSTRACT Volunteer counsellors face particular challenges in postdisaster interventions. This research investigates personal, professional, and ethical issues faced by mental health volunteer counsellors recruited to a counselling service that emerged following the 2011 earthquakes in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. Earthquakes create major community disruption that can overwhelm existing service systems and require new agency arrangements and increased use of volunteers to manage and provide services. The disaster exposed counsellors to personal challenges in their own lives as well as those of their clients and significantly affected their professional practice. The findings indicate that emergency organisations and professional registration bodies should give further consideration to the management of volunteers and their early intervention work in postdisaster counselling. IMPLICATIONS Delivery of postdisaster services must encompass service management, targeted interventions, and supervision. When counsellors and clients experience the same disaster personal, professional, and ethical aspects are intertwined. Counsellors need self-care and support to manage these events. Further arrangements could be made to ensure professional insurance is available for volunteer counsellors postdisaster.

Prescribing Medicines to Adolescent Women

This chapter will cover some information about young people’s development, how that affects the ability to consent to treatment, how that can be judged, and how it affects the ethics of prescribing. Following this, the practical applications of prescribing to adolescent women will be discussed using two key examples: contraceptive products and treatments for mental health disorders, specifically depression.