Louise Munro

Assessing occupational stress in psychiatric nurses using the full job strain model: the value of social support to nurses

The present research examined the effects of occupational stress in psychiatric nursing on employee well-being using the full Job Strain Model. The Job Strain Model was assessed for its ability to predict employee well-being in terms of job satisfaction and mental health. The original Job Strain Model was expanded to include social support based on previous research concerning the impact of social support on well-being. In the present study, both work support and non-work were assessed for their contribution to well-being. The results of this study indicate that the full Job Strain Model can be used to significantly predict job satisfaction and mental health in this sample of Australian psychiatric nurses. Furthermore, social support was shown to be an important component of the Job Strain Model.

Exploring the Potential of Constructionist Therapy: Deaf Clients, Hearing Therapists and a Reflecting Team

This article explores the use of constructionist therapy with a reflecting team of hearing therapists seeing deaf clients. Using findings from two in-depth interviews, postsession reflections and a review of the literature, we propose that this model has the potential to cater to the diversity of the lived experiences of deaf people and also to address issues of power and tensions between medical, social, and cultural models of deafness. The interviews found there was real value in sharing multiple perspectives between the reflecting team of hearing therapists and these deaf clients. In addition, the clients reported feeling safe and comfortable with this model of counseling. Other information that emerged from the interviews supports previous findings regarding consistency in interpreting and the importance of hearing therapists having an understanding of the distinctions between Deaf and hearing worlds. As the first investigation of its kind in Australia, this article provides a map for therapists to incorporate reflecting teams with interpreters, deaf clients, and hearing therapists. The value of this article also lies in providing a much needed platform for future research into counseling outcomes and the efficacy of this constructionist model of therapy.

Validation of an Australian Sign Language Instrument of Outcome Measurement for Adults in Mental Health Settings

Objective: There are currently no adult mental health outcome measures that have been translated into Australian sign language (Auslan). Without a valid and reliable Auslan outcome measure, empirical research into the efficacy of mental health interventions for sign language users is unattainable. To address this research problem the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS), a measure of general functioning, was translated into Auslan and recorded on to digital video disk for use in clinical settings. The purpose of the present study was therefore to examine the reliability, validity and acceptability of an Auslan version of the ORS (ORS-Auslan). Method: The ORS-Auslan was administered to 44 deaf people who use Auslan as their first language and who identify as members of a deaf community (termed ‘Deaf’ people) on their first presentation to a mental health or counselling facility and to 55 Deaf people in the general community. The community sample also completed an Auslan version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). Results: t-Tests indicated significant differences between the mean scores for the clinical and community sample. Internal consistency was acceptable given the low number of items in the ORS-Auslan. Construct validity was established by significant correlations between total scores on the DASS-21-Auslan and ORS-Auslan. Acceptability of ORS-Auslan was evident in the completion rate of 93% compared with 63% for DASS-21-Auslan. Conclusions: This is the only Auslan outcome measure available that can be used across a wide variety of mental health and clinical settings. The ORS-Auslan provides mental health clinicians with a reliable and valid, brief measure of general functioning that can significantly distinguish between clinical and non-clinical presentations for members of the Deaf community.

Creating Deaf-Friendly Spaces for Research: Innovating Online Qualitative Enquiries

In this article, we provide a reflexive account of the first author’s experience of designing and using an inclusive online forum to conduct research with people living in Australia with deafness or hearing loss. We reflect on the personal, institutional, pragmatic, and ontological influences on the project and how we managed these influences when they conflicted. In recounting this experience, we highlight the productive and restrictive aspects of doing research with deaf Australians in a university context and online. In addition to being a financially and time-effective method, the use of an online forum facilitated the recruitment of a geographically diverse sample of participants and enabled us to accommodate a range of linguistic preferences. However, as English is the dominant language in a Western context, analysing and publishing visual spatial languages in academia remains problematic, particularly in relation to the availability of expertise and issues regarding protecting anonymity.

An exploration of how health care professionals understand experiences of deafness

Abstract Findings from recent deaf education intervention programmes with health care professionals emphasise the importance of sociocultural dimensions of medicine, pointing to the need to further investigate health professionals’ current understandings of deafness. Situated within a social constructionist and critical realist framework, we investigated health professionals’ understandings of deafness and experiences of providing health services in Australia to d/Deaf people. Through an inductive thematic analysis of 18 individual interviews with medical or allied health professionals, we identified an overarching theme we labelled hearingness as privileged, whereby professionals accounted for the quality of the health services available to d/Deaf people in Australia. The professionals recognised the services as not good enough and, through relating their efforts to do the best they can, and describing how the situation could always be better, it was evident that the professionals were negotiating a larger health system that disadvantages the needs of d/Deaf people for the needs of people with hearingness. We discuss the implications of working within a system that privileges hearingness.

A Discourse of "Abnormality": Exploring Discussions of People Living in Australia With Deafness or Hearing Loss

Adopting a social constructionist framework, the authors conducted a synthetic discourse analysis to explore how people living in Australia with deafness construct their experience of deafness. An online forum facilitated access and communication between the lead author and 24 widely dispersed and linguistically diverse forum contributors. The authors discuss the productive and restrictive effects of the emergent discourse of deafness as abnormal and the rhetorical strategies mobilized in people’s accounts: fitting in, acceptance as permission to be different, and the need to prove normality. Using these strategies was productive in that the forum respondents were enabled to reposition deafness as a positive, socially valued identity position. However, the need to manage deafness was reproduced as an individual concern, disallowing any exploration of how deafness could be reconstructed as socially valued. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the deafness as abnormal discourse.

Minoritized Populations and Outsiders: Online Forums and Qualitative Enquiries With d/Deaf People

In this case study, we explore the challenges of being an outsider doing research with minoritized populations, specifically people who are d/Deaf. This case study is based on a collaboration between the three authors and formed Danielle Ferndale’s PhD research. We start by contextualizing the project, outlining some of the pragmatic issues that commonly define d/Deaf research. In what follows, we explain our decisions around designing and collecting data through an inclusive online forum.