Maria Eduarda Duarte

Anaemia in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease - A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Anaemia is the most common complication in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This study aims to assess the prevalence of anaemia in IBD patients and to know its characteristics with regard to the main IBD clinical features. Methods: An observational cross-sectional multicentre study was conducted. We included all patients who had an appointment at the 15 participating centres during the period of 1 month, and who met the following selection criteria: age ≥18, diagnosis of IBD. Disease activity was evaluated by Harvey-Bradshaw Index (HBI) for Crohns disease (CD), and by Simple Clinical Colitis Activity Index (SCCAI) for ulcerative colitis (UC). Results: One thousand three hundred and thirteen patients, were included: 54.8% female, mean age 42.8 (interquartile range (25th-75th): 31-53 years), 59% had a diagnosis of CD, 39% of UC and 2% IBD unclassified. The median follow-up since diagnosis was 7 years. The ongoing treatment was aminosalicylates (63.1%), corticosteroids (11.6%), immunomodulators (36.4%) and anti-tumour necrosis factor (27.3%). Anaemia was identified in 244 patients, representing a prevalence of 18.6% (95% CI 16.6-20.9). A majority of cases (90%) have mild/moderate anaemia (mean haemoglobin 11.3 ± 0.8 g/dl). Anaemia was significantly higher in females (p = 0.006), but there were no differences between CDs (19.1%) and UCs (17.7%; p = 0.688). Anaemia was more frequent in patients with active disease (HBI >4; SCCAI >2) than in those in clinical remission (33.6 vs. 15.6%, p < 0.001) and in patients on steroids (36.8%) vs. other treatments (p < 0.001). Only 47% of patients with anaemia were under any specific treatment (oral iron 67%; intravenous iron 41%). Conclusion: Anaemia was more frequent in patients with active disease and in those on corticosteroids. The treatment of anaemia still seems undervalued, whereas more than half of anaemic patients were not receiving any specific treatment and the use of oral iron prevails contrarily to current recommendations.

A new approach to talent management in law firms : Integrating performance appraisal and assessment center data

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach to talent management that consists of averaging performance appraisal and assessment center ratings for in-depth identification of lawyers’ talents. Design/methodology/approach - – The approach’s adjustment was examined using a 61 senior-lawyer sample from a Portuguese law firm. Comparisons between assessment center and performance appraisal ratings were analyzed using paired-sample Findings - – Results suggest support for the assessment center’s predictive validity. Its lower and more variable ratings overcome performance appraisal rating bias. Adjustment of the new approach to lawyers’ overall talent identification (the general factor) and each lawyer’s relative talents (three broad factors) was observed. Research limitations/implications - – This study contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the substantive existence of a general performance factor, and adds to empirical research concerning talent management, which is lacking. However, generalizability requires broader samples and replication. Practical implications - – The approach is a methodology that informs career management, high-flyers’ identification, talent mapping, development, succession planning, team composition, and diversity analysis. For lawyers, objective feedback allows benchmarking talent and managing one’s career. Originality/value - – This study pioneers empirical research that develops methods for identifying talent in law firms, vital for firm sustainability.

Life Design Counseling Group Intervention With Portuguese Adolescents: A Process and Outcome Study

This article examines the process and outcome of a life design counseling group intervention with students in Grades 9 and 12. First, we applied a quasi-experimental methodology to analyze the intervention’s effectiveness in promoting career certainty, career decision-making, self-efficacy, and career adaptability in a sample of 236 students. Second, focus groups comprising 33 participants were conducted, examining participants’ perceptions of the intervention process and outcome. Our findings showed that the intervention had a significant effect on both career certainty and career self-efficacy, but it had no effect on career adaptability. Our results also showed that My Career Story (MCS) had a stronger effect on Grade 12 students. Focus group participants reported on the usefulness of MCS, as well as on its benefits, which include increased information as well as a sense of direction, self-discovery, connection, and increased self-awareness. Grade 9 participants expressed more difficulties in narrating self-experience than Grade 12 participants did. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Da orientação profissional à psicologia da carreira: novos desafios

This article analises the most important historical and conceptual evolutions of guidance. Some methodological issues and the direct implications in counseling, intervention and career assessment are discussed, both in educational and occupational settings. The importance, nowadays, of career guidance are also analyzed. The new challenges that the specialist in the field of career guidance have to face are discussed.

Counselling and well-being: on the road to realities

ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss the rationale and some guiding principles for the realm of counselling in the fostering of well-being. After some brief observations of a theoretical nature, the principles analysed are: the revitalisation of counselling; the reflection on the concept of dialogue, including the notion of context; the perspective of counselling as social activity; understanding counselling and how it adjusts on the road to realities. From this perspective, practitioners view counselling as a social activity aimed at self-construction and life designing. In following that view, the idea of counselling as being socially produced is also examined. At the end, some considerations on the future of counselling are discussed.

Early Career Construction for Brazilian Higher Education Graduates: Trajectories and Working-Life Projects

University-to-work transitions are the starting point of this chapter. After some theoretical considerations, a research project within the Brazilian context of the early years of graduates’ careers is discussed. The first section of this chapter looks to draw attention to school-to-work transitions processes, with particular consideration given to social constructionism and its epistemological basis inspired in life design paradigm. Transitions are understood as an ongoing and unpredictable process, being present throughout the students’ training and throughout their career, not a right moment, after completing the college course, as traditionally framed. The second section is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of a research undertaken with 25 egresses from a Brazilian public university through a qualitative approach based on grounded theory. The main findings highlighted that experiences during graduation and different labor market settings according to the chosen profession generate diversified ways for entry into the labor market for each course, which tends to lead to different processes of career construction. Thus, the first steps of contemporary career construction have articulated more traditional strategies (e.g., the seeking of public employment and lifelong learning, as ways of career advancement), with more contemporary strategies (e.g., working in multiple jobs, apprenticeship in the workplace, online education, or the seeking of training outside of the educational institutions), which allowed the understanding that career construction nowadays is defined as a person’s co-construction process with the context. Conclusions draw to a close, summarising the most useful and practical suggestions which have been presented.

Career Adaptability, Employability, and Career Resilience in Managing Transitions

School-to-work transitions, in the sense of being processes that take place over a period of time and which involve both personal meaning and social issues (e.g. contextual factors), are what mark the starting point of this chapter. This chapter is essentially divided into three blocks, although the three follow the same structure. The first block is shaped around career adaptability, offering an overview of the concept and its historical perspective. The second block deals with employability. The most common definitions of this construct are first presented, along with a brief historical contextualisation of its role in career studies, followed by a selective review of existing research into employability. The third and final block looks at resilience. By looking at the notion of a career as an action, rather than a structure, we characterise the concept of career resilience as pertaining to the overarching framework designed to understand the process of self-directed career management, particularly when viewed as one of the components of the multidimensional concept of career motivation. Conclusions draw this chapter to a close, summarising the most useful and important suggestions which have been presented.