Alison S F Dawson | University of Stirling (original) (raw)
Papers by Alison S F Dawson
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09649069 2012 675468, Mar 1, 2012
To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in En... more To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in England and Scotland potentially inconsistent with the UK's obligations in EU law? The implications of EU law for UK healthcare provision have been tracked by the literature, exploited by litigation (Case C–372/04 Watts [2006] ECR I–4325, BetterCare [2002] CAT 7), and covered
Dementia (London, England), Jan 14, 2016
RemoDem aimed to develop, test and evaluate services for people with dementia in remote areas of ... more RemoDem aimed to develop, test and evaluate services for people with dementia in remote areas of the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Sweden and Scotland. Formative and summative evaluation used a flexible research design including collection of baseline data, interviews and focus groups with key informants and data relating to service users, i.e. people with dementia and their carers. Challenges for service providers included organisational difficulties, lack of clear information about their populations with dementia and lack of knowledge in local communities. Test sites which developed services building on their particular local starting points adopted both specialist and 'off the shelf' technologies and found that these were generally helpful for people with significant support needs. The flexible research design was found to be essential in the real world conditions of the service development and evaluation. Services were more successful where more mature and less experimental ...
BMC geriatrics, Jan 13, 2015
This paper synthesises research evidence about the effectiveness of services intended to support ... more This paper synthesises research evidence about the effectiveness of services intended to support and sustain people with dementia to live at home, including supporting carers. The review was commissioned to support an inspection regime and identifies the current state of scientific knowledge regarding appropriate and effective services in relation to a set of key outcomes derived from Scottish policy, inspection practice and standards. However, emphases on care at home and reduction in the use of institutional long term care are common to many international policy contexts and welfare regimes. Systematic searches of relevant electronic bibliographic databases crossing medical, psychological and social scientific literatures (CINAHL, IngentaConnect, Medline, ProQuest, PsychINFO and Web of Science) in November 2012 were followed by structured review and full-text evaluation processes, the latter using methodology-appropriate quality assessment criteria drawing on established protocols...
Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 2012
To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in En... more To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in England and Scotland potentially inconsistent with the UK's obligations in EU law? The implications of EU law for UK healthcare provision have been tracked by the literature, exploited by litigation (Case C–372/04 Watts [2006] ECR I–4325, BetterCare [2002] CAT 7), and covered
IASSIST …, 2009
This paper discusses the use of metadata, underpinned by DDI (Data Documentation Initiative), to ... more This paper discusses the use of metadata, underpinned by DDI (Data Documentation Initiative), to support social science data management. This term refers broadly to the discovery, preparation and manipulation of social science data for the purposes of research and analysis. Typical tasks include recoding variables within a dataset, and linking data from different sources. A description is given of the
ABSTRACT This study explores aspects of the nature and experience of call centre employment. In 1... more ABSTRACT This study explores aspects of the nature and experience of call centre employment. In 1972 only 42% of UK households had a home-based telephone (BIFU, 1996). By 2000 98% of UK homes had access to either fixed-line or mobile telephone services (Oftel, 2001). The commercial exploitation of this artifact is now being realised through call centres employing sophisticated information and communications technologies. Virtually unheard of a decade ago, UK call centres provided jobs for an estimated 264,000 people in 2001 (Datamonitor, 1999). They have increasingly attracted public and academic attention, much of the latter focused on issues of employee control and surveilance. This study uses analyses of call centre-related newspaper articles, a survey of Scottish recruitment and employment agencies, covert participant observation, and interviews with agency representatives and call centre employees to explore issues such as recruitment and selection, the nature and experience of employment, and employee turnover in call centres. The ethics of using covert methods are discussed. Four main conclusions emerge from the study. First, call centre employment can be differentiated from other occupations on the basis of recruitment and selection practices, employee skils and differences in work environments, performance monitoring and supervision practices and regulation of workplace behaviour. Second, job characteristics may predispose employees to low levels of job-related well-being and burnout. Third, levels of employee turnover may be linked to occupational novelty and the availability of pre-employment realistic job information. Fourth, automated systems are beginning to replace routine, repetitive, low value tasks, resulting in changes in the nature of call centre employment. Those jobs that remain seem likely to be more demanding with complex tasks and an emphasis on quality rather than quantity of interactions. The implications of the study's findings and conclusions for future research and for call centre employers and their employees are considered.
University of Stirling was commissioned by the Scottish Government to carry out research into the... more University of Stirling was commissioned by the Scottish Government to carry out research into the Named Person role and to consider its interaction with other forms of patient representation under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 (MHSA) as part of its research programme into the operation of the new Act. The study explored the Named Person role from the perspective of a range of stakeholders and made recommendations for the development of patient representation. The research was conducted from August 2007 to July 2008 and used quantitative and qualitative methods. Main Findings I The majority of Named Persons were default, comprising mainly carers and/or nearest relatives. Default Named Persons were seen as less active within the role. Named Persons were involved at the point of orders being made but were less so on an ongoing basis. I The reasons for the high level of default Named Persons included a general lack of knowledge, information overload at a poi...
The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2014
Studies have rarely explored suicides completed following discharge from both general and psychia... more Studies have rarely explored suicides completed following discharge from both general and psychiatric hospital settings. Such research might identify additional opportunities for intervention. To identify and summarise Scottish psychiatric and general hospital records for individuals who have died by suicide. A linked data study of deaths by suicide, aged ≥15 years from 1981 to 2010. This study reports on a UK data-set of individuals who died by suicide (n = 16 411), of whom 66% (n = 10 907) had linkable previous hospital records. Those who died by suicide were 3.1 times more frequently last discharged from general than from psychiatric hospitals; 24% of deaths occurred within 3 months of hospital discharge (58% of these from a general hospital). Only 14% of those discharged from a general hospital had a recorded psychiatric diagnosis at last visit; an additional 19% were found to have a previous lifetime psychiatric diagnosis. Median time between last discharge and death was fourfold greater in those without a psychiatric history. Diagnoses also revealed that less than half of those last discharged from general hospital had had a main diagnosis of 'injury or poisoning'. Suicide prevention activity, including a better psychiatric evaluation of patients within general hospital settings deserves more attention. Improved information flow between secondary and primary care could be facilitated by exploiting electronic records of previous psychiatric diagnoses.
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2010
Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2010 ... Business incubators:... more Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2010 ... Business incubators: new mechanism for economic/enterprise development or passing fad? Exploring complex relationship of the growing phenomenon in the context of Scotland
... Probabilistic record linkage methodologies have similarly been developed and refined over an ... more ... Probabilistic record linkage methodologies have similarly been developed and refined over an extended period (Eg Fellegi and Sunter 1969; Kendrick and Clarke 1993). ... Kendrick, SW and Clarke, JA (1993): 'The Scottish record linkage system', Health Bulletin (Edinburgh), Vol. ...
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development
There is a great deal of interest in Europe and the USA on the commercialization of university sc... more There is a great deal of interest in Europe and the USA on the commercialization of university science, particularly the creation of spinout companies from the science base. Despite considerable research on academic entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship in general, and the ...
Social Policy and Society
ABSTRACT The URL addresses listed here access websites holding an array of electronic resources r... more ABSTRACT The URL addresses listed here access websites holding an array of electronic resources relevant to the understanding of harm, abuse, agency and resilience across the lifespan. Many websites include links to additional reports, research papers, reviews and other sources of information. Due to the breadth of subject area and limitations on available space, the websites should be regarded as an indicative sample rather than an exhaustive list of relevant information currently available on the internet. Only English language sites have been included. All website addresses were available on 31 July 2009.
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences
Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2014
cardiovascular disease have highlighted its role in this system. We investigated a relation of Pu... more cardiovascular disease have highlighted its role in this system. We investigated a relation of Pulse Pressure with 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) in a population of elderly subjects with diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. We studied the relationship between arterial stiffness and 25(OH)D assessed by pulse pressure in 122 (F 77% age 78,8+ 5,21 years) consecutive elderly patients attending our Memory Clinics with diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. In our population hypovitaminosis D was present in 100%; 96 patients (78,7%) had 25(OH)D serum levels inferior to 20 ng/ml; 26 (21,3%) patients between 20 and 30 ng/ml. In our study we find that pulse pressure is inversely correlated with 25 (OH)D , r¼ -0,553, P¼0,000). After adjustment for age, gender, systolic blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and antihypertensive therapy, a significant relationship was observed between pulse pressure and 25(OH) (b¼ -0,524; p¼0,000). Our results showed a relationship between Pulse Pressure and 25(OH) D suggesting that 25(OH) D could be involved in the onset of arterial remodelling. Certainly our results need confirmation with prospective studies, but this study could open the way to perform other investigations to better explore the correlation between arterial stiffness and vitamin D. Figure 1. Pulse Pressure and 25 OH-Vitamin D
This report examines the operation of the free personal care policy in Scotland, and considers it... more This report examines the operation of the free personal care policy in Scotland, and considers its impact, problems and limitations.
Social Policy and Society, 2007
ABSTRACT The websites listed here provide electronic resources relevant to different aspects of t... more ABSTRACT The websites listed here provide electronic resources relevant to different aspects of the costs of long-term care. Many include links to additional reports, research papers, reviews and other sources of information. They should be regarded as a representative sample rather than an exhaustive list of relevant information currently available on the Internet. Only English language sites have been included. All website addresses were available on 30 March 2007.
Information, Communication & Society, 2012
Lifestyle monitoring systems, intelligent proactive systems incorporating passive monitoring capa... more Lifestyle monitoring systems, intelligent proactive systems incorporating passive monitoring capabilities and allowing contemporaneous remote access to data, promise potential benefits to service providers, service users and their carers and families, and those engaged in ageing research. Research to date has focused primarily on technical issues, generally at the expense of detailed consideration of the ethical issues raised by these systems. The paper identifies ethical issues and questions around surveillance and the passivity of monitoring; informed consent; working with people who are cognitively impaired; and using and linking lifestyle monitoring data. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of all parties exploring and discussing the tradeoff between potential benefits to multiple stakeholder groups and actual costs to the individual.
BMC Geriatrics, 2013
Background: This scoping study aimed to identify how physical activity may benefit people with de... more Background: This scoping study aimed to identify how physical activity may benefit people with dementia; how and/or if current service provide these benefits; and what support they need to do so.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09649069 2012 675468, Mar 1, 2012
To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in En... more To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in England and Scotland potentially inconsistent with the UK's obligations in EU law? The implications of EU law for UK healthcare provision have been tracked by the literature, exploited by litigation (Case C–372/04 Watts [2006] ECR I–4325, BetterCare [2002] CAT 7), and covered
Dementia (London, England), Jan 14, 2016
RemoDem aimed to develop, test and evaluate services for people with dementia in remote areas of ... more RemoDem aimed to develop, test and evaluate services for people with dementia in remote areas of the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Sweden and Scotland. Formative and summative evaluation used a flexible research design including collection of baseline data, interviews and focus groups with key informants and data relating to service users, i.e. people with dementia and their carers. Challenges for service providers included organisational difficulties, lack of clear information about their populations with dementia and lack of knowledge in local communities. Test sites which developed services building on their particular local starting points adopted both specialist and 'off the shelf' technologies and found that these were generally helpful for people with significant support needs. The flexible research design was found to be essential in the real world conditions of the service development and evaluation. Services were more successful where more mature and less experimental ...
BMC geriatrics, Jan 13, 2015
This paper synthesises research evidence about the effectiveness of services intended to support ... more This paper synthesises research evidence about the effectiveness of services intended to support and sustain people with dementia to live at home, including supporting carers. The review was commissioned to support an inspection regime and identifies the current state of scientific knowledge regarding appropriate and effective services in relation to a set of key outcomes derived from Scottish policy, inspection practice and standards. However, emphases on care at home and reduction in the use of institutional long term care are common to many international policy contexts and welfare regimes. Systematic searches of relevant electronic bibliographic databases crossing medical, psychological and social scientific literatures (CINAHL, IngentaConnect, Medline, ProQuest, PsychINFO and Web of Science) in November 2012 were followed by structured review and full-text evaluation processes, the latter using methodology-appropriate quality assessment criteria drawing on established protocols...
Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 2012
To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in En... more To what extent, if at all, is the current legal position on long-term care for older people in England and Scotland potentially inconsistent with the UK's obligations in EU law? The implications of EU law for UK healthcare provision have been tracked by the literature, exploited by litigation (Case C–372/04 Watts [2006] ECR I–4325, BetterCare [2002] CAT 7), and covered
IASSIST …, 2009
This paper discusses the use of metadata, underpinned by DDI (Data Documentation Initiative), to ... more This paper discusses the use of metadata, underpinned by DDI (Data Documentation Initiative), to support social science data management. This term refers broadly to the discovery, preparation and manipulation of social science data for the purposes of research and analysis. Typical tasks include recoding variables within a dataset, and linking data from different sources. A description is given of the
ABSTRACT This study explores aspects of the nature and experience of call centre employment. In 1... more ABSTRACT This study explores aspects of the nature and experience of call centre employment. In 1972 only 42% of UK households had a home-based telephone (BIFU, 1996). By 2000 98% of UK homes had access to either fixed-line or mobile telephone services (Oftel, 2001). The commercial exploitation of this artifact is now being realised through call centres employing sophisticated information and communications technologies. Virtually unheard of a decade ago, UK call centres provided jobs for an estimated 264,000 people in 2001 (Datamonitor, 1999). They have increasingly attracted public and academic attention, much of the latter focused on issues of employee control and surveilance. This study uses analyses of call centre-related newspaper articles, a survey of Scottish recruitment and employment agencies, covert participant observation, and interviews with agency representatives and call centre employees to explore issues such as recruitment and selection, the nature and experience of employment, and employee turnover in call centres. The ethics of using covert methods are discussed. Four main conclusions emerge from the study. First, call centre employment can be differentiated from other occupations on the basis of recruitment and selection practices, employee skils and differences in work environments, performance monitoring and supervision practices and regulation of workplace behaviour. Second, job characteristics may predispose employees to low levels of job-related well-being and burnout. Third, levels of employee turnover may be linked to occupational novelty and the availability of pre-employment realistic job information. Fourth, automated systems are beginning to replace routine, repetitive, low value tasks, resulting in changes in the nature of call centre employment. Those jobs that remain seem likely to be more demanding with complex tasks and an emphasis on quality rather than quantity of interactions. The implications of the study's findings and conclusions for future research and for call centre employers and their employees are considered.
University of Stirling was commissioned by the Scottish Government to carry out research into the... more University of Stirling was commissioned by the Scottish Government to carry out research into the Named Person role and to consider its interaction with other forms of patient representation under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 (MHSA) as part of its research programme into the operation of the new Act. The study explored the Named Person role from the perspective of a range of stakeholders and made recommendations for the development of patient representation. The research was conducted from August 2007 to July 2008 and used quantitative and qualitative methods. Main Findings I The majority of Named Persons were default, comprising mainly carers and/or nearest relatives. Default Named Persons were seen as less active within the role. Named Persons were involved at the point of orders being made but were less so on an ongoing basis. I The reasons for the high level of default Named Persons included a general lack of knowledge, information overload at a poi...
The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2014
Studies have rarely explored suicides completed following discharge from both general and psychia... more Studies have rarely explored suicides completed following discharge from both general and psychiatric hospital settings. Such research might identify additional opportunities for intervention. To identify and summarise Scottish psychiatric and general hospital records for individuals who have died by suicide. A linked data study of deaths by suicide, aged ≥15 years from 1981 to 2010. This study reports on a UK data-set of individuals who died by suicide (n = 16 411), of whom 66% (n = 10 907) had linkable previous hospital records. Those who died by suicide were 3.1 times more frequently last discharged from general than from psychiatric hospitals; 24% of deaths occurred within 3 months of hospital discharge (58% of these from a general hospital). Only 14% of those discharged from a general hospital had a recorded psychiatric diagnosis at last visit; an additional 19% were found to have a previous lifetime psychiatric diagnosis. Median time between last discharge and death was fourfold greater in those without a psychiatric history. Diagnoses also revealed that less than half of those last discharged from general hospital had had a main diagnosis of 'injury or poisoning'. Suicide prevention activity, including a better psychiatric evaluation of patients within general hospital settings deserves more attention. Improved information flow between secondary and primary care could be facilitated by exploiting electronic records of previous psychiatric diagnoses.
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2010
Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2010 ... Business incubators:... more Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2010 ... Business incubators: new mechanism for economic/enterprise development or passing fad? Exploring complex relationship of the growing phenomenon in the context of Scotland
... Probabilistic record linkage methodologies have similarly been developed and refined over an ... more ... Probabilistic record linkage methodologies have similarly been developed and refined over an extended period (Eg Fellegi and Sunter 1969; Kendrick and Clarke 1993). ... Kendrick, SW and Clarke, JA (1993): 'The Scottish record linkage system', Health Bulletin (Edinburgh), Vol. ...
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development
There is a great deal of interest in Europe and the USA on the commercialization of university sc... more There is a great deal of interest in Europe and the USA on the commercialization of university science, particularly the creation of spinout companies from the science base. Despite considerable research on academic entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship in general, and the ...
Social Policy and Society
ABSTRACT The URL addresses listed here access websites holding an array of electronic resources r... more ABSTRACT The URL addresses listed here access websites holding an array of electronic resources relevant to the understanding of harm, abuse, agency and resilience across the lifespan. Many websites include links to additional reports, research papers, reviews and other sources of information. Due to the breadth of subject area and limitations on available space, the websites should be regarded as an indicative sample rather than an exhaustive list of relevant information currently available on the internet. Only English language sites have been included. All website addresses were available on 31 July 2009.
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences
Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2014
cardiovascular disease have highlighted its role in this system. We investigated a relation of Pu... more cardiovascular disease have highlighted its role in this system. We investigated a relation of Pulse Pressure with 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) in a population of elderly subjects with diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. We studied the relationship between arterial stiffness and 25(OH)D assessed by pulse pressure in 122 (F 77% age 78,8+ 5,21 years) consecutive elderly patients attending our Memory Clinics with diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. In our population hypovitaminosis D was present in 100%; 96 patients (78,7%) had 25(OH)D serum levels inferior to 20 ng/ml; 26 (21,3%) patients between 20 and 30 ng/ml. In our study we find that pulse pressure is inversely correlated with 25 (OH)D , r¼ -0,553, P¼0,000). After adjustment for age, gender, systolic blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and antihypertensive therapy, a significant relationship was observed between pulse pressure and 25(OH) (b¼ -0,524; p¼0,000). Our results showed a relationship between Pulse Pressure and 25(OH) D suggesting that 25(OH) D could be involved in the onset of arterial remodelling. Certainly our results need confirmation with prospective studies, but this study could open the way to perform other investigations to better explore the correlation between arterial stiffness and vitamin D. Figure 1. Pulse Pressure and 25 OH-Vitamin D
This report examines the operation of the free personal care policy in Scotland, and considers it... more This report examines the operation of the free personal care policy in Scotland, and considers its impact, problems and limitations.
Social Policy and Society, 2007
ABSTRACT The websites listed here provide electronic resources relevant to different aspects of t... more ABSTRACT The websites listed here provide electronic resources relevant to different aspects of the costs of long-term care. Many include links to additional reports, research papers, reviews and other sources of information. They should be regarded as a representative sample rather than an exhaustive list of relevant information currently available on the Internet. Only English language sites have been included. All website addresses were available on 30 March 2007.
Information, Communication & Society, 2012
Lifestyle monitoring systems, intelligent proactive systems incorporating passive monitoring capa... more Lifestyle monitoring systems, intelligent proactive systems incorporating passive monitoring capabilities and allowing contemporaneous remote access to data, promise potential benefits to service providers, service users and their carers and families, and those engaged in ageing research. Research to date has focused primarily on technical issues, generally at the expense of detailed consideration of the ethical issues raised by these systems. The paper identifies ethical issues and questions around surveillance and the passivity of monitoring; informed consent; working with people who are cognitively impaired; and using and linking lifestyle monitoring data. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of all parties exploring and discussing the tradeoff between potential benefits to multiple stakeholder groups and actual costs to the individual.
BMC Geriatrics, 2013
Background: This scoping study aimed to identify how physical activity may benefit people with de... more Background: This scoping study aimed to identify how physical activity may benefit people with dementia; how and/or if current service provide these benefits; and what support they need to do so.