Workplace aggression against health care workers,law enforcement officials,and bus drivers: Differences in prevalence,perceptions, and psychological consequences

Investigations into workplace aggression (WPA) remain largely occupation specific, with few studies using a comparative approach. The aim of the present study was to compare the health care, law enforcement, and public transportation sectors with regards to the prevalence of different types of WPA, the perceptions of workers toward WPA, and the psychological consequences of such acts. A cross-sectional survey was completed by 1,774 workers in Canada. Multinomial regressions were utilized to address the objectives. Findings revealed that verbal abuse victimization was particularly common in bus drivers, witnessing death threats was most frequent among law enforcement officials, and witnessing all types of WPA was most common among health care workers. Although bus drivers did not normalize WPA, they feared complaining about violence to their employer and thought it useless to talk it about unless wounds were visible. Fear of complaining about violence to colleagues was prevalent in health care and law enforcement, both sectors in which WPA was normalized. Finally, flashbacks and irritability following WPA were most likely to affect bus drivers whereas health care workers experienced hypervigilance to a greater extent. Strategies to tailor primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention according to these distinctions are suggested to offer a better-informed response to WPA.     

‘I Want to Persuade You!’ – Investigating the effectiveness of explicit persuasion concerning attributes of the communicator and the marketing campaign

In explicit persuasion, the communicator states explicitly a desire to persuade the consumer. By referring to an attributional approach, social engagement was simultaneously explored as a beneficial communicator attribute, while cause-related marketing (CRM) was addressed as a boundary condition. In an experiment, we varied the persuasion strategy (explicit vs. implicit), the communicator’s prior experience with social engagement (yes vs. no), and the specific marketing strategy (CRM vs. non-charity marketing). As expected, in the non-charity marketing condition, explicit (vs. implicit) persuasion was more effective when the communicator had prior experience in social engagement. In the CRM condition, explicit (vs. implicit) persuasion was less effective when the communicator had prior experience in social engagement; when no prior experience was reported, persuasiveness increased.     

Sexual Functioning in Spanish and Portuguese Young Adults: Initial Validation of the Arizona Sexual Experience Scale

Objectives: The authors conducted an initial validation of the Arizona Sexual Experience Scale (ASEX) and examined the sexual function of Spanish and Portuguese young adults. Methods: Participants were 523 Spanish and 595 Portuguese heterosexual young adults who completed a background questionnaire, the ASEX, and measures of sexual sensation seeking, excitation, and inhibition. Results: The ASEX showed good reliability and validity. Participants reported good sexual function. The most prevalent difficulties in men were related to desire and orgasm, and to orgasm and satisfaction in women. Conclusions: This is a psychometrically sound instrument to assess sexual functioning in Spanish and Portuguese young adults.     

Marginal models for the association structure of hierarchical binary responses

Clustered binary responses are often found in ecological studies. Data analysis may include modeling the marginal probability response. However, when the association is the main scientific focus, modeling the correlation structure between pairs of responses is the key part of the analysis. Second-order generalized estimating equations (GEE) are established in the literature. Some of them are more efficient in computational terms, especially facing large clusters. Alternating logistic regression (ALR) and orthogonalized residual (ORTH) GEE methods are presented and compared in this paper. Simulation results show a slightly superiority of ALR over ORTH. Marginal probabilities and odds ratios are also estimated and compared in a real ecological study involving a three-level hierarchical clustering. ALR and ORTH models are useful for modeling complex association structure with large cluster sizes.     

Comparison of the effectiveness of forecasts obtained by means of selected probability functions with respect to forecast error distributions

The forecasting of sales in a company is one of the crucial challenges that must be faced. Nowadays, there is a large spectrum of methods that enable making reliable forecasts. However, sometimes the nature of time series excludes many well-known and widely used forecasting methods (e.g., econometric models). Therefore, the authors decided to forecast on the basis of a seasonally adjusted median of selected probability distributions. The obtained forecasts were verified by means of distributions of the Theil U² coefficient and unbiasedness coefficient.     

Slashed generalized Rayleigh distribution

We introduce a new family of distributions suitable for fitting positive data sets with high kurtosis which is called the Slashed Generalized Rayleigh Distribution. This distribution arises as the quotient of two independent random variables, one being a generalized Rayleigh distribution in the numerator and the other a power of the uniform distribution in the denominator. We present properties and carry out estimation of the model parameters by moment and maximum likelihood (ML) methods. Finally, we conduct a small simulation study to evaluate the performance of ML estimators and analyze real data sets to illustrate the usefulness of the new model.     

Adaptation of the short version of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ-12) into Spanish / Adaptación al español de la versión reducida del Cuestionario de Capital Psicológico (PCQ-12)

Psychological capital (PsyCap) has been a topic of increasing interest in the last decade. However, there is a lack of validated instruments in Spanish to map PsyCap and its consequences for individuals’ well-being. Consequently, the goal of this study is to adapt the 12-item short version of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ-12) to the Spanish context by analysing its internal consistency and reliability, factor solution and external validity. Results indicated that the PCQ-12 exhibited good Cronbach’s alpha (.87) and omega coefficient (.93) values in a sample from a vehicle inspection company (n = 798). As expected, results also revealed that a second-order factor structure provided the best fit. Moreover, PsyCap is associated with increased job engagement (β = .579; R²_adjusted = .333), decreased job burnout (β = ?.409; R²_adjusted = .166), and lower psychological distress (β = ?.349; R²_adjusted = .121) (all p < .01), which provided additional support for using the PCQ-12 in the Spanish context. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Relationship between duration of second stage of labour and postpartum anaemia

Aim

To assess the relationship between the duration of the second stage of labour and postpartum anaemia during vaginal birth.