Sarah Li

In this article, the authors explored Cantonese-speaking older Chinese migrants knowledge, attitudes and expectations regarding mental illness. They obtained verbatim data from semi-structured interviews with eight participants recruited from London-based Chinese and church communities in Britain. They analyzed the data using the principles of Grounded Theory and in-depth content analysis. They examined cultural idioms in participants' accounts. Findings suggested that Western diagnostic categories of mental illness were alien to participants. They had a culturally constructed way of defining and characterizing mental illness. Participants used idioms of 'nerve', 'mood', 'behavior', 'personality', 'normal life', 'compassion' and the idiom of 'others' to construct an alternative world for stigma management. They erected an invisible but permeable barrier to limit access to their normal world. The role of traditional Chinese ...

The concept of symbiotic niceness illustrates a mutually shared advantage in the nurse–patient relationship. This relationship is premised on the co-production of niceness through the doing of psychosocial care. This paper presents an account of 'symbiotic niceness' produced in ...

DOI: 10.1177/0269216308096905 2008 22: 949 originally published online 17 September 2008 Palliat Med S Li and J Ng descriptive case study ... End-of-life care: nurses' experiences in caring for dying patients with profound learning disabilities ... End-of-life care: nurses' ...

In this article, the authors select two categories of dying patients, "troubled" and "credible," from two larger studies conducted in three palliative care settings. They explore how nurses construct dying patients' moral identities and how they use emotion talk to interpret patients' behavior. The authors carried out a microanalysis of talk-in-action using discourse analysis and conversation analysis. Strategies used for the construction of moral identities include the production of atrocity stories and emotional editing. The authors identify moments when emotions are made relevant in palliative care nurses' daily practices, which serve to smooth social interaction and give a voice to dying patients' words and actions. The dying trajectory, the deteriorating emotional body, and the sound mind are resources used in the characterization of the credible and troubled patient. The authors argue that emotion talk is significant because it reveals how nurses manage conflict and tension in talk-in-interaction.

In this article, the authors select two categories of dying patients, "troubled" and "credible," from two larger studies conducted in three palliative care settings. They explore how nurses construct dying patients' moral identities and how they use emotion talk to interpret patients' behavior. The authors carried out a microanalysis of talk-in-action using discourse analysis and conversation analysis. Strategies used for the construction of moral identities include the production of atrocity stories and emotional editing. The authors identify moments when emotions are made relevant in palliative care nurses' daily practices, which serve to smooth social interaction and give a voice to dying patients' words and actions. The dying trajectory, the deteriorating emotional body, and the sound mind are resources used in the characterization of the credible and troubled patient. The authors argue that emotion talk is significant because it reveals how nurses manage conflict and tension in talk-in-interaction.

This paper presents the findings of a small scale pilot study which explored the educational base and needs of qualified care practitioners in Learning Disability (LD) settings in relation to death, dying and people with learning disabilities. Eighty questionnaires were sent to two NHS Trusts in the South of England. The response rate for the qualified care practitioners from Cherry Blossom (CB) was 100%, whereas for Greengages (GG), the response rate was only 25%. The response from the unqualified care practitioners was disappointingly low, hence we declared them null and void. The analysis of data highlighted major concerns: namely, a lack of consistent policy in the recording of death in residential homes for dying persons with LD; a lack of knowledge, particularly in psychosocial aspects and skills in care of dying persons. The majority of the qualified care practitioners surveyed highlighted the importance of communication with clients and their families. We recommend that communication and interpersonal skills in the care and management of the terminally ill persons with LD be the core component in the nursing curriculum which at present only indicates a trace of it. It is not made explicit that it is essential. This study supports the notion that issues of LD override and obscure physical illness. Our study also highlights ambiguity in the use of concepts and terminology, and demonstrates some limitations in our methodology. We propose that further research, using different methodological approaches, such as Ethnography, Ethnomethodology, or a combination of these, would be appropriate.