Predicting job loss in those off sick.

BACKGROUND: Evidence shows incapacity benefit claimants (those off sick >26 weeks) are at greatest risk of long-term job loss. AIM: To develop a screening tool to select those at risk of job loss, defined as failure to return to work among those off sick. The screening tool was for use in the Job Retention and Rehabilitation Pilot of the Department for Work and Pensions. METHODS: A literature review identified risks for long-term incapacity and job loss as multifactorial. Potential predictors for return to work were then assembled into a set of questions and tested by a prospective study in general practice surgeries and a retrospective study of occupational health records of local authority employees referred for sickness absence management, using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Univariate logistic regression analysis of the retrospective study produced odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals for each question (where P

Pro-anorexia, weight-loss drugs and the internet: an "anti-recovery" explanatory model of anorexia.

This paper explores the online "pro-anorexia" underground, a movement that supports those with anorexia and adopts an "anti-recovery" perspective on the disease. While encouraging a "healthy" diet to sustain an anorexic way-of-life, the movement also recommends the radical use of weight-loss pharmaceuticals to pursue and maintain low body weight, in contrast to their conventional use to treat obesity. Using ethnographic and interview data collected from participants in the "Anagrrl" website and online forum, we analyse the pro-anorexia (or "pro-ana") movement in terms of its underlying "explanatory model" of the disease, and contrast it with medical, psychosocial, sociocultural and feminist models that encourage a "normalisation" of body shape and weight. We suggest that for participants in pro-ana, anorexia represents stability and control, and Anagrrl offers support and guidance for those who wish to remain in this "sanctuary". We discuss the pro-anorexia movement's use of the internet to facilitate resistance to medical and social theories of disease, and its subversion of pharmaceutical technologies.

The birth of the e-clinic. Continuity or transformation in the UK governance of pharmaceutical consumption?

Traditional arrangements for the prescription and dispensing of pharmaceuticals have been challenged by the rise of Internet services enabling consumers to acquire these products online, without a face-to-face contact with a professional. This paper considers three moments in the emergence of the 'e-clinic' as an alternative route to prescription drugs in the United Kingdom: the electronic transfer of prescriptions; the development of the e-pharmacy and the 'virtual' pharmacist, and the establishment of online virtue medicine consultations. We examine the phenomenon in relation to issues of governance, considering the legal and voluntary frameworks that govern prescribing. Documentary and interview data suggest that the Internet has the potential to transform the relations between prescribers, dispensers and consumers, but that stakeholders seek continuity by applying existing governance frameworks and codes of conduct. This continuity can be explained by Rosenau's (Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997) model of a contested and fragmenting process of technology governance.