The effect on ambulatory blood pressure of working under favourably and unfavourably perceived supervisors.

AIMS: To investigate the role played by employees' perceptions of their supervisors' interactional styles as a possible source of workplace stress that may be associated with increased morbidity and mortality rates from cardiovascular disorders in workers in the lower strata of organisational hierarchies. METHODS: A controlled, quasi-experimental, field study of female healthcare assistants. Allocation to the experimental and control groups was based on participants' responses to a supervisor interactional style questionnaire. Experimental participants (n = 13) reported working under two divergently perceived supervisors at the same workplace, on different days. The control group (n = 15) worked either under one supervisor, or two similarly perceived supervisors. Ambulatory blood pressure was recorded every 30 minutes, over a 12 hour period for three days. RESULTS: The control group showed a 3 mm Hg difference in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and a non-significant difference in diastolic blood pressure (DBP; mean difference 1 mm Hg) between the two supervisor conditions. The experimental group showed significantly higher SBP (15 mm Hg) and DBP (7 mm Hg) when working under a less favoured compared to a favoured supervisor. The degree of divergence in perceptions of supervisors shows a significant positive relation with the difference in blood pressure between the two workdays. Divergence in perceptions of interpersonal fairness is the strongest predictor of difference in blood pressure. CONCLUSION: An unfavourably perceived supervisor is a potent workplace stressor, which might have a clinically significant impact on supervisees' cardiovascular functioning.

Do cosmetics enhance female Caucasian facial attractiveness?

This study sought to investigate whether cosmetics do improve female facial attractiveness, and to determine whether the contribution of different cosmetic products are separable, or whether they function synergistically to enhance female beauty. Ten volunteers were made up by a beautician under five cosmetics conditions: (i) no make-up; (ii) foundation only; (iii) eye make-up only; (iv) lip make-up only; and (v) full facial make-up. Male and female participants were asked to view the 10 sets of five photographs, and rank each set from most attractive to least attractive. As predicted, faces with full make-up were judged more attractive than the same faces with no make-up. Sex differences within the results were also apparent. Women judged eye make-up as contributing most to the attractiveness. Men rated eye make-up and foundation as having a significant impact on the attractiveness of a full facial makeover. Surprisingly, lipstick did not appear to contribute to attractiveness independently.

The use of questioning strategies by clinical teachers.

By using questioning and other appropriate teaching strategies, clinical teachers can facilitate the development of critical thinking, decision making and problem solving in students. This study examined clinical teachers' use of questioning and the variations in their use of questioning as a teaching strategy. Although there was a variation in the number of questions asked, predominantly low level questions were asked by 26 clinical teachers at two post-clinical conferences. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that clinical teachers are taught how to ask questions, particularly high level questions.

Efficiency and health.

Efficiency has become of central importance in health care and is seen as wholly laudable. It appears to offer a precise and objective means of evaluating and comparing institutions, practices and individuals, and is a principle that underlies techniques of cost-benefit analysis and other methods of option appraisal. However, there is a need to examine the concept of efficiency and explore the problems of its application within health care. Efficiency is a value laden notion and it cannot be used as a means of making value judgements from purely factual premises. We have to choose the inputs and outputs in our calculations, and what limits to set on their scope. Efficiency calculations may require us to measure what cannot be quantified, and to treat as commensurable what is incommensurable. There are circumstances in which considerations of efficiency are inappropriate or even immoral.

Nursing ethics and codes of professional conduct.

Nurses, like many other professional and semiprofessional groups, have a code of conduct. This raises important philosophical questions about the point of including nursing ethics in nursing education and about the content and methods of such teaching. This paper identifies seven functions that might be fulfilled by professional codes; it discusses the philosophical issues these raise and the implications for teaching professional ethics. It is argued that, far from codes rendering the teaching of ethics unnecessary, they provide additional reasons for its inclusion. An enhanced ability to make moral decisions helps to overcome the shortcomings of the codes, enables a profession to be autonomous in the development of its code, enables individuals to be authentic moral agents, and is essential in matters concerning the disciplinary function of the codes. The role of emotions, feelings and attitudes in ethics also presents philosophical problems that moral education can help to resolve.

Nursing ethics and Project 2000.

Project 2000 gives us an opportunity to reconsider the need for nursing ethics in initial nurse education in the United Kingdom. Three arguments are presented to justify its inclusion. The overall aim of an ethics course should be to help the student become an autonomous moral agent, capable of functioning in the complex and difficult nursing environment. Hence, to design such a course we need an analysis of the skills, knowledge and motivation required by such an agent. This will help us choose our objectives and course content. A tentative analysis is offered. Suggestions are made about the teaching of the course and the integration with other subject areas. Some practical, moral and philosophical objections to this approach are considered and replies are offered.