The relationship between loneliness and depression among college students: Mining data derived from passive sensing.

Background: While there is recognition of the relationship between loneliness and depression, specific behavioural patterns distinguishing both are still not well understood.

Objectives: Our objective is to identify distinct behavioural patterns of loneliness and depression from a passively collected dataset of college students, understand their similarities and interrelationships and assess their effectiveness in identifying loneliness and depression.

Methods: Utilizing the StudentLife dataset, we applied regression analysis to determine associations with self-reported loneliness and depression.

Loneliness and Social Isolation Detection Using Passive Sensing Techniques: Scoping Review.

Background: Loneliness and social isolation are associated with multiple health problems, including depression, functional impairment, and death. Mobile sensing using smartphones and wearable devices, such as fitness trackers or smartwatches, as well as ambient sensors, can be used to acquire data remotely on individuals and their daily routines and behaviors in real time. This has opened new possibilities for the early detection of health and social problems, including loneliness and social isolation.

Effectiveness of a trauma-informed care psychoeducational program for foster carers - Evaluation of the Fostering Connections Program.

Background: The need to improve the quality of foster care training has been highlighted and evidenced-based programs that aim to support foster carers in the care of children who have experienced trauma are warranted.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Fostering Connections program, a newly developed trauma-informed care program within the national child welfare agency in Ireland.

Participants And Setting: The study included 79 foster carers.

Cognitive and Sensory Dimensions of Older People's Preferences of Outdoor Spaces for Walking: A Survey Study in Ireland.

Background: Physical exercise, particularly walking, benefits healthy ageing. Understanding the environmental circumstances in which exercise occurs is crucial to the promotion of physical activity in older age. Most studies have focused on the structural dimensions of environments that may foster walking; however, individual differences in how older people perceive and interact with outdoor spaces need further attention.

The symbolic representation of community in social isolation and loneliness among older people: Insights for intervention from a rural Irish case study.

Social isolation and loneliness are common experiences of ageing in rural communities. Policy responses and interventions for social isolation and loneliness in later life are shaped by sociocultural understandings of place, relationships and social interaction. This study examined how representations of rural community in Ireland influenced the focus, relationships and activities within a befriending intervention designed to tackle social isolation and loneliness.

Supporting ethical use of electronic monitoring for people living with dementia: Social work's role in assessment, decision-making, and review.

Walking outdoors supports health and well-being, but some people living with dementia are at increased risk of getting lost and of harm while missing. Electronic monitoring can potentially play an important preventative role by enabling the person's location to be continuously monitored by caregivers. However, there are considerable ethical concerns arising from electronic monitoring.

Frail older adults' perceptions of an in-hospital structured exercise intervention.

Background: Exercise interventions need to be assessed qualitatively to establish how people participate in and perceive the intervention and how interventions should be delivered for maximal effect.

Objectives: To explore how frail older inpatients perceived the effects of a pilot augmented prescribed exercise programme (APEP).

Design: An interpretive phenomenological design using open-ended semi-structured interviews.

Supporting people with dementia to walkabout safely outdoors: development of a structured model of assessment.

People with dementia while missing are at risk of harm including death. Yet, welfare concerns arise when freedom to walkabout outdoors is restricted and in particular, getting lost is a risk factor for admission to long-term care. Accurate methods of assessing the risks posed to community-dwelling people with dementia from getting lost are needed to ensure intervention is proportionate.

Dementia, walking outdoors and getting lost: incidence, risk factors and consequences from dementia-related police missing-person reports.

Objectives: To estimate incidence, identify consequences and potential risk factors for harm in people with dementia who got lost in one UK policing region.

Methods: In a retrospective observational study, data were extracted from missing-person records over a four-year period in one UK policing region (population of 2.1 million).

Electronic tracking for people with dementia: an exploratory study of the ethical issues experienced by carers in making decisions about usage.

Electronic tracking through GPS (global positioning system) is being used to monitor and locate people with dementia who are vulnerable to becoming lost. Through a review of the literature and an original study, this article examined ethical issues associated with use in a domestic setting. The qualitative study consisted of in-depth interviews with 10 carers who were using electronic tracking.

Protection of vulnerable adults: an interdisciplinary workshop.

This paper reports on the development, delivery, content and student evaluation of a comprehensive elder abuse and self-neglect workshop for public health nursing and social work students.The workshop provided an interdisciplinary shared learning experience for the students to prepare them for their critical role in safeguarding vulnerable adults. The aim of the workshop was to increase knowledge, awareness and understanding of roles and responsibilities and critical practice problems in the prevention and management of elder abuse and self-neglect.