University of South Australia

About: University of South Australia is a education organization based out in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 10086 authors who have published 32587 publications receiving 913683 citations. The organization is also known as: The University of South Australia & UniSA.

Aging Populations and Management

Abstract: The author considers societal and managerial challenges posted by an aging population. It mentions the aging population is motivating changes in how people are managed and will challenge social norms of equity and fairness. It comments many countries are examining the age at which people can utilize employer- and government-supported retirement funds as extended life expectancy means in theory older people can work longer, and considers the consequences of increasing the official retirement age.

Validity of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as a Screening Test for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in a Cardiovascular Population

Abstract: While rates of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are relatively high in populations with cardiovascular diseases and risk factors, screening tests for MCI have not been evaluated in this patient group. This study investigated the sensitivity and specificity of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) tool for detecting MCI in 110 patients (mean age 67.9 + 11.7 years; 60% female) recruited from hospital cardiovascular outpatient clinics. Mean MoCA performance was relatively low (22.8 + 3.8) in this group, with 72.1% of participants scoring below the recommended cutoff for cognitive impairment (<26). The presence of MCI was determined using the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Screening Module (NAB-SM). Both amnestic MCI and multiple-domain MCI were identified. The optimum MoCA cutoff for detecting MCI in this group was <24. At this cutoff, the MoCA's sensitivity for detecting amnestic MCI was 100% and for multiple-domain MCI it was 83.3%. Specificity rates for amnestic MCI and multiple-domain MCI were 50.0% and 52% respectively. The poor specificity of the MoCA suggests that it will have limited value as a screening test for MCI in settings where the overall prevalence of MCI is low.

Telephone interviewing: is it compatible with interpretive phenomenological research?

Abstract: The telephone has long been used as a medium of communication. In more recent years the telephone has become a legitimate tool in marketing and survey research (Barriball et al. 1996). Telephone interviewing is becoming an increasingly popular form of interview for qualitative research (Carr & Worth 2001). Whilst there have been discussions in the literature on logistical advantages and disadvantages of telephone interviewing, there has been little debate as to whether this form of interview is compatible with qualitative health research. Much of the literature reporting this interview method is based on quantitative or structured questionnaire style research under the guise of 'qualitative' research. So the question remains: Is the telephone interview compatible with interpretive phenomenological research? This paper describes how telephone interviewing was used in a recently conducted interpretive phenomenological study, and argues that this is a methodologically and economically valuable data collection technique in qualitative research. Qualitative researchers should not rely exclusively on the face-to-face interview, as the telephone interview can be an equally valuable data collection approach.