Objective: Health beliefs of overweight adults who did and did not enter an exercise program were compared to identify possible factors that hamper people to increase physical exercise. Method: Participants (n = 116, 78 women and 38 men) were overweight adults without comorbidities. Self-report instruments examined the burden of suffering, beliefs related to physical exercise and obesity, somatic complaints, and obesity-related quality of life of new participants of exercise programs versus sedentary non-exercisers. Results: Mean BMI of exercisers was and of non-exercisers was 34.6 (7.0) and 32.8 (5.8) respectively. The exercisers were more often female, had fathers with less overweight, and considered overweight a more serious health problem. Fear of injury was higher and perceived health benefits were lower in the non-exercisers, who also more often attributed their overweight to physical causes and believed overweight to be irreversible. Body weight, age, education level, somatic complaints, and quality of life of the groups were comparable. Conclusion: With respect to health beliefs, overweight non-exercisers reported more fear of injury and perceived their overweight as more irreversible than exercisers. Considering these factors in intervention and public health promotion may help overweight sedentary people to start physical exercise.
Mental health is important for business. In the 21st century the mental health and well-being of your employees is crucial to the success of your organisation. But, how should you as an employer start to address mental health issues in your workplace? And what activities and policies do you need to set in place? In a European campaign work. in tune with life. move europe, the European Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ENWHP) has taken the initiative to help promote mental health in workplaces. This mental health promotion campaign aims to raise awareness amongst both employers and employees
Introduction: In 2011 5,3 million people had a chronic disease. Secondly patients want to have more influence in regulating their own disease. Self-management is increasingly being mentioned as a possible solution. However the practice learns that this involves ethical dilemmas, which nurses are often confronted with. Aim: ‘What factors are important for nurses who promote self-management in patient with a chronical disease to maintain a healthy lifestyle, while taking into account de patients’ autonomy?Method: a literature search was done in databases Pubmed and Cochrane. Inclusion criteria were: Qualitative research studies published after 2003 in English or Dutch language, concerning adult patients with a chronical disease and related to the nursing profession.Secondly a semi-structural interview was done with two dialysis care professionals and transcripted verbatim. Results: Six studies met the selection criteria and were used to answer the question. The literature data indicate five factors that influence self-management: (1) Professional attitude of nurses: nurses use their own values and convictions in ethical decisions which leads to moral conflicts (2) Shared-decision making: sharing knowledge as a professional with the patient is a significant component in giving the patient autonomy (3) Patient directed support contributes to the success of self-management (4) Change of the traditional relation as professional-patient into a professional cooperation (5) Reflection on ethical dilemmas.During the semi-structural interviews as most important aspects of self-management were mentioned that patients must be informed adequately and supported by making decisions. Patients autonomy must be central in the organization of care. Conclusion: Within self-management the patient should be in a central position. While performing self management care, nurses can be confronted with personal opinions that conflict with patients’ values. Shared decision making, patient directed support, professional attitude of the caregivers and reflection on ethical dilemmas, are key elements for effective self-management.
An important line of research within the Center of Expertise HAN BioCentre is the development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal testing replacement organism. In the context of this, us and our partners in the research line Elegant! (project number. 2014-01-07PRO) developed reliable test protocols, data analysis strategies and new technology, to determine the expected effects of exposure to specific substances using C. elegans. Two types of effects to be investigated were envisaged, namely: i) testing of possible toxicity of substances to humans; and ii) testing for potential health promotion of substances for humans. An important deliverable was to show that the observed effects in the nematode can indeed be translated into effects in humans. With regard to this aspect, partner Preventimed has conducted research in obesity patients during the past year into the effect of a specific cherry extract that was selected as promising on the basis of the study with C. elegans. This research is currently being completed and a scientific publication will have to be written. The Top Up grant is intended to support the publication of the findings from Elegant! and also to help design experimental protocols that enable students to become acquainted with alternative medical testing systems to reduce the use of laboratory animals during laboratory training.
The livability of the cities and attractiveness of our environment can be improved by smarter choices for mobility products and travel modes. A change from current car-dependent lifestyles towards the use of healthier and less polluted transport modes, such as cycling, is needed. With awareness campaigns, cycling facilities and cycle infrastructure, the use of the bicycle will be stimulated. But which campaigns are effective? Can we stimulate cycling by adding cycling facilities along the cycle path? How can we design the best cycle infrastructure for a region? And what impact does good cycle infrastructure have on the increase of cycling?To find answers for these questions and come up with a future approach to stimulate bicycle use, BUas is participating in the InterReg V NWE-project CHIPS; Cycle Highways Innovation for smarter People transport and Spatial planning. Together with the city of Tilburg and other partners from The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and United Kingdom we explore and demonstrate infrastructural improvements and tackle crucial elements related to engaging users and successful promotion of cycle highways. BUas is responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of the project. To measure the impact and effectiveness of cycle highway innovations we use Cyclespex and Cycleprint.With Cyclespex a virtual living lab is created which we will use to test several readability and wayfinding measures for cycle infrastructure. Cyclespex gives us the opportunity to test different scenario’s in virtual reality that will help us to make decisions about the final solution that will be realized on the cycle highway. Cycleprint will be used to develop a monitoring dashboard where municipalities of cities can easily monitor and evaluate the local bicycle use.
Dutch society faces major future challenges putting populations’ health and wellbeing at risk. An ageing population, increase of chronic diseases, multimorbidity and loneliness lead to more complex healthcare demands and needs and costs are increasing rapidly. Urban areas like Amsterdam have to meet specific challenges of a growing and super divers population often with a migration background. The bachelor programs and the relating research groups of social work and occupational therapy at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences innovate their curricula and practice-oriented research by multidisciplinary and cross-domain approaches. Their Centres of Expertise foster interprofessional research and educational innovation on the topics of healthy ageing, participation, daily occupations, positive health, proximity, community connectedness and urban innovation in a social context. By focusing on senior citizens’ lives and by organizing care in peoples own living environment. Together with their networks, this project aims to develop an innovative health promotion program and contribute to the government missions to promote a healthy and inclusive society. Collaboration with stakeholders in practice based on their urgent needs has priority in the context of increasing responsibilities of local governments and communities. Moreover, the government has recently defined social base as being the combination of citizen initiatives, volunteer organizations , caregivers support, professional organizations and support of vulnerable groups. Kraktie Foundations is a community based ethno-cultural organization in south east Amsterdam that seeks to research and expand their informal services to connect with and build with professional care organizations. Their aim coincides with this project proposal: promoting health and wellbeing of senior citizens by combining intervention, participatory research and educational perspectives from social work, occupational therapy and hidden voluntary social work. With a boundary crossing innovation of participatory health research, education and Kraktie’s work in the community we co-create, change and innovate towards sustainable interventions with impact.
