Principales cambios emergentes a implantar en el área de

(without or with positive support). The word "or" was chosen to reflect the fact that

some of the levels of negative support severity contained positive support while others

did not. It is important to note that only one item for positive support was chosen for

this part of the study. "Talking to" was the chosen item and refers to when a young

person is able to

talk

to another person about their problems, concerns or worries. One

item was chosen for this study in order to keep the total number of vignettes to a

7 It is acknowledged that the scoring system used for the variable, negative support severity (without or

with positive support) does in fact imply a measure of intensity (ordinal measure). The scoring used in this study indicates the reverse; that is, that a score of three would be assigned to the category high negative support severity without positive support, whereas a score of six would be assigned to the category of high negative support severity with positive support. The difficulty is that the category high negative support severity with positive support is actually less severe than the category high negative support severity without positive support. It would seem to make more sense if the variable was to be scored as a scale intended to reflect intensity. For example, the scale could be measured from one (low negative support severity with positive support) to six (high negative support severity without positive support). Alternative scoring systems and their implications are discussed in Chapter

7

(see section

7.8).

The scoring system used in this study would not have affected the results in any W"lrj since the scores were analysed by category (chi-square; loglinear analysis) and not by mean scale scores (T-tests; Anova).

1 25

minimum.

Positive support was introduced into the vignettes in order to test whether it made a difference in clinician risk-level ratings and the types of safety interventions initiated. The positive support item was constructed from the SSQ (Sarason et al.,

1 983) and the SSB (Vaux et al., 1 987).

It is important to acknowledge that the vignette study demonstrated significant relationships between negative support severity (without or with positive support) and assessed risk-level, and negative support severity (without or with positive support) and total safety interventions. These relationships were not uncovered in the archi val study. It was thought that if there was no additional information provided by the archival study results when measuring negative support severity and positive support separately that perhaps operationalising them in a different way (i.e., combining them) would provide some insight into the relationship between support and risk-level, and support and safety recommendations.

There are two reasons why positive support and negative support severity were combined to fonn a new variable, otherwise known as negative support severity (without or with positive support). Firstly, as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter

5,

the archival study found that positive support was reported to be present to a significantly greater degree in attempter files compared to ideator files. Although this finding was opposite to that hypothesised, it is possible that clinicians either underreported or failed to question the client about the positive support available to them when the risk of self-hann was lower (as it would be with an ideator).

support in clients where the risk was greater (attempters). It is argued that perhaps the measure used for positive support in the archival study did not adequately capture the true presence of positive support, thereby necessitating the development of a different way of measuring positive support. Secondly, it is possible that positive support and negative support severity are simply just different ways of perceiving emotional

support. Ifpositive support and negative support severity are indeed related in this sense, it could be argued that they should be measured as one variable. It should be noted that there was no relationship found between negative support severity and positive support in the archival study. However, this finding could be due to the earlier argument proposed that perhaps the archival study did not adequately capture the role of positive support in risk-level assessment and safety recommendations. It is plausible to suggest that positive support and negative support severity may very well be related, particularly since both concepts are simply different ways of perceiving the same event ( emotional support). Again, this finding demonstrated a further need to create a measurement in which positive support and negative support severity were combined together.

On a theoretical and practical level, it is important to explain how an individual would experience such a concept as negative support severity (without or with positive support). Providing a few examples might assist in clarifYing why negative support severity and positive support were combined. Consider a situation in which an individual receives positive emotional support (in the form of being able to talk to someone about their problems) from one member of their family, but may also have conflicts or arguments with another member of the family (an example of low

1 27

negative support severity with positive support). In contrast, for a high level of

In document Aplicación de la reingeniería al Área de Recursos Humanos en una entidad de Gobierno Distrital (página 82-88)