[Sexuality among the elderly: understanding the weight of stereotypes]

Sexuality is an integral part of health and accompanies human beings throughout their lives. It contributes to well-being and improves quality of life. The social representations conveyed by Western society modulate sexuality and can play a decisive role in the expression of seniors' sexuality.

Social representations of intellectual disability; a comparison between cultures

OBJECTIVES

People with Intellectual disability consistently appear to be one of the most looked-down upon and repressed subgroups of society in many cultures. The main aim of this study was to compare social representations of intellectual disability in its various aspects between different cultures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study was conducted in four different sites: Beirut-Lebanon, Algiers-Algeria, Tours-France and Namur-Belgium. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire evaluating social representations of intellectual disability.

RESULTS

A total of 755 participants consented to take part in the study. Gender only affected social representations in the Lebanese population. Overall, Algerians appeared to have the least positive social representations and Lebanon to have more positive attitudes, while France and Belgium tended to have the most favourable representations.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Findings highlight the imbalance between a European and a non-European country showing the importance of developing tailored interventions to improve general attitudes towards intellectual disability.

[The meeting, a lever towards the exercise of nursing care in psychiatry]

Nursing training is provided in nursing training institutes by a multidisciplinary teaching team. During this course, the nursing student will forge his or her professional identity. However, psychiatry is a field that is not very popular with students. Social representations, apprehension and lack of knowledge of the discipline, and the crisis that the sector is going through all work against this choice. Especially since young nurses are ill-equipped to develop a sufficiently good posture, in line with the expectations of the health care team. Nevertheless, some of those who have chosen to work in psychiatry emphasize the notion of encounters as a determining factor in their professional orientation. This encounter is based on three stages: an encounter with oneself, with specific knowledge and with the clinic.

[Social representations of the vaccine]

Vaccination has made it possible to combat many infectious diseases by reducing their impact in terms of mortality as well as morbidity. However, reservations about this primary prevention measure, as demonstrated by the difficulties in introducing vaccination against COVID-19. Through the analysis of social representations, we try to understand the reasons for these obstacles.

[Older people in Ehpad, representations of young adults]

Studies on social representations of older persons are numerous and come mainly from American literature. However, few studies have examined young people's viewpoint. This article focuses on the representations of older patients among students in Bac Professionnel.

[Care in an LTC unit: between psychosis, fantasy and challenge]

In nursing homes, residents with psychiatric disorders are cared for alongside other residents. While the clinical presentation is different to that of dementia, the caregivers need to adopt a new approach in order to provide the necessary long-term support. Their social representations of madness must also be questioned. The integration of psychotic residents into a nursing home must be anticipated and prepared through exchanges and interventions overseen jointly by the geriatric and psychiatric teams.

[Understanding the complex, multifaceted and multifactorial psychosocial risks]

Fatigue, anxiety, harassment, burnout, stress, etc., the psychosocial risk category brings together multidimensional (physiological, psychological, social...) heterogeneous and complex problems and pathological entities. These aspects are also associated with significant ideological and socio-economic issues (employer liability, cost to the community ...). Thus, how can we make sense of this increase in complaints? Is work harder now than it used to be?

[Social representations of trisomy 21]

Social representations of trisomy 21 have evolved considerably since its first descriptions in France in the 19th century. Today contradictory trends are at work. Some convey alarmist and stereotypical images while others favour greater understanding of life with trisomy 21.

[The silence of a body and speech set free]

Anorexia is a reflection of issues with the body in all its states. The social body and the representation of a model's body, mistreated in order to meet certain standards, the medical body shaken by the mystery of anorexia, and the subjective body and the reality of the flesh. The anorexic body is a testament to a past full of pain and neglect, a sign of emotional deficiency. Caring for the body of a person with anorexia, whatever the approach, means also and above all working with the future of a human being.

[Training and representation of dementia of workers in nursing homes]

Training could be a lever for improving the quality of care of residents with dementia in nursing homes by changing social representations. Beyond a simple assessment of acquired knowledge, a change of social representations could be indicative of a true appropriation of the content of the training. A study was carried out to assess the impact of training on nursing home caregivers' representations of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.