Digital Commons Network^™

Medical Interpreters' Experience Working With Distressed Families In Pediatric Settings, Paulina Lim

Theses and Dissertations

Effective communication between families and pediatric clinicians is essential for mitigating family stress and improving quality of care. Families who speak a primary language other than English must contend with the added stress of language barriers during stressful encounters, which could impact the quality of patient care and health outcomes. Trained medical interpreters facilitate communication, including distress expressions, during interpreted medical encounters (IME). Little is known about how interpreters identify distress and what factors impact distress identification during IME. This project describes how interpreters identify distress of families during IME, and how they identify cultural nuances in distress expression and …

Identification And Response To Parent Distress By Medical Providers In The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Kathryn Anne Balistreri

Theses and Dissertations

During hospitalization in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), approximately 25-60% of parents experience clinical levels of distress (i.e., traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression). Despite this, PICU providers rarely refer parents to formal psychological services, and parents describe room for improvement in provider response to their emotional needs. Difficulty identify and/or responding to distress in parents may contribute to these deficiencies. The present study aimed to evaluate how medical providers identify and respond to parent distress in the PICU. Thirty-seven medical providers (78% female; 73% White) from the Children’s Wisconsin PICU completed a semi-structured interview. Providers perceived supporting distressed parents …

Female Adolescent Trauma Survivors Worldviews: Is This A Defining Moment In My Life Or Does This Moment Now Define My Life?, Carey Lynn Sorenson

Theses and Dissertations

What is your life experience? Do you feel you have taken an active role in your life experiences or do you feel as though life "just happens to you"? Trauma is an event that comes into one's life, without invitation, and can alter the meaning and value of every event thereafter. Many times, exposure to trauma can leave one feeling like he or she is a passive participant in life and that his or her efforts are fruitless.

This researcher tapped into the worldview of sixteen adolescent trauma survivors by conducting qualitative interviews to gain an understanding of how their …

Males Experiencing Childhood Sexual Abuse And Their Associations With Psychological Distress, Brittney Holcomb

Theses and Dissertations

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is an important issue relatively recently beginning to gain attention from professionals. Studies show that males are underrepresented in the literature, although CSA is a prevalent problem for males as well as females. This study was developed to add to the existing literature on males and CSA, obtain prevalence rates from a nationally representative, epidemiological study, and find correlates between CSA and psychological distress factors. The epidemiological study used was the National Comorbidity Study-Replication (NCS-R). This was a large survey of U.S. households investigating correlates and comorbidities of psychological disorders. Secondary analyses were completed on the …