Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Tobacco-Free Prison Policies And Health Outcomes Among Inmates, Alison R. Connell

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This study was the first to examine the effect of tobacco policies in prisons on the health of inmates. Kentucky has two types of tobacco policies in its 16 state prisons: indoor smoke-free policies, where smoking is allowed outdoors and tobacco-free policies, in which no tobacco of any kind is allowed on the grounds of the prison. The smoking rate of inmates is three times higher than that of current smokers in the non-incarcerated population which results in high rates of tobacco-related health conditions such as heart disease and lung cancer.

A literature review discussed the evolution of tobacco policies …

Essays On Human Capital, Health Capital, And The Labor Market, Charles Hokayem

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays concerning the effects of human capital and health capital on the labor market. Chapter 1 presents a structural model that incorporates a health capital stock to the traditional learning-by-doing model. The model allows health to affect future wages by interrupting current labor supply and on-the-job human capital accumulation. Using data on sick time from the Panel Study Income of Dynamics the model is estimated using a nonlinear Generalized Method of Moments estimator. The results show human capital production exhibits diminishing returns. Health capital production increases with the current stock of health capital, or better …

Executive Deficits In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Examining The Consequences Of Self-Regulatory Impairment On Quality Of Life, Abbey R. Roach

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that attacks the motor system and contributes to a range of cognitive and behavioral impairments (e.g., behavioral and emotional disinhibition, planning and problem solving difficulties, impulsivity, attention, and personality change). This executive dysfunction may contribute to selfregulatory impairment across several domains, including cognitive skills, thought processes, emotion regulation, interpersonal skills, and physiology, that may be crucial to the quality of life (QOL), or well being, of patients and their caregivers. Given the relentless course and prognosis of ALS, palliative treatments for ALS should target the full range of self-regulatory deficits. Thirty-seven …

Screen Door Medicine: The Informal Medical Consultation, Debra Faith Nickell

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the phenomenon of the informal medical consultation, a communication event in which an individual asks for medical information, advice, or care from an off-duty health professional with whom the individual has no formal patient-provider relationship. Using surveys and interviews, the study describes these consultations from the perspective of the health care professional and the informal patient. The study explores foundational theories that offer explanations for the phenomenon. The theories considered include social support, decision-making, social exchange, perceived partner responsiveness to needs, and uncertainty management.

This study suggests health care providers perceive informal medical consultations to be more …

What Nurses Say: Communication Behaviors Associated With The Competent Nursing Handoff, Anne Claiborne Ray Streeter

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Communication competence and medical communication competence served as the theoretical framework for this research that seeks to identify specific communication behaviors associated with what nurses say constitute a communicatively competent patient handoff at the nursing change of shift. Data collected from 286 nurses responding to an online modified Medical Communication Competence Scale posted at www.allnurses.com supported the hypotheses that information exchange (information giving, seeking and verifying) and socioemotional communication behaviors are rated more highly in the best patient handoffs than in the worst ones. Research questions found that the incoming nursing role rated behaviors associated with information verifying and socioemotional …

Social Categories And Health Care Outcomes: African American Women And Hiv Survival In The Urban South, Alyson J. O'Daniel

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This ethnographic research examines the daily life and institutional conditions under which low-income Black women in urban North Carolina perceived and attended to HIV health-related needs. I focus specifically on the interplay among women’s living conditions, programmatic service needs, and their strategies for navigating the local system of care to explore and refine the categorical label “low income.” I found that there were significant differences among study participants in terms of their monthly incomes and financial resources, housing quality and status, and personal experiences with incarceration and substance abuse. The economic differences among women translated into social differences within the …