Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Assessing The Impact Of Covid-19 Restrictions On The Perinatal Experience In Mississippi, Baylee Grimsley

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to assess how COVID-19 restrictions affected the perinatal experience of women in Mississippi. A flyer detailing the purpose and inclusion criteria of the study was sent via social media platforms. Five postpartum women from the Hattiesburg, Mississippi area participated in this study. Eight open-ended questions were asked in an interview format, and a seven-question demographic survey was given to each participant at the conclusion of the interview. Five restrictions related to COVID-19 were identified: visitor restrictions in the hospital, mask requirements in healthcare facilities, screening of patients upon admission to the Labor and Delivery …

Synesthesia: Does It Have An Effect On Memory?, Elizabeth Evans

Honors Theses

Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon involving an inducer (a stimulus) and a concurrent (elicited response). For many years, scientists have striven to explain synesthesia and whether or not there are benefits to the people who experience it. In this study, nineteen participants were asked to complete a questionnaire in an attempt to see if their synesthetic experiences gave them advantages in the area of memory. The seven questions were given in a multiple-choice or text entry format, and the questionnaire was approved by The University of Southern Mississippi’s IRB before being sent out in an electronic format. The majority of …

The Assessment Of Senior-Level Nursing Students’ Knowledge Regarding Informal Caregiver Role Strain And The Presence Of Role Strain In Informal Caregivers Of Dementia Patients, Amanda Diard

Honors Theses

The goal of this study was to assess senior-level nursing students’ knowledge of informal caregivers of dementia patients, their confidence in their ability to work with informal caregivers, and how well they believe their nursing program prepared them to assist informal caregivers. Seventeen (n = 17) Bachelor of Science (BSN) nursing students participated in the study. A twenty-four-question survey was emailed to both junior- and senior-level students in the five-semester BSN program at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). Responses from students of different levels were collected to determine if an accurate understanding of informal caregivers of dementia patients …

Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Knowledge Of Endometriosis: A Pilot Study, Stephanie Schlorke

Honors Theses

This descriptive post-test design study was conducted to assess knowledge level of undergraduate nursing students regarding risk factors, clinical manifestations, age of diagnosis, common psychiatric co-morbidities, treatment methods, and pathophysiology of endometriosis. An author-created 8 question multichoice and select all that apply questionnaire was used to collect the data. Twenty-eight students responded to the questionnaire. The results were divided to compare knowledge differences between second-semester and fifth-semester students.

It was determined that the undergraduate nursing students have a working knowledge of endometriosis, but there are knowledge gaps that need to be addressed. Fifth-semester participants scored higher than the second-semester participants …

Energy Therapies In Nursing Practice: Effects, Barriers, And Limitations, Sydney J. Stone

Honors Theses

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a growing field of holistic treatment modalities that aim to promote health and well-being or treat illness. Energy therapies are a subsection of CAM that have the potential to revolutionize the way that nurses manage their patient’s comfort. Past research has noted that more money is spent in the United States each year on CAM than is spent on conventional care, and researchers have identified the high spending as a discrepancy due to CAM’s general inaccessibility. This study aimed to analyze the existing research and evidence pertaining to the effects of energy therapies and …

Presence And Characteristics Of Axial Skeleton Fractures Experienced By Cheerleaders And Gymnasts From 2010-2019, Jordan Trimm

Honors Theses

Context: Cheerleading and gymnastics are sports containing dangerous skills that place athletes at risk of severe injuries, such as axial skeleton fractures. In addition, cheerleaders and gymnasts frequently have less access to on-site healthcare, such as athletic training services, which requires increased utilization of emergency departments. Objective: To compare national estimates of axial skeleton fractures in cheerleading and gymnastics by injury characteristics over a 10-year period. Design: Descriptive Epidemiological. Setting: United States Emergency Department via the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System Database. Participants: Cheerleaders and gymnasts presenting to a sample of US hospitals. Interventions: Independent variables included body region fractured. …

The Effects Of Canine-Assisted Therapy In Speech Therapy, Malak Dawoud

Honors Theses

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine how speech-language pathologists utilize canine-assisted treatment in their practices and the speech-language pathologists’ perceptions of the effectiveness of using canine-assistance in speech therapy. A nine-question survey was sent via email to the licensed members of the Mississippi Speech-Language -Hearing Association (MSHA). The author used the source, SurveyMonkey, to acquire and analyze the data. The data was used to determine the prevalence of canine-assisted therapy in speech therapy and to discover if the speech-language pathologists believed this kind of therapy was effective. Additionally, when canine-assisted therapy was used, was there a particular …

Rationalizing Academic Dishonesty And Its Effect On Nursing, Leah Salisbury

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of cheating in a bachelor’s degree nursing program and to determine if social normalization contributed to the increase. Three major sources for the increase in cheating were identified, and these are technological advances, lack of a specific cheating definition, and cultural socialization towards academic dishonesty (Wideman, 2011; DuPree and Sattler, 2010; Jones, 2011; Burrus, McGoldrick and Schuhmann, 2007). Studies showed a positive correlation between engagement in academic dishonesty and engagement in dishonest behaviors in nursing practice, which is the biggest concern for nursing programs (Krueger, 2014; Johnstone, 2016; McCrink, 2010). …

Communication Resources For Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing Children In Mississippi: Parents’ Perspectives, Julia Rossano

Honors Theses

A parent’s ability to communicate with their child through formative years may often be taken for granted, as the options for such communication seem intuitive and apparent. However, hearing parents of children with hearing loss must not only make a choice between several communication methods, but they must also navigate an environment where the methodologies are not clearly delineated. Blaiser and colleague provide succinct descriptions of the most common methods which can be chosen. These methods include listening and spoken language systems, manual-visual systems, and systems combining these two modalities (Blaiser & Bargen, 2018). This choice is often challenging because …

How Participation In Team V. Individual Sports Affects The Physical Activity Levels Of College Students, Kellie Jackson

Honors Theses

The present study investigated the association between team and individual sports participation and the physical activity levels of college students at the University of Southern Mississippi. Participants (n=72) responded to the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) to determine their physical activity levels over the duration of one week. Participants also responded to the Participation Motivation Questionnaire (PMQ) to examine the similarities and differences in motivation among current, former, and never athletes. Participants who classified themselves as current and former athletes reported spending more time engaged in physical activity than never athletes. Among current athletes, former athletes, and never athletes, all …