Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Framing And Visual Type: Effect On Future Zika Vaccine Uptake Intent, Jeanine P.D. Guidry, Kellie E. Carlyle, Jessica G. Larose, Paul Perrin, Mark Ryan, Marcus Messner, Jay Adams

Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture Publications

Introduction: The Zika virus is associated with the birth defect microcephaly, and while a vaccine was not available in early- 2017, several were under development. This study’s purpose was to identify effective communication strategies to promote uptake of a new vaccine, particularly among women of reproductive age.

Design and methods: In order to study the effects of Zika message framing (gain vs. loss) and visual type (photo vs. infographic) on future Zika vaccine uptake intent, a 2×2 between-subjects experiment was performed via an online survey in 2017 among 339 U.S. women of reproductive age (18-49 years). Participants were …

Is Counseling Integral To Buprenorphine-Assisted Opioid Addiction Treatment? Examining Counseling Participation And Treatment Retention At A Richmond, Virginia Clinic, John R. Gyourko, Hilary Colin King

Social Work Student Works

Treatment providers in Virginia are required by law to offer counseling or referrals to all clients receiving medication-assisted opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment (American Society of Addiction Medicine, 2016; Medical Society of Virginia, 2018). Prescribing physicians widely regard counseling as a critical component of medication-assisted OUD treatment (Lin, Lofwall, Walsh, & Knudsen, 2019), and clients perceive counseling to be among the most important factors promoting recovery from opioid dependence (Hay, Huhn, Tompkins, & Dunn, 2019). Research investigating the efficacy of counseling as an OUD treatment component, however, has been equivocal to date (Brown, 2018; Dugosh et al., 2016). The current …

Orthodontists’ And Patients’ Preferences In Website Design In The Selection Of An Orthodontic Practice: A Comparative Study, Taylor R. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To determine which website characteristics are preferred by orthodontists, adult patients, and parents of patients.

Materials and Methods: 1,000 active members of the American Association of Orthodontists and 750 active orthodontic patients/parents were sampled. Participants rated the importance of website characteristics, indicated presence of those characteristics on the current website, and ranked sample website images. Preferences were compared between orthodontist and the patient/parent group using t-tests and sample websites were compared using ANOVA models and Tukey’s adjusted post-hoc tests. Significance level was set at 0.05.

Results: 11 of the 16 website features showed significant differences between patients/parents and orthodontists. …

Database Searching Tips, Roy E. Brown

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This is a handout that is used as a reference for those who are learning to more effectively search databases for assignments and evidence-based practice projects.

Please contact the author for a version that can be reused and rebranded.

Vcu Health Nursing Inquiry Process Diagram (Version 2), Roy E. Brown

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This diagram outlines the nursing inquiry process to help answer questions that arise in the clinical setting. The diagram further helps a nurse understand how to distinguish whether a situation calls for evidence-based practice, performance improvement or research. It also guides a nurse through clarifying the initial question, gathering the evidence, and through each step in the subsequent process.

Effects Of A 2-Week Exercise Intervention On Heart Rate Variability In Individuals With Low And High Anxiety Sensitivity, Hannah M. Kotarski

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety Sensitivity (AS), the belief that anxiety-related sensations may have harmful implications, can alter autonomic nervous system (ANS) function. Exercise has previously been shown to reduce AS; however, the effects of an exercise intervention on heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of ANS function, has not been evaluated in individuals with high AS. This study sought to 1) compare resting HRV in individuals with either low (LAS) or high AS (HAS) and 2) evaluate the effects of a 2-week exercise intervention on HRV and AS. Using the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI-3), participants were identified as LAS (n=9; ASI-3=5.89±1.39) or HAS …

Three Essays On Maternal And Child Health, Mandar V. Bodas

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a collection of three separate essays on the health of women and children. In the first essay, I along with my co-authors, analyzed the impact of two large, national-level health policies (the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)) on maternal health outcomes (proportion of institutional deliveries) in India. We used data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) and found that the JSY and the NRHM had a greater impact on institutional deliveries in high-focus states. We also found that the conditions of the public health facilities, did not change after the …

Penalized Mixed-Effects Ordinal Response Models For High-Dimensional Genomic Data In Twins And Families, Amanda E. Gentry

Theses and Dissertations

The Brisbane Longitudinal Twin Study (BLTS) was being conducted in Australia and was funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Adolescent twins were sampled as a part of this study and surveyed about their substance use as part of the Pathways to Cannabis Use, Abuse and Dependence project. The methods developed in this dissertation were designed for the purpose of analyzing a subset of the Pathways data that includes demographics, cannabis use metrics, personality measures, and imputed genotypes (SNPs) for 493 complete twin pairs (986 subjects.) The primary goal was to determine what combination of SNPs and …

A Stakeholder Examination Of Gestational Weight Gain Guidelines, Melissa Kwitowski

Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is a significant health concern for women of childbearing age. More than 40% of women have a Body Mass Index (BMI) in the overweight or obese ranges at the time they conceive, posing significant health risks for both mother and child. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is common and associated with numerous deleterious complications. The Institute of Medicine published gestational weight gain (GWG) guidelines based on prepregnancy BMI. However, more than 50% of women gain in excess of these recommendations. Further, many women report receiving minimal guidance from their healthcare providers regarding weight gain, nutrition, and physical activity during …

Shared Genetic And Environmental Influences On Fear, Anxiety, Posttraumatic Stress, And Brain Morphometry, Chelsea Sawyers

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety disorders (ADs) and stress-related disorders are some of the most common psychiatric disorders in the United States. Like other c0mplex psychiatric illness, genetics and neuroimaging research has focused on understanding their underlying neurobiology. Areas within the fear-network play important roles in threat perception, fear conditioning/learning, cognitive processing, and modulation of fear responses including contextual modulation and extinction and have been implicated in ADs as well as stress disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The primary gap in the current search for underlying biological mechanisms is in whether biomarkers associated with disorders share genetic influences with the disorders they …

Evaluating And Reducing The Effects Of Misclassification In A Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (Smart), Jun He

Theses and Dissertations

SMART designs tailor individual treatment by re-randomizing patients to subsequent therapies based on their response to initial treatment. However, the classification of patients being responders/non-responders could be inaccurate and thus lead to inappropriate treatment assignment. In a two-step SMART design, by assuming equal randomization, and equal variances of misclassified patients and correctly classified patients, we evaluated misclassification effects on mean, variance, and type I error/ power of single sequential treatment outcome (SST), dynamic treatment outcome (DTRs), and overall outcome. The results showed that misclassification could introduce bias to estimates of treatment effect in all types of outcome. Though the magnitude …

Queer Health Equity And Cervical Cancer: Identifying Social Determinants Of Papanicolaou Test Uptake In A Sample Of Sexual Minority Women And Gender Nonbinary Individuals, Ariella R. Tabaac

Theses and Dissertations

Sexual minority women (SMW) demonstrate lower rates of cervical cancer screening than heterosexual women. This is concerning as lesbian and bisexual women tend to engage in higher rates of substance-related cancer risk behaviors, unprotected sex, and tend to have higher body mass indices, all of which are risk factors for cancer development. Another major risk factor, screening avoidance, places SMW at increased risk for the development of high grade cervical lesions in the absence of early detection practices, which is likely to impact overall cervical cancer morbidity in this population. The aim of the present study was to utilize the …