Communication Commons^™

Our Health Matters: Promoting The Health Of Sexual Minority Women In The New Media Landscape, Brenda Kane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The shifts occurring in the mediascape and the field of public health offer new opportunities for promoting the health and wellness of sexual minority women. As a population that has historically been underserved by the healthcare system, sexual minority women face multiple barriers to achieving positive health outcomes. They are often less likely to access preventive healthcare services and more likely to engage in risky behaviors that are detrimental to health than heterosexual women. Despite the significant health disparities among sexual minority women, studying this population has not been a priority in health research and there is little research-based evidence …

Counselor Preferences Of White University Students: Ethnicity And Other Important Characteristics, Yi-Ying Lin

Masters Theses

In the last several decades, multiculturalism has became the one of the most popular research topics in psychology and counseling, and the counselor preferences of ethnic minority clients has been well researched. However, in the history of research on counselor preferences, the needs and preferences of ethnic majority clients have been neglected. This study investigated the counselor preferences of White university students.

This study examined three primary research questions: whether counselor ethnicity influenced White university students’ initial counselor preferences, what were White university students’ preferences for various counselor characteristics, and whether White university students preferred specific counseling styles for different …

Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

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 …

A Critical Analyses Of How The Hse’S Communications And Public Relations Department Responded To The Swine Flu Pandemic In The Southern Region Of Ireland., Suzanne Mccarthy

Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how the HSE South handled the Swine Flu pandemic. This was largely focused on how the HSE communicated with their publics as well as how they carried out such a large public information campaign. It is also important to understand how the public felt about the management of this pandemic. This thesis was dependant on interviewing various individuals from relevant backgrounds. This included PR and communication personnel employed by the HSE, representative of the media and health care professionals who deal directly with different communities within the general public. The objectives of …

Care, Culture, And Education Nursing Students' Perceptions Of Care And Culture: Implications For Practice, Pauline Rita Wright

Educational Studies Dissertations

Today's nurses work and live in a multicultural society where they encounter patients whose backgrounds are different from theirs, and who need care from nurses who are both proficient in their work and knowledgeable about the role that culture plays in patient treatment. In this study, 45 student nurses enrolled in a baccalaureate program at a northeastern urban college completed a survey about their perceptions of care and culture including their relevance and application to the practice of nursing. Findings based on qualitative analyses indicated that parents and family were instrumental in students' learning about care and a combination of …

Who Shares? Managerial Knowledge Transfer Practices In British Columbia's Ministry Of Health Services, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Lock

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The British Columbia government's Ministry of Health Services will experience significant loss of operational knowledge from an aging managerial workforce, increased staff turnover, and difficulties in recruitment. The purpose of this study is to provide the ministry's Strategic Human Resources Planning branch staff with a map and description of knowledge transfer practices used by approximately 40 managers within the ministry's Health Sector Information Management/Information Technology division and its Vital Statistics Agency. The study is a mixed-methods case study of knowledge retention and transfer practices founded on a knowledge management and social network theoretical foundation. To understand the ministry's complex nature …