Digital Commons Network^™

Workplace Isolation Occurring In Remote Workers, Adam Hickman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizational leaders and managers may not have the management acumen, organizational awareness, or leadership expertise to construct and implement effective strategies, policies, and procedures to help reduce the frequency of the phenomenon of workplace isolation. The purpose of this qualitative, exploratory, multiple case study was to gain a common understanding about how workplace isolation may influence a remote employee'€™s performance in a customer service organization in the United States. Emerson'€™s social exchange theory was used as the conceptual framework. A series of semistructured interviews with 21 remote workers that consisted of four different divisions at the same organization was conducted …

The Perceived Impact Of Alternative Specialized Education Services On Former Teen Mothers, Malinda Starr Hudson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many teen parents face challenges when completing secondary education resulting in unsustainable family units. Previous researchers focused on services to teen mothers while completing secondary education, with little addressing the long-term impact of Alternative Specialized Education Services (ASES) as the former teen mother matured. This phenomenological study explored the perceptions of 8 former teen mothers (ranging in age from 20 to 54) of ASES'€™ impact on their values and decision-making as they matured. Program theory was the overarching framework and values clarification the interpretive lens. Data were inductively coded and subjected to interpretive phenomenological and thematic analysis. Four themes emerged: …

Telehealth And Type 2 Diabetes Management, Blessing Nneoma Ikpeama

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The use of telehealth in healthcare has grown in recent years; however, little is known about the effectiveness of this delivery method in the management of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Guided by the chronic care model and telehealth in chronic disease model, the purpose of this systematic literature review was to explore evidence related to lowering hemoglobin A1c levels and managing T2DM using telehealth in the outpatient setting. The practice-focused questions explored telehealth interventions used in T2DM management and their effectiveness. The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) method for conducting systematic literature reviews was the process, and data were compiled …

Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Practices And Enterprise Longevity: A Multiple Case Study, Debra Howard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women entrepreneurs are emerging in the national economy as important players, yet gender bias and stereotypes still exist in organizations that prevent firms from taking advantage of women'€™s potential as leaders in entrepreneurial ventures. At the same time, traditional leadership models are lacking in diversity and unanswered questions remain regarding the role of gender in entrepreneurial leadership and enterprise sustainability. The purpose of this qualitative study, which used an exploratory, multiple-case research design, was to gain insight into the leadership practices of women entrepreneurial leaders and the implications of these practices for enterprise longevity 5 years after their business'€™s start-up …

Nurse Faculty Perceptions Of Role Stress And Faculty-To-Faculty Incivility, Anne Kraft Kleinhesselink

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between nurse faculty perceptions of role stress and faculty-to-faculty incivility using the stressor-emotion model of counterproductive work behaviors. A convenience sample of 79 nurse faculty from 39 undergraduate nursing programs in Iowa responded to an online survey. The survey consisted of two instruments: Workplace Incivility Civility Scale and Role Strain Scale. Findings revealed 76 participants perceived incivility as a problem and identified stress (n = 64) and demanding workloads (n = 54) as contributing factors. Pearson correlation results revealed a positive relationship between experienced incivility and nurse faculty perceptions of …

Predicting Educational Attainment Based On Forensic Psychiatric Patients' Age At First Hospitalization, Malinda Marie Lawson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Education during recovery could impact a forensic psychiatric patient's community reintegration; however, individual education goals for patients can be difficult due to the lack of available parameters. The purpose of this study was to test whether age at first hospitalization is predictive of educational attainment among forensic psychiatric patients and to determine which ages of first hospitalization best predict 8 levels of educational attainment. Cattell's intelligence theory served as the theoretical framework for this study because mental illness requiring early hospitalization may affect education and learning. This quantitative, nonexperimental study involved a predictive design with data from the Canadian Institute …

Fostering Self-Care And Nurse Resilience, Cheryl Jean Mcnamara

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Role expectations and stressful work environments place nurses at high risk for burnout. Nurses at an urban hospital were experiencing unhealthy work environments and not engaging in self-care to promote health and wellbeing. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of an existing quality improvement (QI) initiative developed to encourage nurses to engage in self-care. Pender'€™s health promotion model supported the premise that despite barriers, nurses will engage in self-care. A survey elicited responses from 1,248 participating registered nurses on the extent of their engagement with self-care and perceived effect on their health, health knowledge, stress level, …

Decreasing Hospital Admission Rates In Long-Term Care, Melanie R. Meissner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Each year, hospitalizations from long-term care (LTC) settings occur, in part, due to underdeveloped nursing assessment skills, ineffective communication with primary care providers (PCPs), and delayed intervention. Through staff development nursing education, the quality and timeliness of care can be improved. The practice question that guided this doctoral project focused on whether evidence-based research information would assist in decreasing LTC-to-hospital admission rates through improved nursing assessment skills and better communication with PCPs. Using the logic model, the effectiveness of a program was evaluated and the impact of interventions on a predicted outcome was determined. Sources of evidence included obtaining best …

Phenomenological Study On Social Workers With Children With Special Needs, Natasha Yvette Mike

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Parents with children with special needs experience challenges when caring for their children. These challenges may be uniquely affected by the parent'€™s employment. Because social workers are in professional roles, understanding their lived experiences provides awareness of the needed services and resources that help social workers maintain effectiveness in their home and work life. This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of social workers who have children with special needs. Bronfenbrenner'€™s ecological theory guided this study. Criterion and snowball sampling were used to recruit 8 participants. Data were gathered through 3 in-depth semistructured interviews. Moustakas phenomenology method was used to …

Experiences Of African American Mothers Raising Gifted Children, Keisha Kavon Mcgill

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Equality in educational access has long been an area of concern for U.S. educators, policy makers, and advocates. Congress issued a mandate in 1969 to identify the needs of gifted students and to ensure that those needs were being met. However, the needs of gifted minority students were not specifically addressed. Little is known about how African American mothers are affected by the demands of raising and advocating for their gifted child. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative inquiry was to explore the lived experiences of African American mothers raising gifted children. The theory of womanism was used to …

Addressing Bullying Behavior In Pediatric Patients Using A Clinical Practice Guideline, Barnitta Latricia Moses

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Childhood bullying can lead to adverse physical and mental health outcomes for both the victim and the bully. Risk factors for bullying can be related to gender, race, sexual preference, and having any type of disability. A pediatric primary care clinic in a large, metropolitan area, the focus for this project, did not have an evidenced-based clinical practice guideline (CPG) for providers to facilitate the management of children who presented with reported bullying. The project, guided by the Tanner'€™s integrated model of clinical judgement, addressed the question whether a CPG would facilitate the early recognition and treatment of bullying in …

Developing An Educational Program For Tracheostomy Care, Joy Onuoha

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Medical-surgical nurses at the project site demonstrated a knowledge deficit regarding the care of adult patients with a tracheostomy. Such knowledge deficits could expose patients to higher risks for infection, bedsores, prolonged hospital stays, increased costs, increased caregiver burden, and death. The purpose of this project was to develop an educational program to improve nurses'€™ knowledge and confidence in the provision of evidence-based tracheostomy care to answer the question if the content of an evidence-based educational program developed to improve nurses'€™ knowledge and confidence in managing adult patients with tracheostomy on a medical-surgical floor would meet the expectations of a …

School-Based Social Work And Socioemotional Learning Interventions In Alternative Education Programs, Heather Oosterhoff

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Active school social workers are tasked with teaching social-emotional learning to students, including high need youth placed in alternative education settings. Multitiered systems of support provide a framework utilized by school systems to identify and address all student needs. However, a gap in research exists for evidenced-based social-emotional learning practices for students falling within Tier 3 of the multitiered systems of support framework, particularly those separated from the mainstream population and educated in alternative programs. This study explored how school social workers address the social-emotional learning needs of students in alternative education settings within the state of Illinois. The qualitative …

Strategies Outpatient Health Care Executives Use To Reduce Physician Turnover, Maureen A. Onyenacho

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some outpatient health care executives experience high physician turnover leading to increased costs. To retain highly productive physicians, outpatient health care executives need to understand the best strategies for reducing physician turnover. Grounded in Herzberg 2-factor theory as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies outpatient health care executives used to reduce physician turnover. Data were collected from semistructured interviews of 4 outpatient health care executives and the review of proprietary documents from 2 outpatient health care facilities in the Southern California metropolitan area. Data analysis comprised compiling and disassembling the data …

Experiences Of African American Lesbians Who Attended A Historically Black College Or University, Lee Kimball Outlaw Barmore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The lived experiences of African American lesbians who attended historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have not received sufficient empirical attention; therefore, this study was conducted to understand and describe their experiences. The study followed a qualitative phenomenological approach. The multidimensional identity model, developed by Reyolds and Pope, was used as the framework through which to understand the participants' experiences. Semistructured, 40 to 60-minute interviews were conducted with 6 women who identified as African American lesbians and attended HBCUs. Initial hand and subsequent NVivo coding of interview data led to the development of the following 7 themes: (a) either African …

Noise Pollution/Reduction Education For Frontline Staff In The Acute Care Setting, Lopa Patel

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Noise levels in hospital settings have risen beyond the recommended range of 35-40 decibels, resulting in poor patient healing outcomes and other health conditions ranging from sleep deprivation, anxiety, agitation, delirium, depression, and high heart rate and blood pressure. These negative patient health experiences are evidenced by poor scores for the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, which are indicators of patients' perceptions of care. This project explored whether an educational activity for 48 direct care staff, who include registered nurses and nursing assistants, in a cardiac unit on the impact of noise pollution on patient healing would …

An Interprofessional Collaborative Approach To Fall Prevention Education, Lisa Prince-Clark

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Hospital falls among medical-surgical inpatients are a safety concern. Inpatient falls that lead to significant injuries may be reduced by fall intervention education, which can lead to the preparedness of the patient and care providers. Orlando's deliberative nursing process theory and the plan-do-check-act model were applied to address the project practice-focused question that explored whether the education of staff nurses on fall prevention interventions would reduce the incidence of falls during a 2-month period. The purpose of the project was to implement and evaluate nursing staff education on the Morse fall scale, an evidence-based fall-prevention intervention. Evaluation of staff nurse …

Challenges Faced By U.S. Student Veterans Transitioning To A Community College, Adam Walter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Increasing numbers of student veterans in the United States are transitioning into a higher education culture that reflects major differences from the military culture. Higher education leaders need to understand what these students require and what will help them transition smoothly into higher education. The purpose of this quantitative case study was to understand why freshman student veterans stop attending community college temporarily or permanently. Schlossberg's transition model that includes the 4 concepts of situation, self, support, and strategies was used as a conceptual framework. The research questions focused on perceptions of student veterans and faculty/staff related to challenges faced …

Socioeconomic Impacts: Exploring Relationships Between Parenting Styles And Emotional Intelligence In Odd, Radhia Afif

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Children diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) are at a higher risk to develop other serious problems based on reoccurring symptoms such as; aggression, hostility, and lack of empathy for others. Based on the emotional intelligence theory, it may be possible that understanding emotional intelligence in children with ODD could help reduce future psychological and social problems. This quantitative study addresses the problem of poor or low Emotional Intelligence (EI) in children diagnosed with ODD. A correlation between parenting style, as defined by Baumrind's parenting style theory, and the development of emotional intelligence has been found in current research. However, …

Cultural Factors Affecting African Americans Of Caribbean Descent With Type Ii Diabetes, Ruth Runette Aguy-Paulsaint

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Type II diabetes is a significant problem in the United States that had affected almost 10% of the American population and over 13% of African Americans. Although culturally competent diabetes education and treatment programs have been significantly more successful, little is known about the cultural factors affecting type II diabetes in African Americans of Caribbean descent (AACD). The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore the cultural factors relevant to the treatment and prevention of type II diabetes among AACD. The theoretical framework for the study consisted of cultural adaptation theory and the transtheoretical model. Data collection consisted …

Reducing Door-To-Provider Times By Using Nurse Practitioners In Triage, Megan Lynnell Anderson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Increased patient wait times it the emergency department (ED) have been linked to poor patient outcomes and adverse health care events. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine if placing a nurse practitioner (NP) in the triage area would reduce door-to-provider times and improve patient throughput within the ED. The primary question for this quality improvement project was whether the use of NPs in the triage area would improve patient throughput and decrease wait times in the ED. A secondary question identified was if implementing an NP in the triage area would decrease patient length of stay …

Factors Affecting Employee Intentions To Comply With Password Policies, Ernest Tamanji Anye

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Password policy compliance is a vital component of organizational information security. Although many organizations make substantial investments in information security, employee-related security breaches are prevalent, with many breaches being caused by negative password behavior such as password sharing and the use of weak passwords. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between employees’ attitudes towards password policies, information security awareness, password self-efficacy, and employee intentions to comply with password policies. This study was grounded in the theory of planned behavior and social cognitive theory. A cross-sectional survey was administered online to a random sample of …

Adult Character Strength Use And Its Relationship To Physical And Mental Health, Angela Beth Bergen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In this study, the use of human character strengths was evaluated as a component of mental and physical health. The majority of previous character strengths research has been limited to monotonic use of character strengths. This study evaluated subjective outcomes based on a new measure of how much adults reported underusing, optimally using, and overusing their character strengths. This exploratory study was theoretically grounded in the upward spiral model of lifestyle change. The underuse, optimal use, and overuse of character strengths were evaluated as predictors of physical and mental health status, health behaviors, and emotions. Using a convenience sample of …

On-Campus Employment And Retention Of First-Time, Full-Time College Students, Joel Bluml

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Retention of 1st-year students is a challenge facing higher education and remains relevant for all stakeholders. Low persistence negatively affects individual students, institutions, and society as a whole. Nationally, a significant number of students have reported working while in college, particularly 1st-generation, low socioeconomic status (SES), and racial and ethnic minority students, those same groups who are at higher risk of experiencing low retention rates. Guided by Tinto's interactionalist model of student departure, binary logistic regression analyses of archival data were used in this retrospective prediction study. The focus was to determine how on-campus employment (OCE), 1st-generation, low-SES, and racial …

Perceptions Of Access To Healthcare In Cameroon By Women Of Childbearing Age, Wenceslaw Chap Chapnkem

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Increased poverty and unemployment rates, minimal investment in social amenities, a shortage of healthcare professionals, poor infrastructure, inadequate social services, and poor institutional and political leadership have weakened the healthcare status of Cameroon's women who have reached the age of childbearing. The World Health Organization expressed increased urgency for healthcare providers and patients to develop new healthcare policies to eliminate health-related disparities. The aim of this phenomenological study was to examine the perceptions of women of childbearing age living in Mamfe rural community in regard to Cameroon's healthcare system and its impact on their lives. The theoretical foundation of the …

Home Studio Owners' Strategies To Compete In The Recording Industry, Darrel Maurice Polk

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that well-established home recording studio owners in a city in the southeastern United States have used to compete in the recording industry. Four home recording studio owners served as participants. Each participant owned and operated a home studio business in the target area for longer than 10 years. Porter's 5 competitive forces model and Christensen's disruptive innovation theory were the conceptual lenses for this study. Interviews, direct observations, and website documents were the 3 data collection sources used to achieve methodological triangulation. The data were analyzed using Yin's 5-step …

A Correlational Examination Among Law Enforcement Officers' Operational Stress And Media Consumption, Patrick Schmucker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Twenty-first century technology advancements have made the consumption of law enforcement related information on different types of media platforms more accessible. There is a relationship among media consumption on various platforms (traditional, social, and entertainment) and the altering of societal and personal perceptions and behaviors. However, there is little to no research on whether media consumption alters a law enforcement officer's operational stress (OS). The purpose of this quantitative study was to fill this knowledge gap by exploring a sample of active duty law enforcement officers in South Carolina. Social learning and rational choice theories comprised the theoretical framework for …

Stakeholder Experiences And Operations In Implementing An Elementary Civil Leadership Program, Richari Sancho

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Elementary school students may display uncivil behaviors that affect peer interactions, and school or community climate. Some middle and high school leaders have implemented programs to improve student interactions by enhancing student leadership skills, character education, and students’ understanding of civic education. However, few programs combine these goals with aspects of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in elementary schools. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explain the motivating factors, challenges, and rationales of school administrators and leaders who implemented a student civil leadership program in a K-6 elementary school and to understand how the program was established, how …

Youth Coaches' Perception Of Their Role In A Young Athletes' Continued Participation, Ronald Roy Spencer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract

Youth sports have been shown to be beneficial to the overall development of children and adolescents. Research showed youth sports participation helps children develop academically, physically, and mentally. However, there is a high attrition rate of youth sports participants.

What coaches think about youth's attrition in sports and their role in fostering or hindering young athletes' participation is not well known. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore youth coaches' perception of their role in a young person's decision to continue participating in their sport of preference. The conceptualizations of autonomy-supportive coaching strategy and Erickson's developmental theory …

Trauma-€Informed Care For Persons With Opioid Use Disorder In Ohio, Kimberly Toler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prevention, social work, and community awareness programs have not led to the successful reduction of opioid overdose deaths nationwide, and particularly in Ohio. This study explored social work perspectives about trauma-€informed care (TIC) for persons with opioid use disorder in Ohio. The research questions for this study examined how social workers in Ohio implemented TIC when providing outpatient treatment to opioid users and what challenges they faced when providing TIC. Using an action research methodology, data were collected through individual semistructured interviews with 5 social work professionals, selected through purposive sampling based on experience in the field of substance use …