Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Building Resilience In Undergraduate Nursing Students: Evaluation Of Changing Minds, Changing Lives, Rebecca Liljestrand

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background: Undergraduate nursing students report experiencing high levels of stress, which may negatively affect academic, personal, and professional outcomes. Resilience has been found to mitigate the effects of high, prolonged stress. Specifically, nursing students who engaged in a program to enhance resilience had positive outcomes related to themselves, others, and their nursing program.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to implement and evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and value of an evidence-based resilience program, Changing Minds, Changing Lives, designed to reduce nursing student stress levels by building resilience and increasing use of positive coping strategies.

Methods: Junior baccalaureate nursing …

Changing Minds, Changing Lives: Increasing Resilience In Undergraduate Nursing Students Through The Implementation Of A Resilience Educational Intervention Program, Jennifer Rivera-Perez

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background: Nursing students suffer from high levels of stress and psychological distress, especially those with histories of childhood adversity. The COVID-19 pandemic has been an additional source of stress on students. Students who suffer from psychological distress are at greater risk of engaging in maladaptive behaviors that may lead to physical and psychological conditions. Despite this data, college campuses lack resilience intervention programs, which have been shown to reduce psychological distress, perceived stress, and increase resilience. Purpose: The purpose of this Quality Improvement project was to implement a well-established evidence-based resilience program for nursing students, and to evaluate the feasibility …

Sleep And Coping In Early Childhood During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Sanna Lokhandwala, Jennifer F. Holmes, Gina M. Mason, Christine W. St. Laurent, Cassandra Delvey, Olivia Hanron, Chloe Andre, Katrina Rodheim, Sukhmanjit Kaur, Rebecca M. C. Spencer

Psychological and Brain Sciences Faculty Publication Series

Sleep disturbances in early childhood are associated with mood and anxiety disorders. Children also exhibit sleep disruptions, such as nighttime awakenings, nightmares, and difficulties falling asleep, in conjunction with adverse events and stress. Prior studies have examined independently the role of sleep on adaptive processing, as well as the effects of stress on sleep. However, how childhood sleep and children's adaptive behavior (i.e., coping strategies) bidirectionally interact is currently less known. Using a within-subjects design and actigraphy-measured sleep from 16 preschool-aged children (M-age = 56.4 months, SD = 10.8, range: 36-70 months), this study investigated how prior sleep patterns relate …

Massage Therapy For Anxiety And Depression, R. Maryam Lempke

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Abstract

Background: Massage therapy is a proven method for reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression as evidenced through literature review. However, the practice of complementary and integrative modalities (CIM), such as massage, is uncommon within psychiatric care. This leaves a gap in practice in the psychiatric setting. Purpose: The capstone quality improvement project addressed the identified gap by providing education on massage therapy to mental health providers and clients, and by increasing massage accessibility and use in the outpatient psychiatric setting by providing education on performing self-massage. Methods: The education was provided via pre-recorded video. Clients/providers completed pre and post-assessments …

Implementation Of An Online Mindfulness-Based Intervention For Reducing Stress Amongst Undergraduate Nursing Students, Joy Garmaise-Yee

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background & Purpose: Nurses and nursing students have notoriously high levels of stress, which can lead to burnout, depersonalization, deterioration of mental or physical health or exiting the profession. A pilot educational mindfulness-based intervention was implemented online amongst undergraduate nursing students to decrease stress and increase mindfulness. Mindfulness is an evidence-based self-care skill that has proven effective in reducing stress in student populations and amongst nurses.

Methods: Students in an online nursing theory course engaged in the mindfulness-based intervention online. Stress and mindfulness were measured pre-, immediately post-, and 4 weeks post-intervention and were analyzed using linear regression. Students were …

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Mbsr) In Reducing Stress In Nursing Students: An Integrative Review And Toolkit, Donna J. Petko

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background: Across the country, nursing students are experiencing alarming amounts of stress. While stress is a common phenomenon, it has been shown to negatively impact nursing student performance and general health. One solution to this issue is mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Reported effects of MBSR include stress reduction; mindfulness; improvements in self-esteem; increase in general health; a decrease in anxiety; and an increase in empathy. Because MBSR is not widely included in nursing curricula, students are not learning stress reduction techniques needed to manage daily stress. Purpose: To address this gap, a DNP project was implemented at a university site. …

Gestational Weight Gain And Maternal Health Among Hispanic Women, Megan W. Harvey

Doctoral Dissertations

More than 70% of women do not gain within their target range of gestational weight gain (GWG), as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2009. Risks associated with inadequate GWG include small-for-gestational age, low birthweight, pre-term birth, and difficulty establishing breastfeeding. Risks associated with excessive GWG include large-for-gestational-age, macrosomia, and delivery complications. There are also long-term consequences for maternal and fetal metabolic processes. Higher pre-pregnancy BMI, lower education level, and higher parity are known risk factors for excessive GWG. There are also possible racial / ethnic differences, and Hispanic women, in particular, may be at high risk for …

Differential Microglial Activation Following Immune Challenge In Peripubertal And Adult Outbred Mice, David J. Placzek

Masters Theses

Pubertal development is a time of growth and development in the brain, leading to high sensitivity during this period. Past research in our lab has shown that shipping female inbred and outbred mice during pubertal development alters their sensitivity to steroid hormones in adulthood, thus affecting sexual receptivity, cognition, depression-like behavior, and anxiety-like behavior. Here, we test the hypothesis that mice treated with lipopolysaccharide during pubertal development would have more active microglia, the brain's immune cells, after injection than mice treated with lipopolysaccharide in adulthood. No significant interactions were observed between treatment and age between any brain area measured, suggesting …

Stress And Depression During Pregnancy Among Hispanic Women: Risk For Adverse Birth Outcomes And The Role Of Physical Activity, Kathleen Szegda

Doctoral Dissertations

Preterm birth and low birth weight are among the leading causes of infant mortality and morbidity in the United States. Puerto Rican women are at increased risk for these adverse birth outcomes and elevated levels of depression and psychosocial stress during pregnancy when compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Therefore, it is important to understand whether these psychological factors increase risk for these adverse birth outcomes and mechanisms to prevent/reduce depression in this high-risk population. The first study of this dissertation examined associations between perceived stress during pregnancy and preterm birth, low birth weight, and birth of a small-for-gestational age infant (SGA) …

Increased Body Weight In Adulthood Following A Peripubertal Stressor And Proposed Mechanism For Effects Of Increased Adiposity On Estrogen-Dependent Behaviors, Christina F. Gagliardi

Masters Theses

Exposure to certain stressors during a sensitive period around puberty can lead to enduring effects on an animal’s response to estradiol. In estradiol-influenced behaviors, such as sexual receptivity, hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, depression-like behavior, and anxiety-like behaviors, exposure to a peripubertal stressor such as shipping stress or an injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) can eliminate or even reverse the normal response to estradiol. In addition to regulating these behaviors, estradiol play a role in the regulation of body weight. While some of the previous studies touched on short-term effects on body weight, no systemic long-term study of the effects of a …

Psychosocial Factors Affecting Pregnant Hispanic Women, Marushka L. Silveira

Doctoral Dissertations

Prenatal psychosocial stress, anxiety, and depression are common, with higher rates among Hispanic women. While evidence supports an adverse effect of psychosocial factors on glucose intolerance and oral health, studies during pregnancy are sparse, particularly among Hispanic women. Therefore, we examined correlates of psychosocial factors and their associations with glucose intolerance and oral health among pregnant women. The first project examined correlates of high stress among 1,426 pregnant Hispanic participants in Proyecto Buena Salud, a prospective cohort study. Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale was administered in early, mid- and late pregnancy. Using multivariable logistic regression, we found that increasing age, pre-pregnancy …

The Effects Of Adolescent Binge Drinking On Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Cells In The Amygdala And Social Predictors Of Alcohol Intake In Male And Female Rats, Chrisanthi Karanikas

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Alcohol is one of the most common drugs of choice among adolescents. Normally, the method of consumption is drinking large quantities of alcohol in short periods of time, otherwise known as “binge drinking.” Corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) stress peptide producing cells in central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) has been implicated in behavioral responses to stress and addiction. The goals of this thesis were to determine the effects of voluntary binge drinking in adolescence and vapor-induced alcohol dependence in adulthood on CRF cells in the CeA. These studies were done using an operant model of voluntary binge drinking in rodents …

The Lived Experience Of College Sudents Who Have Been Medicated With Antidepressants, Pamela Joan Aselton

Open Access Dissertations

Increasingly in the last two decades college students have been diagnosed with depression, with estimates of major depression higher than the general population (American Psychiatric Association {APA}, 2005). According to the literature, the stresses of college life along with increased rates of substance abuse, and binge drinking have contributed to the rise in depression in this population. In a large survey of American college students, over half reported some depression since entering college (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse {NCASA}, 2003). Correspondingly, the percentage of young people treated with antidepressants has grown over the past decade, and there is …