Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Coping Behaviors And Drug Use Among Fifth- And Sixth -Grade Students., Barbara Lynne Logan Wallom

All ETDs from UAB

No abstract provided.

Orchestrated Synergism: The Nurse-Leader As Facilitator In Collaborative Caring, Nancy C. O'Rourke

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Little is known of the way that nurses' roles have evolved within a hospital setting in which efficient and affective interventions include caring for sicker patients. The emergence of the Patient Care Coordinator (PCC) is one role that nursing developed to participate in an interdisciplinary collaborative team approach to caring for sicker patients.

This qualitative study examined the exemplary role of eleven PCCs who practice in a regional nonprofit medical center. Research methodologies included interview, non-participant observation, and analysis of historical data. Interview questions were developed from the literature review on collaboration, caring, expertise, communication, and knowing the patient. Cognitive …

Research Utilization In Hand Therapy Practice Using A World Wide Web Survey Design, Amy D. Heathfield

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate how frequently occupational therapists, certified hand therapists (OT, CHTs) read, integrate, and contribute to occupational therapy research; identify barriers and solutions to research utilization; and identify the effectiveness of World Wide Web (WWW) survey research with OT, CHTs. Of the 306 questionnaires sent, 154 were used (50% response rate). Most OT, CHTs reported reading some OT research, but integrated little into practice. One-half reported participating in research since graduation and 82% of those who did not participate reported interest in future research participation. Barriers to research were lack of time, research was …

The Molecular Epidemiology Of Rotavirus In Ireland, Fiona O'Halloran

Theses

Between 1997 and 1998, 3,136 cases of rotavirus diarrhoea were detected in Irish children less than 2 years of age. Hospital inpatients accounted for 80% of these infections, with the remainder being diagnosed in general practice. A large percentage of infections were detected in neonates, suggesting a possible inadequate maternal derived protection from existing indigenous strains. This feature suggested the possible existence of ‘novel’ strains circulating in Ireland. No data describing the epidemiology of rotavirus strains in this country currently exists. Furthermore no assessment of the potential health-economic impact or quantitation of potential disease burden was ever undertaken

Three hundred …

Study Of P53 Gain Of Function Mutations In P53-Null Astrocytes, Sang H. Choi

Theses and Dissertations

A number of recent studies suggest that expression of mutant p53 with mutations in certain codons show a gain of function and some of the characteristics of an oncoprotein. In order to study gain of function mutation and eliminate the potential of a dominant negative interaction with endogenous wild type p53 protein, p53 knockout mouse astrocytes were used. A retrovirus system was used to introduce mutant p53 genes into these p53-null astrocytes. Immunohistochemical staining and western blot experiments showed the expression of mutant p53 protein in these cells after infection with the mutant p53 retroviruses. Cell growth experiment did not …

Excisional Wound Healing And The Role Of Homeobox Genes, David Allen Lanning

Theses and Dissertations

The biochemical and physiologic mechanisms responsible for excisional wound contraction have been extensively studied but are not completely understood. Furthermore, the genes that regulate these processes are unknown. As a result, there are limited treatment options available for patients with diseases or conditions characterized by abnormal tissue contraction. In an attempt to improve our understanding of these mechanisms and identify some of the putative regulatory genes, we studied excisional wound healing in the mid-gestational fetal rabbit. These wounds normally do not contract nor are they associated with inflammation, fibrosis, or scar formation. However, we have been able to induce contraction, …

The Determinants Of Post-Discharge Healthcare Utilization And Outcomes For Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Social Ecological Perspective, Shyuemeng Luu

Theses and Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has a persistent nature: PTSD troubles patients

even decades after the occurrence of traumatic events. The “health behavioral model” is

adopted to examine the effects of external environmental, predisposing, enabling, and

need for care factors on the use of VA post-discharge ambulatory care and readmissions.

Data were obtained from the Patient Treatment File (PTF) and the Outpatient Care File

(OPT), the Area Resource File (ARF), American Hospital Association data sets (AHA), and the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).

The use of VA post-discharge ambulatory care is analyzed by using structural equation modeling (SEM). The readmission to VAMCs …

Outcomes Of Pregnancy In Women With Cystic Fibrosis, Bethany Jean Geldmaker

Theses and Dissertations

Medical advances in disease management has improved quality of life for women with cystic fibrosis (CF) and now enables them to consider pregnancy. The purpose of the study was to examine women's perceptions of how the demands of having CF influenced their ability to care for their children and continue to meet their own health needs. The study design was grounded theory methodology with a complementarity research technique to incorporate qualitative and quantitative data collection. Participants were 12 women recruited over the Internet and through an adult CF newsletter who completed questionnaires for demands of illness (DOlI) and self care …

Physical Therapy Student Learning Styles And Their Preference For Teaching Methods And Instructional Activities, Valerie Gwen Olson

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Predictors Of Condom Use Self-Efficacy And Perceptions Of Responsibilities Of Safer Sex Behaviors Among College Students, Lucy Ann Quatrella

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Helping Hearing-Impaired Pupils Attain Reading Skills Through Cued Speech : A Case Study, Mee Fong Liew

Student Works (2000-2009)

The main problem with hearing-impaired children with profound hearing losses is severe retardation in their acquisition of the primary language. Due to their hearing losses, they face problems in reading and writing and their academic achievements is often low as compared to their peers. However, they would also like to acquire a competence in language learning just like their hearing counterparts. They need to possess good literacy skills for academic success. The level of success attainable varies widely in their ability to use spoken language which enable them to read and write. Therefore, it is of prime concern to both …

Penyalahgunaan Bahan (Substance Abuse) Di Kalangan Pelajar Di Sebuah Kolej Swasta, Kumar Subramaniam

Student Works (2000-2009)

The main aim of this study is to provide an overall picture of the state and level of substance abuse among students in a private college in Subang Jaya, Selangor. This study also intends to identify the factors that contribute to substance abuse among students. It further seeks to ascertain the influences of gender on substance abuse as well as its influence on academic performance. A sample of 60 students enrolled in the Business Foundation Course, was selected. Data was collected using the Students' Questionnaire and was administered by the researcher in a class room setting. Data was analysed in …

Method Development And Validation For Drug Analysis By Hplc Gc-Ms, Yann Jen Goh

Student Works (2000-2009)

Enalapril and its metabolite Enalaprilat were determined by gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC - MS) and high - performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). For HPLC, the detection limit of enalapril and enalaprilat was 10n g/ml in methanol, whereas for the GC - MS, the detection limit was 6.25ng/ml in plasma. These methods were compared and GC - MS was selected for routine analysis. Enalapril and Enalaprilat in plasma were extracted and cleaned up by using Sep - Pak C 18. Enalapril and Enalaprilat were detected after reaction with diazomethane and were identified by gas chromatography - mass spectrometry as methyl …

Resilience In Couples With Hearing Impaired Children, Nirmala Devi Naidu R. Rajah

Student Works (2000-2009)

My encounter with a parent who was facing problems in coping with her sensorineural deaf child, prompted me to write about resilience in couples with hearing impaired children. The research questions are: I) Do the couples employ resiliency mechanisms that are effective in dealing with the problem of having a hearing impaired child? 2) What kind of resiliency mechanisms do the couples employ when they encounter the problem of having a hearing impaired child? 3) Does the couples· character indicate that they have the resiliency to deal with stress or adversity together'? The method of this research is conducted using …

A System For Analysing Patient History (Az-Phis), Kemalatha Krishnasamy

Student Works (2000-2009)

The improvement of health care service has a great effect on patient satisfaction. In order to improve the health care service, effective processing of patient history and analysis on the respondent is necessary. The results of the statistical analysis performed on patient history eases the decision making of physicians and other related medical staff. Therefore, this dissertation mainly investigates information pertaining to patient history, statistical analysis, and development of a system for analyzing patient history. The study employs the questionnaire survey method to gather data and make analyses using the Spreadsheet; Microsoft® Excel 97. The survey was done in government …

A System To Keep Track Of Medical Expertise (Medix), Kasthuri Subaramaniam

Student Works (2000-2009)

This dissertation presents a system for keeping track of medical expertise as well as demonstrates the integration of different tools in a single application. MediX, a system to keep track of medical expertise, maintains the records of medical expertise, medical centres and specialties. MediX uses reporting, statistical, database, and authoring tools that are integrated in a programming package running under an operating system. MediX is a client/server-based system that has many significant features. MediX provides the tools necessary to view existing information in new forms and combinations. These include generation of reports. charts and graphs as well as statistical computing, …

Religious Commitment As A Correlate Of Mental Health And Life Satisfaction Among Black American Families, Judith Bernard-Fisher

Dissertations

Problem. The salutary effect of religion is receiving greater acceptance among researchers, and its positive association with both physical and mental health has been increasingly examined in the scientific literature. Since religion has played a central role in the lives of Blacks, and since previous research has identified positive correlations between some religious attributes and individual well-being, it would seem that religious Black families would enjoy a greater degree of health.

A religious commitment model encompassing affiliation, participation, devotional intensity, and practices was used in the investigation of Black families' mental health and life satisfaction. As the first study of …

The Role Of The Academic Physical Therapy Department Chair As Perceived By Physical Therapy Teaching Faculty And Chairs, Wayne Louis Perry

Dissertations

Problem

The purpose o f this study was to determine the roles, responsibilities, and characteristics o f the physical therapy department chair as perceived by physical therapy unit administrators and teaching faculty in accredited, entry-level physical therapy programs.

Method

The research population consisted o f current administrators and teaching faculty who work at least half time in accredited physical therapist education programs. The data were analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, and ANOVAs with post hoc tests where appropriate.

Results

The results o f this study indicate that physical therapy unit administrators tend to be older, more experienced, carry higher …

How General Practitioners And Aged Care Workers Perceive Incidences Of Elder Abuse, Paul Howrie

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

As the Australian population is expanding and ageing, there is an associated need for a focus to be placed on the Individual rights of elderly people, and for the general populus to be made more aware of areas related to our older generation. Elder abuse, as an area of concern, developed as an offshoot of investigations into child abuse and general domestic violence, and initially surfaced in the 1970s and 80s. Some sections of the medical profession were made specifically aware of the problem initially in 1975, through a letter that was sent to the British Medical Journal. However, throughout …

A Qualitative Study Of The Impact Of Hip Fracture In The Elderly Population, Stephanie Anne Price

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The social, emotional and economic impact of falling in the elderly population is significant. Falls are the leading cause of injury related deaths and hospitalisation amongst people aged 65 years and older, a major factor in their morbidity and mortality rates. Post fall sequelae can have major ramifications that include reduction or avoidance of activities, attributable to an enduring fear of future falls. Twenty-three older people who had fallen in the community were located via hospital records and invited to participate in the study. Subjective accounts of the impact of falling and sustaining a hip fracture were obtained by means …

Detection And Modeling Of Radiation Induced Effects In Tissues By Dielectric Spectroscopy, Dorin A. Todor

Physics Theses & Dissertations

The work presented here is applied physics research in the field of radiation treatment. We address the development of a new and innovative method, in vivo and possibly non-invasive, for tumor and healthy tissues control during and after the radiation treatment. The radiation treatment is delivered in an almost standardized manner for particular classes of tumors. The large variance in the individual radio sensitivity of healthy tissues and tumors often leads to local recurrence of neoplastic growth and/or distant metastatic disease which often remains untreated. The method is based on the measurement and analysis of electrical impedance data in …

The Effects Of Symbol Organization Strategy On Syntactical Language Production In First Grade Children, Daniel Thomas Baier

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is the process in which a person's disordered speech is augmented or assisted with communication technology. This study investigated the effects of vocabulary organization using branching capabilities of a high technology device on sentence construction. Information about vocabulary organization strategies might be important for addressing the language and literacy deficits that were noted in previous research with AAC users. The study attempted to investigate whether or not vocabulary organization in a grammatical sequence across one page or multiple pages would improve non-AAC users abilities to retell a story using AAC technology. Six students participated in …

Incidence Of Voice Disorders In Teachers Who Coach, Todd Allen Bohnenkamp

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Eighteen teachers who coach, representing school districts in northeast and southeast Iowa participated in this study. Voice recordings were analyzed acoustically, and perceptually rated to quantify voice quality. Videostroboscopy was used to visualize laryngeal anatomy and function to confirm suspected voice pathologies yielded from the acoustic data. A questionnaire was used to collect vocal history information from each coach. Utilizing these objective and subjective methods, it was determined that 39% of these coaches had a voice disorder at the time of testing. These coaches often would change their teaching style when confronted with a voice problem; however, a high percentage …

Comparison Of Health Practices Of International Students At The University Of Northern Iowa Before And After Coming To The United States, Joseph Kwesi Ogah

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The primary purpose of this study was to compare the health practices of international students at the University of Northern Iowa before and after coming to the United States (US). Also included in the study was a description of differences in the selected health behaviors by gender, age, marital status, residence type, place of origin, and length of stay in the US. A random sample of 81 international students from about 60 different countries (35% male, 65% female) responded to a 50-item health behavior survey in the Fall semester of 1999.

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was …

Load Optimization On The Wingate Anaerobic Test With College-Aged Females, Corey Steven Crane

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the study was to determine which resistance loads would elicit maximal values of peak power output (PP), mean power output (MP) and fatigue index (FI) of college-age females. A second purpose was to examine the predictability of certain anthropometric and performance variables on the optimal load used for the Wingate Anaerobic Test. Twenty-one female volunteers, aged 20-27 years, performed a 10-second maximal cranking test, an area of muscle mass assessment of the thigh as well as three 30-second Wingate Anaerobic Power Tests (WAT) using loads of 75, 90 and 105 g/kg. The variables PP (W and W …

Impairment In Dichotic Listening Following Anterior Communicating Artery Aneurysm, Paul Michael Evitts

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Dichotic listening involves the simultaneous presentation of stimuli binaurally and was initially a method for determining cerebral dominance or laterality of hemispheric function. Since its inception, dichotic listening has evolved into a method for assessing neurologic pathology. An interruption in the central auditory pathways will result in a detectable asymmetry of dichotic scores. Impaired dichotic listening has been well documented in numerous neurological etiologies, but dichotic listening in patients who present anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm has yet to be documented. Due to the location of the ACoA and the substrates of innervation, central auditory pathways responsible for the transmission …

Perceived Social Support Of Family Members Of Aged Care Facility Residents And Its Relationship With Family Members Well-Being And Their Support Of Relatives In Residential Care, Christine Toye

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

When elderly people are cared for In Aged Care Facilities (ACFs) it is known that their family members frequently suffer negative effects. These effects may be alleviated by social support and, because they feel better, family members may then offer more support to residents. In this study, the researcher tested a model with a sample of 213 family members of ACF residents. Predictive relationships were hypothesised among incentives for family members to support residents, stress related factors, the perceived formal and Informal support of family members, their psychological wellbeing, and the support they offered to residents. The researcher also developed …

Attitudes, Practices And Knowledge Regarding Cervical Cancer Screening Among Greek Women In The Area Of Perth, Panagiota Karnaki

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this thesis is to study the attitudes, practices and knowledge of Greek women in Perth, Western Australia, regarding cervical cancer screening. This is important because no study has yet examined the cervical screening pattern of this group, despite their low participation rate in screening programs. Qualitative semi-structured interviews among 15 Greek women in Perth were used for data collection. Interviews were conducted both in English and Greek. Eight out of the 15 women interviewed did not participate in frequent screening and many had had only one Pap test in their life. Culture and religion influenced negative attitudes …

Auditory Hallucinations And The Presence Of Depression In Chronic Schizophrenia, Julie Proctor

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This exploratory study examined the predictive relationship among the dimensions of auditory hallucinations and the presence of depression in chronic schizophrenia. Forty seven out-patients from the Inner City Community Mental Health Service participated, all of whom had a diagnosis of chronic schizophrenia and reported experiencing auditory hallucinations. The measures included the Calgary Rating Scale fur Schizophrenia, the Auditory Hallucinations Rating Scale, the Beliefs About Voices Questionnaire and three questions relating to insight into auditory hallucinations from the Schedule for the Assessment of Insight-Expanded Edition. Consistent with other reports, the present study found a prevalence of depressive symptoms in over 40% …

An Identification Of The Core Variables That Assist People Diagnosed With Mental Illness In A Time Of Transition, Robyn M. Martin

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study has sought to identify the core variables or factors that are utilised by people with a diagnosis of mental illness in a time of transition. The specific transition involved study participants exiting a non government community mental health agency. The variables of interest are those that assist individuals to cope during this time of change and transition. The specific transition involves participants leaving or exiting from a non government mental health agency that provides community based, psychosocial support. The study topic is located in the context of a formalised mental health system in the process of changing from …