Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Gay Social Networking Apps Are Fueling Crystal Meth Use, Moises A. Mendez Ii

Capstones

Selling crystal meth on gay social networks is a problem nobody is talking about; two men tell their stories. The LGBT+ community has a long standing relationship with the use of drugs. From the 70s to present day, there has been a popular drug used – currently, it's crystal meth. Adam and Christopher have dealt with their addiction to crystal meth for many years and the introduction of gay dating apps like Grindr, Scruff and Jack'd posed new problems for them when they were trying to stay sober.

https://medium.com/@moises.mendez/gay-social-networking-apps-are-fueling-crystal-meth-use-ac34f38fa636

Healing The Black Mind, Vanessa Etienne

Capstones

Due to an oppressive history, the African American community is more likely to have issues regarding mental health, but less likely to pursue professional treatment for it. However, as the perception of mental health care in the Black community starts to shift, many are finding unconventional ways to approach healing. http://vanessaetienne.tilda.ws

Postpartum Pains, Lakea Youngblood

Capstones

The Academy once again came under fire. This time for banning a commercial that advertised a postpartum support. People all over the country became enraged. The Academy seemed more friendly to movies about murder than postpartum, in alignment with the sexist ideas that have been pervasive in this country since its foundations. This short documentary pushes back against this narrative and the silence around postpartum by showing the realities of it through a woman’s journey.

The film is a personal documentary about myself. After having my first child, I found myself traumatized and scarred by the pains of postpartum. Because …

Students With Mental Health Disabilities Suffer From Discrimination Across College Campuses, Abigail Nequa Napp

Capstones

Over the course of several months, we investigated and reported on how colleges and universities have been discriminating against students with mental health disabilities. We FOIA'd the Department of Education for a history of pending and resolved cases (from 2008 - November 2019) to uncover violations committed by colleges. In several instances, institutions discriminated and punished students instead of accommodating their mental health disabilities as required by law. We also reviewed recent lawsuits involving students against universities that focused on punitive leave of absence policies as well as wrongful death suits. This revealed further inefficiencies, deficiencies and tragedy in the …

Dirty Water: The Newburgh Water Crisis, Shantal Riley

Capstones

Dirty

Dirty Water: the Newburgh water crisis

Summary

This project covers the ongoing water crisis in the City of Newburgh, New York. It tells the story of the contamination of the city’s drinking water by chemicals known as PFAS – short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Valued for their resistance to water and oil, the chemicals are found in carpets, furniture, clothes, non-stick cookware, food packaging and a range of industrial products. They’re nicknamed “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment. They’re also found in fire foam, which was used at Stewart Air National Guard Base. Located …

Caring Science Education: The Essence Of Professional Practice For The Registered Nurse, Linda C. Ackerman

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Problem: Hospitals have moved from caring, healing environments to business or economic models of caring institutions that focus on census instead of on patients and on technology instead of on touch or human connection (Watson, 2006).

Context: As nurse leaders, we have an obligation to create an environment of authentic, professional, human caring practices within our organizations. Caring science empowers nurses to balance the art and science of clinical judgment by engaging and collaborating with the patient and their family, focusing on the needs of the whole person, honoring the unique perception of health and healing, and engaging them to …

Implementation Of A Mentor Program To Support Nurse Retention: A Pilot Project, Lucy Camarena

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Abstract

Problem: Primary factors affecting nurses’ decisions to stay at an organization include nurse self-concept, job satisfaction, and professional growth. A high turnover rate of nurses poses a risk to patients’ safety and healthcare outcomes. The implementation of mentor programs in institutions that employ new nurses has been shown to reduce turnover rates, increase the quality of patient care, and empower nurses in professional development. The existing literature supports the use of mentor programs and encourages their implementation in healthcare institutions.

Interventions: The DNP project’s goal was to identify effective methods of promoting positive nurse self-concept and increasing job satisfaction …

Larc Method Appropriateness In Substance Use Treatment: A Quality Improvement Project For Integrated Care, Malia Johnson Dnp, Fnp, Alexa Curtis Phd, Fnp-Bc, Neda Afshar Dnp, Fnp-C, Msn, Cgrn

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Problem: Individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) have disproportionately higher rates of unintended pregnancy when compared to the general population, estimated to be 85% (Heil et al., 2011). Not only are poor maternal and fetal outcomes associated with unplanned pregnancies, but pregnancies in women with SUD are further complicated by additional risks and adverse outcomes (Black & Day, 2016).

Context: Addiction treatment centers and programs are primed with opportunity to offer family planning services, when contact with medical providers is increased for substance use treatment. In response to the opioid crisis and unprecedented rates of unintended pregnancy, this project …

A Quality Improvement Project To Implement Shared Medical Appointments For The Management Of Type 2 Diabetes In Latino Patients, Denisse Maldonado

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Problem: Santa Rosa Community Health (SRCH) is one of the largest federally qualified health centers in Northern California, providing health care to more than 30,000 patients. More than half of the patients receiving care at the SRCH Lombardi site are Latino patients. Patients self-identify as Latino or other ethnicity on the initial health center registration form. SRCH serves 964 patients with diabetes. Due to limited access to appointments and resources, seeing a healthcare provider regularly can be difficult, posing a barrier to diabetes management. Patients with diabetes would greatly benefit from regular appointments with their primary care provider and resource …

Nursing Practice Meets Theory, Debra J. Morton

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

These are challenging times for nurse leaders. Over the last decade, debates on healthcare reform have focused on the cost of care in the United States. This discussion has placed increasing pressure on nurse leaders to operate organizations that are more efficient, while improving quality and patient outcomes.

The practice of commanding and directive leadership has never been effective long term. Nurses want leaders to make sense of a situation and explain the why. With the growing trend toward hospital reimbursement for performance measures that are nurse-driven and informed consumers with higher expectations than ever before, it is vital …

Dnp Project: Development Of A Nurse-Led Pop-Up Clinic Model In San Diego, Jennifer King

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Baccalaureate nursing programs across California (CA) are required by the state board of nursing to provide theory of public health and applied clinical learning to meet the requirements of the state’s public health nurse (PHN) certification. Students in Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs are expected to enter the workforce prepared to address population health needs that synthesize community-based assessment and understand epidemiologic approaches to strategize interventions in diverse populations at the local, state and national levels. To adequately prepare nurses for true population health practice, clinical experiences need to be in appropriate settings where they can apply theory …

Building The Hiv Public Health Service Structure By Quality Improvement, Graham F. Watts Sr

Florida Public Health Review

Quality improvement (QI) is a tool in the public health inventory. It has value in that it provides a modality for accelerating science-based intervention into routine public health practice. In doing so, it holds promise to make transparent how care and service systems demonstrate efficiencies in the structure, operations, and outputs that should translate into improvements in population health outcomes. One HIV health services grant in Northeast Florida touches the lives of over 4,200 persons. How to render services so that it maximally benefits all clients is ongoing work. Service recipients engage nine HIV care funded providers, who differentiate on …

Perceptions Of Nurses After The First Year Of Practice: Expectations And Reality, Susan R. Lesser

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: The nursing profession is facing a critical shortage stemming from retirement of experienced nurses, increasing healthcare needs of an older population, and more inclusive healthcare coverage. Newly licensed nurses (NLNs) have been the long-term plan to fill the gap. Despite the support from nurse residency programs (NRPs), many of these graduate nurses are leaving their first position. This turnover of nurses is detrimental to the nursing shortage, and financially burdensome for health care systems.

Purpose: Two aims were explored: 1) to better understand the perceptions of newly licensed nurses after the first year of practice about their expectations and …

Acceptability Of A Vaginal Ring To Prevent Hiv And Pregnancy: Integrating Multiple Qualitative Methods, Dana Watnick

Dissertations and Theses

Heterosexual vaginal sex can simultaneously put women at risk for unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV, disproportionately impacting poor women around the world. Both unintended pregnancy and HIV are persistent public health concerns associated with negative outcomes for mothers, families and communities. The current mix of prevention tools available to women to protect against unintended pregnancy and HIV is limited. Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (MPTs) are innovative products that simultaneously offer protection against pregnancy and HIV. However, MPTs will only be effective in reducing unintended pregnancy and incident HIV if women are willing to use them. With an …

Implementing The Fast Track Improvement Bundle: A Total Joint Replacement Quality Improvement Project, Kathleen Cho, Grace Ryu, Laura Palmer, Crystal Eng, Shannon Danneman

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Fast Track program is a patient-centered and evidence-based intervention for post-surgical patients. It is widely used in many hospitals today because it has proven to promote early recovery, reduce postoperative complications, and decrease both length of stay and medical costs. Within a non-profit, Magnet community based hospital, the Fast Track program was implemented in April 2019. Currently, the success rate of the program is at 74%, which has warranted the initiation of a Quality Improvement (QI) project.

This project began with a microsystem assessment, root cause analysis (RCA), and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis. Four main barriers were …

Standardization Of Postoperative Care Guidelines For Pediatric Cleft Palate Patients, Julie Barragan, Macy Andrada, Mercedes Greenberg, Tatiana Grib, Samantha Gerber, Amanda Dailor

Master's Projects and Capstones

At a large, community-based pediatric hospital in Southern California, a quality improvement project commenced with a goal to improve patient outcomes by decreasing length of stay and pain levels, while increasing toleration of feeds. Implementing a standardized guideline would ensure safe practice across the continuum and allow providers to use a systematic tool for postoperative care, including nursing care interventions and medications. The Root-Cause-Analysis tool was used to assess the microsystem and determine the contributing factors to the identified problem. A SWOT analysis was then performed, followed by a plan to collect data from all pediatric cleft palate procedures performed …

Improving The Rate Of Hand Hygiene Immediately Before And After Wound Care In The Street Nurse Microsystem, Amanda Ramos Sandoval

Master's Projects and Capstones

The street nurse team of Sacramento, CA provides many services to patients who are experiencing homelessness, including a substantial amount of wound care. While the street nurses were performing hand hygiene (HH) prior to and after wound care, they would often not be performing it immediately prior and post-wound care. Because the nurses hike to their patients (who are living on the streets or in out of the way camps) the street nurses would often perform hand hygiene while at their cars prior to going to the patient and again when they returned to their cars after performing wound care. …

"Rise And Shine" Early Ambulation In Surgical Patients, Bhapinder Thiara

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

An assessment done in a hospital unit established low rates of early ambulation for patients in postoperative care. At the same time, early ambulation after surgery has been shown to improve clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. Some of the factors for the low rates of early ambulation include inadequate nurse staffing, poor teamwork, and the inability to utilize technology effectively. Consequently, a project was designed to empower nursing staff, promote interprofessional collaboration, and obtain technologies for ambulation. It is expected that the project will improve rates of early ambulation and lower hospital length of stay.

How Does Access To Healthcare Affect Life Expectancy?, Yara Mahmoud

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Access to health care is a pressing issue in the United States, whether it be the cost of care or not having enough of it. To emphasize the importance of this topic, this paper assesses the impact of access to health services on life expectancy. A comparison is made between the universal health systems in France and Spain and the mixed system in the United States. Even though the United States spends the most on health care in the world, its statistics fall below those of other developed countries. After addressing other risk factors, it was found that individuals under …

Assessment Of Structural Competency In Baccalaureate Nursing Students: A Descriptive Study, Elle J. Del Gallo

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Cultural competence has been investigated extensively in nursing education to better prepare nurses to care for individuals of diverse backgrounds. While developing cultural competence is important to address individual care needs, it may not address the social and structural factors that influence health. Structural competency describes the ability to assess not only cultural factors that affect health disparities, but also structural inequalities and stigmas that can alter a patient’s presenting symptoms and risk for certain diseases.

Redefining Trauma: Utilizing Restorative Justice To Repair Care Systems, Emebet Aklilu

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project examined the ways in which restorative justice programming can improve trauma informed care among the African American population in Oakland, CA. With 23% of African American men and women living at or below the poverty line in the United States, this project assesses gaps in current trauma informed care practices as evident in the literature. Following a rigorous document review the author coded and organized key programming components following six factors detailed by Rowher, Schoones, and Young (2014). Further examination of these program components was conducted using Bloom’s taxonomy levels to assess program outcomes associated with specific modules …

Standardization Of Postoperative Care Guidelines For Pediatric Cleft Palate Patients, Tatyana Grib, Macy Therese G. Andrada, Julie C. Barragan, Amanda K. Dailor, Samantha T. Gerber, Mercedes S. Greenberg

Master's Projects and Capstones

At a large, community-based pediatric hospital in Southern California, a quality improvement project commenced with a goal to improve patient outcomes by decreasing length of stay and pain levels, while increasing toleration of feeds. Implementing a standardized guideline would ensure safe practice across the continuum and allow providers to use a systematic tool for postoperative care, including nursing care interventions and medications. The Root-Cause- Analysis tool was used to assess the microsystem and determine the contributing factors to the identified problem. A SWOT analysis was then performed, followed by a plan to collect data from all pediatric cleft palate procedures …

Art-Based Health Education For Homeless And Marginally Housed Women In San Francisco, Trineca R-N Godfrey

Master's Projects and Capstones

San Francisco currently has the highest rate of unsheltered homeless persons in the United States. Between limited resources and stigma many women included in this most vulnerable population are left with little to no support. Cis women as well as trans and non- binary people are at high risk for negative mental health outcomes due to violence (physical and psychological), stigma, lack of social support, societal marginalization, and the lack of healthcare. Lyon-Martin Health Services and the Women’s Community Clinic, in San Francisco’s Mission Neighborhood, caters to this community through its Outreach Department. Following a staff and outreach client needs …

Knowledge And Attitudes About Sudden Death In Epilepsy Among People Living With Epilepsy And Their Healthcare Providers In Mulago Hospital, Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Study, Carol Bixen, Martha Sajatovic

Faculty Scholarship

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess level of knowledge and attitudes of SUDEP among people living with epilepsy (PLWE) and healthcare workers providing epilepsy care in Uganda. Methods: This cross-sectional study of 48 PLWE and 19 epilepsy care providers used a tailored questionnaire to evaluate epilepsy and SUDEP knowledge, frequency of SUDEP discussion, reasons for not discussing SUDEP, timing of SUDEP discussions, and perceived patient reactions to being provided information on SUDEP. Results: Median PLWE sample age was 25 (IQR; 19-34) years, 10 (20.8%) were male, median age of onset of epilepsy 12 (IQR; 6-18) years. Half …

Disaggregated Hispanic Groups And Cancer: Importance, Methodology, And Current Knowledge, Paulo S. Pinheiro, Karen E. Callahan, Erin N. Kobetz

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

Cancer is the leading cause of death among Latinos/Hispanics, the largest racial/ethnic minority group in the United States. Their cancer burden has nearly doubled in 15 years, with 129,000 new cancer cases nationwide in 2014. As this relatively young Hispanic population ages, this burden will inevitably increase; thus, accurate characterization of the Hispanic cancer experience is critical. In this chapter, we summarize the current knowledge on cancer in Hispanics, with a focus on the imperative of disaggregating by specific Hispanic group (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Central Americans, South Americans, and Dominicans) and nativity. We also describe for the first time …

Occupational Therapy's Role In Maternal Mental Health Within Transition From Nicu To Home, Victoria Briltz

Student Capstone Papers

The purpose of this capstone project is to identify OT’s role in maternal mental health following the transition home from a NICU setting. This capstone project focused on mothers’ roles, routines, and environment during the transition from the NICU to home. Mothers may feel unprepared for the discharge home when their babies are ready to leave the NICU (Boykova, 2016). Occupational therapists address occupational performance through skilled interventions for women during the perinatal period; however, there is a lack of evidence guiding occupational therapy for providing services for maternal wellness (Slootjes, 2016).

Data analysis for this capstone project consisted of …

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Activities Via Smartphone In Advanced Practice Providers: A Pilot Quality Improvement Project To Reduce Perceived Stress, Burnout, And Intent To Leave, Cynthia L. Larsen-Bednarchik

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Abstract

Burnout, attrition, and decreased work engagement among Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) are growing concerns and can have a negative influence on health care provider wellbeing. Chronic workplace stress is linked to various physical health problems, such as fatigue, insomnia, heart disease, depression, anxiety, and obesity. Chronic provider burnout is costly and extends to organizations and hospitals due to higher attrition, increased absenteeism, and decreased work engagement. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs focus on the intent of practicing mindfulness to cultivate a state of being that is nonjudgmental, openhearted, friendly, curious, accepting, and compassionate. MBSR programs afford clinicians a way …

Physical Activity Group On An Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit, Patricia Brown

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Physical activity is beneficial for the wellness of both the body and mind. Preventable physical diseases are the cause of the majority of deaths in individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) (Vancampfort et al., 2017). Motivation can be a barrier to regular physical activity. Learning by observation can facilitate maintaining behavior change. Thus, physical activity groups on an inpatient behavioral health unit were facilitated by exercise physiologists to improve mental health and physical health (Kaur et al., 2013; WHO, 2015). Lack of physical activity on inpatient behavioral health units is a common practice. The primary aim of this project was …

Optimizing The Implementation And Dissemination Of The Recovery Model Approach, Lani Schofield

Master's Projects and Capstones

For a period of nine months spanning 2018 and 2019, monthly patient satisfaction survey scores in a 22-bed sub-acute inpatient psychiatry unit at a safety-net hospital in California decreased significantly, which revealed that patients felt they were not receiving satisfactory care and which warranted calls for innovative approaches to improve care delivery. The patient experience of care affects recovery and length of stay. Because prolonged hospital stays result in increased costs and increased use of healthcare resources in hospital units, including sub-acute psychiatric microsystems, it benefits hospitals to improve the quality of patient care. In an effort to improve quality …

Changing Minds: Measuring The Impact Of A Student-Led Club To Reduce Mental Health Stigma Among Teenagers, Jennifer Anolin

Master's Projects and Capstones

Introduction: Stigma is a major barrier for teenagers to access mental health services. Additional barriers include low health literacy, and demographic factors, such as gender, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. Studies show that successful solutions to decreasing stigma involve interventions inside of schools. The purpose of this project was to measure impact of the Bring Change 2 Mind (BC2M) program and recommend program improvement needs.

Methods: Four survey instruments were used to evaluate BC2M’s student-led club program and to determine the club’s impact on reducing stigma at each participating high school. Each survey consisted of both qualitative and quantitative questions fielded …