Nursing Commons^™

Conversations With Health Care Providers And Parents Before Autism Diagnosis: A Qualitative Study, Norah L. Johnson, Wendy Krueger, Elizabeth Jilek, Kristin Haglund

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to explore communication with health care providers from the perceptions of parents before their child's diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and provide some examples of how communication may contribute to the autism diagnosis.

Method

This study used a qualitative descriptive design with multiple individual structured in-person interviews.

Results

Three themes captured parents’ (n = 8) descriptions of the phases of communication during their children's diagnoses including, (1) anguished questioning, (2) urgently seeking help, and (3) expecting a diagnosis. In addition, three themes characterized the communication style that parents needed, although not always …

Strategies To Improve Interdisciplinary Communication In An Acute Care Inpatient Pediatric Unit, Sarah Thompson, Haley Pelletier, Barbara Bush Children's Hospital-Inpatient, Maine Medical Center, Suneela Nayak, Ruth Hanselman, Stephen Tyzik

Maine Medical Center

Interdisciplinary patient rounding has been shown to improve patient and family satisfaction as well as reduce patient length of stay and readmission rates. In an acute care inpatient pediatric unit, baseline metrics demonstrated that 100% of the time, nursing was not included in these rounds thus resulting in sub optimal communication.

The goal of this performance improvement project was to attain increased nursing participation. Data collection demonstrated several reasons for lack of participation and corrective actions were instituted. After undertaking this KPI goal and utilizing operational excellence, 95% of the time, nurses were called to morning rounds with the medical …

Communicative Behaviors Elicited By Leisure Activities In Memory Care Units, Tarynn Clune

Honors Projects

A wide variety of leisure activities used in reminiscence care have been studied for their merits in terms of preventing cognitive decline, and increasing quality of life; however, little is known about what different types have to offer in terms of communicative opportunities. Communication with peers is imperative for quality of life, and is crucial for maintenance of relationships between the person with dementia (PWD) and their loved ones. As a result of this importance, an exploration of communication elicited by different activities facilitated in a unit was conducted. The communication explored in this study was solely vocal, and included …