Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Improving Access To Mental Health Care With Nurse Practitioners, Jessica Whelan

Dissertations

Problem: Over 40% of those with mental illness are untreated since the supply of psychiatrists does not meet the demand. The psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) may be an adjunct in providing those services. The purpose of this quality assurance study was to evaluate outcomes of care between a PMHNP and a psychiatrist (medical doctor [MD]).

Methods: An observational, descriptive design with a retrospective medical record review of adult patients over a six-month period in a suburban, Midwestern, privately owned psychiatric practice.

Results: A total of 787 individual patients encountered at least one visit (N=787) although 3,679 …

A Silent Epidemic With No Voice: Alzheimer's Education In An African American Midwest Community, Sandra D. Fields

Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease is a growing crisis in this country, particularly in the African American community. Despite this awareness by the health care community and educational programs offered about the disease, a deficit in research assessing the impact of these programs exists. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to analyze the key criterion relative to the educational programs about Alzheimer’s offered by local organizations and the impact they have on a Midwest African American community.

According to research regarding Alzheimer’s disease, African Americans continue to go undiagnosed and untreated. The literature review in this study explores the synergy of three …

Same-Sex Sexual Coercion Among Women: The Impact Of Minority Stress On Perpetration And Victimization Experiences Of Women Of Diverse Sexual Identities, Allison Kirschbaum

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to investigate women’s experiences with same-sex sexual coercion perpetration and victimization. Specifically, I sought to explore the role that the stress of living as a sexual minority plays in these experiences as well as to determine whether the psychological variables of perceived powerlessness, psychological distress, social support, and alcohol use mediate the relationship between minority stress and perpetration and victimization experiences. Data were collected online from self-identified women and individuals assigned female at birth who reported experiencing genital sexual contact with another woman (N=339). Of the cisgender women in the sample, 31.6% reported …

Kids These Days: Increasing Youth Engagement In Community Heritage And Social Justice Through The Implementation Of A Youth Participatory Empowerment Model, Melanie Canaday-Talley, Lindsay Clemens, Amanda J. Dworak Rowland, Mary Gillis, Curlinda Mitchell Blacksheep, Jancarlos Jose Romero

Dissertations

The purpose of this co-authored, qualitative, action research study was to examine how to empower youth to become active participants in their communities. Citizen engagement in community and public life is vital to a healthy democracy and young people have a unique place in community citizenry, but are often dismissed or excluded from decision-making. The research team developed a model, the Youth Participatory Empowerment Model (YPEM), to guide youth through a process of identifying and engaging a community heritage or social justice need in their community. The team assembled a guidebook of activities to engage groups in difficult self, group, …

“I Am Whatever You Say I Am”: The Social Construction Of Identity In Rural Drug-Using Women’S Narratives, Amanda Bolton

Dissertations

Previous narrative criminology research has examined how drug users manage their identities through discussions of themselves, while providing little insight into how they manage their identities through discussions of others(McIntosh & McKeganey, 2000; Rødner, 2005; Sandberg, 2009).It is important to consider others because according to many symbolic interactionists (Cooley, 1902; Goffman, 1959; Mead, 1934), identity is a social product that is constructed and maintained through social interaction with others and is based on perceptions of others. Cooley (1902) more specifically argued that one’s primary group (i.e., those that are relationally or proximally close to an individual) are even …

Descriptive To Substantive Representation: A Study Of Gender Quotas In The National Assembly Of Pakistan, 2002-2018, Ameena Zia

Dissertations

Women’s political representation is linked to the empowerment of women in society. In efforts to alleviate women’s disenfranchisement from the political discourse, the international development framework included gender quotas as mechanisms to facilitate an increase in the presence of women in parliaments. Existing research has examined the link between Hanna F. Pitkin’s conceptualization of descriptive representation and substantive representation with a focus on performative measures of women parliamentarians. This longitudinal study expands the scope of existing inquiry and captures the transformational change in power relations as an outcome of the increase in women members of parliaments. This research provides an …

The Influence Of Stressful Life Events On The Development Of Type 2 Diabetes, Joshua Minks

Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between distress and the development of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the presence of established risk factors. Distress secondary to mental health disparities, stressful life events, and work conditions has been shown to promote insulin resistance and the development of T2DM.

Subjects (N=79) diagnosed with T2DM within the previous six months were recruited from SSM Health Centers and VA Medical Centers in the greater St. Louis area. They completed the Recent Life Changes Questionnaire, ENRICHD Social Support Instrument, and a demographic survey and analyses were conducted to determine differences between the veteran …

A Dynamic Approach To Understanding Immigration, Ethnicity And Violent Crime In Chicago Communities, Saundra Trujillo

Dissertations

Once again, politically-driven events in the United States have brought the relationship between immigration and crime to the forefront in public, political, and academic discourses. Yet, despite proclamations made by a key U.S. political figure claiming that immigrants, specifically Mexican immigrants, are “bringing drugs...[and] bringing crime” (Trump, 2015) to U.S. communities, criminological research consistently finds that there is either an inverse relationship between immigration and crime- or no relationship at all (see Ousey and Kubrin, 2017 and National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, 2015 for review). Moreover, with decades of research on the relationship between immigration and crime, this …