Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

An Educational Program For Nursing Home Nurses On Sepsis In Older Adults, Wendy Belden

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Elderly nursing home patients’ high rates of hospitalization due to sepsis impact their morbidity and mortality and significantly cost the U.S. healthcare system. Skilled nursing facility (SNF) nurses who have the knowledge to assess older adults for signs and symptoms of sepsis and communicate findings to providers are instrumental in providing improved care for patients. The purpose of this doctoral project was to provide a group evidence-based educational intervention on sepsis care of older adults geared toward nurses working in SNFs. The practice-focused question asked whether an educational intervention focused on the signs and symptoms of sepsis in the elderly …

Coping Strategies Of Dual-Role Informal Caregivers, Lorilee Maldonado

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There are nearly 43.5 million informal caregivers (ICGs) in the United States, and this number will nearly double by 2030. Trying to fulfill the needs of an aging family member and commitments to work, home, and other relationships create a constant state of stress that may result in either leaving the workforce or placing the care recipient in a facility. Finding strategies that support both roles is economically and socially critical. This study explored the strategies that some ICGs have acquired that enable them to cope with these pressures. Work-family conflict theory, focusing on the conflict between work and family …

Primary Care Physicians’ Attitudes, Beliefs, And Actions Toward Geriatric Treatment, Andrea Renee Holzner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractIn the United States, an estimated 49.2 million older adults seek specialized geriatric medical treatment from a primary care physician (PCP). Due to a nationwide geriatrician deficit resulting from significant aging population growth, PCPs now manage specialized geriatric issues, such as Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive assessments, and physiological impairments, such as Parkinson’s, due to non-normative aging. Although PCPs may take geriatric courses, geriatric specialization is beyond a normative primary care medical practice. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore primary care physician attitudes, beliefs, and actions, toward geriatrics and to expand the understanding of primary care physicians’ geriatric …

Sociodemographic And Psychosocial Factors And Wellbeing Among Adults 65 And Older In England, Dainelle Clark

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The increased number of older adults living longer parallels with the growth of public health concerns regarding the impact of sociodemographic and psychosocial factors (e.g., loneliness and social isolation) on older adults' wellbeing. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the association between loneliness, social isolation, the combined model of loneliness, and social isolation on wellbeing among older adults when accounting for age, gender, ethnicity, and social support. The socioecological model (SEM) was used to evaluate the multiple levels of environmental determinants for loneliness, social isolation, and wellbeing. The target population included older adults 65 years and older …

Mothering Through Our Pain: Single Black Mothers’ Narratives, Yolanda E. Surrency

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Black women’s voices and historical contributions have been dismissed, and even excluded, making it difficult for their cultural knowledge to be transmitted to future generations. Black women battle with an unsettled consciousness from subscribing to the normalization of what dominant culture defines as good mothering. This study uses Black feminism to examine single Black mothers who navigate the negative images of the welfare queen and the matriarch. This narrative study uses Black feminism to examine the stories of single, Black mothers and their daughters. The purpose is to investigate Black mothers’ lived experiences to understand their struggles and resistance. Purposeful …

Social Integration And Domestic Violence Support In An Indigenous Community: Women’S Recommendations Of Formal Versus Informal Sources Of Support, G. Robin Gauthier, Sara C. Francisco, Bilal Khan, Kirk Dombrowski

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Throughout North America, indigenous women experience higher rates of intimate partner violence and sexual violence than any other ethnic group, and so it is of particular importance to understand sources of support for Native American women. In this article, we use social network analysis to study the relationship between social integration and women’s access to domestic violence support by examining the recommendations they would give to another woman in need. We ask two main questions: First, are less integrated women more likely to make no recommendation at all when compared with more socially integrated women? Second, are less integrated women …

Practical Problems And Positive Experiences With Ecological Momentary Assessment: Reflections From People Who Use Drugs, Kelly Markowski, Jeffrey A. Smith, G. Robin Gauthier, Sela R. Harcey

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is an increasingly popular and feasible form of data collection, but it can be intensive and intrusive. Especially for at-risk, vulnerable populations like people who use drugs (PWUD), poor experiences with EMA may exacerbate existing chronic struggles while decreasing response rates. However, little research queries participants’ experiences with EMA studies.

Objectives: We explore participants’ positive and negative experiences with EMA, identifying what they liked about the study, the problems they experienced, and suggested solutions to these problems.

Methods: Results come from semi-structured interviews from 26 PWUD (6 women; 20 men) in Nebraska …

Constructing Pornography Addiction’S Harms In Science, News Media, And Politics, Kelsy Burke, Alice Millermacphee

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In order to describe pornography’s harms in the twenty-first century, an age of unprecedented access to Internet technology, some advocates—including activists, religious leaders, politicians, and scientists—use a medical/scientific framework to claim that pornography is biologically addictive. This article examines public discourse on “pornography addiction” to extend theories of sociology of science and sociology of sexualities about scientific knowledge and the biomedicalization of sex and sexuality. Using content analysis of over 600 documents, including scientific studies, newspaper articles, and state government resolutions, we show how references to pornography as addictive emerged in the twenty-first century and grew most substantially in the …

Perceived Family And Partner Support And The Work-Family Interface: A Meta-Analytic Review, Heather H. Kelley, Ashley B. Lebaron, E. Jeffery Hill, Diana Meter

Faculty Publications

This study employed meta-analytic techniques to elucidate the role of perceived partner and family support in four measures of the work-family interface. We extracted 183 effect sizes from 82 samples and a total of N = 36,226 individuals. We found perceived familial (partner and family) support was negatively associated with work-to-family conflict (r = -.099) and family-to-work conflict (r = -.178). It was positively associated with work-to-family enrichment (r = .173) and family-to-work enrichment (r = .378). Various sample-level moderators were investigated through meta regression and subgroup analyses, including whether the support measure was family or partner focused. Perceived family …

Unpredictable Paths Into Care: Examining Hiv And Ms Care Relationships In Southern Ontario, Melissa Popiel

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In Canada, we often speak of caring for others as more than a social obligation; it is part of how we conceptualize ourselves and our humanity. Family/friend relationships can become strained, however, when providing care and support for people with complex and unpredictable chronic episodic illnesses, here termed episodic care. Relational impacts may be understood as influences and impacts directly related to the relationship between the carer and family member/friend. The purpose of this study is to create a middle-range grounded theory of episodic caring based on the relational impacts of carers for people living with HIV and MS. …

How Did We Learn About Sex? —— Sex Education And Sexual Health In Chinese Youth, Yujuan Liu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Attitudes toward sexuality among Chinese youth have become more liberal in recent generations, but sex education remains controversial and limited. Due to the lack of awareness of sexual risks, many Chinese youth engage in unprotected sexual activities resulting in unintended pregnancy, abortions, and STIs. Therefore, understanding successful pathways and unique challenges are crucial to develop adequate sex education for youth’s sexual health in China. The current study used semi-structured in-depth interviews and investigated 28 Chinese youths’ experiences of sex education and sexual health. The results mapped out youth’s sex education experiences by age and sources and demonstrated the impacts of …

The Experiences Of Women Who Have A Child Diagnosed With An Eating Disorder: A Narrative Inquiry, Jennifer Scarborough

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Eating disorders (EDs) are serious, life-threatening illnesses that typically occur in adolescence. Immediate intervention is necessary in order to interrupt the associated behaviours. Typically, adolescents struggling with EDs minimize the severity the illness has on their psychological and physiological wellbeing. For this reason, family involvement in the intervention is strongly recommended. Additionally, family involvement has shown to increase the likelihood of better outcomes. Parents are typically tasked with the responsibility of making and monitoring meals and/or interrupting compensatory behaviours. These tasks often lead to high conflict. Despite the importance of parental involvement, predominantly, it is mothers who fulfill the intensive …

Who Is The Stranger Really? A Reluctant Autoethnography Of The Strange Situation Procedure, Tara Yazdani

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This paper aims to review the cross-cultural application of attachment theory as a western model of thought and practice. That is, this research aimed to recognize and question how embedded attachment theory has become in programming and education within North American academic and practical arenas. In applying the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) to a limited sample of Eritrean dyads, important considerations and questions arose regarding the cross-cultural application of this protocol. The aims of this research shifted toward further exploring these considerations and questions, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the new research aim emphasized how to inform future …

Contact, Moral Foundations Or Knowledge? What Predicts Attitudes Towards Women Who Undergo Ivf, Alicja Malina, Marta Roczniewska, Julie Ann Pooley

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: The willingness to try in vitro fertilization (IVF) as an infertility treatment, as well as its psychosocial consequences for couples, may be influenced by how they perceive the attitudes of general public towards this procedure. The focus of the current study was to identify predictors of attitudes towards mothers who underwent IVF to conceive a child. Three predictors were derived from attitude components: contact with someone who had undergone IVF (behavior), moral foundations (emotions), and the level of knowledge (cognition) about IVF. Method: In total, 817 participants (118 male and 692 female, 7 unreported) from Poland took part in …

Fathers’ Experiences Of Feeding Their Extremely Preterm Infants In Family-Centred Neonatal Intensive Care: A Qualitative Study, Evalotte Mörelius, Sofia Brogren, Sandra Andersson, Siw Alehagen

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Extremely preterm infants need advanced intensive care for survival and are usually not discharged before they reach the time of expected birth. In a family-centred neonatal intensive care unit both parents are involved at all levels of care including the feeding process. However, studies focusing on fathers in this situation are scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of feeding extremely preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit from fathers’ perspectives.

Methods:

The study adopts a qualitative inductive method, reported according to the COREQ checklist. Seven fathers of extremely preterm infants (gestational age 24–27 …

The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Ingrid Weiss Slikkers, Erick Pena

Faculty Publications

It was in the late 1990’s that the original Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs- https:// www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html) study through CDC-Kaiser Permanente was done. This groundbreaking research opened the door to the reality that childhood and household challenges, including but not limited to abuse, neglect and even divorce, can dramatically impact a person’s health and well-being throughout life. Much work has been done since 1997 to further study and subsequently reduce ACEs’ impact, but the sad truth is that although much effort has been put forth to combat adverse experiences, ACEs are still very prevalent today and even our own congregations are touched. …