Nursing Commons^™

Caring Beyond Constraint: A Nursing Model Of Presence In A Time Limited Procedural Practice, Laura Becker

Theses and Graduate Projects

The purpose of this paper is to support the value of maintaining presence within a time limited procedural practice. Specifically, it presents the significance of a nursing presence model based on Jean Watson's human caring theory within an outpatient procedural endoscopy unit which has high patient volumes and time limited processes. It describes the process for developing a care model of nursing presence and methods used to integrate this model into practice. It also includes an evaluation of the methods to determine themes and make comparisons to determine effectiveness of theory integration into nursing practice.

Awareness Cultivation: Designing A Transcultural Patient Family Advisory Council, Lisa G. Peterson

Theses and Graduate Projects

This project explores the rationale that supports designing and implementing a transcultural patient family advisory council (PFAC) at a large academic center in the Midwest where eight disease-diagnosis based PFAC's already exist. Potential pitfalls and obstacles that could interfere with such a council being successful will also be reviewed. In addition, Madeline Leininger's theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality is applied to add support to this effort. Specifically, the stranger to trusted friend enabler explains how having such a committee can foster mutually beneficial relationships that demonstrate a change in culture and attitudes at this traditional physician-lead institution.

Replicating Success: Developing An Educational Process For Improving Nursing Accuracy When Using A Patient Classification System, Dewey M. Moulton

Theses and Graduate Projects

The use of patient classification systems (PCS), within hospitals has been and still is utilized primarily for determining staffing requirements, based upon the projected needs of the patient. Since its conception in the 1950's, health care management has worked to develop a system that accurately depicts those needs to provide good patient care. Recently, a major tertiary health care center located in the Midwest region of the United States implemented a revised patient classification system within its acute care setting. Nurses were provided various levels of education regarding its use. Because of this, accuracy by nurses using the patient classification …

Mother-Infant Synchrony During Infant Feeding, Barbara Reyna

Theses and Dissertations

MOTHER-INFANT SYNCHRONY DURING INFANT FEEDING By Barbara A. Reyna, PhD A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. Major Director: Rita H. Pickler, PhD Endowed Nursing Alumni Professor Department of Family and Community Health Nursing, School of Nursing Synchrony between a mother and her infant is fundamental to their developing relationship. Feeding is an essential activity that provides an opportunity for interaction between a mother and her infant and may lead to synchronous interaction. The purpose this study was to develop and test a …

Spermatogenesis: Laser Microdissection Optimization, Deborah Ann Hansen

Dissertations

Studies link paternal environmental exposures to pesticides, herbicides, and radiation to adverse reproductive outcomes such as developmental delays, malignancies, and structural birth defects. To date, 900 children of Vietnam veterans with presumed Agent Orange exposure receive VA presumptive service connected benefits because these children have Spina Bifida. To date, there are limited data to explain the underlying causal mechanisms whereby paternal environmental exposures result in adverse reproductive events. Laser microdissection (LMD) is the only technology that allows the isolation of cell subpopulations from complex tissues such as the testes without disturbing the cell’s bimolecular signature. LMD is essential in the …

Thinking Differently: Developing A Fall Risk Assessment For The Emergency Department Setting, Carissa K. Fauks

Theses and Graduate Projects

When a patient falls in the hospital it ends up being costly for both the patient and the hospital. Having an awareness of risk factors that lead to an increase in patient falls becomes very important for all nursing staff. However, the contributing factors are not the same for every department in a hospital. The focus of this proposal is the development of a fall assessment that is specific to the emergency department. Age, cognition, elimination, physical mobility, and medications were the risk factors determined to be most important after a review of the literature. Once the fall assessment scale …

Facial Expression Discriminates Between Pain And Absence Of Pain In The Non-Communicative, Critically Ill Adult Patient, Mamoona Arif-Rahu

Theses and Dissertations

BACKGROUND: Pain assessment is a significant challenge in critically ill adults, especially those unable to communicate their pain level. At present there is no universally accepted pain scale for use in the non-communicative (cognitively impaired, sedated, paralyzed or mechanically ventilated) patient. Facial expressions are considered among the most reflexive and automatic nonverbal indices of pain. The facial expression component of pain assessment tools include a variety of facial descriptors (wincing, frowning, grimacing, smile/relaxed) with inconsistent pain intensity ratings or checklists of behaviors. The lack of consistent facial expression description and quantification of pain intensity makes standardization of pain evaluation difficult. …

Chhs December/January E-Newsletter, Dr. John Bonaguro, Dean, Vashon S. Wells, Editor, Wku College Of Health & Human Services

College of Health & Human Services Publications

No abstract provided.

Stamping Out Electrosurgery Smoke, Kay Ball

Nursing Faculty Scholarship

Did you know that perioperative nurses have twice the incidence of some respiratory problems as compared to the general population? This information surprised me too when the data from my doctoral research revealed this startling and unsettling fact.....What are we breathing in the OR?

Ua61/1 Wku Nursing Class 2010, Wku Nursing

WKU Administration Documents

Members of the 2010 nursing class: Laura Abernathy, Michelle Allison, Jana Anderson, Tanya Atkinson, Denise Bunner, Mollie Carter, Jared Crocker, Brittany Davidson, Laura Deaton, Drew Frey, Erin Garner, Brian Gaskins, Angie Gipson, Brianna Glover-Motley, Jeanette Granese, Jennifer Green, Lindsay Green, Erick Greer, Crystal Heady, Myranda Holder, Kelly Irvin, Katherine Kerr, Dawn Kimberlin, Wendi King, Amanda Lamb, Jody Lee, Angela Legge, Rebecca Lock, Tiffany McMinoway, Joe Middleton, Sherry Moore, Amber Nagornay, Renae Neldlinger, Laura Nuestro, Blair Ramsey, Heather Rasmussen, Lora Ray, Justin Reed, Kristin Richardson, Jacqui Rock, Regina Salai, Shelby Scillian, Sydney Scillian, Michael Sticar(?), Rachel Sither, Amanda Smith-Gaspar, Sarah Somers, …

Coronary Heart Disease Knowledge And Risk Factors Among Filipino-Americans Connected To Primary Care Services, Alona N. Dalusung-Angosta

Nursing Faculty Research

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death of Filipino-Americans (FAs). Despite the growing numbers of FAs in the United States, little is known about their CHD knowledge and risk factors.

The purposes of this study were to examine the baseline knowledge and risk factors of CHD among FAs and to describe the relationships between knowledge, sociodemographic, and socioeconomic characteristic variables of FAs between the ages of 35-75 years.

The study sample consisted of 120 FAs (N = 120) who were connected to primary care services. Data were collected from three primary care clinics in Las Vegas, …

Direct Care Workers Perceptions And Practices Related To Quality Of Life In Long Term Care, Karen M. Kinyon

Dissertations

The focus of this case study was to discover how DCWs define success in their practice and what institutional and individual factors contribute to their successful practices. It describes how DCWs perceive quality of life for NH residents and how their practices reflect quality of life indicators. The conceptual model for which this research is based on was developed around the concepts that individual and institutional factors contribute to the successful practices of direct care workers; and, how these DCWs perceive quality of life influences how they practice to promote quality of life for nursing home residents. Using a case …

Further Validation Of The Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness Behavior And Characteristic Inventory For College Students, Nicole Mareno, Kathy Shadle James

Faculty Articles

Health promotion is a vital component of college health programs. College health professionals are challenged to find cost-effective, comprehensive measures to assess wellness and risk behaviors. Hettler’s 1979 Six Dimension of Wellness Model guided this inquiry. Physical, emotional, intellectual, occupational, social, and spiritual wellness dimensions were measured by the Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness Behavior and Characteristic Inventory (BMS-WBCI). This study aimed to further validate the BMS-WBCI by reporting reliability as internal consistency of the scale when used to measure wellness in a sample of college students. A descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized. A convenience sample of 106 college students from a small, …

The Association Of Religiosity, Sexual Education, And Parental Factors With Risky Sexual Behaviors Among Adolescents And Young Adults, Kristin Haglund, Richard J. Fehring

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

This study examined the association of religiosity, sexual education and family structure with risky sexual behaviors among adolescents and young adults. The nationally representative sample, from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, included 3,168 women and men ages 15–21 years. Those who viewed religion as very important, had frequent church attendance, and held religious sexual attitudes were 27–54% less likely to have had sex and had significantly fewer sex partners than peers. Participants whose formal and parental sexual education included abstinence and those from two-parent families were 15% less likely to have had sex and had fewer partners.

Anencephaly: Concepts Of Personhood, Ethical Questions, And Nursing Care, Jessica L. Ryskamp

Senior Honors Theses

Anencephaly is a neural tube defect that severely limits the lifespan of affected infants. While these infants have no higher brain function, they are still persons, and should be given the same moral and ethical considerations as healthy infants. With this in mind, organ donation procedures should follow the same guidelines that apply to other donors. Because a large part of nursing care for anencephalic infants is palliative care, nurses need appropriate training to care effectively for both the infant and the family, providing for physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs.

Newbery Award Winning Books 1975–2009: How Do They Portray Disabilities?, Melissa Leininger, Tina Taylor, Mary Anne Prater, Melissa Allen Heath

Faculty Publications

Newbery books represent quality literature that has a profound social-emotional impact on its readers, yet these books have not been systematically evaluated for their portrayal of characters with disabilities. Thirty-one Newbery Award and Honor books from 1975–2009 were identified and portrayed 41 main or supporting characters with disabilities. These books were evaluated using the Rating Scale for Quality Characterizations of Individuals with Disabilities in Children’s Literature. Results indicate the representation of Newbery characters with disabilities is not proportionate to the current U.S. population of students with disabilities. Further, racial representation portrayed in these books is not representative of the diverse …

Student Persistence In Associate Degree Nursing Programs At Mississippi Community Colleges, Kathryn Lee Fleming

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine factors of student persistence and attrition in addition to strategies that may help students persist in associate degree nursing programs at community colleges. Data were collected from nursing students enrolled in first-year associate degree nursing programs at participating Mississippi community colleges and analyzed using multiple regression and repeated measures ANOVAs. Tinto’s Classic Model and Bean & Metzner’s Nontraditional Model of Student Attrition were utilized in this study. This mixed methods convenience sample yielded 564 participants, and the results were as follows: environmental factors and demographic factors of student persistence were found to …

Characterizing Dietary Intake And Physical Activity Affecting Weight Gain In Kidney Transplant Recipients, Connie Klopfenstein Cupples

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Weight gain following kidney transplant is a significant problem with 50 to 90% of kidney transplant recipients gaining weight. Potential factors leading to weight gain following kidney transplantation have been thought to include a change in lifestyle such asdietary intake and physical activity, along with the use of immunosuppressant medications to preserve the newly implanted organ. Other influences affecting weight gain include genetic determinates such as age, gender and race. There is little data to confirm which of these factors may indeed lead to weight gain and obesity. The purpose of this study was to examine dietary intake and physical …

Application Of A Judgment Model Toward Measurement Of Clinical Judgment In Senior Nursing Students, Tiwaporn Pongmarutai

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Clinical judgment, defined as “the application of the nurse’s knowledge and experience in making decisions about client care” (The National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 2005, p. 2), has been recognized as a vital and essential skill for healthcare providers when caring for clients. Undisputedly, nurses represent the largest component of the healthcare profession and, therefore, play a major role in ensuring quality patient care in the United States. Although the concept of clinical judgment in nursing has been discussed for more than three decades, and in spite of numerous efforts to improve student clinical judgment, the recent literature …

Recent Accelerated Second-Degree Baccalaureate Graduates’ Perceptions Of Educational Preparation, Susan Candelaria

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As of 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor is predicting a need for greater than one million new registered nurses by the year 2016 (American Associations of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2008). One way that nursing schools around the country are dealing with this issue is through the creation of accelerated second-degree programs for non-nursing graduates.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine the perceptions of educational preparation of accelerated second-degree baccalaureate graduates, who have been out of school for at least one year, but no longer than four years. The sample consisted of 54 graduates from an …