This study investigated the effect of postpartum home teaching on primiparous women's knowledge of infant care. Twenty-one low-risk primigravidae women were randomly placed in a control or experimental group. Subjects in the experimental group viewed a videotaped program on infant care a second time, at home on the third day postpartum. Tests were administered prior to hospital discharge, on the third day postpartum, and at 28-32 days postpartum. A short interview was conducted to obtain opinions regarding videotaped educational materials. The subjects (n = 21) retained most of the information presented after the first viewing and expressed satisfaction with the educational format. The results were not statistically significant, though mean test scores increased over the three test intervals.

The issue of satanic ritual abuse has gained widespread public and professional attention in the past ten years. During therapy, many adult Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) clients describe memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) beginning in childhood. Basically, the only information circulating in the mental health professional community about MPD/SRA issues is derived from workshops and lectures at trainings and professional meetings. The intent of this project was to determine the need for an in-depth educational training film for mental health professionals to assess, diagnose and treat satanic ritual abuse survivors in conjunction with multiple personality disorder. A questionnaire was used to determine whether a video educational training film would be beneficial. The conclusion was reached that an educational training film would be useful in helping mental health professionals. It was also concluded that educational training films in the behavioral sciences is an effective training tool.

The population today is getting older, leading to increases in the number of women in the postmenopausal stage of life. The fact that women in the United States have an average life expectancy of 79 years, means that approximately one third of a woman's life will be spent after menopause (Odom, Carr, & MacDonald, 1990). For nurses working with older populations, estrogen replacement therapy is a common issue to confront. It is of considerable concern then that more knowledge be obtained on HRT and on characteristics of those women who elect to use it. The purpose of this study was to describe the profile of one group of older, middle-income women, on estrogen replacement therapy. In this study, premarin is the most common method of estrogen replacement therapy. A majority of the sample practiced the health promotion behaviors of no smoking, limited fat intake and regular exercise. Approximately 85% (n = 41) of the sample had a papanicolaou smear within the past two years, 92% (n = 44) had a mammogram within the past one year and 59% performed occasional breast self exam.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of two short-term grief education curricula, didactic (lecture) and modeling, in teaching students about grief and how to effectively interact with someone who was grieving. A control group was included in which subject read articles on euthanasia. Subjects were 84 students (67 females, 17 males) enrolled at a southeastern university who volunteered to participate in exchange for extra credit, and who met the inclusion criteria that they not be acutely grieving. This study was unique in its incorporation of an analogue interaction that allowed for coding of subject responses to a grieving confederate. Subjects completed a demographic questionnaire, a grief knowledge test, and a death anxiety scale. They were ranked on the appropriateness of responses during the analogue interaction, and their responses in the analogue interaction were coded for degree of facilitativeness to the griever. / MANOVAs were used to analyze the dependent measures by instructional format. No major findings for instruction emerged. MANOVAs were also conducted to examine subject gender and confederate gender. Significant results were obtained for subject gender in which females scored higher on a death anxiety scale than males. For confederate gender, subject who interacted with male confederates had significantly higher death anxiety scores, fewer total observation responses, fewer nonfacilitative responses, and a lower percentage of nonfacilitative responses. / Potential limitations of the study were that the lecture and modeling instructional units may have been too brief, and the subject population may have been knowledgeable in therapeutic techniques and grief information, thereby deriving few benefits from instruction. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-11, Section: B, page: 6000. / Major Professor: Charles Madsen, Jr. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the impact of accreditation committee recommendations on graduate programs in health services administration from 1982 to 1988. A second purpose was to determine the extent of compliance by graduate programs in health services administration with the criteria-related recommendations made by visit committees. A third purpose was to determine whether the characteristics of graduate programs awarded accreditation for five years or longer differ from those awarded accreditation for three years or less. A content analysis of site visit reports and progress reports substantiated the following conclusions: (1) Graduate programs met a relatively high degree of the ACEHSA criteria. (2) Curricula-Related deficiencies presented the most problems for graduate programs. (3) Research and Program Evaluation were found to be relatively high priorities for visit committees and for the ACEHSA. (4) Visit committees made recommendations consistent with the premise that graduate programs located in business schools have qualities which came closest to satisfying the ACEHSA criteria. These programs received the fewest number of criteria-related recommendations. (5) Graduate programs auspicious to acquire the human and financial wherewithal from their respective universities and external funding sources received longer lengths of accreditation. These programs, at minimum, had substantial budgets, critical masses of faculty, and considerable bases of full-time students. (6) ACEHSA follow-up procedures fostered a relatively high degree of compliance by graduate programs with recommendations made by visit committees. (7) Graduate programs granted longer lengths of accreditation met more recommendations than those programs awarded shorter lengths of accreditation. (8) The ACEHSA criteria made little or no provision for differences / between traditional and non-traditional programs, United States and Canadian Programs, and programs by administrative locations. (9) ACEHSA granted lengths of accreditation consistent with the premise that schools of public health, medical schools and graduate schools came closest to meeting the ACEHSA criteria. These programs were granted the longest lengths of accreditation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: A, page: 0754. / Major Professor: Allan Tucker. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

Current research on the important issue of the determinants of child welfare at the family level has focused on parental attainment of education as an important determinant of the health and well being of the child. The unique and defining role of the mother as chief caretaker, and the critical need to arm her with sufficient information to counterbalance the entrenched poor living conditions of most sub-Saharan African regions sets the background for this research The research focuses on the influence of the mother's attainment of a greater threshold of education achievement on child welfare among Ghanaian and Kenyan children under the age of 36 months. The maternal attainment of at least some secondary education exceeds various socioeconomic indicators, including source of drinking water, as the major determinant of the health and well being of the child. These findings are persistent in both country analyses The finding is robust using multivariate analyses across selected socioeconomic measures, and remains intact when the outcome variable is controlled for by urban-rural residency. Those measurements include: source of drinking water, prevalence of disease, educational attainment, child's age, access to a radio, mother's age, and mother's awareness of oral rehydration therapy. An additional sub-analysis investigated factors associated with whether the child was taken to a medical facility for treatment Indicators employed to proxy the condition of poverty were found to be statistically significant correlates of child well being. However, these variables do not duplicate the persistent and strong results obtained from the education indicator. The amassment of maternal knowledge precedes and mitigates the impact of the basic accouterments of water connections and health practice factors on the health and well being of the child Thus socioeconomic and infrastructure factors are not a substitute for the commanding influence of greater maternal education on the well being of the child. Moreover, information received by mothers resulting from the completion of primary schooling is insufficient to reverse the trend of poor health outcomes among children under the age of three Policy must prioritize the allocation of resources toward maternal education at a level which exceeds primary schooling or basic education in order to effect sustainable change / acase@tulane.edu

The rate of participants leaving organized sport has increased. Does sport participation provide youth with positive experiences or negative ones? Burnout in sport occurs frequently and most coaches and players experience difficulty in diagnosing, preventing, and treating this problem. / Once the causes of burnout are found, interventions to decrease its effects should be more successful. Additional research should determine how and when to intervene. Sport offers a unique context for the study of social processes and relationships. I used a case study approach and incorporated focused interviews. / The subjects for this study were ten gymnasts ranging in age from 10 to 16. Subjects were initially and informally interviewed by a panel of experts who used their own line of questioning. In addition, the investigator conducted an extensive interview with all subjects. / Also included as subjects were the mothers and coaches (or ex-coaches) of the gymnasts. Subjects were observed for eight weeks, 1 to 2 hours per week. / The data was analyzed from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Triangulation prevented the investigator from accepting too readily the validity of initial impressions and provided a means of more directly assessing the reliability and validity of the data collection. The goal of this type of analysis was to arrive at an integrated understanding of the processes being studied. / Socially learned blocks can cause early termination, therefore a positive experience can make that difference in the quality of the aport experience. Broader perspectives in psychology and sociology will increase the understanding as to why some children experience sport burnout and others incorporate it into their lifestyle. / Burnout was determined to be a multidimensional response requiring consideration from both psychological and sociological perspectives. In the case of the subjects used in this study regular participation in sport comprises a process replete with varied social interactions, acquired deterrents as well as enhancers of personal development. These were revealed during the indepth interviews with subjects. The ways in which the gymnasts integrated environmental stimuli, and dealt with differential social experiences interacted with their personal past experiences, needs and interests, and determined the meaningfulness of gymnastic participation. Certain of these dynamics and mechanics appeared to have generated stress responses which eventually led to burnout. / Future research into causes and treatment can resolve the incidence of attrition. Preventive measures should be addressed rather than attending to the aftermath of burnout with various treatment modalities. Many areas need to be examined, enhanced, and restructured to decrease burnout and to increase the athlete and the environment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: B, page: 5568. / Major Professor: David Pargman. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an evaluation instrument that would provide information to sites and schools about the costs and consequences of participating in a pharmacy clerkship program. The evaluation instrument for estimating the learning opportunities at the sites was based on Kolb's theory of experience as a source for learning and development and Bandura's social cognitive theory of thought and action. The evaluation instrument for estimating impact of student training on practice sites was based on the Nonemployee and Employee Models of the student-preceptor relationship and was adapted from an earlier study. Instrument development was an iterative process involving theoretical and empirical components resulting in algorithms, guidelines, and worksheets. Student activities were the unit of analysis for all instruments. Learning opportunity was characterized by level of learning cycle completeness, ranging from no opportunity to completion of all four steps. Student activities were defined by characteristics that were under the control of the site or school and independent of the individual student, thereby removing confounding factors in the estimation process. The impact sustained by a practice site and the student learning opportunities present at the site could be estimated and compared to negotiate a placement that would minimize potential negative impact and maximize the learning opportunities for the clerkship student.

The use of an Interactive Computer Classroom (ICC) as compared to a traditional lecture format (LEC) for a nursing management course taught during the fall semester 1996 was examined in this study. The ICC was structured around Group Systems Support software, a tool previously used in business settings for group decision-making activities. The outcomes included critical thinking, measured by written responses completed at the end of each class and by scores from the California Critical Thinking Skills Test; academic performance, measured by the management course's midterm grades; and student satisfaction, measured by attendance and course evaluations. To consider generalizability of performance, the midterm examination scores of a concurrent nursing course were also measured. The management course midterm scores of the ICC group were significantly higher than those of the LEC group. The response to the open-ended-questions of the student evaluations indicated strong support of the participation made available by the computer activities but frustration with the computer hardware and software. Further evidence supporting student satisfaction was that six students requested to be transferred to the ICC group when the study was completed at mid-semester, while no students chose to move to the LEC group. There were no significant differences in scores for the California Critical Thinking Skills Test, the midterms grades for a concurrent nursing course, and class attendance.

Traditional information-processing accounts of the reasoning process in radiology assume that humans process the details of the input image in order to compute judgments. In these accounts, the development of expertise involves the acquisition of increasingly precise and complex internal problem representations that are based on a normal anatomy prototype. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that accurate judgments rely on the reasoners ability to ignore irrelevant detail, to retrieve relevant gist memories and to accurately instantiate the image information with respect to the internal representation. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that the development of expertise involves the ability to access and process less precise and complex internal representations (i.e., gist). The purpose of this study was to examine the internal representations used to make judgments in radiology and to quantify the changes in complexity of the internal representations, as well as the differences in time, accuracy and confidence that might be associated with experience. Thirty-five subjects from general and specialized expertise samples participated. Each subject was presented with 32 chest films including normal films, films with precise disease patterns (mass category) and diffuse disease patterns (interstitial and airspace category). For each film, the participant made a series of judgments (normal/abnormal; category; specific diagnosis) and then sketched the features that were essential to the judgments. The information content and complexity of the representations were calculated using an approach that considered the underlying meaning of the sketches rather than the surface form. The sketches were converted to propositions and the information in the propositions was evaluated in terms of possible world semantics. Time, accuracy, confidence and content measures supported the prediction of fuzzy-trace theory that the internal representations are abnormality-based. Consistent with predictions regarding the acquisition and use of gist representations expertise was associated with greater improvements in accuracy for interstitial (as opposed to mass) films; accuracy was higher with interstitial films when judgments were less reliant on surface detail (normal/abnormal); and accuracy was higher for mass films when judgments were more reliant on surface detail (specific diagnosis). Complexity measures showed that the overall representations did not get more complex with the development of expertise.