<p> The number of Americans reporting extreme stress has increased over the past six years. Prolonged exposure to stress has the potential of producing severe damage to the health of individuals. Pennebaker and Graybeal (2001) stated, &ldquo;When people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about an emotionally significant event, there are numerous benefits in many domains (e.g., health, achievement, and well-being) result&rdquo; (p. 1). Writing about extremely stressful situations has health and wellness benefits. In this study autoethnography and externalization were combined as a method to examine how feasible it might be for persons to employ the combined methods to process stressful life events. The externalization involved creating a persona (White &amp; Epston, 1990). The personas represented the lived experiences of work and family. In addition, the externalization application was the backdrop for the theoretical concepts of hardiness, thriving, resilience, and posttraumatic growth. The feasibility of this method was explored through an analysis of the autoethnographer&rsquo;s lived experiences of the externalization, where the researcher was also the autoethnographer-externalizer. As a result of the externalization, relevant themes emerged in the areas of Memory of Work and Family Events, Challenge Indicators, Management Indicators, Activity Persistence Indicators, Growth Indicators, and Positive Change Indicators. The researcher&rsquo;s experience, and the themes that emerged from the data, provided evidence that applying the externalization to the autoethnographic process was feasible and suggests a methodological combination that might help others, including leaders, cope with the stress associated with traumatic events.</p>

<p> College is already considered an at-risk period for the development of mental illness, however a number of studies have suggested that certain stressors may increase student athlete&rsquo;s vulnerability to depression. Despite this, research into the actual prevalence rate of depression among this population is thin. This study, therefore, aimed to determine an overall prevalence rate for depression symptoms among NCAA Division I collegiate athletes. It was also designed to assess various risk-factors that may increase an athlete's vulnerability to depression such as sex, academic class, scholarship level, sport season status and history of injury. Due to the lack of any required mental health education in college athletics, athletes were also asked questions regarding their opinion of current mental health services within their athletic program. Using a sample of 950 Division I student athletes it was found that 33.2% of athletes experienced symptoms of depression, contradicting findings from previous studies that have suggested a prevalence rate lower than the general college population (approximately 30%). Female athletes (<i> p</i> =. 00), underclassmen (<i>p</i> = .01), and in-season athletes (<i>p</i> = .05), were all found to experience higher rates of depression symptoms than other athletes. Similarly, athletes who suffered an injury in the previous 6 months (<i>p</i> = .05) experienced more severe depression symptoms than healthy athletes. Missing practice or competition due to injury was also shown to increase depression symptoms (<i> p</i> = .00) compared to athletes who were able to continue their activity. It was found that 25.7% of athletes did not know how or where to access mental health treatment at their university, and 44.5% had received no mental health education from their athletic department. The results from this study suggest that depression is a more significant issue in college athletics than previously thought, and highlights the need for continued improvements to be made in both the understanding of mental health issues in college athletics, and the services that are provided to athletes.</p>

<p> The goal of this dissertation was to contribute to research on practical nursing students&rsquo; self-efficacy and the sources that build self-efficacy including mastery experience, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and physiological and affective states (Bandura, 1986). Specifically, the focus in this study was on students&rsquo; self-efficacy change and development through the measurement of students&rsquo; confidence in ability to engage in medical surgical simulations during the last semester of a practical nursing program. The results of this study revealed perceived self-efficacy did not change, but participants indicated an overall strong sense of efficacy to engage in medical surgical simulations. Additionally, students relied on all four sources that build self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986). In other words, students relied on personal perseverance in facing obstacles, sought the nursing faculty&rsquo;s assistance and encouragement to perform well, observed and modeled their teachers&rsquo; behaviors, and successfully managed their physiological and emotional states. Strong self-efficacy was concluded to be a key factor in the success of practical nursing students. Thus, there is a need for future experimental and theory-driven studies that utilize the self-efficacy approach to reduce student attrition and contribute to academic and professional accomplishment of practical nursing students. </p>

<p> An increasing number of people are using the Internet for health purposes. Online social media makes it possible to find and share health-related information and to find social support by connecting with others who have the same issue or condition. This is true not only of patients or people experiencing health issues, but also of their caregivers. So far, little is known about caregivers&rsquo; use of social media for social support purposes. This study focused on caregivers of children of Down syndrome and implemented a uses and gratifications framework to examine their social media use, motivation, and perceived support outcomes. An online survey was followed by a content analysis of two popular social media sites utilized by the sample. Findings suggest that caregivers are indeed heavy social media users with the majority accessing their preferred sites on a daily basis to view content and at least once a week to post their own content or reply to content posted by others. The strongest motivation for using social media was to connect with people who understood what they were experiencing. Having access to other parents with children the same age and/or with the same medical conditions was a significant motivation for using social media over face-to-face support groups. Belonging support (the sense of belonging to a group similar to oneself) was also the highest perceived outcome of social media use. Caregivers felt that there were people who shared their same concerns and interests on their preferred social media site. Finding emotional support was another strong motivation for using social media and informational support was the second highest perceived outcome from social media use. This study sheds light on how caregivers use social media for support purposes and provides practical suggestions for improving the capacity of other health or care-related online communities focused on providing social support to better serve the needs of their users.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to conduct a community health risk assessment of the city of Long Beach, California specific to the 90813 ZIP code by utilizing an adaptation of the Catholic Health Association of the United States (2013) model for community health assessment to identify the most imperative risk factors for the chronic homeless population in the 90813 ZIP code of Long Beach. Data on three domains (physical health, mental health, and housing) measuring 16 risk factors were gathered from both archival data and major public sources. Data from Long Beach 90813 ZIP code were compared to data from Los Angeles County, California, and the United States. Risk factors that are the utmost concerning for the community appeared to be difficulties in obtaining health care, infectious diseases, both ER and hospitalization rates due to alcohol abuse and high poverty rate. Efforts to reduce the amount of both sheltered and unsheltered chronic homeless individuals should target all three domains. Recommendations for evidence-based programs and interventions to reduce the most salient risk factors are provided.</p><p>

<p> <i>Mindfulness</i> practices build an attentive awareness of the present moment and appear to support the kind of well-being school communities seek to cultivate. Currently there are increases in demands for the services offered by crisis counselors, who work to serve students&rsquo; emotional needs. Students are increasingly reporting levels of chronic sadness, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation. This is reflected nationally with high school students around the country reporting increased incidents of stress and depression. This issue represents larger educational problems, which correlate increased stress levels and ineffective teaching of coping skills with more serious problems such as increased risk of teen suicide. The problem of practice addressed by this dissertation is how schools might best integrate mindfulness practices, the learned attentive awareness of the present moment, into this void and evaluate whether this approach to increasing students&rsquo; ability to pay attention to their immediate experience, helps mitigate the problems affiliated with increased levels of stress.</p><p>

<p> Obesity is a risk factor for chronic diseases among the ethnic minorities for adult immigrants in the United States. There have been many research studies conducted to examine the relationship between the predictors and obesity in minority groups in the United States, that relationship was unknown in Meskhetian Turk (Ahiska) immigrant populations. Guided by social ecological model and acculturation theory, this study examined the predictors of obesity in the Meskhetian Turk (Ahiska) immigrant population in the western United States. Data were collected from 109 participants using CDC&rsquo;s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale, and Perceived Stress Scale. Participants were recruited through flyers in a public setting and data were analyzed through SPSS using logistic regression and Spearman&rsquo;s correlation. The result of the study showed no statistical association between obesity and the predictors of age, gender, socio-economic status, physical activity, acculturation, and perceived stress. This study, however, showed a significant association between daily vegetable, fruit, and hamburger, cheeseburger or meat loaf consumption and obesity, and weekly vegetable consumption, monthly hamburger, cheeseburger or meat loaf consumption and moderate/morbid obesity. The study findings suggest that, through targeted community-based intervention and education programs, there is positive social change in the value of healthy lifestyle and the impact of the predictors of obesity, especially diet of Meskhetian Turk (Ahiska) immigrant population in the United States. Further investigation should focus into other causes of obesity using a larger sample size.</p><p>

<p> The primary purpose of this clinical scholarly research project is to determine whether there are undiagnosed symptoms of depression among the residents in a small population Long Term Care facility (LTC). Caregivers at the LTC receive specific knowledge regarding older adult late-life depression and then apply said knowledge by surveying the LTC residents (LTCR&rsquo;s) using the Geriatric Depression Scale instrument (GDS-15). The secondary purpose is to determine whether the LTC caregivers perceive this training as beneficial. Using two-sample t-test statistical analysis, the results of this study indicate a positive correlation with the alternative hypothesis; the number of LTCRs with previously undetected depressive symptoms increased. H_a: &mu; LTCR with depression or delirium &ne; &mu; LTCR with depression or delirium. In this study, the number of LTCRs with symptoms of depression or delirium increased by 60.4 percent. The P (T&lt;=t) two-tail value is less than 0.001. In the literature, this difference is extremely statistically significant. The mean of the medical records examined minus the mean of the number of medical records with an indication of depression or delirium is 0.60. For a 95% confidence interval, this difference must fall between the ranges of 0.45 to 0.76. These data confirm the alternative hypothesis. </p><p> Additionally, the caregiver participant&rsquo;s satisfaction outcome survey results reported the training was substantially beneficial. </p><p>

<p> Eating behavior in humans is complex and has developed over the millennia in intricate webs of biological, psychological, and social factors. While maladaptive eating strategies have been studied extensively, the adaptive eating strategy known as intuitive eating is gaining wider attention as a means to treat and prevent maladaptive eating behavior. Using multiple regression with self-report questionnaires, the researcher explored the psychosocial variables of impression management and subjective physical health as they relate to intuitive eating in men, who have been underrepresented in the literature on eating behavior. The results indicate that subjective physical health predicts eating disorder symptomatology, but may not predict intuitive eating in men. Further, while impression management predicts intuitive eating, anxiety may account for this relationship. Additionally, sexual orientation is discussed as a relevant predictor of eating behavior. Clinical and research implications, as well as future directions are discussed.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2009. / "Publication number: AAT 3385099."