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Biomedical subjects

C Proffitt

Publications and source records attributed to C Proffitt.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Insights on the poster preparation and presentation process.

Dissemination of research findings and effective clinical innovations is key to the growth and development of the nursing profession. Several avenues exist for the dissemination of information. One forum for communication that has gained increased recognition over the past decade is the poster presentation. Poster presentations are often a significant part of regional, national, and international nursing conferences. Although posters are frequently used to disseminate information to the nursing community, little is reported about actual poster presenters' experiences with preparation and presentation of their posters. The purpose of this article is to present insights derived from information shared by poster presenters regarding the poster preparation and presentation process. Such insights derived from the personal experiences of poster presenters may assist others to efficiently and effectively prepare and present scholarly posters that disseminate information to the nursing community.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1993

Communicating effectively with elderly surgical patients.

Effective communication promotes trusting, productive nurse/patient relationships. It is the perioperative nurse's responsibility to establish effective communication with each patient. Perioperative nurses strive to provide quality care to all patients, including the elderly. Communication barriers often do exist, however, between nurses and elderly patients. Perioperative nurses are challenged, therefore, to recognize potential communication barriers and to manage each nurse/patient relationship accordingly. Clear communication between nurse and patient enhances the elderly patient's ability to progress smoothly through surgery and recovery.

Aged↗
PubMed1993

The ethics of role conflict in research.

While engaged in interviewing stroke patients, nurses found their research responsibilities conflicting with traditional patient care values. At the termination of the pilot project, the nurses, doubting their role, shared their concerns with the research team. They made recommendations regarding the appropriateness of tools and training needs of research assistants. Unresolved role conflict motivated the nurses to review the literature, seeking answers to the issue. Other nurses have experienced this same conflict. While nursing has been referred to as a profession that complements art with science, in practice, altruism may conflict with maintaining research integrity. The nurse, when functioning as a researcher, may find situations where a choice needs to be made whether to implement nursing interventions or continue the research protocol. The difficulty remains in deciding when the patient advocate role takes precedence over other legitimate concerns. Even though the ANA Code for Nurses with Interpretive Statements requires that the nurse participate in research to advance the profession's body of knowledge, the code's primary principle mandates respect for the rights of the individuals the nurse serves. Research need not be undertaken at the expense of human dignity. If conflicts develop, nursing's primary responsibility is to the individual. Concern for the individual always takes precedence over maintaining research integrity. Nurses are "advocates, where trust, compassion, and empathy encompass all our nursing endeavors, including research" (p. 161). While striving to achieve research goals, nurses must not lose sight of the traditional values inherent in nursing.

Cerebrovascular Disorders↗
PubMed1983

Predicting and understanding mothers' infant-feeding intentions and behavior: testing the theory of reasoned action.

The present study examines the applicability of Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action to the prediction and understanding of how primiparous and multiparous mothers intended to feed their infants and how they actually fed these infants during the 6 weeks following delivery. Measures of attitudes to behavior, subjective norms, and behavioral intentions were taken during the last trimester of pregnancy. Behavior was assessed by self-report 6 weeks postpartum. In most respects the findings supported the theory of reasoned action. However, attitudes to behavior were found to make an independent and significant contribution to the prediction of infant-feeding behavior, and the previous behavior of multiparous mothers explained an independent and significant proportion of variation in their behavioral intentions. The relative importance of the attitudinal and normative components of the theoretical model tended to vary according to whether the mothers had direct experience of the criterion behavior. Further analysis revealed that mothers who breast-fed during the 6-week postpartum period differed from those who bottle-fed exclusively during this period on a number of behavioral beliefs, outcome evaluations, and normative beliefs, and on one measure of motivation to comply. The implications of these findings for the theory of reasoned action are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Dietary obesity in adult and weanling rats following removal of interscapular brown adipose tissue.

In order to investigate the role of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT), a selection of palatable, energy-dense foods (Cafeteria diet) was used to increase the energy intakes of adult and weanling male rats, from some of which interscapular BAT (IBAT) had been surgically excised. Removal of IBAT had no effect upon energy intakes of the cafeteria-fed rats, nor of controls fed a pelleted stock diet. The rate of weight gain of intact controls was similar for the two diets, but adults with IBAT removed and fed with the cafeteria diet gained weight more rapidly than those fed the stock diet. Similarly, although intact weanlings did not exhibit excess weight gain when fed the cafeteria diet, removal of IBAT did result in more rapid weight gain of the cafeteria-fed weanlings relative to their stock-fed siblings. Nevertheless, total carcass energy was increased by some 20% in cafeteria-fed animals, irrespective of whether they had had IBAT removed. Thus there was no evidence of removal of IBAT having improved the efficiency of energy utilisation for growth. The failure to find evidence for altered levels of energy expenditure following removal of IBAT does not necessarily contradict the hypothesis that BAT mediates DIT, however, since, following removal of IBAT, there was hypertrophy of remaining BAT sites which may have compensated for the BAT removed.

Adipose Tissue, Brown↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Geriatric depression: a survey of nurses' knowledge and assessment practices.

A sample of 149 registered nurses were surveyed to determine their knowledge of the symptoms of depression in the elderly and their assessment practices. Respondents were able to identify not only the traditionally associated symptoms but also two other behaviors, irritability and blaming others, which are not usually designated by other health care providers as associated with geriatric depression. These additional observations may reflect nurses' providing extensive physical as well as verbal care over much longer time periods for patients in inpatient and home settings than do other professionals. Recent findings in nursing research support the presence of these other behaviors as symptoms of depression. An additional finding revealed that nurses were not assessing their patients for depression even though they had a knowledge base of the symptoms.

Aged↗