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Biomedical subjects

Carol M Musil

Publications and source records attributed to Carol M Musil.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

Relationships of family functioning, self-esteem, and resourceful coping of Thai adolescents with asthma.

Within the context of Rosenbaum's theory of learned resourcefulness, this correlational study examined the relationships among family functioning, self-esteem, and resourceful coping in Thai adolescents with asthma. A convenience sample of 132 Thai adolescents (aged 12-17 years) with asthma was recruited from the outpatient asthma clinics of four hospitals in Bangkok. Self-administered questionnaires included an assessment of demographic information and asthma status, the revised Family APGAR, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Children's Self-Control Scale. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationships among variables. Effective family functioning had a significant positive effect on self-esteem (beta = .27, p < .01) and resourceful coping (beta = .30, p < .01), controlling for gender and age. However, self-esteem was not significantly correlated with resourceful coping (beta = .15, p = .08). The findings suggest that nursing interventions should take into account the role of family functioning in promoting self-esteem and resourceful coping in Thai adolescents with asthma. Recommendations for future research include replication of the study with a larger sample of adolescents with asthma and with adolescents with other chronic illnesses.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

Grandmothers, caregiving, and family functioning.

OBJECTIVES: We used McCubbin's Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment and Adaptation ( McCubbin, Thompson, & McCubbin, 2001) to examine how demographic factors, family stress, grandmother resourcefulness, support, and role reward affect perceptions of family functioning for grandmothers raising grandchildren, grandmothers living in multigenerational households, and grandmothers not caregiving for grandchildren. METHODS: A sample of 486 grandmothers completed a mailed questionnaire. We used structural equation modeling to (a) test the effects of demographic factors (i.e., grandmother's age, race, marital status, and employment), family stressful life events and strain, grandmother's resourcefulness, subjective and instrumental support, and role reward on perceptions of family functioning for each grandmother group; (b) evaluate differences in the measurement and structural models between the grandmother groups using multisample analysis; and (c) test the model on the full sample, coding for caregiver status. RESULTS: The models did not differ significantly by grandmother group; therefore we assessed the composite model using a multisample analysis. We found general support for the resiliency model and equivalence of the models across grandmother groups. Less support, resourcefulness, and reward, and more intrafamily strain and stressful family life events contributed to perceptions of worse family functioning. DISCUSSION: Findings demonstrate the importance of the quality of family functioning for grandmothers in all types of families.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Effects of social support and coping of family caregivers of older adults with dementia in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of demographic characteristics, contextual factors, social support, and coping on health outcomes of family caregivers of older adults with dementia in Taiwan. This study also examined caregiving stress and whether support moderated the effects of caregiver stress on health. Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) Stress model guided this study. The descriptive cross-sectional study included subjects who were primary family caregivers of older adults with dementia from two settings in southern Taiwan. A convenience sample of 148 participants was interviewed. Data analysis consisted of Pearson's correlations, and simple and multiple regression analysis. Findings indicated that younger caregivers, those with paid assistants, and those with longer duration of caregiving had better health. Females with lower income and without assistants had more depressive symptoms. In addition, moderating effects of social support were supported. The results from this study provided a basis for developing interventions to minimize negative impacts on caregivers.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2005

Measurement of antepartum depressive symptoms during high-risk pregnancy.

This methodological study was designed to replicate three previous studies of depressive symptoms, compare assessment of antepartum depressive symptoms among high-risk pregnant women using three standardized instruments, and evaluate the psychometric properties of the instruments. The sample consisted of 89 high-risk pregnant women treated with bed rest, of whom 37 remained hospitalized at 4 weeks. Depressive symptoms were measured by the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist Revised (MAACL-R) Dysphoria construct, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) Depression scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) across antepartum hospitalization. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity were high. Depressive symptoms were high on admission as measured by all three instruments and significantly decreased across time when measured by the MAACL-R and POMS.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Relationships among self-care agency, self-efficacy, self-care, and glycemic control.

Costly complications of diabetes often arise from poor glycemic control. Appropriate diabetes self-care management may improve control. This study examined whether self-care management affects glycemic control and mediates relationships between self-efficacy and self-care agency with glycemic control. In a cross-sectional correlational design, data from a prior study of 141 insulin-requiring adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes were examined using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, and multiple hierarchical regression. Findings indicated that greater self-care agency and self-efficacy lead to greater self-care management, in turn leading to better glycemic control. Self-care management did not mediate between self-efficacy or self-care agency and glycemic control. Thus, beliefs or capabilities for self-care are insufficient to improve glycemic control; doing so requires self-care management.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Grandmothers' diaries: a glimpse at daily lives.

Little information exists about the daily lives of women who are grandmothers, and the differences in daily stresses based on caregiving status to grandchildren. This content analysis examines the stresses of 64 grandmothers as grouped by caregiver status (grandmothers raising grandchildren, grandmothers living in multigeneration homes, non-caregivers to grandchildren) as recorded in three-week diaries. The nature of salient issues and stressful interactions differed by caregiver groups. Grandmothers raising grandchildren reported more stresses related to grandchildren's routines, activities, and school progress, more time pressure, and difficult interactions with grandchildren. The diary entries of grandmothers in multigenerational homes reflected their supplemental role in childcare, and sometimes stressful interactions with other family members. Grandmothers with no routine caregiving to grandchildren reported more involvement with those outside the immediate family. Many general concerns about the well-being of the family represent commonalities in grandmothers despite differences in current caregiving roles to grandchildren.

Caregivers↗
PubMed2005

Prostate cancer: appraisal, coping, and health status.

The purpose of this study was to identify how cognitive appraisal and types of coping affect the health status of men with prostate cancer. Lazarus and Folkman's model of stress and coping guided this correlational, cross-sectional study. The convenience sample was composed of 131 men with prostate cancer who completed the Cognitive Appraisal of Health Scale, the Ways of Coping Checklist, and the Short-Form Health Survey using mailed questionnaires. Participants who appraised more harm or loss experienced worse physical and mental health. When participants perceived their diagnosis as posing more harm or loss or a greater threat, they were more likely to use emotion-focused coping. When the diagnosis was perceived as a challenge, men were more likely to use more problem-focused coping. The findings of this study enable health care providers to be more attentive to the psychosocial needs of prostate cancer patients.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Considerations for preparing collaborative international research: a Ugandan experience.

This article describes issues to consider when planning and conducting international research projects. Key considerations include building collaboration, developing a comprehensive and feasible research plan, funding and budgets, addressing human subjects concerns, and analyzing and disseminating project findings. These considerations and related methodological issues are discussed in the context of a replication pilot project conducted outside Kampala, Uganda. Ongoing dialog, flexibility, and collaboration, in addition to good science, are critical to developing successful international research projects.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed2004

Testing a conceptual framework for diabetes self-care management.

Diabetes is a major source of morbidity, mortality, and economic expense in the United States. The majority of researchers and clinicians believe that diabetes is a self-care management disease, and that patients should be reliable, capable, and sufficiently responsible to take care of themselves. However, individuals with diabetes may or may not have diabetes knowledge, social support, self-care agency (an individual's capability to perform self-care actions), and self-efficacy (an individual's beliefs in his or her capability to perform self-care actions) that would help them to engage in diabetes self-care management. Therefore, this study examined the relationship among those factors using a cross-sectional model testing design. A convenient sample of 141 insulin-requiring individuals with either diabetes type 1 or type 2, 21 years old and over, was recruited from an outpatient diabetes care center located in a Southeast region of the United States. Simple linear regression, multiple standard regression, and multiple hierarchical regression were used to analyze the data. Individuals with greater diabetes knowledge had greater self-care agency and self-efficacy. Those with a higher score in social support had greater self-care agency and better diabetes self-care management, and those with greater self-efficacy had better diabetes self-care management. In addition, self-care agency mediated the effects of diabetes knowledge on self-efficacy and the effects of social support on diabetes self-care management. Self-efficacy mediated the effects of self-care agency on diabetes self-care management. Furthermore, the linear combination of diabetes knowledge, social support, self-care agency, and self-efficacy, taken together, positively affected diabetes self-care management. Enhancing an individual's diabetes knowledge, social support, self-care agency, and self-efficacy may be a strategy which can promote better engagement in diabetes self-care.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

How to determine whether a convenience sample represents the population.

Although convenience samples are used widely by researchers, determination of the representativeness of these samples are not generally documented in nursing research. Because convenience samples may be biased, this study used a cross-sectional design and a convenience sample of 141 subjects to describe ways to assess this possible bias. Analysis of percentage and average variability (variance of the mean) suggested that the study sample represented the research setting population. More reports are needed to strengthen the findings of studies that have used convenience samples.

Clinical Nursing Research↗
PubMed2002

A comparison of imputation techniques for handling missing data.

Researchers are commonly faced with the problem of missing data. This article presents theoretical and empirical information for the selection and application of approaches for handling missing data on a single variable. An actual data set of 492 cases with no missing values was used to create a simulated yet realistic data set with missing at random (MAR) data. The authors compare and contrast five approaches (listwise deletion, mean substitution, simple regression, regression with an error term, and the expectation maximization [EM] algorithm) for dealing with missing data, and compare the effects of each method on descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients for the imputed data (n = 96) and the entire sample (n = 492) when imputed data are inculded. All methods had limitations, although our findings suggest that mean substitution was the least effective and that regression with an error term and the EM algorithm produced estimates closest to those of the original variables.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2002

Health of grandmothers: a comparison by caregiver status.

OBJECTIVES: In this cross-sectional study, stress, coping, social support, and health were compared in 86 primary caregiver grandmothers, 85 partial/supplemental caregiver grandmothers in multigenerational homes, and 112 noncaregiver grandmothers. Whether support and coping reduced effects of stress on the physical and mental health of grandmother caregivers, including mediating and moderating effects, was examined. METHODS: A convenience sample completed a mailed questionnaire that included measures of stress, health, support, and coping. RESULTS: Primary caregivers reported worse self-assessed health, but partial/supplemental caregivers reported a tendency toward more depression and more instrumental support. Noncaregivers reported the least stress and less active and avoidant coping. Coping and subjective support added to the variance of depression and self-rated health. Subjective support and avoidant coping mediated between stress and health, and active coping moderated the effects of stress on health. DISCUSSION: Implications of these findings relative to the health of grandmothers by caregiver status are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗