PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

D F Polit

Publications and source records attributed to D F Polit.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1990

Child sexual abuse and premarital intercourse among high-risk adolescents.

This study examined the extent to which child sexual abuse was associated with an increased likelihood of premarital sex among adolescents at high risk of sexual abuse. The sample consisted of 177 teenage girls who, because of evidence of family dysfunction, had become part of a public child welfare system. Half the sample had been placed in a foster home and the remainder were receiving protective services in their own home. About 40% of the teens in both groups had been sexually abused, although teens still living at home were less likely to have reported abuse. Victims of sexual abuse were found to be more likely to have engaged in voluntary sexual intercourse, even after background factors were controlled. Teens in foster home were somewhat less likely to be sexually active than the teens who remained at home.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Early subsequent pregnancy among economically disadvantaged teenage mothers.

This study investigated the antecedents and short-term consequences of an early subsequent pregnancy in a sample of economically disadvantaged teenage mothers. Data were gathered over a two-year period from a sample of 675 young mothers living in eight United States cities. Within two years of the initial interview, when half the sample was still pregnant with the index pregnancy, nearly half of the sample experienced a second- or higher-order pregnancy. Characteristics of the young women at entry into the study were relatively poor predictors of which teenagers would conceive again by the final interview. An early repeat pregnancy was associated with a number of negative short-term consequences in the areas of education, employment, and welfare dependency, even after background characteristics were statistically controlled.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1980

Social and psychological correlates of menopausal symptoms.

The present study explored the effects of various demographic and personality variables on the nature and intensity of subjectively menopausal symptoms. Data were collected by means of a mailed questionnaire from 135 menopausal and postmenopausal women from a general urban population. It was found that women who reported a higher number of menopausal symptoms tended to be less well-educated, were less likely to be working, and viewed themselves in poorer health than women with fewer or no symptoms. Psychosomatic and psychologic symptoms such as nervousness, depression, headaches, and irritability were found to be signififantly related to such personality attributes as self-confidence, personal adjustment, nurturance, and aggression.

Anxiety↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Statistical power in nursing research.

A power analysis was performed on 62 articles that were published in Nursing Research and Research in Nursing and Health during 1989. The analysis revealed that when effects were small, the mean power of the statistical tests being performed to test research hypotheses was .26, indicating a very high risk of committing a Type II error. When effects were moderate, the mean power increased to .71, which is still below the conventionally acceptable power of .80. Only when a study involved large effects was the power adequate (mean of .95). Of the 583 power estimates calculated, 53% were for small effects. These analyses indicate that a substantial number of published nursing studies, and presumably even more of unpublished studies, have insufficient power to detect real effects, primarily because the samples used are too small.

Nursing↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Effects of a comprehensive program for teenage parents: five years after project redirection.

A fifth-year follow-up of teenage mothers who had enrolled in Project Redirection, a comprehensive program of services for pregnant and parenting teenagers, revealed many long-term benefits of the program. Administered when the young mothers were, on average, 22 years old, the follow-up found that program participants had better employment records, higher average earnings and lower rates of welfare dependency than a comparison group of similar young mothers who had not enrolled in Project Redirection. Moreover, participants had higher scores on a test of parenting, were more likely to have breastfed their infants and were more likely to have registered their children in Head Start. The children of the Project Redirection participants (whose average age was five and one-half) were better off than their comparison-group counterparts in terms of cognitive, social and emotional development. The two groups of young mothers were similar in terms of their educational attainment after five years, but differences in fertility were observed. Although the two groups had experienced similar numbers of pregnancies, Project Redirection participants were less likely to have terminated a pregnancy by means of induced abortion, and as a result had had a higher average number of live births. The economic status of women who were able to limit their child-bearing was generally more favorable than for those who were not able to do so, but participation in Project Redirection was associated with improved employment outcomes and greater self-sufficiency among all of the women, regardless of the size of their family.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sex, contraception and pregnancy among adolescents in foster care.

Young women aged 13-18 who were surveyed in a 1986 study of child welfare clients were over 50 percent more likely to have had sexual intercourse than those in a comparison group drawn from a national sample of young women; they were also more than twice as likely to ever have been pregnant. The child welfare teenagers also scored significantly lower than their counterparts on a test of sexuality and birth control knowledge. Among the child welfare clients (half of whom were at home and half of whom were in foster care), the young women living in foster homes were less likely than those living with their own families to have ever had sex voluntarily (33 percent vs. 47 percent). However, the foster children were less likely to have used birth control at their most recent intercourse or to have obtained contraceptives from a family planning clinic. Nearly half of the foster care teenagers and 40 percent of the teenagers living at home reported having been sexually abused. Victims of sexual abuse were especially likely to be sexually active. Among blacks, the teenagers in foster care and their national counterparts were similar in the proportions who had had sexual intercourse, who had had voluntary intercourse and who had ever been pregnant. Among whites, however, the foster care teenagers were about four times as likely as their matched peers to have had intercourse and to have had voluntary sex, and they were almost eight times as likely to have been pregnant.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sex education and family planning services for adolescents in foster care.

Representatives of public child-welfare agencies in 48 states were surveyed to determine their states' policies for meeting the sexual development and family planning needs of teenagers served by the agencies. Only nine states have a formal written policy dealing with this area of child welfare, and just two of the states have a comprehensive policy. A handful of states have deliberately avoided addressing the issue. Officials in other states believe that a formal policy would be counterproductive, arguing that a low-key approach is the best way to deal with the needs of the teenagers they serve. Finally, some state child-welfare officials admit that they have not given the issue much thought. Twenty-nine states offer foster parents special training in adolescent sexuality, and 19 offer such training to caseworkers; however, only five states mandate such training for foster parents and only four do so for caseworkers. Southern states are the most likely to have written policies, while western states are the least likely; western states also are the least likely to offer or mandate special training for caseworkers in contact with teenagers. The officials surveyed also identified a number of institutional barriers that prevent their agencies from developing and implementing policies to deal with the sexual development needs of children in state care.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Project Redirection: evaluation of a comprehensive program for disadvantaged teenage mothers.

An evaluation of Project Redirection, a two-year demonstration program designed to help pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers, shows that teenagers from a comparison group, who were not enrolled in the demonstration program, were significantly more likely than project participants to experience a repeat pregnancy after one year, but that after two years the difference was small and nonsignificant. Likewise, at 12 months into the program, the project participants proved more likely to be using contraceptives, but by 24 months the comparison group had caught up. After one year of participation, the project teenagers were more likely than the others either to be in school or to have graduated (56 and 49 percent, respectively). However, this differential also disappeared by 24 months. Nonetheless, even at that point, project teenagers who had dropped out prior to joining the program and those who had had a repeat pregnancy were more likely to be in school or to have completed school than were similar comparison teens. Project teenagers also were somewhat more likely to have held a job during the two-year period than were teenagers not enrolled in the program. All in all, the evaluation demonstrated that teenagers who participated in the project and remained in it for more than a year had consistently better outcomes in education, employment and repeat pregnancy than any other group had. Comparison teenagers who had never participated in any special program for pregnant teenagers, on the other hand, demonstrated consistently poorer outcomes than any other group.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Women's knowledge about the menopause.

This study sought to determine women's knowledge concerning the menopause and to investigate the relationship between a woman's level of knowledge and her background characteristics. Data were collected from 167 forty- to 60-year-old women from a general urban population by means of a mailed questionnaire. On the average, the women responded correctly to 59 percent of the questions. Younger women, those who were employed, and women with higher levels of education performed better than older, unemployed, and less well-educated women. Questions on which the women showed the weakest knowledge suggest that old wives' tales concerning the menopause have not totally disappeared.

Attitude↗