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Biomedical subjects

D H Fox

Publications and source records attributed to D H Fox.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

The professional nurse education program: a work force development model.

Invariably, healthcare institutions respond to repeated voids in professional nurse positions by recruiting persons external to the organization, rather than examining their nonprofessional ranks for high achievers worthy of formal career advancement opportunities. The authors describe why and how their professional work force development operates, the demographics of participants, and outcomes, such as retention rate, gains in college preparatory competencies, changes in self-reported psychosocial aspects of participants, influence of work hours on academic achievement, and financial investment.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗
PubMed1999

Performance of first-line management functions on productivity of hospital unit personnel.

Eight management functions influence the productivity of unit personnel differently. Although leadership of the first-line manager is the primary driving force, time and effort expended in operations detract from this unit output. Better use of second-line managers is a choice strategy to enhance productivity. Benner's model of professional development, in combination with the creation of a first-second line shared leadership operational framework, is recommended, with follow-up evaluations on unit productivity effect.

Efficiency, Organizational↗
PubMed1996

Creating a registered nurse advancement program that works.

Helping staff adapt to changing organizational and role demands is a key responsibility of nurse leaders. Using Benner's philosophy that identifies the importance of acknowledging one's accomplishments and being acknowledged by others, the authors present the design implementation, and evaluation of a Professional Nurse Advancement Program (PNAP). The PNAP offering a single job description that differentiates among three levels of horizontal advancement encompassing four do mains of practice is used in both the promotion and performance appraisal process.

Career Mobility↗
PubMed1996

Social context variables as predictors of smoking cessation.

OBJECTIVE: To examine positive and negative social support and other selected social context variables (age, education, marital status, gender, and exposure to other smokers inside and outside the home) as predictors of smoking cessation in non-hospitalised adults with diagnosed cardiovascular disease at follow up after one, six, and 12 months. DESIGN: Discriminant function analyses (DFA) and longitudinal "lag" analyses. SUBJECTS: 137 Non-hospitalised adults with diagnosed cardiovascular health problems. RESULTS: Examination of the concurrent DFAs revealed significant univariate F ratios for the predictor variables of gender and marital status at one year and low negative support at all three follow ups. Quitters reported significantly lower levels of negative support than non-quitters over the course of the year and tended to be male and married. Longitudinal "lag" analyses, however, revealed that higher positive social support at one month and higher negative support at six months were both predictive of smoking cessation at one year. At one year more men than women and more married than not married smokers were successful in quitting. No effects for age, education, or exposure to others smoking inside or outside the home were found on any of the concurrent DFAs or longitudinal analyses. CONCLUSION: A series of concurrent DFAs revealed that positive support was a significant predictor of quitting at one year and negative support was predictive of not quitting at all three follow ups. Longitudinal "lag" analyses showed that positive support at one month and negative support at six months both predicted quitting at one year. Being male and married were found to contribute to quitting on both sets of analyses. The effects for positive and negative support on the smoking behaviour of adults with cardiovascular disease tended to change over the course of a year. These findings suggest that positive and negative social support may have differential effects over time. As the smoker moves along the "quitting trajectory" it may be that more "nagging" or negative interactions are needed at some point to get smokers to quit, if positive support has not worked or is not working. Progression of disease also may have served as a stimulus for family members and friends to become more insistent and negative about the person's continued smoking. More research is needed to examine the quitting process to determine which and how social context variables contribute.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

A measure of perceived environmental uncertainty in hospitals.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the preliminary psychometric properties of the Perceived Environmental Uncertainty Questionnaire (PEUQ). Environmental uncertainty (EU) refers to times when within the organization unanticipated events and problems occur with frequency and cannot be predicted by members of the organization due to a lack of critical information. The PEUQ was designed as a measure of EU and was tested with 375 patient-care and nonpatient-care hospital employees. Internal consistency as measured by Cronbach's alpha was .81. Confirmatory factor analysis supported two of the PEUQ's hypothesized three factors: state and effect EU. These two factors accounted for 61.1% of the variance in subjects' level of uncertainty. Factor analysis failed to confirm response uncertainty as a subconstruct of EU. Contrasted group analysis found expected differences in the level of perceived EU between workers on different hospital units (t = -5.02, p < .001). This study provides evidence of the PEUQ's beginning reliability and validity as a measure of EU. Failure to identify response uncertainty as a salient subconstruct of EU warrants further exploration. The design of nursing care delivery structures (NCDS) to minimize EU first requires a means to measure hospital units' EU. The establishment of the PEUQ's psychometric soundness is antecedent to measuring EU and improving the efficacy of our NCDS.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1983

Strategic planning for nursing.

Strategic planning is a systematic approach to decision making. Nurse administrators who rely on formal planning and measurement of outcomes are more likely to assure consistent high performance from their departments than those who rely on intuition. Planning can serve as motivation for nursing personnel if they are allowed to have some input into it. Not only is nursing practice advanced by strategic planning, as this article shows, but scarce resources can be conserved.

Data Collection↗
PubMed1971

Quantitative studies on the mixed lymphocyte interaction in rats. VI. Reactivity of lymphocytes from conventional and germfree rats to allogeneic and xenogeneic cell surface antigens.

The proliferative reactivity of lymphocytes from rat donors maintained under germfree or conventional conditions was examined in mixed lymphocyte cultures stimulated with allogeneic and xenogeneic cell surface antigens. The results show (a) that lymphocytes from conventionally maintained rats are less reactive to human, hamster, guinea pig, and mouse cell surface antigens than to the major H alloantigens, and (b) that lymphocytes from germfree rats display no demonstrable reactivity to xenogeneic cells, but are quantitatively normal in their response to allogenic cells. The conclusion drawn from these observations is that the circulating lymphocyte pool of an individual consists of a greater proportion of cells reactive to H alloantigens of other members of the same species than to the xenogeneic cellular antigens of members of other species and that this large number of cells is not generated by a mechanism involving immunization to cross-reactive environmental antigens.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A comparison of nursing interventions for smoking cessation in adults with cardiovascular health problems.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relative effectiveness of three different presentations of a smoking cessation program on the smoking behavior of adults with cardiovascular health problems. DESIGN: A 2 x 2 x 2 x 4 experimental design with stratification by sex, smoking history, and a cardiovascular event, and randomization to Individual, Group, Written, or No Intervention groups. SETTING: Six community hospital classrooms. SUBJECTS: 255 nonhospitalized adults. THEORETIC FRAMEWORK: Interaction Model of Client Health Behavior. MEASUREMENTS: Study Intake: Professional referral form, demographic questionnaire, smoking habits questionnaire, health history, perceived threat survey, perceived health status. Follow up: smoking cessation and health questionnaire, saliva thiocyanate testing. RESULTS: At 12-month follow-up, a nurse-client interaction was more effective than written self-help materials; however, smoking cessation rates were highest in the No Intervention control group, possibly related to having had coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Variables positively related to quitting were being male and married and having a higher income. With baseline factors considered, a quitter was most likely to be male and less than 48 years of age, have a high degree of perceived threat relative to medical diagnosis, and be in the individual intervention group. Only partial support for the study hypotheses was found.

Cardiovascular Diseases↗