Community development and health in Canada.
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Canada↗
Biomedical subjects
D Meagher-Stewart
Publications and source records attributed to D Meagher-Stewart.
The "kaleidoscope" experience for elderly women living with coronary artery disease.
In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of elderly women, over the age of 60 years, who experience manifestations of coronary artery disease (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (MI). While quantitative research has indicated some significant findings concerning the risk factors and symptoms of CAD in men and women within hospital settings, the majority of studies have had under representative samples of elderly women. Little research has been conducted regarding the complex relationships that exist between the contexts, contingencies and conditions that influence the meaning that elderly women attach to cardiac illness. This qualitative study, which used a grounded theory approach, provides a theoretical analysis of the meaning that elderly women with CAD attach to their illness, home convalescence and social support needs. Eight women, between the ages of 61 and 87 years, who experienced acute exacerbations of CAD, were interviewed in their homes during the early home convalescence period (2 weeks and 4 weeks post discharge). In the theoretical analysis, finding a voice, the core variable, represents the basic social process employed by these elderly women during hospitalization and the early home convalescence period. Struggling for a new self is the transcending process that influences all aspects and interactions of this social process. The major supporting interlinkages of the transcending process include living with loss, conforming to tradition, striving for respect and blending the gaps. These women blended all of these transcending processes to find a voice that reflected their unique perceptions, past experiences, coping strategies and personal identity. This paper will discuss the salient issues arising from the literature on elderly women and heart disease, the theoretical analysis of the meaning these women attach to their illness, home convalescence and social support needs, and implications for future research, practice and educational pursuits.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Insights from a nursing research program on social support.
This paper highlights the conceptual and practical implications of a nursing research program that focuses on social support. The diverse dimensions of the construct of social support; its relationship to stress and coping; and its impact on health, health behaviour, and use of health services are explicated in the conceptual framework underpinning the program. These associations will be elucidated by citing examples from eight assessment studies and four intervention studies. The research program yielded new insights and reinforced reported findings of other social-support research.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
The role of social support in recovery from cardiovascular illness.
Social support has been described as having a direct/main effect and/or a buffering effect on health. The buffering hypothesis contends that social support protects the individual from the pathological effects of stress while the direct/main effect hypothesis posits that social support enhances health and well being regardless of the stress level. The links between social support, survival, and quality of life and cardiovascular health and illness have been the subject of much investigation over the last decade. Nurse researchers have contributed to the theory development of social support and the cardiovascular client group. This paper is an interpretive overview of the research contribution of nurses to the social support literature in the area of cardiovascular illness. The review notes research strengths and deficiencies and proposes strategies that would enhance future development of theory on social support in this population.
Cardiac Rehabilitation↗