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Biomedical subjects

D Sands

Publications and source records attributed to D Sands.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

A comparative study among college students of sexual abuse in childhood.

A disproportionate random sample (200 women, 400 men) of students attending a major university was invited to participate in a mailed survey to study differences in self-efficacy, coping, and well-being between men and women who were sexually abused in childhood and those who were not. A total of 271 students (111 women, 160 men) responded by returning the completed survey. Fifty percent of the women and 22% of the men in the sample reported one or more unwanted sexual experiences in childhood. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) techniques to analyze differences in self-efficacy, coping (confrontive, emotive, palliative), and well-being between women and men who reported childhood sexual abuse and those who did not showed significant interaction effects by sex for abuse (F = 2.609, P = .025, df 5,263) and significant effects by sex (F = 3.356, P = .006), but no significant differences for abuse alone. Univariate F tests were significant (F = 5.386, P = .021) for palliative coping with abused men reporting the highest scores, abused and nonabused women having the highest scores on emotive coping (F = 9.049, P = .003), and nonabused men and women having highest scores on well-being (F = 7.276, P = .007). A second MANOVA was performed on data from 245 students (nonabused and those who reported contact sexual abuse). Significant interaction effects by sex for abuse (F = 2.259, P = 0.49, df 5,237) and main effects for abuse (F = 3.225, P = .008) were found. Although abused men scored lowest on well-being, both abused men and abused women scored higher on emotive coping and lower on well-being than nonabused subjects. These are new findings with implications for developing and testing nursing interventions for this vulnerable group of young adults.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Memory for action events in Alzheimer-type dementia: further evidence of an encoding failure.

The purpose of the present research was to examine the nature of the encoding problem in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) using a nonstrategic memory task, namely the recall of action events or subject-performed tasks (SPTs). The first experiment investigated the retention of SPTs and the verbal descriptions of action events in patients with mild-to-moderate DAT, young, and old adults. While the healthy older adults showed significantly higher recall for SPTs than for verbal descriptions, the DAT patients failed to exhibit this effect. A follow-up study replicated this same pattern using SPTs and tasks performed by the experimenter. As the multimodal and contextually rich encoding environment present in SPTs had no effect on the patients' retention, this suggests that manipulations designed to enhance encoding in this population will be unsuccessful. The relevance of the results to (1) memory compensation in the aged, and (2) the development of mnemonic training programs for the elderly are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Memory for internally generated words in Alzheimer-type dementia: breakdown in encoding and semantic memory.

The "generation effect" is a phenomenon in which words that are generated by the subject are remembered better than words which are read. The present experiments examined this effect in patients with mild-to-moderate dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), healthy elderly adults, and young adults under a variety of different encoding and retrieval conditions. Experiment 1 employed an intentional learning task with multiple study/test trials using the same list of words. While both the young and elderly adults exhibited higher recall for internally generated words than read words, the DAT patients failed to demonstrate the effect even after repeated exposures to the same stimulus list. Experiment 2 replicated this same pattern of results using an incidental learning paradigm with both recall and recognition tests. Various explanations as to why the DAT patients failed to show the generation effect were discussed with particular emphasis placed on the role of semantic memory and encoding failure.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Health promoting attitudes and behaviors among persons with disabilities.

Despite the recognized importance of maintaining and improving the health status of persons with disabilities, there has been little research conducted to determine their health care attitudes and behaviors and what interventions might serve to enhance their health. Using Pender's Model of Health Promotion (1987), this study investigated the factors associated with the occurrence of health promoting behaviors among 135 adults with disabilities. Staff and peer counsellors from two Independent Living Centres in Texas administered the questionnaires and conducted brief semi-structured interviews with participants. Seventy-three percent of the sample rated their current health as good or excellent. Findings from both interviews and questionnaires suggest that participants are more likely to define health as being able to function well than as simply the absence of illness. High scores on Adaptive definition of health, the Self-Efficacy-Scale, age, and low scores on the Barriers to Health Promotion Activity for Disabled Persons scale accounted for 31% of the variance in scores on a self-report measure of health promoting behaviors. These findings suggest that interventions which address self-perceived barriers to health promotion, work to build participants' sense of mastery of their health behaviors, and encourage a definition of health that is broader than simply absence of illness may be more effective than those that focus only on information about good health practices.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

The preselection effect on the recall facilitation of motor movements in Alzheimer-type dementia.

Two experiments examined the coding and retention of psychomotor information in patients with mild to moderate dementia of the Alzheimer-type (DAT), healthy elderly controls, and young adults. Experiment 1 compared recall accuracy for preselected (subject-defined) and constrained (experimenter-defined) movements under three different retention conditions. Not surprisingly, the DAT patients showed significantly larger reproduction errors than did the controls. In all three groups, however, preselected movements were recalled more accurately than constrained movements. This preselection advantage was replicated in Experiment 2 using a new group of DAT patients with recall being performed under both same- and switch-limb conditions. While the results suggested that DAT patients suffer from both an encoding deficiency and a rapid loss of information from short-term memory, they also indicate that patients are capable of coding meaningful aspects of motor movements. Most importantly, the results suggest that in the motor domain, efforts to enhance encoding can facilitate the recall of DAT patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

The relationship of empathy to clinical experience among male and female nursing students.

While a number of educational interventions aimed at increasing empathy among nurses have been undertaken, research on empathy has yielded inconsistent findings. This study used a new multidimensional measure to study empathy levels among BSN nursing students during their first year of nursing education. Thirty-five nursing students completed Davis' Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) at four times during their junior year. The results of a repeated measures ANOVA indicated high consistency for all IRI scores across the four data collection periods. T-tests were also performed to compare IRI scores by gender. Males scored significantly lower than female nursing students on the Personal Distress Scale. While there were no other consistent, significant differences, males did not tend to score slightly higher than females on Perspective Taking. This response pattern is the opposite of what has been reported for other groups, although it is consistent with previous nursing research. The relationship between age, previous health-care experience, and IRI scores also varied by sex. Implications of these findings for educational interventions, recruitment, and retention of nursing students are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Collaborative research--the Arizona experience.

A far-sighted collaborative proposal for research development was created by one author (Dr. Sands) for the College of Nursing, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona and 24 participating nursing service divisions located in surrounding central Arizona hospitals and health care agencies. With subsequent funding from the Division of Nursing an innovative, hands-on continuing education sequence of research minicourses was presented in repeated 20-week cycles at seven locations. The method was successful in establishing an ongoing, research-productive network of nurse faculty and nurse clinicians who continue to work together and use one another's special areas of research expertise.

Arizona↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Responses to chronic illness: analysis of psychological and physiological adaptation.

The Adaptation Nursing Model provided the theoretical framework for the comparative analysis of psychological and physiologic adaptation of 211 adults representing three diagnostic groups (rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, and multiple sclerosis). Data were collected through interviews and completion of the Mental Health Index, Health-Related Hardiness Scale, and Margin in Life. Psychological adaptation was found to be independent of diagnosis. Four predictor variables (health promotion activities, psychological distress, physiologic adaptation, and dependence on medications) significantly discriminated among the three groups and correctly classified 73.08% of the total sample. Presence of the hardiness characteristic was significantly related to psychological and physiologic adaptation, involvement in health promotion activities, and participation in patient education programs. It can be concluded that a diagnosis-specific view of psychological status is not tenable or clinically meaningful.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Determinants of health promotion activities in nursing clinic clients.

Nursing clinic clients' health beliefs, values, and demographic characteristics were analyzed for their impact on health promotion activities. A sample of 175 clients was administered measures of health beliefs, health values, and health promotion activities. The type of health care clients had requested at the clinic for the previous 2 years was categorized as health promotion, illness prevention, health maintenance, or health restoration. Findings included: health value was not related to self-reported health promotion activities or to types of clinic visits; a strong belief in chance was negatively associated with engaging in health promotion activities; a strong belief in powerful others was negatively associated with a high percentage of restoration visits. The combination of beliefs, values, and selected demographic factors accounted for 16% of the variance in health promotion activities and 18% of the variance in the type of health care sought.

Adolescent↗