Biomedical subjects

Jason W Beckstead

Publications and source records attributed to Jason W Beckstead.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Assessing cross-cultural validity of scales: a methodological review and illustrative example.

In this article, we assessed the cross-cultural validity of the Women's Role Strain Inventory (WRSI), a multi-item instrument that assesses the degree of strain experienced by women who juggle the roles of working professional, student, wife and mother. Cross-cultural validity is evinced by demonstrating the measurement invariance of the WRSI. Measurement invariance is the extent to which items of multi-item scales function in the same way across different samples of respondents. We assessed measurement invariance by comparing a sample of working women in Taiwan with a similar sample from the United States. Structural equation models (SEMs) were employed to determine the invariance of the WRSI and to estimate the unique validity variance of its items. This article also provides nurse-researchers with the necessary underlying measurement theory and illustrates how SEMs may be applied to assess cross-cultural validity of instruments used in nursing research. Overall performance of the WRSI was acceptable but our analysis showed that some items did not display invariance properties across samples. Item analysis is presented and recommendations for improving the instrument are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2006

The Women's Role Strain Inventory: a Chinese translation and psychometric analyses for Taiwanese women.

BACKGROUND: To date, there is no instrument that measures role strain experienced by Chinese speaking women engaged in multiple roles of working professionals, and wife/mother. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to: (1) translate the women's role strain inventory (WRSI) into Chinese; (2) compare the translated version (WRSI-C) to the original English version of the instrument to measure role strain of women who are engaged in multiple roles; and (3) complete a psychometric evaluation of the (WRSI-C) Chinese version of the WRSI in this different culture. PARTICIPANTS: Taiwanese women (N=448) working as professional nurses, attending classes, and maintaining family responsibilities provided the data. METHOD: Reliability of the WRSI-C was compared to the English version by comparing Cronbach's alpha coefficients. Test-retest reliability was assessed using intra-class and Spearman correlations. Validity of the WRSI-C (long form) was assessed using exploratory factor analyses. RESULTS: The WRSI-C was found to be both reliable and valid. CONCLUSIONS: The reliability and validity of the WRSI-C appeared to be consistent across English and Taiwanese samples.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Reporting peer wrongdoing in the healthcare profession: the role of incompetence and substance abuse information.

This article reports an analysis of the thinking processes nurses use when making decisions to report peer wrongdoing. Nurses (N=120) were asked to provide subjective probability estimates of the likelihood that they would report a hypothetical coworker for substance abuse and/or incompetence related to practice. Data were analyzed using formal inference-based recursive modeling (FIRM). Findings confirm that when considering workplace wrongdoing, nurses view working under the influence of any type of substance to be a very serious offense. More interesting, nurses combined incompetence and substance-abuse cues in complex ways, possibly due to the critical-thinking skills acquired during their education and practice.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

A multidimensional analysis of the epistemic origins of nursing theories, models, and frameworks.

The purpose of this article is to introduce our notion of epistemic space and to demonstrate its utility for understanding the origins and trajectories of nursing theory in the 20th century using multidimensional scaling (MDS). A literature review was conducted on primary and secondary sources written by and about 20 nurse theorists to investigate whether or not they cited 129 different scholars in the fields of anthropology, biology, nursing, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Seventy-four scholars were identified as having been cited by at least two nurse theorists (319 citations total). Proximity scores, quantifying the similarity among nurse theorists based on proportions of shared citations, were calculated and analyzed using MDS. The emergent model of epistemic space that accommodated these similarities among nurse theorists revealed the systematic influence of scholars from various fields, notably psychology, biology, and philosophy. We believe that this schema and resulting taxonomy will prove useful for furthering our understanding of the relationships among nursing theories and theories in other fields of science.

Anthropology, Cultural↗

PubMed2004

Factor analysis as a tool for survey analysis using a professional role orientation inventory as an example.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to illustrate how confirmatory factor analysis can be used to extend and clarify a researcher's insight into a survey instrument beyond that afforded through the typical exploratory factor analytic approach. The authors use as an example a survey instrument developed to measure individual differences in professional role orientation among physical therapists, the Professional Role Orientation Inventory for Physical Therapists (PROI-PT). SAMPLE: Five hundred three physical therapists responded to a mail survey instrument that was sent to a random sample of 2,000 American Physical Therapy Association members. METHODS: An adapted version of the Professional Role Orientation Inventory, a 40-item Likert-scale instrument developed to assess professional role orientation on 4 dimensions (authority, responsibility, agency, and autonomy), was used. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the factorial validity of the PROI-PT. RESULTS: Exploratory factor analysis served as a starting point for examining the factor structure of the instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis then was used to test the hypothesized factor structure and to suggest refinements to the PROI-PT that would improve a psychometric property (internal consistency). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Although further refinement of the PROI-PT is needed, an instrument that yields valid and reliable measurements of individual differences in professionalism among physical therapists could further our understanding of the psychosocial aspects of physical therapist practice. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses can be used by researchers who study various psychosocial constructs in physical therapy.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Attitudes accentuate attributes in social judgment: the combined effects of substance use, depression, and technical incompetence on judgments of professional impairment.

Evaluative reactions involving attitudes have been shown to affect social judgments under certain conditions. Researchers assume that personality traits and behaviors toward which people hold strong attitudes evoke evaluative reactions. Such reactions influence the importance of these attributes as they are integrated with other information during the formation of social judgments and, in part, account for the accentuation effect. Social judgment was studied in the context of professional-impairment impressions provided by nurses. Data were modeled using hierarchical techniques to examine the interaction between within-judge differences in attribute weighting and between-judges differences in attitudes. Social judgments of fictitious targets were moderated by individual differences in judges' attitudes toward negative target attributes; some, but not all, attributes were accentuated as predicted.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Stress-related influences on blood pressure in African American women.

The relationship of blood pressure status to three stress-related variables, anger, coping resources, and strain, was evaluated in 90 African American women. The majority of the participants (57%) were normotensive, 32% of the participants reported current use of hypertensive medication, and an additional 16% had a mean blood pressure greater than 140/90 mmHg but were not on hypertensive therapy. From an analysis using ANCOVA, participants in the latter group were found to have significantly higher scores on rational-cognitive coping resources, controlling for age, waist/hip ratio, and pack-years. No significant differences among the blood pressure groups were found in anger or personal strain. Fostering rational-cognitive coping skills, which represent the ability to problem-solve effectively and to set priorities, may be beneficial for African American women and should be evaluated further in a larger sample.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2002

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Maslach Burnout Inventory among Florida nurses.

Burnout among human service professionals, such as nurses, has been studied in various countries for years using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). This paper reports on confirmatory factor analyses using LISREL that examined the factorial validity of the MBI. The sample consisted of 151 registered nurses from west-central Florida. Modifications of the initial hypothesized three-factor structure were necessary to adequately fit the data. Findings are compared to the published normative values for the MBI and to similar studies of European nurses. Recommendations for measurement models of the MBI in future studies that use structural equation modeling techniques are offered.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Using hierarchical cluster analysis in nursing research.

This article is a pedagogical piece on hierarchical cluster analysis, a method for investigating the structure underlying data. Such methods are useful for finding similar groups of cases in data sets when it is not known a priori how many groups are present. The article is laid out asfollows: First, a brief history and overview of the methods is presented; second, an illustrative example with a small hypothetical data set is used to clarify fundamental concepts; third, hierarchical cluster analysis is applied to a data set from the author's own program of research to illustrate one way in which the methods may be employed in nursing research; fourth, the limitations of the methods are discussed; and finally, a list of suggested readings, at varying levels of detail. are provided for the interested researcher.

Cluster Analysis↗

PubMed2002

Modeling attitudinal antecedents of nurses' decisions to report impaired colleagues.

Nurses whose professional functioning is impaired due to substance abuse represent a threat to the health and safety of patients, other health care staff, and themselves. The major means for identifying impaired nurses is nonimpaired coworkers. Yet, only 37% of nurses who have had experiences working with impaired colleagues reported them to supervisors. A cross-sectional correlational research design, employing structural equation modeling, was used to explicate the relationships among the latent attitudinal constructs: permissiveness, morality, treatment efficacy regarding substance abuse, and punitive attitudes toward impaired nurses. The influences of these attitudes on perceived severity of impairment in fictitious coworkers and subsequent intentions to report these coworkers to nursing supervisors were modeled in a sample of 126 nurses. Permissiveness and positive attitude toward treatment were significantly related to intentions to report nurses. Moralistic attitude was not related to intention. Moralistic attitude was, however, strongly associated with a punitive attitude toward impaired nurses.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Retirement among Florida's certified nurse-midwives: an impending workforce crisis.

An anonymous survey was mailed to 499 CNMs in Florida in May 2001 to examine the impact of CNM retirement on the Florida women's health provider workforce and to estimate the replacement demand for CNMs. The survey also investigated where Florida's CNMs studied midwifery, reasons for choosing education programs, reasons for moving to Florida, and causes of underemployment of CNMs. Two hundred eighty respondents returned the survey. Thirty-nine percent of respondents received their midwifery education in Florida. Eighty-one percent of respondents were working as CNMs. From 2010 through 2025, an average of 11 CNMs in Florida will reach age 65 each year. These data indicate that retirement will generate demand for new CNMs in the next two decades. These data, along with future research tracking midwifery education, employment, and retirement, could be used to plan program funding, clinical site needs, and legislative support of midwifery.

Aged↗