Biomedical subjects

Kathleen Doyle Lyons

Publications and source records attributed to Kathleen Doyle Lyons.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Palliative care program effectiveness research: developing rigor in sampling design, conduct, and reporting.

Research on palliative care presents some unique sampling challenges. The purpose of this paper is to articulate the sampling challenges that palliative care researchers face during phases of study design, conduct, and the reporting of results. Challenges include identifying a target population, avoiding selection bias in the face of clinician and patient denial of serious illness, developing eligibility criteria for a seriously ill population, minimizing high patient refusals due to illness, and accurate reporting of all screened and eligible participants. These challenges are explored within the context of a randomized clinical trial testing a palliative care intervention. Suggestions for improving scientific rigor in sampling design include 1) defining a target population that is consistent with research goals; 2) identifying eligibility criteria that are objective and understandable to clinicians to yield the desired sample; and 3) reporting results about the target population, sample eligibility/exclusions, and participation using standardized criteria.

Biomedical Research↗

PubMed2005

Inferring personality traits of clients with Parkinson's disease from their descriptions of favourite activities.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the extent to which practitioners effectively use cues from clients' verbal descriptions of their favourite activities to form accurate impressions of the personality of clients with Parkinson's disease. PARTICIPANTS: Ninety-nine practitioners from disciplines of occupational, physical and speech therapy, nursing or medicine. PROCEDURE: Six men and six women with Parkinson's disease completed a self-report measure of personality and were individually interviewed regarding their favourite activities. The practitioners viewed 2-min segments of those videotaped interviews and provided judgements of the clients' personality. MEASURE: The NEO-Five Factor Inventory and a coding scheme to describe characteristics of clients' favourite activities. ANALYSIS: Clients' self-reported personality was correlated with the activity characteristics to identify the degree to which each characteristic was a cue of personality. Practitioners' judgements of personality were correlated with the activity characteristics to identify how heavily the practitioners weighted each cue. These two sets of weightings were compared using Pearson's correlations to determine whether practitioners used an appropriate cue strategy related to the activity descriptions. RESULTS: Practitioners appropriately used the personality cues found in the clients' favourite activity descriptions to assess the traits of Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (r = 0.66, r = 0.60, and r = 0.55, respectively, all p < or = 0.02). Practitioners appeared to use less effective cue strategies for the traits of Neuroticism and Extraversion. CONCLUSION: Clients with Parkinson's disease appear to express their personality in their descriptions of favourite activities, and practitioners appear to make use of these expressive verbal cues effectively for some aspects of personality.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Behavioural cues of personality in Parkinson's disease.

PURPOSE: To determine if there were observable cues of personality to be found in the appearance and expressive behaviour of six men and six women with Parkinson's disease. METHOD: Participants completed a personality measure and engaged in an individual, videotaped interview. Four trained raters measured the expressive behaviour demonstrated in the videotapes. A correlational design was used to explore associations between self-reported personality and measures of expressive behaviour. RESULTS: In this sample, more eyebrow furrowing indicated significantly higher levels of Neuroticism and less formal dress indicated significantly higher levels of Openness to Experience. These associations remained large and significant after controlling for the effect of disease severity. CONCLUSIONS: Whereas previous research has focused on the detrimental effect of Parkinson's disease symptoms on first impressions, this study explored the potential for accurate first impressions of personality by identifying observable cues of personality. Findings suggest that in early stages of Parkinson's disease there may be plausible and intuitive cues of personality present in expressive behaviour.

Aged↗

PubMed2004

Practitioners' impressions of patients with Parkinson's disease: the social ecology of the expressive mask.

The expressive mask of Parkinson's disease, a reduced spontaneity, intensity, and fluidity of facial, bodily, and vocal expression, jeopardizes interpersonal interaction and quality of life. Observers have difficulty perceiving the "real" person behind the mask, leading to failed communication and misunderstanding. A social ecological explanation of this difficulty is that observers have learned in their daily social lives, and quite appropriately so, that expressive behavior reveals meaningful information about character. The premise of this study was that health practitioners, especially novices, would bring into the clinic their everyday perceptual tendencies related to deciphering character. The study examined novice and expert practitioners' impressions of the personality of patients with Parkinson's disease who were videotaped during a healthcare interview. It was found that practitioners, especially novices, appeared to be overly sensitive to expressive masking when forming impressions about patient extraversion. They incorrectly perceived patients with more masking to be less extraverted than patients with less masking. Novice practitioners were particularly inaccurate in their impressions of neuroticism compared to experts. Novices incorrectly perceived patients with more masking as being more neurotic, whereas experts tended to be sensitive to valid cues of neuroticism. Practitioners' impressions of patient conscientiousness were not sensitive to masking and were highly accurate.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The perils of power in interpretive research.

Occupational therapy is based on core values of altruism, equality, and honoring the dignity of others. Embedded in these values is the ever-present negotiation of power. To honor the concern for the welfare of others, researchers are challenged to think about issues of power throughout the research process. This paper identifies dilemmas and raises questions researchers might ask themselves as they struggle to share power in the interpretive research process.

Ethics, Research↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Reliability and validity of a videotape method to describe expressive behavior in persons with Parkinson's disease.

The ability to effectively communicate thoughts, feelings, and identity to others is an important aspect of occupational performance. The symptoms of Parkinson's disease can impair a person's ability to verbally and non-verbally communicate with others. In order to better understand issues of communication functioning for this population, research tools to describe expressive and communicative behavior during occupation and social interaction are needed. In this study, six persons with Parkinson's disease participated in individual, videotaped interviews focused on problem solving during daily activities. Three trained graduate students viewed edited clips from the videotapes and completed a rating scale of expressive behavior designed by the authors. Data support the reliability and construct validity of the behavioral rating scale, suggesting that measures of expressive behavior of persons with Parkinson's disease can be effectively derived using short segments of videotaped activity.

Activities of Daily Living↗