PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Lee A Schmidt

Publications and source records attributed to Lee A Schmidt.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Lowering stress while teaching research: a creative arts intervention in the classroom.

Undergraduate students often request "hands-on" research experience but seldom have the time and opportunity during a one-semester introductory course to participate in such a project. The purposes of this educational approach, implemented during a beginning research class for baccalaureate nursing students, were to provide an opportunity for students to participate in an experimental research study, and test the effect of a creative arts intervention on students' stress, anxiety, and emotions. Students designed, participated in, and analyzed the results of the project. The intervention significantly reduced stress and anxiety and increased positive emotions in this student population, while providing a creative research experience. For future use, the intervention may be helpful with a variety of vulnerable groups.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Testing the efficacy of a creative-arts intervention with family caregivers of patients with cancer.

PURPOSE: To test the efficacy of a creative arts intervention (CAI) with family caregivers of patients with cancer. DESIGN: A pre-posttest quasi-experimental design, with participation in the CAI as the independent variable and stress, anxiety, and emotions as the dependent variables. METHOD: The 6-month study was implemented at a regional cancer treatment center with family caregivers. The CAI consisted of several creative arts activities designed for delivery at the bedside. FINDINGS: Forty family caregivers reported significantly reduced stress, lowered anxiety, and increased positive emotions following CAI participation. CONCLUSIONS: The CAI promoted short-term well being in this family caregiver sample. Caregivers also increased positive communication with cancer patients and health care providers while expressing delight over their handmade pieces of art.

Affect↗
PubMed2004

Psychometric evaluation of the Writing-To-Learn Attitude Survey.

The Writing-To-Learn Attitude Survey (WTLAS) was developed to measure the effects of using writing-to-learn activities in the classroom, but adequate psychometric data have not been reported for the measure. Using the pretest scores from 149 basic and RN-to-BSN nursing students enrolled in a Nursing Management and Leadership course, the reliability and validity of the WTLAS were evaluated. The initial 30-item measure demonstrated acceptable reliability, but the item intercorrelations suggested revision of the subscales was appropriate. After exploratory factor analyses, the WTLAS was revised to 21 items and consists of two factors: Apprehensions about Writing Abilities and Perceived Benefits of Writing-To-Learn Activities. Both subscales possess acceptable internal consistency reliability and conceptually sound, significant correlations with a separate measure of writing apprehension. The revised WTLAS appears to have adequate psychometric properties for further use in the evaluation of students' perceptions of writing-to-learn activities.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Evaluating the Writing-to-Learn strategy with undergraduate nursing students.

The writing-to-learn (WTL) instructional strategy has not received sufficient empirical investigation. Using a pretest-posttest, quasi-experimental, non-equivalent, control group design, the WTL strategy was evaluated with 87 undergraduate basic and RN-to-BSN nursing students enrolled in a Nursing Leadership and Management course. Students participating in the course perceived significant benefits of the WTL approach. A significant decrease in writing apprehension was found in the experimental group on two separate measures of writing apprehension. These findings are congruent with the theoretical WTL literature and anecdotal reports of the benefits of using the WTL strategy.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Patients' perceptions of nursing care in the hospital setting.

BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction and patient satisfaction with nursing care data are routinely collected as an indicator of the quality of services delivered. Despite the widespread collection and reporting of these data, the theoretical basis of patient satisfaction and patient satisfaction with nursing care remains unclear. Without a clear theoretical base, interpretation of patient satisfaction findings is hampered and the entire line of patient satisfaction research is of questionable validity. It has been suggested that, to understand patient satisfaction, patient perceptions of their care must first be understood. AIM: The aim of this study was to discover patients' perceptions of the nursing care they receive in the hospital setting. METHOD: Grounded theory method was used in this study of eight medical-surgical patients recently discharged from an academic medical centre in the south-eastern United States of America (USA). Participants were interviewed and the verbatim transcripts analysed using the constant comparative method. FINDINGS: Four categories of patient perceptions of their nursing care emerged from the data. 'Seeing the individual patient' captures the unique nature of the nursing care experience for each patient. 'Explaining' represents the informal explanations given by nursing staff as they provide care. 'Responding' refers to both the character and timeliness of nursing staff's responses to patient requests or symptoms. 'Watching over' represents the surveillance activities of nursing staff. CONCLUSIONS: The categories identified in this study may be used in efforts to further develop a formal theory of patient satisfaction with nursing care. These categories should also be tested with patients possessing a wider range of characteristics, to assess the transferability of the findings.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Telephone support for caregivers of patients with cancer.

Caregivers have complex needs as they care for a loved one with cancer at the end of life. The objective of this pilot study was to determine the feasibility of conducting a brief telephone intervention, Tele-Care II, for caregivers of hospice patients. Guided by Hogan's Model of Bereavement, nurse interventionists implemented Tele-Care II via teleconference calls with caregivers. Although 14 caregivers were recruited for the study, only 5 were able to complete the intervention before the patient's death. Those completing the intervention experienced decreased depression, despair, and disorganization although the patient's condition became more serious. Late enrollment in hospice continues to be problematic for patients, family caregivers, and hospice staff because it allows little time for completion of interventions with family caregivers before the patient's death.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2003

A clinical ladder program based on Carper's Fundamental Patterns of Knowing in Nursing.

Clinical and career ladder programs were popular adjuncts to recruitment and retention during the nursing shortage of the 1980s. Programs commonly used Benner's work as an organizing framework and typically used activities such as continuing education credit, committee participation, work experience, certifications, academic degrees, community service, and performance appraisal scores as criteria for advancement. The authors present a unique clinical ladder program based on Carper's Fundamental Patterns of Knowing in Nursing. This philosophical work has been debated in the literature for many years, yet to the authors' knowledge, this work has never been used as the conceptual basis for program development. The four patterns of knowing in nursing were found to be consistent with the definition of professional nursing, and provided a meaningful organizing framework that was well received by staff registered nurses. An overall history of clinical ladders is presented, followed by the organization's prior experience with these programs, and finally the details of development and implementation of the program with plans for evaluation.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2002

Testing the grief to personal growth model using structural equation modeling.

The belief that loss can result in growth has been hypothesized for centuries.Yet, traditional grief theories have viewed grief work as a process of resolving grief and returning to normal. Formal conceptualizations of grief to growth models have been recently delineated by several grief theorists. The Grief to Personal Growth model represents one emergent perspective of the qualitative changes resulting from the loss of a loved one. The model delineates a pathway through grief that indicates the bereft experience despair and detachment followed by intrusive thoughts and later avoidance of intense preoccupation with grief. Social support is shown to facilitate the bereft as they reconstruct their lives and find new meaning in life. A second path indicates that some bereaved individuals become mired in grief and need help to proceed toward personal growth. The model was tested in a sample of bereaved parents using structural equation modeling as a method of theory testing. The results of testing this model are presented within a framework of theory testing as a mechanism to bridge the gaps between theory, practice, and research. Implications for practice are considered.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Patients' perceptions of nurse staffing, nursing care, adverse events, and overall satisfaction with the hospital experience.

Noticeably absent in the discussions surrounding nurse staffing and adverse events is the patients' perspective, except for their satisfaction with various aspects of their hospitalization experience. The results of a study undertaken to test a theoretical model of patients' perceptions of nurse staffing, the nursing care they receive, self-reported adverse events, and overall satisfaction with the hospital experience are presented. Perception of nurse staffing only weakly predicted the number of adverse events reported by patients, but was a strong predictor of the perception of nursing care received, and the perception of nursing care received was the only significant predictor of overall satisfaction with the hospital experience.

Academic Medical Centers↗