PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

M E Duffy

Publications and source records attributed to M E Duffy.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Health promotion in the family: current findings and directives for nursing research.

This paper reviews the current nursing research findings on health promotion within the family and provides directives for future research. The concept of health promotion-the overall enhancement of well being--is contrasted with primary or disease prevention, the specific protection from a health threat. The conceptual parameters of health promotion were used to search the nursing research journals for studies of health promotion in the family. The four major nursing research journals were reviewed and yielded five articles in 105 issues which addressed this phenomenon. The findings from these studies as well as other research literature are used to develop future directives. The directives are presented for both the internal environment of the family and its external environment. Areas for study related to the internal environment include definitions of health and health promotion, descriptions of current health promotion behaviours and those practised over time, decision making, fathering, and methods of intervention. Research of the external environment includes the societal norms, societal interventions, and the effects of societal institutions. This discussion of health promotion in the family describes an agenda for nursing research which is necessary to support nursing practice with families if 'health for all' is to be reached by the year 2000.

Adult↗

Primary prevention behaviors: the female-headed, one-parent family.

The purpose of this study was to describe the primary prevention behaviors of 59 female-headed, one-parent families and the barriers which deter their practice. Two interviews, a health diary, and a card sort were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyze the qualitative data. Nutrition was the behavior the families felt was most important for maintaining health. Time was the major barrier to primary prevention practices. A relationship was found between the family's ability to change and grow and their practice of primary prevention behaviors. Families that consciously risked lifestyle changes also were willing to try to incorporate primary prevention behaviors. On the contrary, families with stagnant lifestyles expressed the desire to change their primary prevention behaviors but made no visible attempt to do so.

Adolescent↗

Designing nursing research: the qualitative-quantitative debate.

Nursing research has not evolved with immunity from the qualitative-quantitative debate which has surrounded the behavioural and social sciences. The outcome of this debate should be better nursing science since researchers are forced to face and address the controversial issues. Attaining this goal requires researchers to debate the issues with a knowledge of epistemology and methodology and not blind devotion to the tradition of the hard sciences. This paper addresses the issues of epistemology, methodology, and ethics for two prototypes of the qualitative-quantitative continuum. Grounded theory explains the issues of qualitative research: the search for meaning, the inclusion of environmental factors, the depth of data, and the treatment of participants as subjects. The true experiment, the epitomy of the quantitative approach, seeks to identify existing truths by isolating the significant variables and controlling for contaminating factors. Based on these arguments, recommendations are made for nursing research which rely on both approaches.

Cognition↗