Designing and testing self-help interventions.
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Adolescent↗
Biomedical subjects
M K Sandor
Publications and source records attributed to M K Sandor.
Competence-building in adolescents, Part I: A self-help nursing intervention.
The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a self-help nursing intervention on adolescent psychosocial competence. A community sample of 139 adolescents was assigned to three conditions (intervention, delayed intervention, and control) within a pretest-posttest design. The self-help nursing intervention was a 9-page, 14-step self-help workbook for use by adolescents in dealing with upsetting situations in day-to-day living. After a self-assessment of coping, subsequent workbook steps aided adolescents in developing alternate coping responses and generating other ways to deal with the upsetting situation. Adolescents in the three conditions did not differ on pretest measures of psychosocial competence: problem-solving appraisal, adolescent self-perception, and general self-efficacy. After statistically controlling for pretest scores, gender, and age, the intervention group showed more favorable self-perceptions in scholastic competence, social acceptance, and conduct/morality compared with the control group. However, expected differences in the delayed intervention group failed to appear. Thus, anticipated benefits in psychosocial competence were found inconsistently. Although not predicted, significant reductions in the prevalence of negative affect occurred among adolescents in both intervention groups. Overall, the self-help format for delivering psychosocial competence training lacked the power needed to bring about consistent benefits for adolescents. Testing the self-help workbook in a group context is recommended in future nursing intervention research.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Competence-building in adolescents, Part II: Community intervention for survivors of peer suicide.
Nurses often encounter situations in which they are called upon to assist in post-suicide community interventions with teachers, church youth group leaders, and mental health professionals. Controlled studies of interventions to aid adolescents coping with the loss of a peer are lacking. The purpose of this study, conditioned by an unanticipated suicide in an ongoing research study, was to document changes in psychosocial competence of adolescent peer suicide survivors. Following a supportive community intervention, the peer survivor group was compared with a similar group of adolescents who did not experience peer suicide. Both groups were in the control condition of a larger nursing study of social competence-building. The survivor group had significantly greater self-efficacy immediately after the community intervention and 2 months later when contrasted with the comparison group. In addition, the survivor group reported greater social acceptance and job competence immediately after the community intervention. Correlated t-tests showed the survivor group had significant gains in problem-solving appraisal and global self-worth after the community intervention, but significant declines in global self-worth and scholastic competence 2 months after the intervention. The findings support the belief that community interventions are initially worthwhile in helping adolescents to cope with peer suicide, but continued supportive intervention may be needed to offset declines noted over time in areas such as self-worth and academics.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Enhancing critical-thinking skills: faculty-student partnerships in community health nursing.
The enhancement of critical-thinking skills empowers students to participate in the building of healthy environments in a variety of settings. The authors describe the development and implementation of unique classroom strategies emphasizing the use of critical thinking by students, the forging of faculty-student partnerships in community health nursing, and the potential impact of these strategies on the expanding horizons of practice.
Clinical Competence↗