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A conceptual model of sexual health practices of older adolescent college women
No full texttextOlder adolescent college women are at risk for unintended pregnancy and
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome
(HIV) if they engage in unsafe sexual health practices. The purpose of this study was
to examine relationships among background characteristics, including demographics
(age and ethnicity) and sexual history (ages of menarche and sexual debut, and
histories of pregnancy, abortion, and childhood sexual abuse), selected psychosocial
characteristics (sexual self-concept and decision-making), and sexual health practices
of older adolescent college women.
The sample consisted of 170 single women 18 to 22 years of age, who were
recruited from dormitories and campus organizations of a large university in the South
Central US, who had at least one sexual partner in the last year, and volunteered to
complete a written survey on safer sexual decision-making. Sixty-five percent of
women reported a white ethnic background, and the remaining 35% of women were of
Hispanic, African American or Asian American ethnic backgrounds.
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An ex post facto design was used to examine relationships among variables.
The written survey consisted of a Demographic and Sexual History Questionnaire, the
child abuse subscale of the Child Abuse and Trauma Scale (Sanders & Becker-Lausen,
1995), the Sexual Self Concept Scale (Winter, 1988), the vigilant decision-making
subscale of the Melbourne Decision-Making Questionnaire (Mann, et al., 1998), and
the Safe Sexual Behavior Questionnaire (DiIorio, et al., 1992). Three open-ended
questions were used to elicit the participants' unique perspectives of safer sexual
decision-making.
Data analysis included multiple regression and path analysis techniques.
Content analysis was used for open-ended questions. The findings showed that vigilant
decision-making, older age of sexual debut, and non-white ethnicity explained
statistically significant variance in safer sexual practices in this sample of older
adolescent college women. Each of these variables had direct effects on safer sexual
practices. Content analysis suggested that women engaged in three safer sexual
decision-making processes: acknowledging the adverse consequences of sexual
behavior, actively minimizing those consequences, and balancing a number of concrete
and abstract issues. Findings of the study could be used to plan sexual health
promotion strategies for older adolescent college womenNursin
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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An interaction model of parents' and adolescents' influences on Mexican adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use
Get PDFThe purpose of this cross-sectional and exploratory study was to describe an interaction model of parental and adolescent attributes and sexual communication influences on intentions for contraception and condom use in Mexican high school students between 14 and 17 years of age. This study utilized a secondary analysis of data from an existing experimental study. Concepts from the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Social Cognitive Theory, and the Ecodevelopmental Theory provided the contexts with which to guide this study. The study sample consisted of 756 adolescents and their parents. A SEM model building approach was used to guide the analyses. The model fit indices suggested that the sample data did not have an acceptable fit to the combined measurement model (X²[subscript (30)] = 92.215, p = 0.0000, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR= 0.04). Based on the correlation coefficients, the observed variables of parents' and adolescents' familialism and religiosity and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use were excluded from the structural equation modeling analyses. Two alternative models were constructed form the original and both had an acceptable fit, but based on the theoretical background, one was selected (X²[subscript (15)] = 27.289, p = .0265, CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .02). The revised model parents' attributes (self-efficacy for sex communication and beliefs toward sex) showed a strong relationship (r = 0.80) with parents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication). An additional moderately strong correlation was found between adolescents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication) and parents' sexual communication (r = .31). Although the final model in this study did not explain the direct and mediator effects on adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use, findings add new information in relation to the phenomenon of parent-adolescent communication about sex in Mexico. Several conclusions were also drawn from the relationships among parents' attributes, adolescents' attributes, parents' sexual communication, adolescents' sexual communication, and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use. Findings from this study are congruent with similar research and can be useful in developing intervention programs to prevent HIV/AIDS in Mexican adolescents.Nursin
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An interpretive study of the health experiences of runaway and homeless girls
No full texttextThe purpose of my research was to explore the health experiences of
runaway and homeless girls living on the streets in a metropolitan city in the
Southwest, describe the meanings of their health experiences, and identify the factors
that were beneficial or detrimental to their health while living on the street. The study
centered on the participants’ health experiences within the contexts of gender and
culture as understood through their narrative epiphany experiences. Purposeful
sampling was used to obtain the sample of 10 English speaking participants, female
adolescents between 14 and 20 years of age who self-identified as runaway and who
were living on the street at the time of the interview. Denzin’s (1989) interpretive
interactionism method framed the research process. Data collection included focus
group discussions and individual interviews with participants that were audiotaped
and transcribed verbatim. Additional sources of data were written fieldnotes and
participant observations in the field. During the construction step of the interpretive
process sub-themes were classified and ordered under three categories, The
Adventure: Street Health, The Risk: Taking Chances, and The Trial: Have Agency.
As the commonalities among these sub-themes emerged, these were linked to form
the cumulative epiphany, “Health on the street as process of adventure, risk and trial.”
Four minor themes were described within this process, Health is unimportant: Until
you’re feeling ill; The alcohol and other drug (AOD) filter: It’s just the dope; Health
as gendered process: The meaning of Blue; and Crossing cultural borders: How we
negotiate street life. The majority of runaway girls demonstrated agency in regard to
caring for their health and the health of others on the street; they were resourceful.
Girls who inject drugs or drink alcohol discount feelings of illness and attribute their
bodily symptoms to the drug itself. Youth who are under the influence of AOD do not
seek health care because they believe they will be treated differently than if they had
a “naturally” caused illness. Negotiating cultural borders is a metaphor for the
developmental transition of exiting the street.Nursin
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An exploratory study of calcium intake, physical activity, estradiol levels, and bone density in childhood cancer survivors and healthy young adults
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to examine the calcium intake, physical activity
levels, estradiol levels and bone densities of the lumbar spine and hip in childhood cancer
survivors and healthy young adults 18 to 30 years of age. A convenience sample of 48
adults, including childhood cancer survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (n = 28)
and healthy friends of the survivor (n = 20), were matched for age and gender (males =
22; females = 26). The sample was recruited from the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Data gathered from participants included: anthropometric data; calcium intake
(CI) as assessed by the Willett semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire; level of
physical activity (PA) based on the Modified Physical Activity Questionnaire; blood
samples for estradiol; and bone densities (BD) of the lumbar spine L1-4 and 5 regions of
the proximal femur as measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. CI, PA, estradiol
levels, body mass index (BMI) and BD were compared by group (survivor and control) and gender using SPSS to perform data analyses using independent samples t-tests and
analysis of variance.
Results indicated that female childhood cancer survivors had BMIs that were
significantly higher statistically than male cancer survivors or controls F (1, 48) = 2.82, p
= .10. There were no significant differences in calcium intakes by group or gender. PA
levels were significantly different with an interaction based on group and gender. Male
controls had higher levels than male survivors and female survivors had higher levels of
PA than female controls F(1, 48) = 6.70, p = .01. Hip BD in males was significantly
higher than those in females F (1, 47) = 5.29, p = .03, although there were no statistically
significant differences by group or gender in spine BD.
Findings in this study are supported by similar research in childhood cancer
survivors regarding elevated BMIs and decreased physical activity levels. Bone density in
young adults regardless of whether they are a childhood cancer survivor or healthy young
adult remains a priority for further research and development of intervention programs by
nurses and other health professionals.Nursin
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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