1,720,965 research outputs found
Factors Influencing HPV Vaccination Uptake Among College Students
Get PDFThe human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most commonly contracted sexually transmitted disease in the United States and is the cause for most cases of HPV-related cancers. Although there is an HPV vaccine, it is not yet widely administered as it is not part of the required vaccinations. This study examined health beliefs, such as perceived barriers and perceived susceptibility, for obtaining the HPV vaccine among college students, in addition to determining the success of a health education event for increasing knowledge and awareness about HPV and the HPV vaccine. The pre- and posttests given to participants at an on-campus educational event were analyzed using paired sample t-tests and one-way ANCOVA analyses. The findings of this study show that in this sample, the most common barriers to receiving the HPV vaccine are lack of parental support, lack of access to the vaccine, low perceived susceptibility and low perceived severity. However, results determined that the educational event was successful in significantly increasing knowledge and awareness and positively influencing health beliefs about HPV and the HPV vaccine.M.P.H
Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) Faculty and Staff Wellness Assessment
Get PDFBackground: There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating the benefits that employee wellness programs have on businesses or institutions that have them. These benefits include, but are not limited to: employee retention, morale, and general health. The purpose of this study was to assess the current health status, behaviors, and opinions held by the faculty and staff of Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) to determine whether or not there was a need for an employee wellness program.
Methods: Working in conjunction with the campus recreation center, a survey was developed and sent out via Qualtrics (QualtricsXM, Provo, UT, 2019) to the faculty and staff of MTSU in April 2019. Responses were analyzed and described using SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics 24, Armonk, NY, 2016) to explore frequencies and cross tabulations.
Results: The survey received 259 responses for a 12% response rate. Based on results of the survey, the majority of MTSU’s staff (67%) have either an overweight or obese body mass index (BMI) rating. The biggest barriers to exercise were found to be time (51%) and finding the motivation to exercise (24%). An overwhelming majority (84%) of respondents did believe that a Faculty/Staff wellness program would be beneficial to MTSU.
Discussion: Given the thoughts of MTSU’s faculty and staff as well as the growing body of evidence surrounding the benefits of employee wellness programs, this study supports the implementation of an employee wellness program at MTSU. Such a wellness program could include health services, both physical and mental, a recreation center, and additional programs or incentives that encourage use of such facilities and programs. With these services currently offered to MTSU students, there would be minimal investment in these services to expand them to the faculty and staff to receive the benefits of what employee wellness programs offer.M.S
A GOAL-ORIENTED EVALUATION OF THE FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY PROGRAM AT THE SAINT LOUISE CLINIC
Get PDFMedical residency programs have challenges including cost, quality, and physician shortages. Family medicine residency programs provide training in many specialty areas to ensure physicians have the knowledge needed to treat the whole family. Program evaluations can identify challenges, areas for improvement, and successes in residency programs.The Family Medicine Residency Program at the Saint Louise Clinic in Murfreesboro, TN, was formed by a partnership of the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center and Saint Thomas Health. The first class of eight family medicine residents began work in July 2015.This goal-oriented evaluation was guided by the Center for Disease Control’s Framework for Program Evaluation. The evaluation answered two primary evaluation questions: identify the processes in place to achieve the program’s mission to develop skilled, qualified, and compassionate family medicine physicians and evaluate the program’s compliance with goals, target milestones, timelines, and deliverables during the planning and implementation phases. Interviews with five stakeholders identified secondary evaluation questions. Two areas for improvement were identified from the ten secondary evaluation questions. Program administrators will use the evaluation results to focus on areas for improvement.M.S
Social Support and Its Effects on Social Networking Site Use: Are Individuals Showing Signs of Depression Using Social Networking Sites More Often Seeking Social Support?
Get PDFSocial networking sites have become an integral part of modern society with people spending nearly double their time communicating through networking sites instead of face to face (Shensa et al., 2020). Although research has been conducted on how people use these sites and the effects it may bring, there has not been much research as to why people use the sites and what they are hoping to get from them. This study examined if people who show moderate to severe symptoms of depression use social networking sites more often than those who do not and if these users felt a stronger social support system online. The survey was distributed via the researcher’s personal social networking sites and by other users. The data collected was then examined using IBM SPSS version 26. Cross tabulations and ANOVA were run on the data to test the hypotheses. It was found that users who suffer from moderate to severe symptoms of depression spend more time online but they did not feel a stronger connection to the online community than someone who did not show symptoms of depression.M.S
TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICE AMONG EXERCISE PROFESSIONALS AS A DEVELOPING DETERMINANT OF EXERCISE BEHAVIOR FOR SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ABUSE
Get PDFPhysical activity and exercise fosters wellness in multiple dimensions of a person’s health. For some survivors of sexual abuse, safety is a foundational aspect of exercise programming. Client-centered practice includes awareness of stress responses and the importance of interpersonal communication on health outcomes. It is helpful for fitness professionals to obtain the knowledge necessary to create safe provider-client relationships. Trauma-informed exercise professionals can prescribe exercises to survivors of abuse as part of safe and effective programming. Research addressing interpersonal barriers to exercise caused by exercise professionals’ lack of trauma-informed instruction presents a gap in knowledge surrounding best practices. Before educating exercise professionals in trauma-informed practices for exercise instruction, current professional competencies must be measured.
Professionals who have experienced trauma or abuse may have unique understandings of the impact of trauma on exercise and may instruct exercise with greater sensitivity or trauma-awareness. The Sexual Abuse Assessment Tool [SAAT] was used to test exercise professionals’ (N=61) competencies regarding training survivors of abuse. When controlling for job title, participant sex, and participant age, there was not a significant linear relationship between participants’ own adverse childhood experiences [ACEs] scores and total SAAT scores. Professionals who practice physical therapy scored significantly lower on assessment items related to sexual abuse and health concerns when compared to personal trainers.
The SAAT was tested for internal consistency and validity. A correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the full scale and individual domains with the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form [TEIQue-SF] and the Final 21-item Scale to Assess Staff Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Related to Trauma-informed Care [TIC KAP]. Cronbach’s alpha, alpha if item were removed, inter-item and item-total correlations were analyzed to ensure retained items were internally consistent. The proposed domain structure was tested using an exploratory factor analysis. Analyses from this study indicate that the SAAT is a reliable assessment tool (α = .87) featuring five content domains. The proposed revised scale includes 41 items and is ready for the final stages of development. The SAAT is useful for assessing exercise professionals’ competencies and sensitive practice when training and instructing survivors of sexual abuse.Ph.D
The effect of moral disengagement and media exposure on binge drinking among college students /
Get PDFAdviser: Norman Weatherby.Binge drinking among college students is a major problem on contemporary college campuses (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011, Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2008). This study seeks to better understand this phenomenon by examining the relationship between binge drinking and both moral disengagement and current media exposure while controlling for age, gender, level in college, race, fraternity/sorority involvement, athletic involvement, and type of residence. Moral disengagement is a subcomponent of Social Learning Theory and can be conceptualized as engaging in behaviors known to be wrong (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara & Pastorelli, 1996). The effect of media exposure on alcohol use has been examined extensively (Atkin, 1990; Austin & Knaus, 2000; Fleming, Thorson, & Atkin, 2004; Austin, Pinkleton, & Fujioka, 2000; Austin, Chen, & Grube, 2006). This study focuses on the effect of current media exposure on binge drinking rates among college students.Results indicate that while moral disengagement is a significant predictor of binge drinking among college students (chi square = 76.18, df = 1, p less than .001), current media exposure is not. Specifically, the more morally disengaged students are, the more likely it is that they will be binge drinkers (OR = 9.53, df = 1, p less than .001). The Nagelkerke R2; revealed that the parsimonious model with only moral disengagement explains 38.1% of the variation in binge drinking among the students. The overall percent of students correctly classified using this model was 72.7%. If the goal of predicting binge drinking from measurements of moral disengagement was 70%, then this model is a good model.The importance of this study lies in the fact that it is the first to demonstrate the relationship between moral disengagement and binge drinking specifically. More research needs to be conducted in order to better understand this relationship and explore how it can be best applied in developing more effective prevention and intervention efforts.Ph.D
An Examination of the Social and Community Context of Substance Use Disorder Recovery Support Services in Rutherford County, Tennessee
Get PDFSubstance use disorder causes significant morbidity and mortality in the United States. An estimated 20.1 million persons age 12 or older had a diagnosis of substance use disorder in 2016. Approximately 95,000 lives are lost due to alcohol-related causes yearly. A public health emergency was declared in 2017 due to increasing opioid overdoses. In 2018 in Rutherford County, Tennessee, overdoses resulted in 89 deaths or 27.6 per 100,000 persons.
Many barriers prevent access to treatment services resulting in less than 20% of adults with substance use disorder receiving treatment. Recovery support services are needed to build recovery capital to promote and sustain recovery. Mutual aid and 12-step programs are peer recovery support services available at no cost to participants. Faith-based organizations often provide meeting space for these groups. The purpose of this project is to examine these services including the capacity of a recovery congregation program and program accessibility by population demographics.
Enhancing interorganizational network capacity to increase the transfer of resources is a strategy to improve social programs. For a certified recovery congregation program, community capacity is necessary to achieve the certification best practices including providing visible outreach, disseminating recovery information, and hosting or referring individuals to recovery support groups. A social network analysis including 12 community partners examined the capacity of a recovery congregation program. Sociograms provided visual diagrams of the network’s collaboration frequency and collaboration level. Areas for capacity building were identified including unreciprocated relationships. Increasing capacity by leveraging collaborating cliques and dyads was one of the strategies identified to increase the density of the network. A one-year follow-up is needed to examine change in capacity over time.
A spatial study utilizing geographic information system (GIS) mapping and logistic regression examined accessibility of mutual aid groups by census tract population demographics. In Rutherford County, an uneven distribution was identified with services located in census tracts of smaller square mileage with higher population density. GIS maps provided a visual of location of the services with overlays of poverty level and population density. More research is needed to better understand the accessibility of these important peer recovery support services.Ph.D
ASSOCIATION BETWEEN METABOLIC SYNDROME AND DEPRESSION IN ADULTS WITH OSTEOARTHRITIS
Get PDFApproximately 7.1% of individuals are affected by depression in North America annually. Depression is a severe form of mental illness characterized by upset mood, loss of self-esteem, sadness, lack of interest in performing daily activities and lack of pleasure. Severe depression can lead to functional limitations and even mortality. Conversely, timely diagnosis can lead to early intervention and longevity.
Although prior research has documented that depression is a major public health problem, few studies have examined the association between metabolic syndrome and depression from a preventive perspective. Of the limited studies, there are unclear results pertaining to the direction of the relationship. In addition, there is a paucity of information on individuals living with chronic illnesses, such as osteoarthritis.
Moreover, meta-analyses conducted in the past utilized limited demographic characteristics of the participants. Also, nationally representative studies rarely have examined disparities in demographics (e.g., marital status, education) using a prospective research design. To our knowledge, no studies have considered social isolation while measuring depression among individuals with osteoarthritis. Such descriptive research can provide a foundation for future analytical studies. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to address the mentioned gaps in the literature by using nationally and publically available data to conduct a meta-analysis and use Generalizing Estimating Equations (GEE) to examine the association between metabolic syndrome and depression.
In order to conduct the meta-analysis, we searched various databases such as PsycINFO, MEDLINE Complete, CINAHL Complete, ScienceDirect, SportDiscuss, and JEWL from the year 1999-2019. Search criteria and keywords such as “Metabolic Syndrome”, “Syndrome x”, “insulin resistance syndrome”, “depression”, and a combination of these keywords after the equivalent-subject expander were used to identify potentially relevant terms. Using inclusion criteria, the initial search was narrowed down to thirteen articles. For the meta analysis, comprehensive meta-analysis (CMA) software was used. For the Generalizing Estimating Equations (GEE), data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), an existing National Institute of Health (NIH) database, were used. Participants (N = 2643) had severe osteoarthritis or were at risk of developing it. The majority of included participants were White (85.9%) and women (57.3%) with an average age of 60 years.
Metabolic syndrome was measured using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of systolic blood pressure, diabetes, BMI, and waist circumference variables that were available in the OAI database. Depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiological Scale for depression (CES-D) from the OAI database. Data were measured at baseline, 24 months, 72 months, and at 96 months. Associations were adjusted for age, race, gender, education, marital status, social isolation, baseline depression, and time between visits. SPSS (v25) was utilized to conduct the GEE analysis.
Results from the meta-analysis indicate that there is a significant association between METS and depression. In total, 17 effect sizes were calculated from 13 studies. Statistical heterogeneity between studies was not significant (I2 = 38.71%, df = 16 and p=.053), indicating that studies were compatible. Due to insignificant heterogeneity, a fixed-effect model was used. Individuals who live with METS are 1.14 times more likely to have depression when compared with individuals without METS. .
Results from the GEE analysis indicated that there is no significant association between METS and depression among individuals living with osteoarthritis across time (B = .285, p = .302). The overall model intercept was significant (B = 4.24, p = .000). Among other predictors, education, marital status, social isolation, baseline depression, and time (years) between the visits were found to be significantly associated with depression. When controlling all other significant predictors, positive associations with depression over time were found for marital status (B = .280, p = .017), baseline depression (B = .653, p = .000), and years (B = .333, p = .000). Negative associations with depression over time were found for education (B = -.206, p = .009) and social isolation (B = -.1.469, p = .000).
Results from both meta-analysis and GEE provide a foundation for future research and have practical implications for the treatment of depression. Clinicians should note the prevalence of depression and consider these issues in treatment, planning, and implementation.Ph.D
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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