Research Chronicle, 2006 - School of Nursing - University of North ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

16 Nurse Staffing levels, Hospital Financial Performance and Quality of Care Nurse staffing has become an important topic in a number of states, with California leading the way as the only state with legislation requiring minimum staffing levels for registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses. Barbara Mark, PhD, RN, FAAN, with funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is analyzing data from California and 12 other states to determine the effect that minimum staffing levels have on the quality of care, hospital financial performance, amount of uncompensated care provided and educational programs. The study will also assess the impact that minimum staffing laws have on nurse wages. The data come from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL SCHOOL OF NURSING RESEARCH CHRONICLE 2006–2007 Project and from California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. California instituted its minimum staffing law in 2004. Mark and her colleagues are analyzing data from 2001 through 2006 to paint a before and after comparison of the effect of mandated nurse staffing levels. Many states are currently considering nurse staffing legislation, and Mark said she hopes lawmakers will find the outcomes of the study useful when designing such laws or even when deciding whether to enact legislation. “This study will help legislators make the determination if minimum nurse staffing level laws will improve quality of care while not having a negative impact on hospital financial performance,” said Mark, the Sarah Frances Russell Professor in the SON. “It will, hopefully, provide information to help those making these decisions balance nurse pay levels with other hospital financial expenditures.” Intervention Aims to Help Parents and Children Manage Weight Together Obesity is an epidemic in the United States, affecting both adults and children. Roughly 65 percent of adults are either overweight or obese, and 16 percent of children between ages 6 and 19 are overweight with another 15 percent at risk for becoming overweight. This battle against excess weight has placed today’s children in line to be the first generation in several decades that has a lower life expectancy than the previous generation. The findings of other researchers suggest that tackling exercise or weight loss with a partner increases the odds of success. Diane Berry, PhD, CANP, SON assistant professor, is banking that the same positive outcomes will occur if parents and children help each other manage their weight and exercise more. “Parents influence children by serving as role models, and we can see this in the close correlations between the health behaviors and weight status of children and their parents,” she said. “But parents often lack the coping skills necessary to change their own behavior, so we need to give them the knowledge and capacity to change their behaviors along with their children’s.” Berry developed an intervention delivered in community settings that targets overweight or at-risk for overweight African American, Latino and Caucasian children, as well as their overweight or obese parents. The NINR, NIH funded the study. Families in the study learn new nutrition, exercise and coping skills from an interdisciplinary team, and they practice the new skills during weekly meetings for three months. Advanced practice Parents and children participate in Diane Berry’s study to learn how to manage their weight together. nurses stay in close contact with the families for an additional nine months, giving them an opportunity to discuss problems they encounter. Berry’s team checks in with the families six months after the intervention ends to gauge how well they’ve maintained the new behaviors. Berry hypothesizes that families involved in the intervention will experience significant improvements in health behaviors and weight loss. Seeing their parent’s dedication to practicing healthy behaviors will help children determine if they want to change their behaviors to manage their weight, she said.
Exploring Certified Nursing Assistants Provision of Emotional Care With funding from the Alzheimer’s Association, Mary Lynn Piven, PhD, APRN, BC, is studying the emotional care that certified nursing assistants (CNAs) give to nursing home residents with dementia. “Even though we don’t have very clear ideas about the emotional needs of patients with dementia, we operate on the assumption that they have the same emotional needs as the rest of us,” Piven said. CNAs provide up to 80 percent of the day-to-day care for nursing home residents, but little is known about the emotional care they provide. In an effort to better understand the emotional care provided by CNAs, Piven is studying videotaped interactions between CNAs and nursing home residents to Above: Mary Lynn Piven reviews video with a reseach assistant. Observational software helps identify develop a coding system to operational- behavior/response patterns in this study of the emotional care CNAs give to nursing home residents. ize emotional care. Using a computerized coding system in the Biobehavioral Piven said she hopes, over the long term, to develop Lab, Piven and a research assistant are and test interventions to improve emotional care e in nurs- analyzing 50 tapes to capture CNAs’ verbal and nonverbal ing homes. She plans to use the coding system she behaviors that communicate connection, concern and caring, as develops to measure the effect her interventions ns well as behaviors that maximize resident function and control. have on the emotional care CNAs provide. “In addition to CNA verbalizations, we are looking at nonverbal behaviors, specifically touch, smiling and eye contact,” Piven said. “We are looking for the times when the Younger Breast Cancer Survivors: CNA strokes the residents arm or pats them on the shoulder as a way of connecting with them on a nonverbal level, Managing Uncertainty letting them know they are there, they are present.” School of Nursing faculty members Merle Mishel, Based on her previous research, Piven said that CNAs pro- PhD, RN, FAAN, and Barbara Germino, PhD, RN, FAAN, AAN vide emotional care that is not formally recognized by the nurs- are testing an intervention for women under age 50 who have suring home. “Unlike physical care, they are providing emotional vived breast cancer. Their study is described in greater detail in the care without direction or supervision of that care, which is what article on the School’s programs of cancer research, page 9. caused me to want to study what they are doing,” she said. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL SCHOOL OF NURSING RESEARCH CHRONICLE 2006–2007 17
Page 1 and 2: Research Chronicle 2006-2007 Y E O
Page 3 and 4: Features Welcoming New Faculty Rese
Page 5 and 6: eeber ~ hamilton ~ hodges Jill Hami
Page 7 and 8: oermann ~ swift-scanlan ~ yeo There
Page 9 and 10: School of Nursing Faculty using Obs
Page 11 and 12: Building the School’s Programs of
Page 13 and 14: Healthy Behaviors Not More Prevalen
Page 15 and 16: Assessing Women’s Lifestyle Choic
Page 17: Faculty Awarded External Funding to
Page 21 and 22: Exploring what Certified Nursing As
Page 23 and 24: Funding the Future of Nursing Resea
Page 25 and 26: ight now, we don’t have a good sy
Page 27 and 28: Faculty Research Grants 2006-2007 A
Page 29 and 30: Sandelowski, M., Principal Investig
Page 31 and 32: Chinese instrument to measure lower
Page 33 and 34: Miles, M. S., Holditch-Davis, D., S
Page 35 and 36: Editorial and Abstract Review Activ
Page 37 and 38: Page, Julie, Clinical Assistant Pro
Page 39 and 40: Advancing Nurse Research at Carolin

Research Chronicle, 2006 - School of Nursing - University of North ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?