Data Collection

In 2003, the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing (Hartford Institute), in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, conducted a survey of baccalaureate schools of nursing in the United States to compare gerontological content to baseline data collected by the Hartford Institute in 1997. Since last surveyed in 1997, baccalaureate nursing programs have been the recipients of substantial new resources and initiatives focused on gerontological curriculum enhancement. While these initiatives are ongoing, and some are in an early stage of development, resurveying baccalaureate programs was seen as a means of taking a midcourse "pulse" as to the effectiveness of these efforts. Data suggest that there has been a fundamental shift in baccalaureate curriculum toward incorporation of a greater amount of gerontological content, integration of gerontological content in a greater number of nursing courses, and more diversity of clinical ...

Although male partner cooperation is often essential for successful use of the female condom, only a few studies have directly assessed men's experiences of using the device. We examined barriers to and facilitators of female condom use via qualitative in-depth interviews with 38 young men (18 to 28 years) in South Africa whose partners, all university students, were enrolled in a female condom intervention trial. In all, 21 men used the female condom; the remaining 17 did not attempt use. The main facilitators to female condom use were convenience of use for men, curiosity to see how female condoms compared to male condoms, enhanced sexual sensation, and perceptions of better safety and comfort of the device compared to male condoms. The main barriers were men's limited familiarity with the device, insertion difficulties, and men's concerns about loss of control over sexual encounters. We recommend that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and condom promotion ...

Aim.  To examine the relationship between nurse staffing and nurse-rated quality of nursing care and job outcomes.Background.  Nurse staffing has been reported to influence patient and nurse outcomes.Design.  A cross-sectional study with a survey conducted August–October 2007.Methods.  The survey included 1365 nurses from 65 intensive care units in 22 hospitals in Korea. Staffing was measured using two indicators: the number of patients per nurse measured at the unit level and perception of staffing adequacy at the nurse level. Quality of care and job dissatisfaction were measured with a four-point scale and burnout measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to determine the relationships between staffing and quality of care and job outcomes.Results.  The average patient-to-nurse ratio was 2·8 patients per nurse. A fifth of nurses perceived that there were enough nurses to provide quality care, one third were dissatisfied, half were highly burnt out and a quarter planned to leave in the next year. Nurses were more likely to rate quality of care as high when they cared for two or fewer patients (odds ratio, 3·26; 95% confidence interval, 1·14–9·31) or 2·0–2·5 patients (odds ratio, 2·44; 95% confidence interval, 1·32–4·52), compared with having more than three patients. Perceived adequate staffing was related to a threefold increase (odds ratio, 2·97; 95% confidence interval, 2·22–3·97) in the odds of nurses’ rating high quality and decreases in the odds of dissatisfaction (odds ratio, 0·30; 95% confidence interval, 0·23–0·40), burnout (odds ratio, 0·50; 95% confidence interval, 0·34–0·73) and plan to leave (odds ratio, 0·40; 95% confidence interval, 0·28–0·56).Conclusions.  Nurse staffing was associated with quality of care and job outcomes in the context of Korean intensive care units.Relevance to clinical practice.  Adequate staffing must be assured to achieve better quality of care and job outcomes.

Unique in its integration of theory and application, this comprehensive book explains survey design, implementation, data analysis, and continuing data management, including how to effectively incorporate the latest technology (e.g., SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics). Data management and analysis are demonstrated and explained through statistical software including SPSS, SAS, and Stata. In addition to helping students develop a complete understanding of survey research from start to finish, the authors also address the challenges and issues of specific disciplines.

This study examines the effect of 13 strategic management activities on the financial performance of a national sample of 797 U.S. rural hospitals during the period of 1983-1988. Controlled for environment-market, geographic-region, and hospital-related variables, the results show almost no measurable effect of strategic adoption on rural hospital profitability and liquidity. Where statistically significant relationships existed, they were more often negative than positive. These findings were not expected; it was hypothesized that positive effects across a broad range of strategies would emerge, other things being equal. Discussed are possible explanations for these findings as well as their implication for a rural health policy relying on individual rural hospital strategic adaptation to environmental change.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Several factors have been linked to the decline in medical student choice of a career in primary care (eg, gender, race, family income, student debt), yet understanding remains limited regarding the availability of curricular and co-curricular experiences for medical students within family medicine that may play a role, particularly one-on-one opportunities such as faculty mentoring and advising. Our study sought to collect baseline data on family medicine learning experiences during predoctoral training. METHODS An online 21-question survey was sent to family medicine departments at US allopathic medical schools between January and March 2012 (84.6% response rate) to capture institutional representation and experiences within family medicine. RESULTS Most institutions reported offering family medicine interest groups (98.1%), electives (97.1%), and clerkships (90.4%). Career advising as an elective course component was available at 53.8% of schools and as ...

As teacher quality becomes a central issue in discussions of children's literacy, both researchers and policy makers alike express increasing concern with how teachers structure and allocate their lesson time for literacy-related activities as well as with what they know about reading development, processes, and pedagogy. The authors examined the beliefs, literacy knowledge, and proposed instructional practices of 121 first-grade teachers. Through teacher self-reports concerning the amount of instructional time they would prefer ...

ABSTRACT form only given. Data exchange in many underwater applications such as oceanographic data collection, scientific ocean sampling, pollution and environmental monitoring, disaster prevention, underwater system maintenance, recreational scuba diving, is an exciting task. Due to the reduced visibility (for optical) or high attenuations (for radio) link, in most of the cases the communication between different locations cannot take place. When possible, this limitations are alleviated employing data transmission via cables, a solution that can be employed for both dynamic (e.g. on the scuba divers) or static (e.g. sensor nodes) systems. However, its use assumes that the movement among the different communicating objects is clearly strongly limited. On the other hand, the total lack of the possible communication among the divers substantially reduces the possibility of preventing dangers, avoiding the considered activity to be conducted in safe way.

Previous qualitative studies show that when the formal organization of a school and patterns of informal interaction are aligned, faculty and leaders in a school are better able to coordinate instructional change. This article combines social network analysis with interview data to analyze how well the formal and informal aspects of a school’s social context are aligned. The focus is on two elementary schools engaged in initiatives aimed to use data to inform instructional decision making. The multimethod case study integrated findings from questionnaire and interview data. Data were collected over two years from case study schools. By fitting multilevel social selection models to longitudinal social network data collected from surveys, the authors estimated the relative influence of formal and informal processes on patterns of advice giving in each school. They used interview data to contextualize and corroborate findings. The social selection models they fit revealed distinct patt...