Browsing by Author "Quijano, Louise, committee member"
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Item Open Access Alzheimer's disease and family caregiving: loss of the family caregiver role(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Gentz, Audra, author; Fruhauf, Christine A., advisor; Quijano, Louise, committee member; Oltjenbruns, Kevin, committee memberFamily caregiving for adults with Alzheimer's disease is an important issue that affects many individuals. When caregivers are no longer caregiving, the loss of the role may impact their life. However, it is unknown in the gerontological literature how the loss of the caregiver role is experienced. The purpose of this research was to understand the loss of the caregiving role of family caregivers who provided assistance to individuals who had Alzheimer's disease. A total of 21 participants, age 41 to 88, participated in one focus group (i.e., three focus groups were conducted with 5 to 10 participants) addressing the loss of their caregiver role. Many participants (i.e., n = 18) were female and were caring for a parent/in-law (i.e., n = 14). A third of caregivers provided care for 5 to 8 years. Qualitative data analysis techniques were used to develop themes and codes to understand the experiences of previous caregivers. Two themes emerged from the data: caregiving journey and standing at a cross-road. Data focusing on the caregiving journey addressed rewards and stumbling blocks of caregiving during and after active caregiving. For example, participants discussed their tools and feelings associated with caregiving. Standing at a cross-road illustrated four sub-themes: unforeseen happenings, unexpected phase of caregiving, caregiver's sense of self, and grief/sadness. Future researchers should consider examining gender differences and the loss of the caregiver role for children versus spouses. Professionals should consider developing support groups or educational materials focusing on the loss of the caregiver identity.Item Open Access Combating employee burnout in long-term care(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Ferrara, Katherine, author; Morgan, George, advisor; Buchan, Vicky, advisor; Quijano, Louise, committee member; Kaiser, Leann, committee memberEmployee burnout in long-term care is a growing concern due to the changing demographics of individuals admitted to nursing homes in the United States. There is an increase in the number of admissions to nursing homes that include residents with dementia or some form of major mental illness. In addition to having some form of mental disorder, over half of these individuals also have some type of challenging behavior such as verbal or physical aggression. In spite of these changing demographics, there is a lack of adequate training for staff in these settings to care for this population. Lack of training and poor stress management coping skills can contribute to burnout. Burnout can have detrimental effects on the organization, the individual and the residents served in nursing homes. An eight session skills based intervention derived from the Cognitive-Behavioral therapeutic foundation was designed to educate employees on stress management skills and skills to effectively manage challenging resident behaviors. The skills based intervention was implemented in eight sessions to three different nursing homes that had a minimum of a 40% resident population with some form of mental disorder as a diagnosis. This study used a pretest/posttest comparison group design. Change scores on the data collection instruments were analyzed to determine the effect of the intervention on employee level of burnout as well as level of knowledge of behavior management techniques, for the intervention group only. Results indicated no statistically significant difference between the experimental and comparison group on change scores pertaining to level of burnout. There was, however, a significant gain in knowledge of behavior management techniques from pre to post intervention. Other constructs measured that are considered characteristics of burnout included tardiness and absenteeism. There was significant decrease in frequency of absenteeism comparing pre to post intervention in the experimental group. There was no significant change from pre to post intervention in the area of tardiness. A participant evaluation was administered to experimental group participants. Results of a participant evaluation indicated participants had a positive experience with the intervention. Participants felt an increase in level of support from co-workers and increase of knowledge on how to effectively care for residents with challenging behaviors. The length of time of the intervention may have been too short to achieve the desired results of a significant decrease of level of burnout from pre to post intervention. Evaluations revealed the majority of participants would have liked more time for the intervention. Also, vicarious trauma was not a consideration for the development of the intervention or as a contributing factor to burnout in the participants of this study. The majority of participants in the experimental group were classified as non-direct care staff, included members of the activities, social services and business office. It is recommended to include vicarious trauma as a contributing factor of burnout and to include interventions to combat vicarious trauma in future studies. It is further recommended for future studies to have the length of time of the intervention increased to greater than eight sessions. A final recommendation would be to limit participants to both the experimental and comparison groups to those who are classified as direct care staff.Item Open Access Factors influencing Master of Social Work students to choose to work with older adults(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Bishop, Pamela Suzanne, author; Makela, Carole, advisor; Kuk, Linda, committee member; Quijano, Louise, committee member; Tungate, Susan, committee memberWe are experiencing a population explosion of individuals ages 65 and older. Currently, more than 12% of the United States’ population is 65 or older, and as a benchmark, over three-quarters of the current population will reach 65 (in 1870 3% of the population reached 65). In the next 50 years, the older population will double to 80 million or 20% of the total population. It is clear that people are living longer than ever before; many of those in this age group are part of the ‘baby boom’ born in the years 1946 to 1963. Further, over the past century, there has been a demographic shift and by the year 2030, there will be more people over 65 than younger than 18 in the United States. These facts and numbers may lead to a shortage in the number of social workers and other care professionals to provide support and services to this population. Schools of social work nationwide are not graduating the number of social workers anticipated to meet the needs and the demands of the growing adult population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine what factors are influential for Master of Social Work (MSW) students to choose gerontology and/or work with older adults. Through the use of four focus groups, my goal was to ascertain the following: what influences and factors shape the decisions of MSW students to work with older adults, how “attitudes on aging,” “life experiences,” and education influence their professional focus, and what advice would they give to professionals and educators to encourage (or promote) an interest in aging among their peers. Findings from the study showed that the lack of information, little emphasis on skill development, and practice experience in the curriculum for the social work students prevent many from feeling confident or knowledgeable about this area of practice. The focus group participants shared many insights and suggestions as to how educators and social workers can respond to the demand for more professionals in the field of gerontology. By educating and informing social work students about the value and growing opportunities, more graduating MSW students may consider this a viable career option. With an emerging awareness of the need for more social work professionals in all types of agencies and settings that serve older adults, social work professionals must be knowledgeable about and learn what they can do to contribute to the needs of an aging society and develop the resources and settings for making this contribution happen.Item Open Access From traditional to equine-assisted psychotherapy: mental health practitioners' experiences(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Lee, Ping-Tzu, author; Granger, Ben, advisor; Dakin, Emily, committee member; Jennings, Louise, committee member; Quijano, Louise, committee memberThis study explored equine-assist psychotherapy (EAP) mental health practitioners' experiences with horses and EAP, examined the differences between EAP and traditional psychotherapy from these participants' perspectives, and developed the biophilia hypothesis as a potential theory for EAP. This study was conducted using a constructivist narrative approach. It was guided by Wilson's (1984) biophilia hypothesis, which suggests that humans have an innate tendency to pay attention to animals and nature. The biophilia hypothesis also suggests that the more humans come to understand other creatures, the more humans value both other creatures and themselves. The primary analytic strategies were a zoom model and a thematic analysis. The zoom model focused on how participants told their stories and attempted to keep each participant's overall story intact to preserve sequences. The thematic analysis emphasized the content of stories and focused on finding patterns in segments of the participants' stories. Using concepts from the biophilia hypothesis, I suggest that the zoom model is analogous to art and that the thematic analysis is analogy to science. I conducted two semi-structured, individual, face-to-face interviews with eight participants (four social workers and four counselors) who had at least two years of experience with practicing both traditional psychotherapy and EAP. Each interview lasted one to two hours. After transcribing each interview, I combined inductive and deductive coding and utilized the computer-assisted qualitative software N-Vivo 10 to assist with the thematic analysis. Participants described evolving relationships with horses they started from low awareness to high awareness about their relationships with horses, and then they moved to value horses' roles as teachers in their lives. Participants described practicing EAP for both personal and professional reasons. Furthermore, they indicated that they drew from horses' strengths to complement their therapeutic work. Participants indicated that they are much less active in EAP sessions than they are in traditional psychotherapy. Specifically, participants indicated that in EAP sessions they stay quiet, are guided by horses, ask important questions, and accept that the therapeutic environment is much less controlled than in traditional psychotherapy settings. Drawing from the biophilia hypothesis, participants' roles and strategies in EAP are similar to naturalists' roles and strategies in a field, and this view of therapists represents a paradigm shift in psychotherapy. Participants stated that EAP decreases the power differential between clients and therapists. They also indicated that it provides a non-verbal and masculine approach that may be appealing to clients who are not comfortable in traditional psychotherapy settings. I discussed various theoretical and practice implications from this study for social work and the larger field of mental health treatment. Furthermore, I provide recommendations for future studies, including studying equine specialists, conducting interdisciplinary research, and exploring the uniqueness of EAP.Item Open Access Multiracial college students and mentoring: an intersectional perspective(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Bell, Megan Elizabeth, author; Kuk, Linda, advisor; Quijano, Louise, committee member; Herrera, Andrea, committee member; Sisneros, Kathy, committee memberThe purpose of this mixed-methods, sequential, explanatory study was to investigate differences in the mentor preferences of first-year college students in terms of their multiple identities, with a focus on the experiences of those who self-identified as multiracial. Using a framework of intersectionality, the importance of social identities (race, gender, sexual orientation, first-generation and socioeconomic status) to first-year students in their ideal mentor was explored. During the first phase, responses from first-year college students at four different universities were analyzed from an adapted version of the Ideal Mentor Scale (Rose, 1999). In the second phase, two follow-up focus groups were conducted with multiracial college students, which helped to further inform and explain the quantitative results. Of the three IMS subscales, quantitative results indicated that multiracial college students prefer a mentor who demonstrated characteristics related to the construct of Integrity. However, open-ended survey questions and focus-group data provided evidence for mentor preferences that were more aligned with the Relationship construct. Statistically significant differences were found only for the variables of sexual orientation and first-generation and socioeconomic status, with no significant interaction effects of any of the variables with multiracial identity. The quantitative and qualitative findings from the two phases of the study are discussed using an intersectional lens, with reference to prior research. Implications and recommendations are provided.Item Open Access Nursing as a career choice by Hispanic/Latino college students(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Stroup, Linda M., author; Kuk, Linda, advisor; Houser, Janet, committee member; Morgan, George, committee member; Quijano, Louise, committee memberA culturally competent healthcare workforce is essential to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse society. Greater diversity in the healthcare workforce is expected have many benefits, including improved access to care for the medically underserved and the promotion of research in areas of societal need (Cohen, Gabriel, & Terrell, 2002). The need for a culturally diverse healthcare workforce includes the profession of registered nursing. There is a significant disparity between the percentage of Hispanic/Latino individuals in the United States population and the percentage of Hispanic/Latino nurses. Although the number of Hispanic/Latino college students has increased over the past several years, Hispanic/Latino students remain significantly underrepresented in pre-licensure nursing programs. It is necessary for the number of Hispanic/Latino nursing students to increase in order to expand the number of Hispanic/Latino nurses in the healthcare workforce. A quantitative research design was used for this study. The Career Search Questionnaire (CSQ) developed by Roberts (2008) was administered with the addition of four questions and modifications in the demographic section of the instrument. The survey was administered to students enrolled in freshman or sophomore level college courses at three comprehensive state public universities and one community college in a Western state. The total number of participants in the sample was 961. Study findings indicated that Hispanic/Latino students were just as interested in and had as high feelings of confidence about activities associated with nursing as a career choice when compared with non-Hispanic/Latino students. Very few statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of students (Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic/Latino), and there were few differences in the correlations of Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic/Latino students with demographic and CSQ variables. One exception was that gender was not statistically significant for Hispanic/Latino students, suggesting that gender was not a predictive variable for interest in activities associated with nursing among Hispanic/Latino students. Additional findings indicated that both Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic/Latino students identified having lower feelings of confidence in successfully completing math and science courses that are often required pre-requisite courses for nursing programs. Shadowing a nurse, mentoring by a nurse, healthcare work experience, and volunteer healthcare experience were the top factors identified by both Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic/Latino students as necessary for success in a nursing program. Analysis of the Career Search Questionnaire indicated that the instrument differentiated between interest in activities associated with nursing and non-nursing careers and, likewise, the CSQ differentiated between nursing and non-nursing career self-efficacy. The CSQ appears to be a better predictor of interest in a healthcare career in general rather than specifically nursing. Implications for practice include use of the CSQ questionnaire as an advising tool for students in the career decision-making process, and identification of strategies that could be implemented by nursing programs to promote success for Hispanic/Latino students considering nursing as a career choice. Future research studies could include broadening the sample to include Hispanic/Latino students enrolled in community colleges, private, and proprietary higher education institutions. Consideration of nursing as a career choice by healthcare providers in related fields such as medical assistants and nursing assistants could also be investigated. Finally, research could be conducted to determine if Hispanic/Latino students who indicate an interest in nursing as a career choice are actually applying to nursing programs and if so, what factors facilitate their acceptance into a nursing program as well as barriers to admission.Item Open Access Organ donation and the teenage perspective: factors to consider regarding consent(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Hodgson, Margie Cisneros, author; Makela, Carole, advisor; Buchan, Victoria, advisor; Kees, Nathalie, committee member; Quijano, Louise, committee memberThe purpose of this study was to understand the factors that teenagers consider when granting consent to become an organ donor for the first time. Ninety-seven participants completed a 31-item survey that included areas of knowledge, source of information, personal experience, willingness, and consent. Least square means and Chi-square were used to compare groups (e.g., experimental/control, pre-survey/post-survey) regarding consent. Other variables that were explored included; gender, ethnicity, religion, grade point average, and parent level of education. The intervention consisted of basic information regarding organ donation, a video entitled No Greater Love, and small group discussion regarding various donor/recipient scenarios. Findings indicated that increased knowledge does not always lead to consent, nor does knowing a donor (living or deceased) or someone on the waitlist influence consent among adolescents. The results suggested that teenagers do not have a good understanding of the topic of organ donation nor do they see themselves as living donors. Teens may not fully understand the implications and ramifications of their decision to be a donor when receiving a driver’s permit or license for the first time. This study brought to light factors that teens take into consideration when deciding to become an organ donor.Item Open Access School social workers' perceptions of electronic media on practice(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Keeney, Adrianne Jane, author; Buchan, Victoria, advisor; Quijano, Louise, committee member; Hughes, Shannon, committee member; Marx, Nick, committee memberElectronic media has provided new challenges and opportunities for school social workers. The use of electronic communication to interact with others is a normative and daily part of life for children, adolescents, and adults. Currently there are few, if any guidelines regarding electronic media behavior and standards for school social work practice. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions, beliefs, and experiences from the perspective of school social workers on how electronic communication has affected their practice. A phased research design with quantitative and qualitative components was utilized for this exploratory research. Data from (N=379) school social workers practicing in the United States were collected. A combination of descriptive, correlation, exploratory factor analysis, and analysis of variance were used to analyze differences and associations among school social worker responses based on current age of the practitioner, community of practice, and student population served. Age associations were found with the incorporation of electronic elements in service delivery as well as digital knowledge being perceived as a factor impacting the ability to effectively problem solve. School social workers' incorporation of electronic media into service delivery was found to vary depending on the student population served. Age, community of practice or population served were not found to be a contributing factor to ethical dilemmas encountered or the perceived need for electronic media policies to further inform practice. Guidelines related to mandated reporting in regards to electronic communication and social media boundary guidelines were the top two policies that respondents identified needing the most to further inform their practice. Results suggest that school social workers perceive their practice is affected due to electronic media and these perceptions may differ based upon age, community of practice and population served. It is hoped that the results of this research would be used to guide: (1) recommendations for professional practice policies and social work education; (2) future research that will further inform school social work practice and support school social workers providing services in a digital era.Item Open Access The effects of child life specialists' interventions on the distress of pediatric patients during laceration repair(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Johnson, Eugene, author; MacPhee, David, advisor; Quijano, Louise, committee member; Gaynard, Laura L., committee memberChildren who are treated for injuries in the emergency department (ED) have been shown to have an increase in anxiety and distress, poor pain control, and reported lower ratings of overall satisfaction. Child life specialists (CLSs) are trained to help minimize stress, promote coping, and use nonpharmacological methods for pain relief with pediatric patients in health care. Previous studies confirm the work of CLSs with patients in other units of the hospital, and are expected to have similar results in the ED setting. In this study, I examined what type of effect CLSs had on pediatric patients self-reported pain, fear, and observed distress while receiving sutures for a laceration. The parent and patient's satisfaction with their experience also was measured. It was hypothesized that the involvement of a child life specialist during this procedure would decrease patients' self-reports of pain, fear, and observed distress, and increase self-reports of satisfaction. As well, exploratory analyses were conducted to determine whether patient self-reports of pain and fear are related to clinical observations of patient distress as well as biological markers of stress (i.e., cortisol). Fifty-two pediatric patients with a laceration were studied in a level one ED trauma center of a free-standing children's hospital. Results indicated that patients who received child life services had better outcomes than those who did not. Specifically, fear and distress were shown to be significantly lower for these patients. Also, the parents of these patients were significantly more satisfied with the care received with CLS involvement. These results lend strong support for CLSs involvement with pediatric patients receiving a laceration repair.