Dànielle Nicole DeVoss

Burden and depression among caregivers of patients with cancer at the end of life.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To examine the patient and family caregiver variables that predicted caregiver burden and depression for family caregivers of patients with cancer at the end of life. DESIGN A prospective, longitudinal study was implemented with an inception cohort of patients and their family caregivers who were followed after the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. SETTING Community oncology sites in the midwestern United States. SAMPLE 152 family caregivers of patients with cancer who died during the course of the study. METHODS Telephone interviews were conducted with patients at 6-8, 12-16, 24-30, and 52 weeks following diagnoses. In addition, patient medical records and state death certificates were reviewed. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Effect of caregiver age, gender, education, relationship to the patient, employment status, reports of patient symptoms, patient cancer type, stage of cancer, time from the patients diagnosis to death, caregiver burden, and depression. FINDINGS Caregivers aged 45-54 reported the highest levels of depressive symptoms, and caregivers aged 35-44 reported the strongest sense of abandonment. Caregivers who were the adult children of patients with cancer and those who were employed reported high levels of depressive symptoms. Feeling abandoned (a portion of caregiver burden) was more prevalent in female, nonspouse, and adult children caregivers, and adult children caregivers of patients with early-stage cancer and patients with multiple symptoms reported a high perception of disruption in their schedule because of providing care. Caregivers whose patients died early following diagnosis reported the highest depressive symptoms, burden, and impact on schedule. CONCLUSIONS Caregivers reported levels of depression at thresholds for screening of clinical depression. The number of patient symptoms was related to levels of caregiver depressive symptoms. An association also was found between depression and employment status. Caregiver distress was not dependent on demands of care. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Very little research exists that prospectively analyzes family caregiver experiences of burden and depression when providing end-of-life cancer care for a family member. Interventions aimed at decreasing caregiver depressive symptoms should be targeted to caregivers who are middle-aged, adult children, and employed. Interventions aimed at decreasing the burden associated with feeling abandoned and having schedules disrupted while providing care should be targeted to caregivers who are female, nonspouse, and adult children, and caregivers of patients with early-stage cancer and multiple symptoms.

It wasn't me, was it? Plagiarism and the Web

Issues of plagiarism are complex, and made all the more complicated by students’ increasing use of the World Wide Web as a research space. In this article, we describe several situations we faced as teachers in writing-intensive classrooms—experiences common to most teachers of writing. We share these examples to explore how issues related to plagiarism and its effects are both reproduced and change in new research spaces. We also share these stories to discuss how we can best handle plagiarism in first-year writing classrooms and how we can best equip students with the tools necessary to do appropriate research—both online and offline.

Teaching Intracultural and Intercultural Communication A Critique and Suggested Method

Within an increasingly global marketplace, discussions of intercultural communication are important in business and technical communication classrooms. Although many business and technical communication textbooks integrate discussions of intercultural communication, they do not go far enough in engaging the complicated nature of this issue. This article summarizes recent literature about the importance of paying attention to intercultural communication and analyzes the productive approaches in popular business and technical communication textbooks. It presents five challenges for business and technical communication teachers to consider and includes teaching modules that address these challenges. Although the article focuses on classroom practice, such intercultural explorations are also of value to authors of business and technical communication textbooks, who might consider integrating modules such as these into their textbooks.

Women’s porn sites—Spaces of fissure and eruption or “I’m a little bit of everything”

The historically significant but superficial divide between public and private spaces and identities has shaped women’s lives, subjectivities, and sexualities. In this article, I analyze women’s self-sponsored and self-published porn sites. Specifically, I focus on sites that demonstrate complex articulations of identity and subjectivity—sites that can be read as identity projects that appropriate cultural expectations of sexuality.To foreground this analysis, I first explore past work analyzing the public/private dichotomy and suggest that computers and virtual spaces are used to reinforce the flimsy separation between public and private. Using these discussions as scaffolding, I then read a selection of women’s porn sites, arguing that these women Web authors are inserting their embodied subjectivities into public space, and forcing a remapping of the lines of the public and private in ways that rupture public representations of sexuality.

Encouraging and Supporting Electronic Communication across the Curriculum (ECAC) through a University and K-12 Partnership.

Abstract Critical, sustainable approaches to technology are difficult to develop and integrate within the constantly shifting and dynamic landscape of computers. This challenge is particularly pertinent for K–12 teachers, who often have limited access to computers, work with outdated equipment, or do not have time to tinker with the technology in ways that make it more readily applicable to their classrooms and curricula. In this article, we describe an approach to remedying the technological turbulence that both K–12 and university faculty face. We describe the Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum Summer Workshop, 1 a two-week long physical and virtual course offered to K–12 teachers and their middle and high school students in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We offer this workshop as a model approach for other workshop developers, for those interested in educational partnerships, and for those committed to professional development and technology.

From the BBS to the Web: Tracing the Spaces of Online Romance

There are three assumptions I would like to start with: First, the Internet and its big sister, the Web, have affected and altered the shape and pace of modern society and the everyday lives of many. Second, previous technologies leave traces behind – traces of the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. Third, the larger cultural trajectory in which the Web exists is the postmodern condition of contemporary life.

Early Adult Caregivers: Characteristics, Challenges, and Intervention Approaches

I am 36 years old, married, with a 7-year-old girl. We live on a farm with my mother, who is 81. She has chronic leukemia, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, etc. She is currently recovering from pneumonia, which has left her very weak and in need of bladder catherization several times a day. My husband and daughter are very supportive, but my older brother and his family think that all they need to contribute is her supper a few nights a week. . . Now, I worry that if she should become beyond my ability to care for, she might end up in a rest home (Patricia, posted to http://www.caps4caregivers.org/ ).

Remix and unchill: Remaking pedagogies to support ethical fair use

This chapter reports on research to investigate the “copyright literacy” of librarians in the UK. Based on a survey and focus groups, undertaken following reform of copyright legislation in the UK in 2014, it originated from a European study. The research highlights gaps in knowledge, identifies training requirements in the sector, and suggests library and information science (LIS) qualifications and continuing professional development (CPD) need to address a greater range of topics related to copyright and intellectual property rights. The data also suggests that copyright is a source of anxiety for many librarians. Following the survey, a follow-up qualitative study was undertaken, using phenomenography as a way of exploring in detail librarians’ varying experiences of copyright. The chapter concludes by discussing how copyright might form a key component of the wider digital and information literacies taught by librarians. It also discusses how games based learning might be a valuable approach to copyright education.