Ingrid C. Hendrix

Service dogs and people with physical disabilities partnerships: a systematic review.

Occupational therapists have recognized the benefits that service dogs can provide people with disabilities. There are many anecdotal publications extolling the benefits of working with service dogs, but few rigorous studies exist to provide the evidence of the usefulness of this type of assistive technology option. This systematic review evaluates the published research that supports the use of service dogs for people with mobility-related physical disabilities. Articles were identified by computerized search of PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, OT Seeker, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, SportDiscus, Education Research Complete, Public Administration Abstracts, Web of Knowledge and Academic Search Premier databases with no date range specified. The keywords used in the search included disabled persons, assistance dogs or service dogs and mobility impairments. The reference lists of the research papers were checked as was the personal citation database of the lead author. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria and whereas the findings are promising, they are inconclusive and limited because of the level of evidence, which included one Level I, six Level III, four Level IV and one Level V. All of the studies reviewed had research design quality concerns including small participant sizes, poor descriptions of the interventions, outcome measures with minimal psychometrics and lack of power calculations. Findings indicated three major themes including social/participation, functional and psychological outcomes; all of which are areas in the occupational therapy scope of practice. Occupational therapists may play a critical role in referral, assessment, assisting clients and consulting with training organizations before, during and after the service dog placement process. In order for health care professionals to have confidence in recommending this type of assistive technology, the evidence to support such decisions must be strengthened.

Effects of Partnerships Between People With Mobility Challenges and Service Dogs

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of partnerships between people with disabilities and service dogs on functional performance and social interaction. METHOD. A single-subject, alternating treatment design was used. The participants were 3 women with mobility challenges who owned service dogs. For each participant, time and perceived amount of effort for two tasks were measured for functional performance. Interaction and satisfaction levels were measured for social interactions. RESULTS. Primary findings were that service dog partnerships decreased performance time for four of the six tasks, decreased effort for five of the six tasks, increased social interactions for 2 of the participants, and increased levels of satisfaction with social interactions for all participants. CONCLUSION. For adult women with mobility challenges, service dog partnerships may contribute to energy conservation through decreased time and effort required to complete some tasks and may increase social interactions.

Library and Informatics Skills Competencies Statements from Major Health Professional Associations

Every major health profession now provides competency statements for preparing new members for their respective professions. These competency statements normally include expectations for training health professions students in library/informatics skills. For purposes of this article, searches were conducted using various sources to produce a comprehensive 32-page Compendium that inventories library/informatics-related competency statements. This compendium should aid readers in integrating their library/informatics skills training into various health professions education curricula.

L.A.U.N.Ch. Into the Future: Evidence-Based Literature to Support Nursing Staff Development

The authors completed a yearlong pilot program for the purpose of measuring the effect of a Clinical Nursing Librarian program on nursing practice in the Intensive Care Units at the University of New Mexico Hospital. This article describes the study and the resultant hospital-wide program that developed from the pilot project. Numerous studies have documented the efficacy of Clinical Librarian programs on improving the incorporation of evidence into patient care. There is little indication that this type of program has been targeted to nursing staff even though physicians and residents have used these programs over the past three decades.

Instructional Objectives: A Means to Designing Effective Instructional Sessions for Hospital Librarians

Abstract The formal teaching role is becoming an accepted responsibility for the health sciences librarian in hospital libraries as well as at large academic health sciences center libraries. This article explains how to design effective educational sessions by writing clear instructional objectives in behavioral format. After reading this article, the hospital librarian should be able to write simple and clear instructional objectives for teaching MEDLINE(r), arrange the objectives in a logical sequence to structure the teaching experience, and apply them to the evaluation of the learning outcomes.