Lillian M. Range

Moral distress among nursing and non-nursing students

Their nursing experience and/or training may lead students preparing for the nursing profession to have less moral distress and more favorable attitudes towards a hastened death compared with those preparing for other fields of study. To ascertain if this was true, 66 undergraduates (54 women, 9 men, 3 not stated) in southeastern USA completed measures of moral distress and attitudes towards hastening death. Unexpectedly, the results from nursing and non-nursing majors were not significantly different. All the present students reported moderate moral distress and strong resistance to any efforts to hasten death but these factors were not significantly correlated. However, in the small sample of nurses in training, the results suggest that hastened death situations may not be a prime reason for moral distress.

Psychological Impact of Writing about Abuse or Positive Experiences

Writing often helps people deal with trauma. To see if writing about childhood physical or sexual abuse, or positive experiences, helps, psychology undergraduates wrote for 20 minutes on 4 days about their abuse, a positive experience, or a trivial topic. Among 102 who began and 85 who completed pre-, post-, and 4-week follow-up measures of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideas, abuse writers were more likely to discontinue, and positive writers were more depressed and anxious. Compared to pretest, all completers were less depressed, anxious, and suicidal at follow-up, but nonsignificantly different in health visits. Completers who wrote about abuse rated the study as more valuable than did those who wrote about positive experiences. College students who wrote about childhood physical or sexual abuse benefited from any type of structured writing assignment (where they interacted with a researcher and got extra credit) in terms of reduced anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideas, but they found value in writing about their trauma more than writing about innocuous topics.

Nonprofit organizations versus government agencies to reduce tobacco use.

Tobacco settlement money can be allocated to nonprofit organizations or government agencies. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Nonprofit organizations may have relatively (a) more efficiency/flexibility, but less accountability; (b) narrower focus, but less experience; (c) more ability to advocate, but more obligations; (d) more independence from tobacco industry influence, but less funding; and, (e) more public trust, but less visibility. The present case study of the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi focuses on six interconnected areas: education (school and community), raising awareness, advocacy, service, enforcement, and research. In 1999 and 2000, tobacco use declined in Mississippi, even compared to neighboring states. This unique partnerships multifaceted approach to social change probably facilitated this decline.

Brief Report: Psychological Impact of Writing About Abuse or Positive Experiences

Writing often helps people deal with trauma. To see if writing about childhood physical or sexual abuse, or positive experiences, helps, psychology undergraduates wrote for 20 minutes on 4 days about their abuse, a positive experience, or a trivial topic. Among 102 who began and 85 who completed pre-, post-, and 4-week follow-up measures of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideas, abuse writers were more likely to discontinue, and positive writers were more depressed and anxious. Compared to pretest, all completers were less depressed, anxious, and suicidal at follow-up, but nonsignificantly different in health visits. Completers who wrote about abuse rated the study as more valuable than did those who wrote about positive experiences. College students who wrote about childhood physical or sexual abuse benefited from any type of structured writing assignment (where they interacted with a researcher and got extra credit) in terms of reduced anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideas, but they found value in writing about their trauma more than writing about innocuous topics.

Sustaining tobacco control coalitions amid declining resources.

Mississippi is unique among the 50 states in settling a lawsuit against tobacco companies earlier than the Master Settlement Agreement, devoting a relatively high amount of per capita funding on tobacco control, and avoiding tobacco-control budget cuts. Using a social-ecological approach combining insider and outsider strategies, tobacco-prevention coalitions in Mississippi succeeded in sustaining funding despite serious obstacles. Lessons learned included taking specific actions to embed themselves in the local community, wisely aligning with legislators, choosing courageous and effective champions, and ensuring that people are keenly aware of their existence and efforts. In using these strategies, tobacco-prevention coalitions in Mississippi have become an institution of the community and in so doing helped sustain their funding.

Collecting health data with youth at faith-based institutions: lessons learned.

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) are ideal for health promotion but can present unique challenges in data collection. The present initiative included 6 years of awards to mostly small, rural, predominantly African American FBOs to conduct tobacco prevention lessons for youth in Grades 4—6 while they were attending summer Vacation Bible School. In 2005, these awards included

Retailers’ views of tobacco policy and law enforcement

1,500 disbursed to 64 geographically diverse FBOs who had never before received this funding. Lessons learned include the following: Plan for evaluation in every aspect of the project; pilot-test everything; use reminders judiciously; make backup plans at every step; personally collect data in a nonthreatening way; and safeguard data entry. Evaluation requires extensive time, money, and effort; so, in both the intermediate and the long run, this extra work is worth it.

Does Writing About Past Childhood Abuse Reduce Psychological and Physical Symptoms

Aims: Tobacco retailers are in a unique position to implement policies that can influence sales and ultimately tobacco use, so the present survey explored retailers’ tobacco policies, involvement and problems with law enforcement, and pessimism about whether youth will obtain tobacco products. Methods: 144 randomly selected tobacco retailers (30.1% return rate) in Mississippi, USA, completed a 2-page questionnaire about their store tobacco policies. Findings: Present retailers, on average, endorsed fewer than half of eight commonly-adopted tobacco access policies. Significantly fewer anti-tobacco policies were complied with when those responding (a) were owners rather than managers, (b) worked at convenience stores rather than grocery stores, (c) had no law-enforcement involvement rather than some, and (d) had 18+ years of retail experience rather than less. Policy correlated significantly with law-enforcement involvement, but not significantly with tobacco-enforcement problems or pessimism about youth tobacco sales. Conclusions: By their own self-report, there is considerable room for improvement in retailers’ youth tobacco access policies. Individually-owned, convenience stores, where the owner has lots of retail experience, have few tobacco policies. They may be a particularly appropriate targets for educational efforts.

Who Benefits from Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing Paradigm? Research Recommendations from Three Gender Theories

To see if writing about former abuse reduced depression, somatic, and sleep complaints, 664 undergraduates were screened for past physical or sexual abuse. Of those abused, 88 consenting students were randomly assigned to no-writing control or writing (20 minutes on 4 different days) about abuse or trivial topics. All completed pre-, post-, and 4-week follow-up testing. At follow-up, all reported significantly less depression and fewer somatic and sleep complaints; groups were not significantly different. For students reporting past physical or sexual abuse, interacting with professionals, earning class credit, and receiving thanks may be enough to reduce depression, somatic complaints, and sleep disturbances.