Maureen Rauschhuber

Enhancing resilience, empowerment, and conflict management among baccalaureate students: outcomes of a pilot study.

To manage interpersonal conflict, nursing students need evidence-based interventions to strengthen stress resiliency, psychological empowerment, and conflict management skills. A pilot 1-group, pre-post–design, 2-semester intervention used simulated experiences to enhance these skills with 60 undergraduate nursing students. Findings suggest that integration of conflict resolution skills throughout the curriculum, with repeated opportunities to practice using a variety of styles of conflict management in relation to situational factors, may be beneficial to prepare students for the challenges of today’s healthcare environment.

Workplace Health Promotion—Strategies for Low-Income Hispanic Immigrant Women

Addressing health disparities for vulnerable populations in the United States is a national goal. Immigrant Hispanic women, at increased risk for heart disease, face obstacles in receiving adequate health care. Health promotion, especially for Hispanic women, is hindered by language, access to care, lack of insurance, and cultural factors. Innovative health education approaches are needed to reach this population. This article describes the development and evaluation of a culturally sensitive cardiac health education program based on findings from a study of 21 older immigrant Hispanic women employed as housekeepers at a small university in south Texas. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures had decreased 17 months after the intervention.

Cardiovascular Risk among Older Hispanic Women A Pilot Study

This study used a descriptive correlational design to describe the relationship between cardiovascular risk and anxiety, spirituality, acculturation, and the objective indices of cardiac risk among a sample of 21 adult Hispanic women. Objective indices of risk included weight, blood pressure, blood lipids, and glucose. Four survey instruments were used to assess anxiety, spirituality, acculturation, and perceived risk. Findings revealed that all study participants had 3 or more risk factors, placing them in the moderate risk category for developing heart disease or having a heart attack within 10 years. State and trait anxiety scores were lower than the normative samples for adult women. Spirituality scores were higher than average; individuals with higher anxiety scores had lower spirituality scores. More research is needed to determine the health needs of unskilled workers with limited education in employment settings.

An exploratory study of cardiac health in college athletes

A common assumption is that college athletes are healthy based on their age and level of physical activity. This study used a descriptive correlational design to explore relationships and predictors of physical fitness levels among an ethnically diverse sample of 135 college athletes from a National College Athletic Association Division II university. Both subjective and objective indices of cardiac health and physical fitness level (blood pressure [BP], body mass index [BMI], waist-to-hip ratio, waist circumference, hip circumference, blood lipids, glucose, and VO(2max)) were collected. Minimal research exists with this population or with such an array of subjective and objective measures. More than one fourth of the athletes had a BMI in the overweight range, one fifth was prehypertensive, and one fourth had lower-than-recommended high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels. Waist circumference accounted for 21% of the variance in systolic BP level. These factors may predispose the college athletes to cardiac risk in the future when exercise regimens are reduced. Gender differences were found in all physical size variables and in physical fitness levels, with physical fitness level alone predicting gender correctly 98.5% of the time. Differences support the need to account for gender and fitness levels in cardiac risk assessment of young populations.

Hispanic and Female College Students: Evidence for Increased Risk for Cardiac Disease.

This article describes subjective and objective risks for cardiovascular disease and the relationship to anger and spirituality among 104 predominately Hispanic college freshman women. Findings indicated a population at risk for metabolic syndrome, hypertension, and diabetes and identified students requiring medical and anger management interventions. Associations between anger, spirituality, and weight suggest a need for further study. University health services are strategically positioned to reach students with lifestyle modification information for cardiac risk reduction.

Cardiac health: relationships among hostility, spirituality, and health risk.

This study examined hostility, spirituality, and indices of health risk among 100 young, primarily males of Hispanic background. Over half of the subjects were prehypertensive or hypertensive; one third had at least 2 objective risk factors for cardiac disease; and younger participants had lower spirituality scores and higher cynical distrust scores. Body mass index, spirituality, and glucose accounted for 29% of variance in systolic blood pressure; body mass index and age accounted for 39% of variance in diastolic blood pressure. The tools to assess cardiac risk (blood pressure, history, capillary blood screening, body mass index) are all “low tech” and low cost but used together are powerful in identifying risk populations.

Remembering Wartime Experiences: The Role of Spirituality Among Retired Military Nurses

Little is known about whether spirituality and religious beliefs were mechanisms of coping and support for nurses serving in the military during a war and if and how these beliefs changed over time. A qualitative study using a phenomenological approach yielded four distinct themes for military nurses serving during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. These themes were caring, connections, compartmentalization, and adaptability. Although religious ritual was not important to the nurses who were interviewed, spirituality, as defined by a connections model, played an important part in helping military nurses cope with the stressors of active duty during war.

Family History Value-Added Information in Assessing Cardiac Health

The purpose of this study was to describe family health history profiles and objective indices of cardiac health among ethnically diverse working adults. Family history of disease is an important predictor of individual health, yet is underused by clinicians. Participants were staff in an elder-care facility and completed a web-enabled program capturing family history, objective cardiovascular measures (blood lipids, blood pressure, height, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio), and subjective measures (anxiety, spirituality, and health status appraisal). Of the 44 participants, 89% were unable to provide complete information about their family health and mortality for the three-generation genogram; 25% had one or more first-degree relatives with cardiac disease; and more than two thirds had first-degree relatives with diabetes. More than 80% of the sample exhibited objective indices of risk including body mass indexes in the overweight or obese categories. Family history information was incorporated into health screening and enabled more appropriate health counseling for these employees.

Mock Institutional Review Board: Promoting Analytical and Reasoning Skills in Research Ethics

Although it is critical that nurses possess ethical reasoning skills for research, there is limited information on effective strategies to develop these skills in graduate health care students. A research study analyzing educational interventions including the effect of online human subjects training followed by a mock institutional review board simulation demonstrated that knowledge acquisition is not enough to acquire the ethical reasoning skills needed to implement health care research. Situational context is also needed to envision the application of ethical principles.