Sarah Morgan

Transgender Identity Development as Represented by a Group of Female-to-Male Transgendered Adults

This article represents work done in the discipline of nursing to raise awareness about the lives and experiences of transgendered persons, who receive little coverage in our nursing textbooks, professional journals, or student clinical experiences. The findings presented here are from a larger qualitative examination of the lives and experiences of a group of 11 transgendered adults that examined four broad areas: transgender identity recognition, acknowledgement, and development; bodily experiences; relationships with others; and health care experiences. The focus of this article is the relevant findings related to four participants in the study who identified as female-to-male (FTM), meaning they were born female-bodied, but identify as male. The highlight here is on the recognition, acknowledgement, and development of transgender identity. Our intention is to expose uninformed people to first-hand accounts by FTM transgendered persons about their life trajectories, particularly during childhood, adolescence, and the early adult years.

Context and beliefs about smoking and smoking cessation.

Purpose To describe the context of, and beliefs about, smoking cessation in a sample of low-income African American pregnant women. Study Design & Methods A naturalistic descriptive qualitative approach was used with 15 women. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and a thematic content analysis conducted. Perinatal health complication data were extracted from the participants’ medical records and summarized. Results Two major themes were identified. The context of smoking cessation theme was Living the Stressful Life, with subthemes of Personal and Community Stress, Personal Health Problems, and Smoking For Stress Management. The second major theme was Personal Accountability for Smoking Cessation. There was a mismatch between women’s sources of stress (which were out of their control) and their perceived locus of change (which was personal behavior). Clinical Implications To improve the outcomes of tobacco control programs for low-income women, we need to take action to create healthier communities.

Transgender identity development as represented by a group of transgendered adults.

The world of persons who identify as transgendered is complex making its representation in an article challenging. This article represents work done to raise awareness among all health professionals about the lives and experiences of transgendered persons, who receive little coverage in our textbooks, professional journals, or student experiences. Transgendered lives cannot be simply summed up as a community of people who feel like they are “in the wrong body.” Their experiences, issues, and identities are complex, but worthy of the time, energy, patience, and caring it takes to learn about them. We took a postmodern feminist stance to explore transgendered adults’ first-hand accounts of identity development. The research question guiding the analysis presented here was: How do transgendered individuals describe their experiences of recognizing, acknowledging, and developing their identity as transgendered? Participants’ stories about how they came to recognize and experience their identity as transgendered, analyzed from a lifespan perspective, displayed a similar pattern of life experience, reflected in three prominent themes: an early sense of body-mind dissonance, negotiating and managing identities, and the process of transition. The process that participants describe, beginning with childhood and ending with transition and the resolution of bodily discomfort, appears to be staged and developmental in nature. Further exploration into this process and comparison with other developmental theories may yield a model of normal, non-pathological development as transgendered.

Using principles of diffusion of innovation to improve nursing home care.

Principles of diffusion of innovation were used to change care provided to people with dementia in 9 nursing homes. Use of these principles was associated with increased assessment in response to behavior change, increased administration of analgesics, and a significant decrease in resident behavioral symptoms. Results of this study support the emerging consensus that diffusion of innovation is an effective model for making changes in performance of healthcare organizations.

Concept Maps in Nursing Education: A Historical Literature Review and Research Directions

BACKGROUND Although concept mapping was created in the early 1980s, research in nursing education first appeared in 1992. This literature review analyzes the impact of concept mapping in nursing education. METHOD A total of 221 articles, books, and book chapters were reviewed on the topic of concept mapping in nursing education. RESULTS Results indicate that concept-mapping research progressed from the emergence state, to an expansion and adaptation stage, to an established stage. CONCLUSION Nursing education could benefit from further research on applying concept map scoring formulas, using concept maps with simulation, developing knowledge models, and creating concept map-centered learning environments. [J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(11):631-639.].

A description of adult child and spouse caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease: Reactions to loss

FTLD-TAU, hyperphosphorylated forms of tau are the major constituent of lesions, while in FTLD-TDP the TAR-DNA-binding Protein 43 (TDP-43) deposits, and in FTLD-FUS it is the protein fused in sarcoma (FUS, also known as translocated in liposarcoma (TLS) or heterogenous ribonuclear protein (hnRNP)) that forms inclusions. Similarly, FUS deposits are found in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neuron degeneration. A pathogenic role of FUS in neurodegeneration is further supported by the identification of mutations in FUS in ALS. As a transcription factor, FUS is mainly localized to the nucleus, where it interacts with other transcription factors and regulates RNA-expression. Furthermore, FUS contributes to the regulation of actin cytoskeleton in the cytoplasm. Methods: Here we use lentiviral MISSIONTM siRNA driven knock-down to study the effects of FUS reduction in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma and HeLa cervical cancer cells. Cells were analyzed by fluorescenceactivated-cell-sorting (FACS), Western blotting and immunocytochemistry (ICC). Results: Levels of knock-down of FUS were determined by Western Blots, FACS and ICC. FUS levels were reduced by 30 to 90% in different stably selected lines. Reduction of FUS resulted in increased numbers of apoptotic cell death as determined by Annexin-V and Sytox labeling. In addition, FUS reduction is associated with increased amount of cleaved caspase 3. Conclusions: Loss of FUS is associated with an increase in apoptotic cell death in both SH-SY5Y and HeLa-cells. Hence in disease, loss-of-physiological-function of FUS associated with its aggregation in the cytoplasm may contribute to neurodegeneration in FTLD and ALS.