Faculty Bibliography

AIM/OBJECTIVE:This study explored faculty responses to a survey about using technology to teach undergraduate nursing students. BACKGROUND:Little is known regarding faculty confidence, technology use, or supports for integrating technology into nursing education. METHOD/METHODS:A descriptive correlational design was utilized to explore the relationship between technology use and technological self-efficacy in faculty (N = 272) who teach at Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education-accredited nursing programs. Instruments used were a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Roney Technology Use Scale, and the Technology Self-Efficacy Scale. RESULTS:Participants who taught didactic content had moderate technology use as compared to those teaching didactic and clinical/laboratory who reported high levels of technology use. A weak relationship between age and technological self-efficacy (ρ = .127, p < .05) was also found. CONLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:This research was an initial step in understanding levels of technology use and responses to this challenge by undergraduate nursing faculty.

This study aimed to describe the experience of adolescents with Type 2 diabetes and their caregivers during medical encounters, in an effort to improve clinical care and outcomes in this population. Twenty-eight families were recruited from a Midwestern diabetes clinic. Adolescents (13-18 years old) identified as Black (50%), Caucasian (43%), and Hispanic (7%), with variable levels of glycemic control (glycosylated hemoglobin A1c = 5.1-12.9%). Participants completed demographic and disease-related (adherence) questionnaires. Six adolescent and six caregiver focus groups were conducted and transcribed, coded, and systematically analyzed using principles of thematic analysis. Participants reported moderate to high rates of nonadherence. Qualitative themes indicated multiple factors influencing perceptions of the quality of provider-patient interactions. Participants' experiences of these interactions was affected by provider characteristics (e.g., gender, age), provider approach and communication style, systemic issues (e.g., long wait times), and caregivers assuming primary roles in medical encounters (e.g., more caregiver participation and caregiver disclosure of nonadherence). Focus group discussions provided rich information about the experiences of adolescents with Type 2 diabetes and implicate barriers in provider-patient interactions, including challenges in triadic interactions and communication around nonadherence, suggesting these areas should be considered in efforts to improve provider-patient interactions within this population.

OBJECTIVE:Social transitions are increasingly common for transgender children. A social transition involves a child presenting to other people as a member of the "opposite" gender in all contexts (e.g., wearing clothes and using pronouns of that gender). Little is known about the well-being of socially transitioned transgender children. This study examined self-reported depression, anxiety, and self-worth in socially transitioned transgender children compared with 2 control groups: age- and gender-matched controls and siblings of transgender children. METHOD/METHODS:As part of a longitudinal study (TransYouth Project), children (9-14 years old) and their parents completed measurements of depression and anxiety (n = 63 transgender children, n = 63 controls, n = 38 siblings). Children (6-14 years old; n = 116 transgender children, n = 122 controls, n = 72 siblings) also reported on their self-worth. Mental health and self-worth were compared across groups. RESULTS:Transgender children reported depression and self-worth that did not differ from their matched-control or sibling peers (p = .311), and they reported marginally higher anxiety (p = .076). Compared with national averages, transgender children showed typical rates of depression (p = .290) and marginally higher rates of anxiety (p = .096). Parents similarly reported that their transgender children experienced more anxiety than children in the control groups (p = .002) and rated their transgender children as having equivalent levels of depression (p = .728). CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:These findings are in striking contrast to previous work with gender-nonconforming children who had not socially transitioned, which found very high rates of depression and anxiety. These findings lessen concerns from previous work that parents of socially transitioned children could be systematically underreporting mental health problems.

Brain function is often characterized by the connections and interactions between highly interconnected brain regions. Pathological disruptions in these networks often result in brain dysfunction, which manifests as brain disease. Typical analysis investigates disruptions in network connectivity based correlations between large brain regions. To obtain a more detailed description of disruptions in network connectivity, we propose a new method where functional nodes are identified in each region based on their maximum connectivity to another brain region in a given network. Since this method provides a unique approach to identifying functionally relevant nodes in a given network, we can provide a more detailed map of brain connectivity and determine new measures of network connectivity. We applied this method to resting state fMRI of Alzheimer's disease patients to validate our method and found decreased connectivity within the default mode network. In addition, new measure of network connectivity revealed a more detailed description of how the network connections deteriorate with disease progression. This suggests that analysis using key relative network hub regions based on regional correlation can be used to detect detailed changes in resting state network connectivity.