Monthly Archives: April 2019

Fourth-year PhD student, Whitney, recently presented the second part of her dissertation on Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT). She conducted a study that analyzed the impact of a 3-day wild dolphin assisted therapy program on children. She gathered data from children with various physiological and psychological disorders. Whitney predicted that the children’s heart rate would decrease over the span of the 3 days by being in the water with the wild dolphins. She also predicted that the stress levels will decrease in the children and they will perceive the program as enjoyable and helpful. Her results showed that the heart rate in children decreased for the majority of the time and there were perceived decreases in stress/anxiety levels in most of the children as well. Overall, the participants found the program to be both enjoyable and helpful based on the personalized nature of the program and how it was specifically catered towards helping them and their special needs. Whitney plans to continue to gather data that measures the impact of DAT on children. Wonderful job Whitney and good luck with future research!

Recently, third semester undergraduate member, Nicholas, presented his article presentation and MOM preparation on Physicians’ Experiences with Patient Death by Jared Strote, Erika Schroeder, John Lemos, Ryan Paganelli, Jonathan Solberg, and Range Huston. This study aimed to identify the effects of patient death on emergency physicians (emergency medicine) and the coping mechanisms they us to deal with these events. The researches collected data from participants from four regions- mountain, south, southwest, and northwest-via surveys o measures of physical, emotional, and life encountering death, training experiences, emotional responses and coping strategies of the physicians. Data as looked at through chi-square analysis to evaluate the relationship between responses and the independent variables. Results showed significant results among gender differences, yeas since residency when compared to physical symptoms after patient death. Results also showed significance with years since residency and frequency of witnessing death among sever actions or changes among the physicians. Lastly, they found that participants reported rarely receive debriefing after the deaths, and emergency physicians coping mechanisms in response to patient deaths consisted mostly of talking with colleagues and friends/family. Great wok Nicholas!

First year master’s student, Megan, recently presented an overview of her thesis proposal titled  Attitudes, Perceptions About Child Abuse and Neglect: Changes Between Generations. Megan is interested in the perceptions of potentially harmful parenting techniques. She would like to analyze the differences in perceptions on child punishment across four generations—Traditionalist, Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial—and if the gender and age of the child has an impact on those perceptions. Megan predicts that people will be more accepting of various forms of punishment if the child is older. She also predicts that punishments will be more acceptable within male children. Finally, Megan believes people will find punishment more accepting if they have experienced various forms of punishment themselves or if they are from the older generations. Megan hopes to gather data that can help clarify acceptable and unacceptable forms of punishment for children in society. This will help the general population better understand when certain forms of punishment are acceptable. We are excited to see what Megan finds and wish her the best of luck!

Second semester undergraduate member, Brooklin, recently gave her second article presentation. She guided the lab through Knowledge of diabetes among personnel in home-based care: how does it relate to medical mishaps? by Synnove Odegard and D.K.G. Andersson, published in 2001. This study aimed to assess the influence of deficiencies in knowledge about diabetes, diabetes care, and patient safety. The researchers administered a questionnaire to nurse’s aides and assistant nurses in both institutional care settings and home-based care settings. Results showed that majority of the participants, who hold responsibilities for giving insulin injections, expressed not having enough knowledge about diabetes. They also found that nurse’s aides were more likely to make errors in the field when treating their diabetic patients, due to a lack of adequate knowledge on the disease and its treatment methods, and the lack of colleague interaction in home based settings. The researchers hope their findings will help increase the requirements of nurse’s aides and assistants who work closely with elderly diabetic patients and help to create programs for those working in the field. Doing so would help decrease potentially serious mishaps in health care systems and increase overall patient care. Brooklin plans to continue working with the topic of medical mishaps throughout the rest of the semester in the lab. Great job on your article presentation, Brooklin, and good luck with future research!

Recently, first year master’s student Qandeel presented an overview of her master’s thesis proposal, College Cohort of Gender & Sex Roles in Coping Due to Life Adversity: PTG Belief and Optimism. Qandeel is interested in exploring the concepts of sex and gender in relation to optimism, coping mechanisms after trauma, and posttraumatic growth (PTG). She plans to gather data from female college students because of the challenges they often face like sexual harassment, sexism, and major gender differences that can affect their professional and personal lives. Qandeel suggests that many females may identify themselves as different genders or sexual orientations that have not been studied as much as men. With growing attention on feminism, she thinks it is important to look at how this sample perceives various adversity issues involving feminism. She is also interested in how culture may play a role as well. Therefore, she plans to collect data from females in America and Pakistan. She suggests that doing so will help further cultural research of PTG and coping mechanisms to elucidate cultural differences. She hopes her research will draw attention to effects of adversities some females face, involving varying levels of femininity and gender identity. We are excited to hear about her findings. Good luck, Qandeel!

Congrats to second-year masters student, Alvin, on his successful defense!

Study one examined the impact of achievement and resiliency on the relationship between failure experiences and positive and negative outcomes. Study two examines the predictability of resilience, amount of failure and achievement experiences, and racial discrimination on various psychological outcomes, such as fear of failure, wisdom, and depression. Overall, the two studies also look at the subjective impact of both failure and achievement experiences on the various psychological outcomes. Alvin found that the impact of any of the experiences examined might influence depression more than the experience itself.  He also found that racial discrimination might be influenced by cultural biases. Lastly, data suggests that the influence of discrimination on cultural biases may elicit a degree of illusory growth instead of authentic posttraumatic growth. He found that resiliency decreased the relationship between failure experiences and psychological outcomes like wisdom were consistent between both studies. Alvin suggests that these findings can encourage those who have experienced many failures by informing them of the positive outcomes that can result from those experiences. He also believes these findings can create a path for therapeutic interventions targeted around resilience, motivation, and racial discrimination. Moving forward, he would like to incorporate how various personality traits (e.g. avoidant and social anxiety) can influence the relationship between life experiences (e.g. failure and achievement) involving the use of technology. Great job Alvin!