There are very few academic programs in the United States that offer the emergency nurse practitioner specialization, and many emergency department providers are not familiar with the competencies and skills of the emergency nurse practitioner. This can make transitioning into emergency department practices a challenge for the emergency nurse practitioner... Read More

There are very few academic programs in the United States that offer the emergency nurse practitioner specialization, and many emergency department providers are not familiar with the competencies and skills of the emergency nurse practitioner. This can make transitioning into emergency department practices a challenge for the emergency nurse practitioner. This grounded theory study was conducted to identify the process by which nurse practitioners successfully integrated into a variety of emergency department practices. The purpose of this case study is to illustrate the twist and turns of sampling in grounded theory research. Ethical and methodological issues that must be considered throughout this process are identified.

Schools are important settings for multicomponent preventive programs that improve weight status of children and adolescents by addressing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to physical activity, nutrition, and mental health as well as creating healthy environments such as better playgrounds and cafeteria policies. To prioritize dissemination of ... Read More

Schools are important settings for multicomponent preventive programs that improve weight status of children and adolescents by addressing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to physical activity, nutrition, and mental health as well as creating healthy environments such as better playgrounds and cafeteria policies. To prioritize dissemination of resources and implementation of evidence-based prevention policies and programs, we need to identify schools with high obesity levels. However, a vast majority of schools do not conduct student body mass index screening, while the risks versus benefits in body mass index screening is an ongoing debate. Therefore, we used statistical modeling with discriminant function analysis to develop three simple equations that can be used to estimate the obesity burden in schools, in the absence of student body mass index screenings. To develop these equations with discriminant function analysis, we utilized student body mass index data from schools in Pennsylvania that did have routine body mass index screenings, as well as publicly available school-level and community-level aggregate variables, to identify the combination of variables which best discriminated between the schools with high, average, or low obesity burden. These resultant equations can then be used with publicly available data to estimate obesity burden in other schools without student body mass index data available. School- and county-level variables for poverty, number of students, percent of minority students, adult education level, and adult obesity all contributed to the model’s prediction. In our study, resultant models almost doubled the percentage of correctly classified schools (67.86%) from publicly available data compared to chance alone (34.23%) for obesity classification (low/average/high).

How to adjust for withdrawals when using life tables as a technique to assess survival and express disease prognosis is explained, using a clear example.

Dr. Heidi Ewen, Associate Professor of Health and Aging Studies, University of Indianapolis, discusses mixed methods research on aging, relocation, and biomarkers, including research design, recruitment, data analysis, and lessons learned.