Addressing Psychosocial Client Factors in People with Cancer: An Occupational Therapy Guidebook

People with cancer experience a variety of physical, cognitive, and psychosocial impacts that affect their quality of life, occupational performance, and occupational engagement. Occupational therapy (OT) practitioners are well-equipped to address these impacts, however, OT is an underused service in the cancer population, resulting in a limited amount of literature addressing OT interventions in cancer care. OT interventions in the literature are focused on addressing an individual’s physical client factors. The focus on physical client factors is causing people with cancer to report that their psychosocial client factors are not being addressed. The literature demonstrates that OT practitioners do not have clear OT guidelines within the literature on how to address psychosocial client factors in their clients with cancer. The purpose of this capstone project was to create an OT guidebook to address psychosocial client factors for people with cancer. An OT guidebook was developed to educate OT practitioners on the role and scope of OT in the cancer population. The guidebook consists of four chapters that provide various assessments/screening tools, the goal setting process, interventions to address the identified psychosocial client factors of spirituality, mood, body-image, self-esteem, and cognition, a case example, and additional resources for OT practitioners and their clients. The capstone project document consists of five chapters that address the background, literature review, methodology for developing the guidebook, results, and the discussion. This capstone project will broaden the role of OT in the cancer population by providing OT practitioners with the guidance to address psychosocial client factors which will enhance the occupational engagement, occupational performance, and quality of life for people with cancer

Validated prediction of weld residual stresses in austenitic steel pipe girth welds before and after thermal ageing, Part 2: modelling and validation

An extensive finite element simulation campaign was undertaken to examine the complete manufacturing history and high temperature thermal ageing of thick-walled girth-welded austenitic steel pipes fabricated from Esshete 1250 austenitic steel. The simulations examined the impacts of prior quenching of pipe material, fabrication of closely adjacent welds, and axial restraint during welding. The simulations considered both simple isotropic and kinematic hardening behaviour, and a large matrix of Lemaitre-Chaboche mixed isotropic-kinematic hardening material constitutive models, with a focus on examining the most accurate evolutionary hardening behaviour for weld metal. High temperature (650°C) service exposure was modelled using an RCC-MR type creep model, and the sensitivity of the predicted relaxation to variability in the model parameters was assessed. The predicted residual stresses were validated using measurements made with the deep hole and incremental deep hole drilling techniques and the contour method

Thiazide diuretics and the risk for hip fracture

BACKGROUND: Since most hip fractures are related to osteoporosis, treating accelerated bone loss can be an important strategy to prevent hip fractures. Thiazides have been associated with reduced age-related bone loss by decreasing urinary calcium excretion. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between dose and duration of thiazide diuretic use and the risk for hip fracture and to study the consequences of discontinuing use. DESIGN: Prospective population-based cohort study. SETTING: The Rotterdam Study. PARTICIPANTS: 7891 individuals 55 years of age and older. MEASUREMENTS: Hip fractures were reported by the general practitioners and verified by trained research assistants. Details of all dispensed drugs were available on a day-to-day basis. Exposure to thiazides was divided into 7 mutually exclusive categories: never use, current use for 1 to 42 days, current use for 43 to 365 days, current use for more than 365 days, discontinuation of use since 1 to 60 days, discontinuation of use since 6

Food Insecurity and Child Development in Nebraska: The Role of Income, Home Learning Environment, and Family Socio-Demographic Factors

Food insecurity is a well-known risk factor for delayed child development. Still, the contribution of other factors, such as income, home learning environment (HLE), and family socio-demographic factors, remains to be determined. Therefore, the study aimed to determine the association between food insecurity and child development and assess the role of income, HLE, and family socio-demographic factors in that association. We used secondary data from the Nebraska Early Childhood Study, a cross-sectional study of caregivers of children under five years old in Omaha and Lincoln. Child development, food insecurity, and HLE were measured using a caregiver report of child development. We used multiple regression to analyze the data. The results showed that food insecurity was negatively related to developmental outcomes (Est = -0.217, SE = 0.091, ES = -0.109, p =.018) even after adjusting for Income (Est = -0.222, SE = 0.092, ES =-0.112, p =.048). HLE was positively associated with children’s developmental outcomes after controlling for income, child’s age, sex, race, and ethnicity (Est = 0.376, SE = 0.092, ES = 0.198, p \u3c .001). HLE did not moderate the association between food insecurity and children’s developmental outcomes (Est = -0.287, SE = 0.185, ES = -0.095, p = .121). These results indicate that even if a child has access to a stimulating HLE, they may still experience developmental setbacks if they do not have enough nutritious food. Overall, the study found that addressing food insecurity and promoting a stimulating HLE is essential in improving child developmental outcomes, especially in high-risk populations. Further research is needed to fully understand the complex factors influencing child development in food-insecure families. This study adds to the existing literature on the relationship between food insecurity, HLE, and child development and provides valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and healthcare professionals

Addressing Psychosocial Client Factors in People with Cancer: An Occupational Therapy Guidebook

People with cancer have an increased risk of impaired occupational engagement and occupational performance due to the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial impacts of cancer and cancer treatment (Duker & Sleight, 2019; Pergolotti et al., 2016; Polo & Smith, 2018). The involvement of occupational therapy (OT) in the care of people with cancer remains limited, resulting in a finite amount of literature on OT interventions to address this population (Pergolotti et al., 2016). The primary focus of OT for people with cancer has been on physical client factors and interventions, and people with cancer report that their psychosocial factors are being overlooked (Sleight & Duker, 2016). OT practitioners have expressed confidence in the use of physical interventions because of its supporting literature (Hunter et al., 2017). Weis (2015) emphasizes that there is a limited understanding of psychosocial interventions for people with cancer. 69% of surveyed OT practitioners reported they desired more evidence-based guidance on OT interventions for people with cancer (Duker & Sleight, 2019).https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonessummer2023/1019/thumbnail.jp

The Effects of Cardiovascular Drugs on Bone

In this thesis,we examine various associations between three important cardiovascular drugs and bone. Fractureincidenceisthemostclinicallyrelevantfeatureofosteoporosis.Theriskto fractureaboneisdeterminedbyseveralfactors:Bonemineraldensity(BMD),micro-architecture of bone,bone structure and risk of falling.In this thesis we investigate the association between use of thiazides,ß-blockers and statins and fracture risk,but also the association between medication use and (change in) BMD and the association between medication use and hip bone structure to gain more insight in the causal chain of the as-sociation between use of medication and its effects on bone. We performed all our studies in the cohort of the Rotterdam Study.This is a prospec-tive,population-basedcohortstudyondeterminantsandoccurrenceofdiseasesin the elderly.The study started in 1990 and included 7983 persons of 55 years and older. Detailed data on many potential confounders was available and since all pharmacies in theresearchneighborhoodarecomputerizedandlinkedtoonenetwork,wehavede-tailed exposure data on drug use for all participants

The relation between financial attitude, consumer purchasing behavior and debt background

Purpose of the study: To estimate the degree of relationships between financial attitude, materialism, consumption by status, and consumer perception of the chosen payment method, and impacts on indebtedness.Methodology / approach: We used the survey technique, which collected data from 161 respondents. The quantitative data obtained were analyzed through structural equation modeling, as well as conditional mediation and moderation tests.Main results: Individuals with weak financial attitudes tend to be more materialistic and to consume more by status, and individuals with materialistic and status-driven tendencies are more prone to debt. No relationship was identified between the chosen means of payment and indebtedness. On the other hand, the mediation of the financial attitude in debt mitigation was observed.Originality / relevance: Despite the vast literature on the theories cited in the paper, the relationship between the financial attitude and the buying behavior of the Brazilian consumer had not yet been established, from an attitude perspective as a predictor of behavior.Theoretical / methodological contributions: The work contributes to studies on the inversely proportional advance relationship between financial attitude, status consumption and materialism, in which the latter constructs are discouraged by the individual's trait with that first characteristic. The study also identified the mediation of financial attitude as a debt reduction mechanism

Coping skills for parents of children with barriers to learning

Past research has shown that one of the most traumatic emotional experiences parents face is the diagnosis of having a child with barriers to learning. For various reasons they do not always receive the necessary follow-up professional support after diagnosis. This study was undertaken with the specific aims of identifying various coping skills that enable these parents to raise their children to their full potential, to determine the value of these coping skills for parents, to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in such households and to make recommendations on appropriate approaches and strategies. The study revealed that parents are able to make changes in their approach and behaviour to adapt to the new stressful environment. Restraining factors having a negative impact on the functioning of parents or families have been identified, together with identification of various opportunities and driving forces that serve as the foundation for mitigating, accepting and dealing with the problem. Based on these findings, recommendations are made to provide guidelines to advise and support parents in raising children with barriers to learning.M.Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)Educational Studie

The use of framing of affect or reason in communications in a services failure recovery scenario in education

The study of decision-making of people has its origins in economic theory, with a more rational approach. However, several studies have shown that decision-making follows also an emotional model. In great part, decisions are influenced by information we receive through communication framing. In education, students decisions are largely affected by the information they receive through communication issued by the service provider. In a scenario of service failure recovery the influence of emotional or rational messages is little studied. The motivation of this study is the absence of works relating attitudes to services when failure recovery occurs in higher education services, particularly when the framing of the communication signals some position to students, aiming to persuade them. The results showed that rational communication was more effective than emotional ones. It was also found that interpersonal influences tends to reduce positive responses from students to HEI communication strategy, though a moderation process