Exploring the protective experiences of those who "protect and serve": A psychometric evaluation of Protective and Compensatory Experiences Survey within a military sample.

OBJECTIVE: The current study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Protective and Compensatory Experiences Survey (PACES; Morris et al., 2018) within a military population. The study's aims are to evaluate if the PACES is a reliable measure to use with military samples and to examine the validity of the PACES measure when exploring protective experiences in relation to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adult traumatic stress (ATS) in an active duty military sample. METHOD: Active duty Service members were recruited to complete an online survey that included measures pertaining to ACEs, PACES, and ATS. RESULTS: The reliability and validity of PACES indicate that Service members who are involved in protective and compensatory experiences as youth are less likely to have experiences of stress both as children and as adults. CONCLUSIONS: Given the need for mission readiness of Service members and their higher likelihood to experience ACEs than civilians, the role of protective and compensatory factors is vital to their livelihood and career. PACES psychometrics offer a reliable and valid measure to use when exploring the risk and resilience experiences of Service members across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Intersect of Pregnancy Loss, Trauma, and Spirituality: A Dyadic Perspective.

OBJECTIVES: Pregnancy loss and trauma are unexpected yet frequent occurrences for females in the United States, however little research exists on the role of pregnancy loss and trauma with both partners in couple relationships. The purpose of this study was to use dyadic analyses to better understand the role of trauma, spirituality, and pregnancy loss in the context of the couple relationship. METHOD: Drawn from a secondary data set, the dyadic sample included survey responses from (n = 97) matched, pregnant heterosexual couples. Couples responded to questions related to traumatic experiences, previous pregnancy history, relationship satisfaction, and spirituality. Actor-partner independence models were conducted to explore pregnancy loss, trauma, and spirituality on relationship satisfaction. RESULTS: Female partner's experience of trauma and loss predicted relationship satisfaction, but the male partner's experience did not. In addition, spirituality moderated the effects of loss and trauma for female partners but not for male partners. CONCLUSION: The outcomes from this study punctuated the importance of learning about relational dynamics (e.g., pregnancy and interpersonal traumas) through dyadic samples and analyses. Implications include research and clinical recommendations to incorporate biopsychosocial-spiritual metrics into research designs with diverse samples and dyads.

Clinical, operational, and financial evaluation practices in integrated behavioral health care.

INTRODUCTION: Integrated behavioral health care is an important pathway to providing whole person care. It is delivered through a transdisciplinary lens and team and funded through complex policies, billing codes, and systems. While the clinical practice of integrated behavioral health care has received attention in the research, less is known about how health care systems demonstrate and evaluate the utility, effectiveness, impact, and longevity of integrating behavioral health into primary care. METHOD: Health care professionals (N = 145) working in integrated settings were recruited to participate in a metaevaluation about their evaluation practices. Descriptive and regression analyses were used to summarize and evaluate findings on clinical, operational, and financial evaluation practices. RESULTS: There were a variety of types of evaluation practices across the national sample, as well as understanding across professional roles. Findings from the survey, which included primary care providers, behavioral health clinicians, and administrators working in integrated care settings confirmed that there was a lack of knowledge about evaluation and resources necessary to engage in the evaluation of clinical, operational, and financial outcomes. Furthermore, administrators were more likely to know about evaluation practices compared to medical providers and behavioral health providers. The survey also highlighted that organizational barriers to implementing integrated care were an issue across programs. DISCUSSION: Utilizing clinical, operational, and financial evaluation together provide a more comprehensive review of the implementation integrated behavioral health. Real-world implementers and evaluators should consider forming integrated and inclusive evaluation teams, including administrators, medical providers, behavioral health clinicians, patients, and families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Medical Family Therapy in Rural Community Health: A Longitudinal "Peek" into Integrated Care Successes.

Integrated behavioral health care (IBHC) continues to grow as an evidence-based service delivery model adopted by healthcare systems all over the world to better care for the holistic needs of patients and their families. Medical family therapy (MedFT), as a field, has offered innovation to IBHC models by delivering biopsychosocial-spiritual (BPS-S), relational, and family-oriented care across a variety of healthcare contexts. This article details a longitudinal review of a program, spanning 16 years, that grew from no behavioral health services to one that is highly integrated, and embeds MedFTs in a number of rural community health centers. This model highlights the importance of interdisciplinary teams, including Peek's clinical, operational, financial, and training worlds, as well as decision-making metrics for systems that predominately care for underserved and minoritized populations. The authors illustrate a framework for how the levels of primary care/behavioral healthcare collaboration relate to the work and practice of MedFTs as conceptualized through the MedFT Health Care Continuum and meet the BPS-S needs of diverse populations seeking pediatric, adult, and dental healthcare services. Also described are shifts made in the model over time based on (a) growth in cultural humility, (b) relationally-oriented practice, operations, finance, and training data, and (c) research informed decisions. Recommendations include ways MedFTs can facilitate provider and administrative buy-in, assess model fidelity, and strive for quality outcomes for patients.

MedFTs' Role in the Recruitment and Retention of a Diverse Physician Population: A Conceptual Model.

Recruitment and retention of a diverse physician population across stages of medical education is essential for the success of the healthcare system. MedFTs have a unique role to play in advocacy and intervention related to the recruitment and retention of these physicians at all stages of their education and career. As MedFTs expand their influence in healthcare systems, they must ground into their fundamental theories, like systems theory and the Four World View, all while advancing in their professional competencies to attune their skills and those whom they are entrusted in training. The conceptual model, MedFTs' Role in the Recruitment and Retention of a Diverse Physician Population, provides a framework for MedFTs to use their influence to enact change related to diversity and equity in the healthcare system. In addition, the model provides avenues for intervention and advocacy on the part of the MedFT related to each of the four worlds and their specific role(s) in the health care.

Family-Centered Primary Care for Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment.

Cognitive impairment (e.g. dementia) presents challenges for individuals, their families, and healthcare professionals alike. The primary care setting presents a unique opportunity to care for older adults living with cognitive impairment, who present with complex care needs that may benefit from a family-centered approach. This indepth systematic review was completed to address three aims: (a) identify the ways in which families of older-adult patients with cognitive impairment are engaged in primary care settings, (b) examine the outcomes of family engagement practices, and (c) organize and discuss the findings using CJ Peek's Three World View. Researchers searched PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO databases through July 2019. The results included 22 articles out of 6743 identified in the initial search. Researchers provided a description of the emerging themes for each of the three aims. It revealed that family-centered care and family engagement yields promising results including improved health outcomes, quality care, patient experience, and caregiver satisfaction. Furthermore, it promotes and advances the core values of medical family therapy: agency and communion. This review also exposed the inconsistent application of family-centered practices and the need for improved interprofessional education of primary care providers to prepare multidisciplinary teams to deliver family-centered care. Utilizing the vision of Patient- and Family-Centered Care and the lens of the Three World View, this systematic review provides Medical Family Therapists, healthcare administrators, policy makers, educators, and clinicians with information related to family engagement and how it can be implemented and enhanced in the care of patients with cognitive impairment.

Couple and family interventions for high mortality health conditions: A strategic review (2010-2019).

The earliest publications in the field of marriage and family therapy introduced interventions conducted with families experiencing complex health conditions. This strategic review captures an evaluation of efficacy for 87 couple and family interventions published between 2010 and 2019 with a focus on the leading causes of mortality in the United States. These health conditions include chromosomal anomalies and accidents with infants aged 0-4 years; accidents and cancer among children aged 5-14; accidents among adolescents aged 15-24; and heart disease, cancer, accidents, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, influenza/pneumonia, and nephritis/nephrosis among adults 25 and older. Results support the need for greater inclusion of couples and families in assessments and interventions. The greatest chasm in efficacy research was with minoritized couples and families. Implications include ways to initiate couple and family interventions in the context of health conditions with attention given to accessibility, recruitment, retention, and evaluation.

Healthcare employees' social networks, burnout, and health.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this article is to introduce how social networks can be utilized as an effective approach to health informatics and to provide evidence from a quantitative research study regarding the effects of interpersonal interactions at work on healthcare employees' burnout and health. METHODS: Tests of moderation were calculated to explore whether interpersonal interactions at work changed the associations between job stress and burnout and health. The study used cross sectional data from a North Carolina convenience sample. Participants were 237 multidisciplinary employees from healthcare organizations who were at least 18 years of age. RESULTS: The results from this study provided evidence that more frequent friendly work-related communication benefitted employees' health, while more frequent hostile or difficult communication was detrimental to employees' burnout and health. DISCUSSION: In this article, an explanation for using social networks to collect quantitative, relational data to determine when interpersonal interactions at work are beneficial or detrimental to employees' health and burnout is provided. The article concludes with a discussion regarding how these results and methods can be used to advance the national movements aimed at addressing healthcare employees' health and burnout. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Emergency department frequent user subgroups: Development of an empirical, theory-grounded definition using population health data and machine learning.

Frequent emergency department (ED) use has been operationalized in research, clinical practice, and policy as number of visits to the ED, despite the fact that this definition lacks empirical evidence and theoretical foundation. To date, there are no studies that have attempted to understand ED use empirically, without arbitrary use of "cut-points." This study was conducted to identify the best-performing, empirically grounded definition of frequent ED use. The performance of machine learning supervised clustering algorithms based on the most common definitions of frequent ED use in peer-reviewed literature (i.e., 3+, 4+, 5+ visits per year) were compared to unsupervised clustering algorithms that take into account numerous systemic factors associated with patients' ED use. All ED visits for the State of Florida, 2011-2015, including more than 100 clinical and payment-related variables per visit were employed in the model. Supervised algorithms using number of visits to the ED, alone, were unable to differentiate patients into clusters, while unsupervised models using all patient data formed clusters in which patients within a given cluster were alike, and patients between clusters were different. Cluster size and characteristics were stable across years. The results of this study indicate that mean number of ED visits by patients differ between patient clusters, but this does not allow for accurate identification of ED patients. Machine learning algorithms using all systemic and biopsychosocial patient data can be used to identify and group patients for the purpose of developing and testing integrated, whole health interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Defining Moral Injury Among Military Populations: A Systematic Review.

Military service often requires engaging in activities, witnessing acts, or immediate decision-making that may violate the moral codes and personal values to which most individuals ascribe. If unacknowledged, these factors can lead to injuries that can affect the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health of military men and women. The term moral injury has been assigned to these soul-ceasing experiences. Although researchers have attempted to define moral injury and what leads to such experiences, inconsistencies across definitions exist. In addition, nearly all existing definitions have lacked empirical support. The purpose of the present systematic review was to explore how moral injury has been defined in research with military populations, using Cooper's approach to research synthesis as well as PRISMA guidelines. An in-depth review of 124 articles yielded 12 key definitions of moral injury across the literature. Two of these 12 definitions were grounded in empirical evidence, suggesting that much more research is needed to strengthen the face validity and reliability of the construct. Quality rankings were developed to categorize each of the included articles. The findings punctuate the need for empirical evidence to further explore moral injury, particularly among samples inclusive of service members and the biopsychosocial-spiritual experiences associated with such injuries.

The Health and Readiness of Service Members: ACEs to PACEs.

INTRODUCTION: Over the past three decades, a growing research base has emerged around the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the biological, psychological, social, and relational health and development of children and adults. More recently, the role of ACEs has been researched with military service members. The purpose of this article was to provide a brief description of ACEs and an overview of the key tenets of the theory of toxic stress as well as a snapshot of ACEs and protective and compensatory experiences (PACEs) research with active duty personnel. METHODS: Ninety-seven active duty personnel completed the study including questions pertaining to demographics, adverse childhood experiences, adult adverse experiences, and PACEs survey. RESULTS: Significant findings pertaining to ACEs and PACEs were found by service member's sex and rank, with higher ACE scores for men and enlisted service members. CONCLUSIONS: The contrast by rank and sex in relation to ACEs punctuates the need for attention to ACEs and protective factors among early career service members in order to promote sustainable careers in the military.

Relational and Spiritual Coping Among Emerging and Young Adult Cancer Survivors.

Cancer presents uncertainties for individuals of any age; however, emerging and young adults (EYA) are challenged to cope with developmental tasks in addition to cancer-related stressors. Guided by the double ABC-X model and biopsychosocial-spiritual framework, the current study investigates coping strategies used by this population and the role of psychological resources (perception of parental care/control and spirituality) on their coping ability. Recruited from online social media, 210 EYA cancer survivors self-reported demographic, medical information, and completed the Brief Cope scale. In addition, spirituality reliance, perceived parental care, and parental control were measured and examined in relation to coping ability. While nearly half of participants experienced positive adaptation in relation to multiple stressors, hierarchical multiple regression revealed the developmental nature of coping and indicated that higher spirituality reliance and higher degree of parental care were predictive of adaptive coping among EYA cancer survivors. Content analyses of the open-ended questions confirmed these results. In order to facilitate adaptive coping, attention must be paid to the unique biopsychosocial-spiritual and developmental needs of young cancer survivors while encouraging family support and spirituality reliance as significant tools in coping. Practical recommendations for nursing support and healthcare teams are discussed.

Attachment, Parenting, and Obesogenic Behavior: A Dyadic Perspective.

Pediatric obesity is a growing health concern afflicting the United States. The treatment for pediatric obesity, as a health epidemic, costs billions of dollars to our nation, leaving providers and researchers searching for effective and sustainable ways to better manage the biological, psychological, and social health of individuals and families. While many assessments and interventions continue to emerge, researchers have predominately focused on intra-individual concerns among white non-Hispanic populations. This quantitative study was grounded in a relational theory (attachment theory), with a dyadic and primarily Hispanic sample. Evidence from our study supported that child attachment predicted child obesogenic behavior and that this relationship was mediated by child self-regulation. Children with insecure attachments had more obesogenic behaviors and lower self-regulation of eating than those with secure attachments. Family therapists should be on the frontlines of relational research and clinical interventions that interface with biopsychosocial health across diverse cultures and families.

A systematic review of evaluation research in integrated behavioral health care: Operational and financial characteristics.

INTRODUCTION: Integrated behavioral health care (IBHC) is an emerging solution for the delivery of behavioral health in primary care contexts. Although IBHC has been implemented and studied for more than 2 decades, little seems to be known about how it is best evaluated. This article illustrates a framework for IBHC evaluation based on the Three World view (with a focus on the operational and financial worlds) and delivers results from a systematic review on the operational and financial characteristics of existing IBHC research. METHOD: This study identified original reports of research that included an evaluation or assessment of the operational or financial success or sustainability of IBHC sites or programs. RESULTS: A total of 3,386 articles were found through the selected databases and 46 articles were found to meet the inclusion criteria. From the 46 articles that contained an IBHC evaluation including operational or financial variables, 9 operational and 11 financial characteristics were identified as barriers or strengths to sustainability or success. The characteristics of the evaluation participants, IBHC settings, and method of evaluation were also coded and analyzed. DISCUSSION: As a result of this systematic review of articles, evaluation of the success and sustainability of the operational and financial worlds can now be conceptualized at provider and practice levels. Collaboration and communication between medical and behavioral health providers was a significant operational characteristic related to success and sustainability. Financial characteristics indicated that continuous financial evaluation throughout implementation was important to success and sustainability. (PsycINFO Database Record

Medical Residents' Experiences With Medically Unexplained Illness and Medically Unexplained Symptoms.

Patients who present with medically unexplained illnesses or medically unexplained symptoms (MUI/S) tend to be higher utilizers of health care services and have significantly greater health care costs than other patients, which add stress and strain for both the patient and provider. Although MUI/S are commonly seen in primary care, there is not sufficient information available regarding how providers can increase their level of confidence and decrease their level of frustration when working with patients who present with MUI/S. The goal of this article is to present findings from a qualitative phenomenology study, which highlights medical residents' experiences of caring for patients with MUI/S and the personal and professional factors that contributed to their clinical approaches. Results from these studies indicate that residents often experience a lack of confidence in their ability to effectively treat patients with MUI/S, as well as frustration surrounding their encounters with this group of patients.

Screening for Depression in Latino Immigrants: A Systematic Review of Depression Screening Instruments Translated into Spanish.

The research on the diagnostic accuracy of Spanish language depression-screening instruments continues to be scarce in the US. Under-detection of depression by Primary Care Providers is approximately 50 % in the general population and this rate may be even higher for Latino immigrants for whom the depression rate tends to be higher than for non-Hispanic Whites. This systematic review shows that there is still limited evidence that guides primary care-based depression screening for Spanish speakers. The economic, social, and human costs of depression are high and complex; yet improvements in the effectiveness of treatment cannot be made available to sufferers of the disorder if they go undetected.

Exploring the phenomenon of spiritual care between hospital chaplains and hospital based healthcare providers.

Hospital chaplaincy and spiritual care services are important to patients' medical care and well-being; however, little is known about healthcare providers' experiences receiving spiritual support. A phenomenological study examined the shared experience of spiritual care between hospital chaplains and hospital-based healthcare providers (HBHPs). Six distinct themes emerged from the in-depth interviews: Awareness of chaplain availability, chaplains focus on building relationships with providers and staff, chaplains are integrated in varying degrees on certain hospital units, chaplains meet providers' personal and professional needs, providers appreciate chaplains, and barriers to expanding hospital chaplains' services. While HBHPs appreciated the care received and were able to provide better patient care as a result, participants reported that administrators may not recognize the true value of the care provided. Implications from this study are applied to hospital chaplaincy clinical, research, and training opportunities.

Predictors of follow-up for overweight youth and parents.

Attrition is a significant problem for health care providers working with youth and parents involved in childhood obesity treatment. Barriers for families in childhood obesity treatment have been explored, but less is known about factors that may be associated with follow-up attendance. The purpose of this study is to explore youth and parent variables, pediatrician's evaluations of youth and parents' likelihood to change (LTC), and their association with attendance at follow-up. One hundred ninety-three youth and parent dyads were included in the sample; slightly more than half of the sample did not return for a follow up visit. Descriptive statistics, paired and independent t tests, and correlations were used to determine associations between youth and parent demographic factors, attendance at follow-up, and pediatricians' evaluation of likelihood to change. Evaluations of LTC and demographic factors did not significantly associate with follow-up appointment attendance. Single parents were more likely to be rated by pediatricians as likely to make changes. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.

Paediatric palliative care: a review of needs, obstacles and the future.

AIM: This literature review offers a response to the current paediatric palliative care literature that will punctuate the need for a framework (i.e. the three world view) that can serve as an evaluative lens for nurse managers who are in the planning or evaluative stages of paediatric palliative care programmes. BACKGROUND: The complexities in providing paediatric palliative care extend beyond clinical practices to operational policies and financial barriers that exist in the continuum of services for patients. EVALUATION: This article offers a review of the literature and a framework in order to view best clinical practices, operational/policy standards and financial feasibility when considering the development and sustainability of paediatric palliative care programmes. KEY ASPECTS: Fifty-four articles were selected as representative of the current state of the literature as it pertains to the three world view (i.e. clinical, operational and financial factors) involved in providing paediatric palliative care. CONCLUSION: In developing efficient paediatric palliative care services, clinical, operational and financial resources and barriers need to be identified and addressed. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nursing management plays a crucial role in addressing the clinical, operational and financial needs and concerns that are grounded in paediatric palliative care literature.