2026-09-20T05:05:01Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26385 2023-07-10 col_2142_5131 col_2142_17395 com_2142_5130 com_2142_181 com_2142_8903

health social support illness Caughlin, John P. Caughlin, John P. Lammers, John C. Knobloch, Leanne K. Huhman, Marian Stone, Anne M. 2011-08-26T15:34:03Z 2013-08-27T10:00:27Z 2011-08-26T15:34:03Z 2011-08 Nursing training stresses the importance of communication in providing care to patients; however, research on communication in particular nursing contexts has trailed behind training programs implemented to improve communication efforts. Training interventions are often limited by a cursory understanding of what makes interactions successful versus unsuccessful and often highlight nonverbal communication as being more important than what is actually said. This investigation explored the role of uncertainty for nurses and care assistants communicating support to patients and family members coping with Alzheimer’s disease. Using Goldsmith’s (2004) normative approach to frame this study, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 32 nurses and care assistants about the role of communication in the context of Alzheimer’s nursing. Each interview was transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant comparative techniques of grounded theory. To determine the role of communication in nurses’ interactions with Alzheimer’s patients and their families, my analysis focused on five areas: (a) sources of uncertainty for nurses and care assistants, (b) communicative management of uncertainty, (c) ways of communicating support to family members, (d) dilemmas of communicating support, and (e) strategies for managing communicative dilemmas perceived as effective in nursing care. The sources of uncertainty participants reported experiencing become implicated in the complex communication situations that that nurses and care assistants deal with in their work. For example, communicating various types of informational support is a strategy for managing family member’s uncertainty about the illness itself as well as relational questions about how to relate to their loved one in a nursing care facility. The findings from this study highlight the importance of enacted support through communication in the context of Alzheimer’s care nursing. Practical implications of these findings for Alzheimer’s care nurses as well as nurses in other specialties are described. Theoretical implications for literature on communicating social support and uncertainty management are discussed with reference to these findings, and limitations and directions for future research are outlined. Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-07-05T17:47:21Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Stone_Anne.pdf: 785154 bytes, checksum: f9c58d3cf9e487e3e6e29f9f4930b4d5 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2011-08-26T15:34:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Stone_Anne.pdf: 775290 bytes, checksum: 4246f51fb7e85492bfb9f87a257c35ba (MD5) license.txt: 4060 bytes, checksum: 4d03344aadfd2a02fab6f5a53cc62291 (MD5) Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2011-08-26T15:35:39Z Item is restricted until 2013-08-26T15:35:26Z Item reinstated by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-08-27T10:00:27Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Dissertations and Theses (ID: 204) Dissertations and Theses - Communication (ID: 782) No. of bitstreams: 2 Stone_Anne.pdf: 775290 bytes, checksum: 4246f51fb7e85492bfb9f87a257c35ba (MD5) license.txt: 4060 bytes, checksum: 4d03344aadfd2a02fab6f5a53cc62291 (MD5) Item released from any restrictions by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-08-27T10:00:27Z http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26385 en Copyright 2011 Anne M. Stone communication Alzheimer's disease uncertainty """We don't like to call it lying, it's just therapeutic communication"": Understanding the influence of social support on coping with illness uncertainty" Communication 1489 Communication 5164 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D. PHD: Communication (LAS) -UIUC 10KS5164PHD