Examining the communication work of women who have tested BRCA-positive: "I feel this responsibility to let people know".

Inheriting a pathogenic variant in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene considerably increases a woman's risk levels for developing breast and ovarian cancer. In addition to serious physical health implications, women with a BRCA pathogenic variant may face psychosocial challenges, including those related to navigating the often demanding process of communicating about topics regarding BRCA with family and other social network members. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 women who tested BRCA-positive, we found that-consistent with the conceptualization of communication work articulated by Donovan-Kicken et al.

Women's Metaphors About BRCA Gene Testing and How They Can Inform Health Communication Theory and Practice.

Genetic testing can detect whether an individual carries a harmful variant in the or (Breast Cancer 1 or 2) gene which, if present, drastically increases a woman's risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The experience of BRCA gene testing can be an emotionally laden process yielding significant uncertainty. In this study, we examined women's experiences of BRCA gene testing by exploring how participants communicatively framed and made sense of this process through the use of metaphors.

Potential for urban agriculture to support accessible and impactful undergraduate biology education.

Active learning in STEM education is essential for engaging the diverse pool of scholars needed to address pressing environmental and social challenges. However, active learning formats are difficult to scale and their incorporation into STEM teaching at U.S.

Little White Lies: Interrogating the (Un)acceptability of Deception in the Context of Dementia.

This metasynthesis surveyed extant literature on deception in the context of dementia and, based on specific inclusion criteria, included 14 articles from 12 research studies. By doing so, the authors accomplished three goals: (a) provided a systematic examination of the literature-to-date on deception in the context of dementia, (b) elucidated the assumptions that have guided this line of inquiry and articulated the way those shape the research findings, and (c) determined directions for future research. In particular, synthesizing across studies allowed the authors to develop a dynamic model comprised of three temporally linear elements-(a) motives, (b) modes, and (c) outcomes that describe how deception emerges communicatively through interaction in the context of dementia.

The uncertainty room: strategies for managing uncertainty in a surgical waiting room.

Objective: To describe experiences of uncertainty and management strategies for staff working with families in a hospital waiting room.

Setting: A 288-bed, nonprofit community hospital in a Midwestern city.

Methods: Data were collected during individual, semistructured interviews with 3 volunteers, 3 technical staff members, and 1 circulating nurse (n = 7), and during 40 hours of observation in a surgical waiting room.

Caring for a parent with lung cancer: caregivers' perspectives on the role of communication.

We investigated communication and care in the context of lung cancer through qualitative interviews with 35 adult children. Participants described two core influences on communication: situational and relational influences. Participants also suggested that the ways in which support was communicated impacted how they managed challenges and how they were able to cope with the loss of their parent.

"The system is beginning to shut down": utilizing caregivers' metaphors for dementia, persons with dementia, and caregiving.

Family caregivers reflect understandings of dementia, persons with dementia, and their changing role through metaphors. Analyzing transcripts from a support group for spouses of persons with dementia, 14 core metaphors for dementia, caregiving/caregiver, and persons with dementia were identified. By using these metaphors, nurses can aid familial caregiver understanding and well-being.

Managing multiple goals in supportive interactions: using a normative theoretical approach to explain social support as uncertainty management for organ transplant patients.

In this study, we used a normative theoretical perspective to examine the relationship between uncertainty management and support in the lives of organ transplant patients. We conducted in-depth interviews with 8 pretransplant and 30 posttransplant patients, including individuals who were waiting for or had received a kidney, liver, heart, or pancreas. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach, which involved two levels of thematic analysis.

Medical, personal, and social forms of uncertainty across the transplantation trajectory.

We designed this study to identify sources of uncertainty across the transplantation trajectory. We interviewed 38 transplant patients, who reported medical, personal, and social forms of uncertainty. Prior to transplantation, they reported uncertainty related to insufficient information about diagnosis, complex decisions about transplantation, unknown/unknowable organ availability, unclear expectations about medical procedures/outcomes, ambiguity in meaning of life, complex role and identity challenges, unclear financial consequences, questioning from others, and unclear relational implications.

Sources of uncertainty: experiences of Alzheimer's disease.

Uncertainty is an inherent part of most illness experiences and Alzheimer's disease in particular is fraught with uncertainties, especially for the family. In an investigation of sources of uncertainty, 33 adult children with a parent diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease were interviewed. Participants described medical, personal, and social sources of uncertainty related to their parent's diagnosis.