Speaking Stoma: Creating a Communication Guide for People With an Ostomy.

An ostomy is a life-changing procedure. Individuals who have ostomy surgery must adjust to changes post-operation, some of which involve changes to communication and managing social situations. The purpose of this project was to create an evidence-based communication guide for people with ostomies while transitioning to life after surgery and serve as a reference for the creation of communication guides for similar chronic illnesses.

Advancing the Integrative Theory of Communication Work: Developing and Validating a Measure of Communication Work Among U.S. Adults with Chronic Illnesses.

It is important to theorize and observe empirically how communicative behaviors can constitute a form of labor that may take a toll on people who are already coping with a health stressor. The present investigation considers the Integrative Theory of Communication Work (ITCW) from a post-positivist paradigm, with the goal of developing a psychometrically sound communication work scale. A diverse sample of American adults with chronic health conditions was recruited to complete an online survey inquiring about their experiences with communication work during illness.

The Impact of Health Communication Research on Medical and Health Professional Education and Training.

In this essay, we review how health communication scholarship has been translated into various communication skills trainings (CSTs), we present four case studies of how health communication research informed the development and implementation of specific CSTs, and we reflect on how we can productively define "impact" in looking back as well as looking forward within this line of research.

'That gave me a lot of comfort, that he would ask my opinion about how we wanted to talk about this': A qualitative analysis of clinical communication experiences of ostomy patients.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the communication challenges and successes that people with ostomies experienced during their healthcare encounters.

Design: We conducted semistructured interviews of people with ostomies. Interviews focused on important social situations and health communication strategies for managing these situations.

Missed opportunities for prenatal family-centered care during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study.

Background: The purpose of this study was to describe the impact of COVID-19 on fatherhood experiences during pregnancy.

Methods: A semi-structured interview guide was developed to collect qualitative data from fathers about their experiences in pregnancy and prenatal care, how they communicated with providers, strategies for information seeking, and social support they received during the pregnancy. One-time, virtual interviews were conducted via Zoom with fathers that were either expecting a baby or fathers who had a baby after March 2020 and were 18 years or older.

Development and refinement of a communication guide to help young adults in Texas reconnect and reduce loneliness.

Objective: Loneliness among young people is a contemporary public health crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The present research examined the development of a modest yet meaningful health communication intervention resource that would become an asset in a larger health campaign: a communication guide aimed at helping young people reach out and reconnect with others.

Methods: Study One established the need for a loneliness intervention in Texas with survey data ( = 795).

A Reasoned Action Approach to Social Connection and Mental Health: Racial Group Differences and Similarities in Attitudes, Norms, and Intentions.

This study employed a Reasoned Action Approach to investigate two communication behaviors that were being built into a statewide behavioral health campaign: initiating a conversation about one's own mental health struggles, and starting a conversation to discuss someone else's mental health difficulties. We examined whether the extent of attitudes, perceived norms, and perceived behavioral control regarding intent to perform these behaviors varied by racial identity. Using original survey data from Texans ( = 2,033), we conducted regression analyses for the two communication behaviors and found that intention to seek help was primarily explained by instrumental attitude, injunctive norm, descriptive norm, and perceived capacity; and intention to start a conversation to help someone else was primarily explained by instrumental attitude, injunctive norm, and perceived capacity.

The labor of talking to stay healthy and socially connected: Communication work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the primary means through which people protect themselves and their loved ones from COVID-19 is by communicating with others, as they discuss preventive health behaviors and make decisions about safe social interaction. These conversations are sometimes quite challenging. Guided by the conceptual lens of communication work, this study was an investigation of how communication during the pandemic was experienced by people as work.

Doula Support Challenges and Coping Strategies during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Maternal Health Inequities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made birthing more stressful and isolating, which has raised particular concern for populations of birthing people affected by maternal health inequities. Doulas have been proposed as one means of improving health outcomes by providing emotional, physical, and informational support to patients and their families before, during, or after labor. However, the social and economic conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic have posed new challenges for doula care.

Parenting Practices, Autonomous Motivation, and Adolescent Diet Habits.

Guided by self-determination theory, the aim of this study was to examine whether adolescents' autonomous motivation for making healthy diet choices mediates the association between parenting practices regarding diet and adolescent food choices. We analyzed data from the NCI FLASHE study, a survey of demographically diverse parents and their adolescent children (N = 1,646 dyads). Path models supported self-determination theory's assertion that indirect, encouraging parenting practices fostered internal motivation; in contrast, regulation was both positively and negatively linked to motivation depending on the model.

What Motivates 's Peer Reviewers to Review? A Survey of Our Scholarly Community.

The peer review process is a necessary, labor-intensive, and imperfect element of scientific research. Among the many issues identified by its critics, finding willing reviewers can be an arduous task for journal editors and is acknowledged as one of the primary factors holding up the publication process. In an attempt to better understand and serve reviewers, we surveyed them and inquired about their motivations for reviewing a manuscript, including why they agree, decline, or disregard invitations to review submissions.

An Applied Improvisational Pharmacy Communication Workshop Implemented During Orientation for First-Year Pharmacy Students.

To deliver a brief, applied workshop in improvisational communication skills during the new student orientation for first-year Doctor of Pharmacy students and to assess students' perceptions about the experience. Communication instructors developed a two-hour communication "boot camp" based on established principles of clear, responsive, flexible communication. They taught core skills through interactive applied improvisational exercises and facilitated debriefings.

Examining the Effectiveness of Genetic Counselors' Communication of Variant of Uncertain Significance Results of Breast Cancer Genes.

Receiving a variant of uncertain significance (VUS) result is quite common for individuals who undergo genetic testing. Because VUS results are often unexpected and necessarily complex, they are challenging for genetic counselors to deliver. The current research sought to examine how three specific message features (risk estimate formats, establishment of a future plan, and linguistic agency), and message receivers' intolerance of uncertainty, influenced the effectiveness of genetic counselors' communication of a VUS result.

Health Literacy and Perceptions of Stigma.

Calls for progress in health literacy argue that efforts across society are promising for increasing capacities at a broader level. However, it is unknown how the general public perceives people who struggle with health information. While it may be ideal to establish interventions beyond the individual, stigma held by others could limit this work.

Missed Empathic Opportunities During Hand Surgery Office Visits.

Empathy (conveyance of an understanding of a patient's situation, perspective, and feelings) deepens the therapeutic alliance and leads to better health outcomes. We studied the frequency and nature of empathic opportunities and physician responses in patients visiting a hand surgeon. We also sought patient characteristics associated with the number of patient-initiated-clues and missed opportunities by surgeons.

Spanish-Speaking Hispanic Patients' Information-Sharing Preferences During Hospitalization: An Exploratory Pilot Study.

Background: Self-management of chronic conditions, such as cancer or diabetes, requires the coordination of care across multiple care settings. Current patient-centered, hospital-based care initiatives, including bedside nursing handoff and multidisciplinary rounds, often focus on provider information exchange and roles but fall short of the goals of participatory medicine, which recognize the right of patients to partner in their own care and play an active role in self-management.

Objective: This study aimed to elicit Spanish-speaking Hispanic patients' perspectives on the exchange and sharing of information during hospitalization.

Patients With Limited Health Literacy Ask Fewer Questions During Office Visits With Hand Surgeons.

Background: In the midst of rapid expansion of medical knowledge and decision-support tools intended to benefit diverse patients, patients with limited health literacy (the ability to obtain, process, and understand information and services to make health decisions) will benefit from asking questions and engaging actively in their own care. But little is known regarding the relationship between health literacy and question-asking behavior during outpatient office visits.

Questions/purposes: (1) Do patients with lower levels of health literacy ask fewer questions in general, and as stratified by types of questions? (2) What other patient characteristics are associated with the number of questions asked? (3) How often do surgeons prompt patients to ask questions during an office visit?

Methods: We audio-recorded office visits of 84 patients visiting one of three orthopaedic hand surgeons for the first time.

Cyberframing Cancer: An Exploratory Investigation of Valenced Cybercoping on Cancer Blogs.

Although scholarship on coping with cancer implies many ways that coping is communicative, the discursive features of coping have been understudied. The purpose of the present investigation was to theorize the content of cancer blogs, a form of cybercoping, by examining valenced coping-relevant frames that bloggers use to describe their experiences with cancer. This research is both theoretically and methodologically innovative.

Health Literacy and Health Information Technology Adoption: The Potential for a New Digital Divide.

Background: Approximately one-half of American adults exhibit low health literacy and thus struggle to find and use health information. Low health literacy is associated with negative outcomes including overall poorer health. Health information technology (HIT) makes health information available directly to patients through electronic tools including patient portals, wearable technology, and mobile apps.

Applied Grant Writing Training for Future Health Communication Researchers: The Health Communication Scholars Program.

Health communication faculty face increasing expectations regarding their academic productivity, including the expectation to seek and secure external funding. Doctoral training in health communication that does not fully prepare students for the challenges of securing external funding is doing them a disservice that will make them less competitive for academic positions and less likely to succeed in the academic positions they assume. The purpose of this study is to share the evaluation of a program, the Health Communication Scholars Program (HCSP), designed to train future health communication researchers in the pursuit of external funding.

Toward a Better Understanding of Patient Health Literacy: A Focus on the Skills Patients Need to Find Health Information.

While many health literacy assessments exist, this area of research lacks an instrument that isolates and reflects the four components driving this concept (abilities to find, understand, use, and communicate about health information). The purpose of this study was to determine what abilities comprise the first component, how a patient finds health information. Low ( n = 13) and adequate ( n = 14) health literacy patients, and health professionals ( n = 10) described their experiences when looking for health information and the skills they employed to complete these tasks.

Sharing Health Information and Influencing Behavioral Intentions: The Role of Health Literacy, Information Overload, and the Internet in the Diffusion of Healthy Heart Information.

Low health literacy remains an extremely common and problematic issue, given that individuals with lower health literacy are more likely to experience health challenges and negative health outcomes. In this study, we use the first three stages of the innovation-decision process found in the theory of diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 2003). We incorporate health literacy into a model explaining how perceived health knowledge, information sharing, attitudes, and behavior are related.

"The uncertainty is what is driving me crazy": the tripartite model of uncertainty in the adolescent and young adult cancer context.

Building on scholarship indicating that uncertainty is a fundamental component of the cancer experience, this study focuses on an understudied population: adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer. Because AYAs' health outcomes lag behind those of older and younger people with cancer, scholars have recommended that the subjective experiences of AYAs be better understood. Using the tripartite model of uncertainty sources as a guiding framework, we analyzed naturally occurring messages from an online discussion forum for AYA cancer survivors.

Stigma and health literacy: an agenda for advancing research and practice.

Objectives: To propose a framework addressing various factors contributing to stigma associated with low health literacy, how stigma is manifested, and how it may contribute to adverse health consequences.

Method: The framework incorporated concepts found in existing empirical research on stigmatized health conditions with an emphasis on concealable conditions such as mental health, HIV status, and some chronic illnesses.

Results: Pursuing the proposed research agenda would provide a better understanding of the various factors contributing to stigma associated with low health literacy, how that stigma is manifested, and how it may contribute to adverse health consequences.

Lysophosphatidic acid receptor 5 inhibits B cell antigen receptor signaling and antibody response.

Lysophospholipids have emerged as biologically important chemoattractants capable of directing lymphocyte development, trafficking, and localization. Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a major lysophospholipid found systemically, and its levels are elevated in certain pathological settings, such as cancer and infections. In this study, we demonstrate that BCR signal transduction by mature murine B cells is inhibited upon LPA engagement of the LPA5 (GPR92) receptor via a Gα12/13-Arhgef1 pathway.