Publications by authors named "Mary Ellen Shands"
Background: The aim of the authors was to determine whether socioeconomic vulnerability is associated with community water fluoridation (CWF).
Methods: The authors used US Census Bureau data to create 4 county-level vulnerability markers (percentages non-White, Hispanic or Latino, below the federal poverty threshold, education below high school), obtained county-level CWF data from the Washington State Department of Health, and evaluated associations using Spearman rank correlation coefficient and the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test. The authors then interviewed 122 community members in Washington (December 2022-March 2023) and analyzed the interview data inductively.
Background: An estimated 609,820 child-rearing adults in 2023 died from advanced cancer, affecting 153,675 dependent children. Although children are known to suffer significant distress when a parent is diagnosed with cancer, few studies have described parents' views of their adolescent's behavioral response to their advanced cancer or what the parent did to interpret or manage that response.
Objectives: To describe patient-reported concerns about their adolescent and how they responded to their adolescent's behavior.
Background: Topical fluoride hesitancy is a well-documented and growing public health problem. Despite extensive evidence that topical fluoride is safe and prevents tooth decay, an increasing number of caregivers are hesitant about their children receiving topical fluoride, leading to challenges in clinical settings where caregivers refuse preventive care.
Purpose: To explore the determinants of topical fluoride hesitancy for caregivers with dependent children.
Objective: To test the short-term impact of , a culturally adapted cancer parenting education program for diagnosed child-rearing Hispanic mothers.
Design: Single group, pre-post-test design.
Sample: 18 U.
Purpose: (1) To test the short-term impact of Helping Us Heal (HUSH), a telephone-delivered counseling program for spouse caregivers of women with breast cancer. (2) To compare outcomes from HUSH with outcomes from a historical control group which received the same program in-person.
Methods: Two-group quasi-experimental design using both within- and between-group analyses with 78 study participants, 26 in the within-group and 52 in the between-group analyses.
Parents With Advanced Cancer: Worries About Their Children's Unspoken Concerns.
Am J Hosp Palliat Care
August 2021
Background: Parents with advanced cancer struggle initiating conversations with their children about the cancer. When parents do not have the tools to talk with their children, they silently watch their children attempt to navigate their illness but can only wonder but not know what their children are thinking. The objective of the current study is to describe, from parents living with advanced cancer, the worries and concerns parents wonder their child holds, but has not spoken, about the parent's cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and short-term impact of a 5-session fully manualized, group-delivered cancer parenting education program to diagnosed parents or surrogate parents with a school-age child.
Design: Single group, pre-post-test design with intent to treat analysis.
Sample: A total of 16 parents completed the program who were diagnosed within 12 months with non-metastatic cancer of any type (Stages 0-III), read and wrote English, had a child 5-17 years old who knew the parent's diagnosis.
Objectives: The objective of this study was to describe in the words of child-rearing parents with incurable cancer, what they had gained or thought about as a result of participating in a five-session, scripted, telephone-delivered psycho-educational parenting intervention, the Enhancing Connections Program in Palliative Care.
Methods: A total of 26 parents completed the program. Parents' responses were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and verified for accuracy.
In 2018, >75,000 children were newly affected by the diagnosis of advanced cancer in a parent. Unfortunately, few programs exist to help parents and their children manage the impact of advanced disease together as a family. The Enhancing Connections-Palliative Care (EC-PC) parenting program was developed in response to this gap.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The objective of this study was to test the short-term efficacy of a brief, fully manualized marital communication and interpersonal support intervention for couples facing recently diagnosed breast cancer.
Methods: A total of 322 women diagnosed within 6 months with stages 0 to III breast cancer and their 322 spouse caregivers were enrolled. Spouses in the experimental group received five 30- to 60-minute intervention sessions at 2-week intervals by master's-prepared patient educators; controls received the booklet, "What's Happening to the Woman I Love?" Outcomes were assessed at 3, 6, and 9 months using the linear mixed models within an intent-to-treat analysis.
Purpose: The purposes of the study were to (1) test the short-term impact of a telephone-delivered cancer parenting education program, the Enhancing Connections-Telephone (EC-T) Program, on maternal anxiety, depressed mood, parenting competencies, and child behavioral-emotional adjustment and (2) compare those outcomes with outcomes achieved from an in-person delivery of the same program (EC).
Methods: Thirty-two mothers comprised the sample for the within-group design and 77 mothers for the between-group design. Mothers were eligible if they had one or more dependent children and were recently diagnosed with stages 0-III breast cancer.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a cancer parenting program for child rearing mothers with breast cancer, the Enhancing Connections Program. Primary goals were to decrease maternal depressed mood and anxiety, improve parenting quality, parenting skills and confidence, and enhance the child's behavioral-emotional adjustment to maternal breast cancer.
Method: A total of 176 mothers diagnosed within 6 months with Stage 0 to Stage III breast cancer and their 8- to 12-year-old child were recruited from medical providers in 6 states: Washington, California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Arizona, and Indiana.
Breast cancer is known to cause substantial anxiety, depressed mood, and diminished marital functioning in the diagnosed woman's spouse. Despite the scope and magnitude of these issues, few intervention studies have included spouses or addressed the causes of their lower functioning. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the short-term impact of a 5-session, clinic-based, educational counseling intervention for spouses whose wife was recently diagnosed with early stage breast cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudy Objectives: Although clinicians and scientists have a growing awareness of breast cancer as a couple's joint experience, no one has studied the concerns couples choose to address with a professional coach to better manage the impact of the cancer. The purpose of the current study was to describe illness-related concerns couples worked on together with masters-educated professional coaches during the first eleven months of the wife's treatment for early stage breast cancer.
Setting And Participants: Intervention sessions were conducted with twenty-nine couples in their homes in the Pacific Northwest.
In 2005, approximately 211,240 women in the US will be diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and an estimated 22% will be child rearing. Research reveals that both mothers and children have elevated distress attributed to the cancer; struggle with how to talk about and deal with the impact of the cancer; and both fear the mother will die. The Enhancing Connections Program (EC) was developed to reduce this cancer-related distress and morbidity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF