Development of the Adolescent Health Concerns Inventory.

Health concerns of adolescents are important factors to consider when developing and implementing school health education programs. In addition, an understanding of adolescent concerns compared to their teachers' and parents' beliefs about adolescents' concerns may enhance communication between adolescents and adults. Despite the need to identify the health concerns of adolescents and beliefs about them among parents and teachers, few instruments exist.

Nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding organ and tissue donation and transplantation.

The acute shortage of human organs and tissues for transplantation has been attributed in part to health professionals, including nurses, for their reluctance to recognize and refer suitable candidates for donation. In 1988, nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding organ and tissue donation and transplantation were assessed using a 70-item questionnaire. Respondents included 1,683 nurses employed in 62 rural and urban hospitals in the Midwest.

Tapping patient satisfaction: a strategy for quality assessment.

Participant satisfaction is an important measure of program effectiveness. In hospitals, patient satisfaction is a measure that is compatible with quality assurance. This article focuses on the revision, implementation and analysis of a patient satisfaction questionnaire that was designed as a tool for assessing the quality of non-physician encounters in a small hospital.

The self-care behavior inventory: a model for behavioral instrument development.

The Self-Care Behavior (SCB) Inventory was developed as part of a long-term study of self-care practices of persons who have multiple sclerosis (MS) in Denmark. The universe of behaviors regarding the physical, social, emotional, environmental, and spiritual aspects of coping with the illness was ascertained by informal and formal interviews. Respondents were asked not only what behavior was performed, but also who performed it, how it was performed, why, when, and where it was performed, and where the knowledge to perform the behavior in this manner was acquired, such as a lay-referral network, physician, social worker, spouse, or media.

Avoiding type III errors in health education program evaluations: a case study.

Monitoring the implementation of a program being evaluated can improve the interpretability of data collected and help evaluators to avoid committing a Type III error: evaluating a program that has not been adequately implemented. This article describes an evaluation that analyzed the implementation of a school health education curriculum, assessed cognitive learning outcomes attributable to the curriculum, and examined the relationship between classroom implementation and changes in students' knowledge. Five fifth-grade classes (n = 101) participated in the curriculum, and five classes (n = 84) served as a comparison group.