Nursing Department Honored at State Capitol - March 9
Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006
A collaborative research team from the Nursing Department will represent the College at the third annual Private College Scholars at the Capitol event Thursday, March 9. Student Eslee Vang, Alumna Dal Xiong, and Nursing faculty Avonne Yang and Margaret Dexheimer Pharris will present their poster "The Experience of Hmong Women Living with Diabetes" in the Capitol Rotunda on March 9 where they will meet with state leaders. We're very proud of their success!
Their poster, a community health nursing project, notes that while Type II diabetes is rapidly increasing in the Hmong community, a paucity of research exists on Hmong women with diabetes. They developed a community-based collaborative action research project in which five Hmong women with type II diabetes and HgbA1c levels over 7.0 were recruited from a community health clinic.
Female Hmong nurse researchers interviewed participants in their homes, then the researchers worked with a female Hmong playwright to weave common patterns into a play. Hmong nursing students performed the play for Hmong women invited via Hmong radio and community advertisements to a dinner, performance and dialogue. The dialogue focused on whether the play reflected women’s experiences and on how to live a healthy, happy life in the US.
The group concluded that, contrary to previous research with this population, participants knew about symptoms, complications and control of diabetes. They felt diabetes was caused by their hardship and culture change and exacerbated by stress and depression. They described a life of deprivation with a overwhelming sense of grief, loss, depression, worry, stress, and isolation. They described going from a life of activity, hard work, abundant relationships, simplicity and fresh foods to an existence where they can not communicate; the food is processed and unhealthy; and they live in isolation, do not have meaningful work, and are not respected by children. They wanted to come together as Hmong women to continue the dialogue about how to live happy, healthy lives.
The poster points out this relevance to Nursing Practice: When nurses attend to meaning in people’s lives and engage communities in the dialogue, helpful community-empowered actions become apparent.
Action steps called forth by this research include:
1) Availability of professional Hmong nurses to do home visits
2) Health care services to Hmong women with diabetes should include attention to worries, stress, depression and economic hardship
3) Development of dialogue circles for Hmong women with diabetes. Initiation of community dialogue on living a happy, healthy life and the nature of living with diabetes in the US. Search more...
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