Enhancing advocacy for individuals in poverty: The role of a poverty simulation training.

Psychologists have a responsibility to be advocates for the individuals they serve within public service settings, and there is a need to identify or develop training strategies to support these efforts. Low-income families are a subset of consumers who frequently require services within these settings yet also may face providers who are not optimally supportive. One factor that interferes with providers' ability to engage in empathic, well-informed, and effective advocacy is their underlying attributions about causes of poverty that overemphasize personal responsibility. The current studies examined whether a poverty simulation training would be sufficient to modify participants' poverty attributions. Undergraduate participants in Study 1 (N = 126, Mean age = 21.6, SD = 5.6) were significantly more likely to emphasize external causes of poverty following the simulation. In Study 2, social service providers (N = 98, Mean age = 38.58, SD = 11.56) reported lower internal beliefs following participation in a poverty simulation but did not shift to a predominantly external belief index. The results of these studies demonstrate that causal attributions of poverty within both student and professional samples can be modified by participation in a poverty simulation. Because these attributions have important implications for advocacy work with consumers and efforts to address poverty, the poverty simulation experience has the potential to be an effective training tool that could yield real-world impact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The application of a generativity model for older adults.

Generativity is a concept first introduced by Erik Erikson as a part of his psychosocial theory which outlines eight stages of development in the human life. Generativity versus stagnation is the main developmental concern of middle adulthood; however, generativity is also recognized as an important theme in the lives of older adults. Building on the work of Erikson, McAdams and de St. Aubin (1992) developed a model explaining the generative process. The aims of this article are: (a) to explore the relationship between generativity and older adults as it appears in research literature; and (b) to examine McAdam's model and use it to explain the role of generativity in older adults who share life stories with gerontology students through an oral history project.

Mouth care in nursing homes: knowledge, beliefs, and practices of nursing assistants.

UNLABELLED: The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of nursing assistants (NAs) providing oral hygiene care to frail elders in nursing homes, with the intent of developing an educational program for NAs. METHODS: The study occurred in two economically and geographically diverse nursing homes. From a sample size of 202 NAs, 106 returned the 19-item Oral Care Survey. RESULTS: The NAs reported satisfactory knowledge regarding the tasks associated with providing mouth care. The NAs believed that tooth loss was a natural consequence of aging. They reported that they provided mouth care less frequently than is optimal but cited challenges such as caring for persons exhibiting care-resistive behaviors, fear of causing pain, and lack of supplies. CONCLUSION: Nurses are in a powerful position to support NAs in providing mouth care by ensuring that they have adequate supplies and knowledge to respond to resistive behaviors.

Measuring the oral health of nursing home elders.

The primary purposes of this descriptive and prospective pilot study was to test the feasibility of a nursing and dental hygiene team to measure specific oral health indices in a sample of older adults residing in nursing homes (NHs). The secondary purpose was to determine the relationship between plaque and dentate status. Oral health indicators, functional status scores, and behavioral scores were collected and analyzed from 38 female NH residents from two geographically, organizationally, and economically diverse NHs. Persons with dentures had significantly lower plaque scores than those with natural dentition. Rural NH residents and African American NH residents had fewer filled teeth, indicating a potential lack of access to dental care. Oral health indicators were collected safely and efficiently from NH residents using a nursing and dental hygiene collaborative approach. Nursing and dental hygiene collaborations hold promise for improving the oral health in institutionalized elders.