Collaborating With Businesses to Support and Sustain Research.

Financial assistance is necessary for sustaining research at universities. Business collaborations are a potential means for obtaining these funds. To secure funding, understanding the process for obtaining these business funds is important for nursing faculty members. Although faculty rarely request funding from businesses, they are often in a position to solicit financial support due to existing relationships with clinical agency administrators, staff, and community leaders. The economic support received from businesses provides outcomes in nursing research, research education, academic-service partnerships, and client health care. This article describes the steps and processes involved in successfully obtaining research funding from businesses. In addition, case examples for securing and maintaining funding from health care agencies (evidence-based practice services) and from a health manufacturing company (product evaluation) are used to demonstrate the process.

Embedding Research in Undergraduate Learning Opportunities.

As a means of promoting scholarship, faculty are increasingly including undergraduate nursing students as team members in faculty-led research projects. Research involvement is a high-impact educational practice that enhances student engagement and retention rates and enables the reflection and integration of learning. The purpose of this article is to describe the benefits and innovative ways of directly involving undergraduate nursing students in faculty-guided research projects. Case examples from four non-research-intensive nursing programs are presented to illustrate the benefits of undergraduate student research involvement to students, faculty, their communities, as well as the nursing profession. Student assistance in all phases of the research process, ranging from research question generation, literature reviews, methods development, and data collection and analysis, to presentations and manuscript publication, motivates and helps faculty progress with their research programs. Benefits also include the creation of effective learning experiences that build nursing knowledge and potentially contribute to community health.

Sexually transmitted infections and prostatic inflammation/cell damage as measured by serum prostate specific antigen concentration.

PURPOSE: Although inflammation and cell damage due to STIs are hypothesized to contribute to the later development of prostate disease, few clinical studies have been done to investigate the extent to which sexually transmitted agents infect and induce an inflammatory immune response in the prostate. We indirectly investigated this question by measuring serum PSA, a possible marker of prostatic inflammation and cell damage, in men with documented STIs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Archived serum specimens from young men with laboratory confirmed exudative STIs, including gonorrhea, chlamydia and trichomonosis, and young men with no STI diagnoses were identified in 2 prospective studies of patients at Baltimore City STI clinics, that is 84 in the STI Transmission and Acquisition Study, and 61 in the Mucosal Immunity Study. Serum specimens from visits before, during and after STI diagnoses in men with at least 1 exudative STI diagnosis and from all visits in men with no STI diagnoses were tested for total PSA concentration. RESULTS: After combining the studies patients with STIs were more likely to have a 40% or greater increase in PSA than patients with no STI diagnoses (32% vs 2%, p <0.01). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that STIs may contribute to prostatic inflammation and cell damage in a subset of infected men. Further studies are warranted to replicate study findings and determine host and infection characteristics associated with large PSA increases.

Polymerase chain reaction detection of Y-chromosome sequences in vaginal fluid of women accessing a sexually transmitted disease clinic.

BACKGROUND: Reporting bias and validity estimation of self-reports in clinical settings is a major problem in sexual behavior research. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine if a newly described biomarker tool helps clarify sensitivity issues related to condom use self-report. METHODS: A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to detect Y-chromosome (Yc) fragments was used to assess detectability and longevity of YcDNA in vaginal swabs collected from 141 women seeking care for sexually transmitted disease (STD)-related symptoms or as a reported sexual contact to STD. Data analyzed were collected in 1992 to 1994 as part of the Transmission, Acquisition, and Condom Use study. Archived vaginal swab samples were selected from women who in the accompanying survey reported their last intercourse in the previous 14 days. Survey data about partners, sexual behaviors, and self-reported condom use in the previous month was also retrieved. RESULTS: Overall, 137 (97.2%) vaginal samples had usable PCR assay results; 90 (65.7%) had detectable YcDNA content. Linear regression showed that number of days since last sexual intercourse was a significant predictor of YcDNA concentration. PCR results were compared with self-reported condom use. Of the women, 67 (47.5%) women reported no condom use in the last 14 days, and 36 (25.5%) women reported using condoms consistently. Although YcDNA was detected in the swabs of both condom reporting groups, mean DNA content was significantly lower among the consistent condom users. CONCLUSION: The YcPCR assay can detect DNA in a clinical sample of women for up to two weeks. This assay may be useful as a qualitative adjunct to behavioral studies to further understanding of sexual behavior reporting in women.