The hospital library as a "magnet force" for a research and evidence-based nursing culture: A case study of two magnet hospitals in one health system.

When Baptist Hospital of Miami, then South Miami Hospital, became Magnet award-winning hospitals, their libraries' challenges increased. Could their librarians ease the transition of research and evidence-based practice into the "real world" of nursing? Did library services have a role in the ongoing Magnet re-credentialing process? This case study defines hospital library magnet force strategies that worked in the quest for this prestigious award for nursing excellence at two hospitals at Baptist Health South Florida.

Cultural variability in the effects of question design features on respondent comprehension of health surveys.

PURPOSE: The aim is to identify the characteristics of common health survey questions that may be associated with cross-cultural variability in question comprehension. METHODS: Interviews with respondents representing four cultural subgroups in the United States were analyzed through behavior coding to identify survey question characteristics that may be associated with cross-cultural variability in comprehension. Using survey responses as the unit of analysis, nested within survey respondents and survey questions, hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the effects of four questionnaire design features on cultural variations in comprehension difficulties. RESULTS: Respondent culture was found to moderate the effects of response format, question length, and reading levels. CONCLUSIONS: Several question design strategies that reduce overall comprehension difficulty appear to also increase cross-cultural disparities.

An investigation of the effects of social desirability on the validity of self-reports of cancer screening behaviors.

We evaluated 4 approaches to improving the reporting of disease prevention and screening behaviors. The conditions evaluated include (1) the mode in which data are collected, (2) asking the interview subject about her intention to obtain the procedure before asking whether the behavior occurred, (3) asking the interview subject about barriers that might keep respondents from getting the procedure before asking about whether she has received it, and (4) asking the interview subject about exceptions to the regularity with which she might report getting the examination. Data were collected in 2001 from a sample of women aged 50 and older in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. After completing a telephone or audio computer-assisted self-interview (ACASI), respondents gave permission to abstract their medical records to validate self-reports of Papanicolaou tests, mammograms, and clinical-gynecologic examinations received during the past 3 years. Interviews and matching medical records were available for 588 respondents. Results indicated that first asking about future intentions may be an important design feature that warrants additional consideration. In addition, the use of ACASI may lead to lower quality reporting among women with little computer experience. This study represents the only research to date that reports experimental attempts to address the social desirability biases commonly found in the reporting of cancer screening behaviors.

Author! author!: creating a digital archive of publications in a hospital library setting.

Baptist Hospital of Miami has been honoring its staff authors annually during National Library Week since 1979, at the time the library was relocated. Upon "doing the math" and realizing that twenty-five years had passed, a special event was planned to celebrate the occasion in 2004. A merger of four hospitals in 1995 to form Baptist Health South Florida, and an addition of a fifth hospital in 2003 added into the complexity of these publications. Organizing the event led to the conclusion that there had to be a "better way" to manage the publication archive. This paper will include a look back at the event's past, present efforts to develop an archival database, and future plans to make articles available electronically to users, copyright permitting.