Lena Lantry

Abstract

Today there is great need in the community for a preventive nursing intervention tool that would reach a greater number of children who have behavior problems not serious enough to require clinical help, yet disruptive enough, to impair the quality of their lives. Specifically, there is need for a tool that could incorporate in its design an economy of manpower and means and yet preserve the dignity and security of its beneficiaries.

In 1972, researchers Miller and Reiswig demonstrated the effective use of parent-mediated contingency management with four families in the community by the case study, method. To further develop and refine contingency management as an effective and relevant tool for parents who need it in the natural environment of the young, normal child, the study used a five-week experiment introducing the contingency management in two groups of families. Group I had six families, six children and six identified problem behaviors. Group II had seven families, seven children and seven identified problem behaviors. Four public health nurses from the San Bernardino Public Health Department in Redlands, California, functioning as consultants to the parents, reviewed their case loads and chose families meeting the criteria as potential samples for the study. The researcher functioned as mental health nurse consultant to the nurses as they taught the parents how to apply contingency management to their children. This pyramid model allowed one nurse, the researcher, to reach thirteen children indirectly with therapy. (See page 7).

Baseline data was collected on all subjects in the first week. In the second and third weeks, while Group I continued with baseline conditions. Group II applied contingency management intervention. In the fourth and fifth weeks, while Group I applied intervention, Group II applied "return to baseline" conditions. This provided an alternating sequence in the two groups.

Analysis of the data showed significant differences between the treatments (p= less than .001) taking into account group, family and nurse differences, as well as interaction effect between group and nurse, group and treatment, and nurse and treatment.

The conclusions were that the mental health nurse acting as consultant to several public health nurses who in turn work with parents, can through contingency management provide effective intervention for problem behaviors. Parents as a whole were satisfied with this new and effective technique. The pyramid model offers a workable way of providing economical professional help to large groups of families and is compatible with the present health care system.

LLU Discipline

Nursing

Department

Nursing

School

Graduate School

First Advisor

Ina M. Longway

Second Advisor

Sherrill P. Baugher

Third Advisor

Esther E. Sellers

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Degree Level

M.S.

Year Degree Awarded

1974

Date (Title Page)

6-1974

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Parent-Child Relations; Behavior Therapy

Type

Thesis

Page Count

x; 132

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

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