It is common for faculty members within the College of Health Professions (CHP) to balance their coursework with important research. The research experience enlightens them and, in turn, enriches the classroom instruction for students. The following four CHP faculty members share their research topics, expectations and findings.

Robi Thomas

Thomas

Robi Thomas, assistant professor of Nursing, interviewed 53 caregivers in western Michigan for her dissertation on the "Study to Determine the Needs of Family Caregivers of Persons with Cancer." The participants answered a survey about their role as a caregiver.

Thomas' findings revealed that the caregivers do not ask for help for themselves and their spirituality played an important role in their ability to cope with their responsibilities. Thomas says the caregivers ranked the desire for more information as their number one need. They felt ill prepared for death and uncomfortable asking about death.

"Now, we realize that the health care professional needs to bring up the topic of death," says Thomas, who explains that the research identified the need to include caregivers in the assessment of the patient. "When the caregiver's needs are met, there is better care delivered to the patient."

Thomas will share her research skills and experiences with her students as an example of how they can apply it clinically when interacting with families and patients. The Dean's Intramural Research Fund supported this research.

Carla Groh

Groh

This spring, Carla Groh, associate professor of Nursing, will begin recruiting female patients from the McAuley Health Center and Mercy Primary Care to participate in a study on obesity. The research, titled "An Evaluation of a Health Lifestyle Change Program for Obese African American Women: An Integration of Exercise, Nutrition and Spirituality," will involve 160 participants.

The research will include a control group and an intervention group. The intervention group will commit to 12 weeks of meetings and attend twice-weekly sessions, which are comprised of chair exercises and nutritional counseling along with a spiritual component.

Groh anticipates that the spiritual part of the study may have the most impact on the women due to the importance placed on this aspect of their life. She hopes that the women begin to appreciate that they have control over their lifestyle choices and they can choose to live healthier.

Groh expects to bring many of the realities of doing research back to her classroom discussions and entertains the idea of having her students assist with the study. Joan Urbancic, professor emeritus, is the co-principal investigator on this project. Blue Cross Blue Shield is funding the research.

Maia Platt 

Platt

Maia Platt, assistant professor of Health Services Administration, analyzed the database of medical claims, enrollment records and health benefits from 40 health insurance plans for her paper, "Estimating Mental Health/Substance Abuse Parity Costs: Do Deductibles Matter?"

The data provided financial and demographic information on more than one million enrollees, with many plans featuring inequitable (less generous) coverage of mental health and substance abuse treatment, compared to the coverage of general medical care.

In her work Platt estimated what would happen if equitable coverage of such services were mandated by parity laws, which are often viewed as a means to improve an often unfair situation for patients who need treatment. Platt's findings, however, do indicate that mental health and substance abuse parity in deductible levels can be affordable under managed care.

"If private insurers make targeted adjustments to entire benefits packages, they can fully offset the projected costs of removing additional deductibles on mental health and substance abuse care," says Platt. Her research was supported by the MEDSTAT Group Inc., which provided the database, and by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Mitzi Saunders 

Saunders

Fueled by her father's condition and her own clinical interaction with heart failure patients, Mitzi Saunders, associate professor of Nursing, launched research efforts to shed light on the sparsely reported area of family members caring for heart failure patients.

Saunders interviewed 50 families in 16 cities across Michigan to capture data that resulted in several manuscripts on the topic, "Family Caregivers of Heart Failure Patients." Her findings indicate that it is important for caregivers to have a good quality of life so they can take better care of the family member and themselves.

According to Saunders, one way to improve the caregiver's quality of life is to reduce caregiver burden. Saunders also found that caregivers, who had a job outside of care giving, had a better quality of life and less caregiver burden. She says her next steps in research will be to examine these important caregiver variables in a longitudinal study that captures changes in care at home as the heart failure patient's needs can vary from day to day.

Saunders shares her research regularly in the classroom and takes satisfaction knowing she has inspired the graduated students to vigilantly monitor the caregiver situation of chronically ill patients. Saunders' research was partially funded by the Dean's Intramural Research Award.