Scholarship & Research
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/1
Browse
4 results
Search Results
Item Improving well water contaminant awareness among Big Horn County healthcare professionals through community engagement(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 2020) Schott, Raelene Ursula; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Sandra Benavides-VaelloBighorn County, Montana sits in the Little Bighorn River Valley in the south-central part of the state. The Crow Reservation, a Northern Plains Indian Reservation, encompasses 2.3 million acres in the Little Bighorn River Valley; the majority of the reservation is in Bighorn County. Over 8,000 tribal members live on the reservation, many of whom reside near rivers and streams. Due in part to the rurality of the area, up to 60 percent of the people living on the reservation have home wells as their primary water source. A variety of contaminants has been discovered in well water in Bighorn County, including manganese, uranium, nitrate, and arsenic. Manganese has been shown to cause cognitive delays in children with minimal exposure, along with neurological effects in children and adults alike, known as 'manganism', signified by extrapyramidal dysfunction. Uranium exposure causes kidney damage, increases the risk for various types of cancer, and can have reproductive and developmental effects on women. With minimal exposure, arsenic can cause neurological effects, hypertension, peripheral vascular disease, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, diabetes mellitus, and malignancies - including skin cancer. Arsenic toxicity includes links to cancer, cardiovascular disease, immune dysfunction, diabetes, and altered neurodevelopment. There are clear public health implications to providing an educational intervention regarding the contaminants to the healthcare providers in Hardin, MT, a community in Big Horn County, in order for them to provide evidence-based information to their patients. This pre/post-quasi-experimental project was designed to evaluate the knowledge gained by healthcare providers in Hardin following a short PowerPoint presentation with voiceover that provided educational information about the common contaminants and their health effects. There were seven healthcare providers who participated in the project. Results of the survey showed an overall improvement in their knowledge about the contaminants, as well as their comfort speaking to patients about these contaminants. These results indicated that the educational intervention provided by the author was successful in meeting the goals of this scholarly project.Item The pain experience of traditional Crow Indian(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 1996) Krumwiede, Norma KayItem Traditional beliefs and behaviors affecting childbearing practices of Crow Indian women(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 1981) Harding, Rita Marie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jacqueline TaylorThe purpose of this study was to explore and to describe the traditional beliefs and behaviors that currently affect childbearing practices of Crow Indian women. The design of the study was an exploratory and a descriptive ethnographic study and consisted of two stages. The first stage of the study collected data through unstructured interviews of key informants who were culturally knowledgeable Crow Indian women. This first stage of the study explored and described traditional beliefs and behaviors that affected childbearing practices of Crow Indian women in the past and at the present time. The second stage of the study collected data through structured interviews of participants who were pregnant Crow Indian women. The questions in the structured interview were part of a data collection method employed in a study currently being conducted on the Navajo Indian Reservation and were modified to reflect the Crow Indian culture. Modifications in the original questions were based on the literature review and the data collected in the first stage of the study. This second stage of the study explored and described traditional beliefs and behaviors that affected childbearing practices of Crow Indian women at the present time. The findings of this study identified and described contemporary childbearing practices of Crow Indian women and their families. Beliefs and behaviors in traditional and modified form appeared to influence contemporary childbearing practices and Crow Indian life in general. The majority of the Crow Indian people were transitional in life style between traditional Crow Indian culture and the modern Anglo society and were influenced by a wide variety of both traditional and modern beliefs and behaviors. Respect for and/or participation in combinations of traditional practices were suggestive of the type of life style practiced by individual Crow Indian people. The findings of this study supported the general concept that culture is a major variable in the determination of health and in the utilization of health care services. Through scientific knowledge and further research, modern health care services that are compatible with traditional beliefs and behaviors of the Crow Indian culture and that meet the unique needs of the Crow Indian people can be provided.Item The use of three standardized developmental screening tests with Crow Head Start children(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 1993) Malone, Maureen Margaret; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jean N. GullicksThe purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of 3 standardized developmental tests in identifying the presence or absence of developmental delays in a group of 60 Crow Head Start children living on or adjacent to the Crow reservation. The results provided by the study did not allow a decision to be made whether or not the tests provided accurate answers to the children's receptive vocabulary and developmental abilities.