Browsing by Author "Ferrett, Helen Louise"

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    The adaptation and norming of selected psychometric tests for 12- to 15- year-old urbanized Western Cape adolescents
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011-12) Ferrett, Helen Louise; Carey, Paul; Thomas, K.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Health Sciences. Dept. of Psychiatry.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The practice of psychometric testing of cognitive functioning in South Africa is hampered by the paucity of normative data that adequately characterize our ethnically, linguistically, socioeconomically, and educationally diverse population. The general aim of this study was to ascertain whether cognitive tests developed in settings outside of the Western Cape urbanized area have valid application for clinical and research purposes in that area. Strategies used to achieve that aim included: 1) translation, adaptation, and subsequent administration of a compendium of tests in a sample of typically developing, coloured and white, 12- to 15-yearold, Afrikaans- and English-speaking adolescents; 2) evaluation of the relative impact of sociodemographic factors (age, sex, language, quality of education, and race) on test performance and the consequent derivation of appropriately stratified normative data; and 3) evaluation of the cross-cultural utility of the normative data by comparing data collected from the study sample to norms derived from other populations. Results indicated that sex and language of testing impacted minimally on cognitive functioning. In contrast, the pervasive and deleterious impact of disadvantaged quality of education on cognitive performance within typically developing adolescents was clearly demonstrated. For participants with advantaged quality of education, coloured race was associated with lower performance on measures of intelligence, semantic fluency, and one measure of attention. Furthermore, the results provided evidence of age-related increments in cognitive performance, particularly after the age of 12. For cognitive measures that were significantly affected by language, race, and quality of education, trends of a downward continuum of performance were demonstrated, from highest to lowest, as follows: 1) English-white-advantaged; 2) Afrikaans-white-advantaged; 3) Englishcoloured- advantaged; 4) English-coloured-disadvantaged; 5) Afrikaans-coloured-advantaged; and 6) Afrikaans-coloured-disadvantaged. Cross-cultural comparisons of norms showed that for some tests, norms derived from other populations were suitable for use in the study sample. For other tests, however, results showed that for certain subgroups, it was essential to use the stratified norms derived from the study in order to prevent misdiagnoses.
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    Death exposure, death attitude, death anxiety and burnout in nurses
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1999-12) Ferrett, Helen Louise; Wait, J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research constituted a pilot study to begin to investigate the experiences of South African nursing professionals who work with dying patients, within an existential-phenomenological theoretical paradigm. The specific purposes were to describe the profile of the sample with regard to the variables of death exposure, death attitude, death anxiety and burnout, to establish whether these variables were related, and whether the groups differed with regard to those variables. The sample (N=114) consisted of three groups of nurses. The first group included hospice nurses, who work in high mortality-exposure, death-certainty, palliative-focus contexts. The second group consisted of private hospital intensive care (lCU) nurses, who worked in moderately high mortality-exposure, death-possibility, curative-focus contexts. The third group comprised first-year university nursing students, who work in a low mortality-exposure, death-unlikely, academic-focus context. Death exposure and demographic variables were measured using a demographic questionnaire designed by the researcher. Death attitude, according to existentialist theory, was measured by the Death Attitude Profile - Revised Version (D AP). Death anxiety was measured using the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale (MFODS), and burnout was measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Statistical analyses of the data (namely calculation of descriptive statistics, correlation matrices and multiple analyses of variance) were performed using the computer package Statistica. The results showed that numerous aspects of death exposure, death attitude, death fear and burnout are related. In general, the findings indicated positive correlations between death exposure, reduced death anxiety, improved attitude and reduced experiences of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The MANOVAs demonstrated that the three groups do not differ significantly with regard to private death exposure or death attitude, but significant differences were found with regard to professional death exposure, death anxiety and burnout. Hospice nurses had experienced the most patient deaths, followed by ICU nurses and then students. Hospice nurses showed significantly less death anxiety than the nursing students. Hospice nurses were also significantly less emotionally exhausted than students, and less depersonalized than ICU nurses as wen as nursing students. The findings suggest that death exposure, in combination with cognitive and emotional resolution of existential anxiety, mitigates against excessive death anxiety, and burnout due to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, when working with the dying.