Faculty Research Interests

These School of Nursing faculty members are involved in innovative, timely research. Click on the faculty member's name to learn more about them.

• Baernholdt, Marianne
  
  Community, hospital, and nursing unit characteristics influence on quality of care and clinical outcomes in rural hospitals
• Barbero, Edie
  
  Grief related topics

• Boitnott, Amy

  Childhood Obesity and Parental influences

• Bourguignon, Cheryl

  Investigating the effects of complementary and alternative therapies on symptoms (pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, stress, and mood), inflammation, and brain activation (using fMRIs) in persons with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

• Boyer, Diane

  Impact of Newborn Hospitalization on Parent-Infant bonding & lactation

• Brashers, Valentina

  Nurse and Physician Collaborative Education and Practice; Clinical Indicators of Erythema in Darkly Pigmented Skin

• Brodie, Barbara

  History of health care and health professionals

• Bullock, Linda
  
  Stress and social support during pregnancy with low-income rural couples- particularly as it pertains to smoking cessation and intimate partner violence.

• Burns, Suzanne

  Known for work in the area of mechanical ventilation, weaning and clinical research. Publishes and lectures widely on these and other related topics.

• Campbell, Cathy

  End-of-life decision making

• Childress, Reba

  Clinical Simulation, Nephrology

• Conway, Deborah

  Medical device and product evaluation through the Health Care Product Evaluation Center

• Cox, Kathleen

  Health Services Research, Outcomes Research, Quality, Impact of Nursing Practice Environment on Outcomes, Instrumentation, Conflict in Organizations

• DeGennaro, Regina

  Clinical Faculty and Clinician Nursing Education Resources and Teaching; Oncology and Palliative Care Nursing

• Drake, Emily
  
  High-risk pregnancy, breastfeeding, maternal responsivness and attachment, postpartum depression, instrument development,  technology

• Epstein, Elizabeth
  
  End of Life Issues, Ethics, Pediatrics
• Erickson, Jeanne

  Cancer Symptom Management

• Farrell, Sarah
  
  Exploring innovative uses of emerging technology in the application of screening, educating and treating mental disorders;
  Improving mental health outcomes and developing the subsequent policy and procedural implications for action

• Fletcher, Kathleen

  Use of Advanced Practice Nurses to improve the care of the elderly in acute and long term care settings, enhancing the quality of care in acute and long term care through education

• Fontaine, Dorrie
  
  
  
• Friberg, Elizabeth 

         Eldercare systems, functional assessment data, population-based practice

• Gibson, Mary
  
  Nursing History and Healthcare particularly progressive era care of children with disabilities. Community maternal-child health  issues.
• Glick, Doris

  Community development, access to care, utilization of services, cultural aspects of breastfeeding, Global Health.

• Gray, Mikel

  Pathophysiology of lower urinary tract function, continence nursing, evidence based practice

  Current Research Interests: My current research focus includes neurological urology, quality assurance in the urodynamic laboratory and moisture associated skin damage.

• Greiner, Doris

  Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing

• Hamric, Ann

  Moral Distress and ethical behavior of healthcare providers, research integrity and research ethics, and advanced practice nursing role issues.

• Harmon, Rebecca

  Severe and persistent mental illness, History of psychiatric nursing, Patient teaching

• Hauenstein, Emily

  Major depressive disorder, women’s mental health, Rural mental health services research, alternative care systems, rural mental health, mental health in primary care.

• Haugh, Kathryn

  Quality of Life in Chronic Heart Failure: Older Adults and Underserved Populations

• Hollen, Patricia

  Understanding the effect of intervention on quality of life for different high-risk populations. My intervention for adolescents — both healthy and those with chronic diseases such as cancer — concentrates on refining decision-making skills to reduce risk behaviors. Cancer-surviving adolescents are essentially well adolescents, exhibiting typical teen risk behaviors (such as smoking and alcohol use). But, they are often at greater risk when engaging in risk behaviors than those in the general population because of treatment late effects on body organs and the potential for second malignancies. For adults with lung cancer and malignant pleural mesothelioma, my program of research centers on measuring quality of life as an endpoint for testing new therapies during clinical trials.

• Jones, Randy

  My primary research interest is in health disparities among minority/vulnerable populations, particularly the relationship between prostate cancer and African Americans. In addition, I have an interest in psychosocial behaviors of patients with cancer as it relatesto screening behaviors and treatment decision making, including the use of complementary and alternative therapies.

• Kane, Catherine

  Serious Mental Illness; Schizophrenia; Rural Community Services; Alternative Care Delivery Models; Family Caregiving; Psychoeducation

• Keeling, Arlene

  Cardiac nursing, History of Nursing, History of Prescriptive Authority

• Kulbok, Pamela
  
  Theoretical and Empirical Inquiry, Health Promotion, Health Behavior of Young People, and Youth Tobacco Prevention
• Lancaster, Jeanette

  Public health, Change, Leadership

• Laughon, Kathryn

  Identifying and preventing poor health outcome associated with violence against women. The relationship between women’s experiences of violence and their increased risk for sexually transmitted infections.

• Lee, Connie
  
  Case management for cervical and breast cancer, breastfeeding, gestational diabetes, violence against women, and HPV.
  
  
• Mahone, Irma

  Mental Health, Rurality

• Maxwell-Thompson, Carol Lynn
  
  
  
• Merwin, Elizabeth

  Shortages of Mental Health Providers, Nurses and Primary Care Providers; Effectiveness of Rural Health and Rural Mental Health Care; Community and Translational Sciences Research with a focus on rural communities.

• Newberry, Yvonne

  Fetal Pelvic Index, HIV in women, HIV & infertility, nurse practitioner & medical student education

• Noland, Lynn

  Research ethics, prevention of complications of ESRD

• O'Laughlen, Mary

  Pediatric Asthma

• Palmer, Constance

  Evidence based Practice, community Nursing clinics,

• Parker, Barbara

  Violence against women; women`s health, Homicide survivors, methodological and measurement issues

• Quatrara, Beth

  Medical surgical nursing

• Ratliff, Catherine
  
  Wound healing and factors that effect healing such as infection as well as topical dressings and adjunctive wound therapies (e.g.  HBO), and the effect of aging on wound healing
• Reid, Kathryn

  Chronic disease management, Health behavior, Coaching, Nursing education

• Reigle, Juanita

  Advanced ECG interpretation, nursing ethics, Heart Failure, Cardiac dysrhythmias and Physical Restraints.

• Rigney, Dawn

  Health promotion in culturally diverse populations, family, and strategic management in nursing education.

• Rose, Karen

  Health outcomes of caregivers of persons with dementia

• Rovnyak, Virginia

  Statistical applications, with a special interest in survey analysis

• Snyder, Audrey
  
  Rural and underserved populations both in the United States and Abroad.  Currently doing research on the use of makeshift clinics following the January 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and patient satisfaction at the Remote Area Medical Clinics in Southwest Virginia.
  
  
• Southall, Vickie
  
  Pediatric nursing, community health nursing, rural nursing, school health.
• Steeves, Rick

  Adults who experienced the homicide of one parent by the other when they were children.

• Taylor, Ann
  
  My disciplined line of research over two decades was in pain management and in the last decade expanded to include assessmentof the efficacy, safety, and cost effectiveness of selected complementary therapies with particular emphasis on symptom management and control.
  
  I am Director of the Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies at the University of Virginia
  
  
  (http://www.med.virginia.edu/cscat ). My research has included studies in the CAM program areas of energy medicine,
  mind-bodymedicine, body-based practices, and biologically-based practices. My research commitment is to foster the nursing perspective infuture efforts that test the effectiveness, cost, and safety of complementary therapies in reducing pain and related symptoms and enhancing patient comfort.
• Thompson, Mary
  
  Parenting, parent feeding practices, low-income mothers, teen mothers and childhood obesity
  
  
• Thompson-Heisterman, Anita

  Family, Community and Geriatric Mental Health/Illness.Transition of psychiatric patients to community care, Geropsychiatric nursing, Care of vulnerable populations. Clinical research focus

• Tullmann, Dorothy

  Delirium in Critically Ill Older Adults; Long-term Outcomes of Delirium

• Utz, Sharon

  Health Behavior & Chronic Illness. Cultural Aspects of Care. Interventions to Promote Self-Management of Diabetes & Cardiovascular Disease

• Willcutts, Kate

  Nutrition in the critically ill patient, Nutrition screening and assessment.

• Williams, Ishan

  Family Caregiving of Older Adults with Dementia; Health Care Access and Treatment of Aging, Rural and Minority Populations; Recuitment