525 N. Wolfe Street | Baltimore, MD 21205 | 410.955.7548
Summer 2006
Volume IV, Issue II
Special Issue: Nursing Research With an Impact
Cover photo by
Chris Hartlove
Feature: Wounded Hearts, Broken Lives | Next Section >
Intervention Research
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Intervention Research |
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Name:
Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN |
in
Baltimore and Missouri. DOVE will test home visit intervention as a
way to keep abused women and babies safe from intimate partner
violence. "The dove is a symbol of peace," Sharps says. "I like to
think we are creating more peaceful families."An even more challenging assignment for Hopkins nursing researchers is designing and testing prevention and intervention strategies that will blunt abuse. An array of programs currently are under development at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing: Joan Kub, PhD, APRN, BC, has been working on a program to prevent bullying behavior in a local Catholic school in Baltimore City by involving school administrators, teachers, and parents in educating students; Benita Walton-Moss, DNS, FNP, is working on a curriculum at the Broadway Center for small-group therapy to help female substance abusers who are also intimate partner abuse victims; Woods has launched a program to use telephone support to help victims of intimate partner abuse battle fatigue, pain, and depression and ready themselves for change.
Among the most promising intervention research is that being done by Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN. She developed a program called "Passport to Health," which uses the structure of home nurse visitation to help minority women transition from emergency shelters into healthy situations in their own communities.
One success: Sharps worked with a 28-year-old woman who took refuge with a three-month-old at a local shelter after a particularly brutal beating. Sharps worked with the woman for over four months, getting her a breast pump so she could continue nursing even though she had to leave the shelter during the day to work. The woman was able to arrange an out-of-state transfer and transition to a safe independent life.
"This woman was just very, very committed to being the best mother she could be for her child," Sharps recalls. "The child continued to thrive, she weaned her son at six months, the right time according to the American Association of Pediatrics, and growth and development were on schedule. Mom and baby continued to do well and there were no further incidents of abuse."
Of nine women followed during the project, seven women reestablished themselves without further abuse, Sharps says.
This approach will be tested more broadly over the next five years as Sharps recruits 160 women in Baltimore and 160 women in Missouri who will receive one-on-one home visitation in hopes of breaking the cycle of domestic violence. The program, called the Domestic Violence Enhanced Visitation Program, or DOVE, has been funded with a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research.
"We know home visitation works," says Sharps. "Through this program we will be teaching women how to stay safe and how to keep their babies safe... We will be working to empower families to find resources so they can take care of their problems themselves."
